RED BANK: MASTER PLAN DRAFT ON AGENDA
Two long-dormant gas stations would be razed to create a roundabout at the northern gateway into Red Bank under one of many suggested changes included in a new draft Master Plan.
RED BANK: EASTSIDE PARK UPGRADES SLATED
“Draft plans for upgrades” to the basketball and tennis/pickleball courts in a Red Bank park are to be aired for public comment this week, the borough announced over the weekend.
UPDATE: This meeting has been cancelled. According to a post on the borough website Wednesday afternoon, it will be rescheduled “as soon as possible, after the Parks and Rec committee has reviewed the plans.”
RED BANK: DPU HEAD OUSTED
Cliff Keen on Broad Street last June. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
At its first working session of 2023, the Red Bank council fired public utilities director Cliff Keen Wednesday night.
Unmentioned at the meeting: he was replaced on an interim basis, at a cost of $16,500 per month, by Gary Watson Sr., whom Keen succeeded in 2016.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN ROLLOUT SET
Planning board chairman Dan Mancuso at a meeting in October. The board ‘endorsed’ the primary school garden, below. (Photos by John T. Ward and Red Bank schools. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A draft of Red Bank’s first new Master Plan in decades will be available for public review this week, planning officials said Monday night.
At its opening session of 2023, and the first ever available via Zoom, the planning board also ‘endorsed’ the learning garden at the borough’s primary school, and learned that, so far, there are no other applications pending.
RED BANK: ‘STANDING UP’ FOR JUDAISM ANEW
Mayor-elect Billy Portman lights the Menorah in Riverside Gardens Park. Below, Rabbi Dovid Harrison addressing the gathering.
Against a backdrop of growing antisemitism nationally and globally, several dozen Jews and supporters gathered at Riverside Gardens Park in Red Bank for an annual Menorah lighting Tuesday night.
RED BANK: SUNSETS ON AGENDA
Mayor Pasquale Menna and Councilwoman Kathy Horgan are slated to attend their final session as elected officials. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank may inch closer to turning its onetime landfill on the Swimming River into an eight-acre park under a proposed action on the agenda Wednesday night.
The session, which marks the sunset of Mayor Pasquale Menna‘s 16-year tenure, also includes potential action on short-term rentals.
RED BANK: DETOURS, FOUR-WAY STOP COMING
Motorists who travel Spring Street in Red Bank will need to adjust for some temporary changes resulting from road work this week and next.
And there will be a permanent change in place once the work is done: a new four-way stop intersection.
RED BANK: PARK CHRISTMAS TREE ARRIVES
After a short trip from Middletown, Red Bank’s annual centerpiece Christmas tree is up and ready for trimming in Riverside Gardens Park.
RED BANK: TREE PLANTING UNDERWAY
A fall planting of 75 young trees in Red Bank began with a gingko finding a home on Leonard Street Monday morning.
RED BANK: PENNEY CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION
Jonathan Maciel Penney addressing the council Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Republican candidate for Red Bank council called for an investigation Wednesday into the abrupt firing of the borough attorney in July.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN GETS MORE INPUT
Joseph Pallante writes a comment on a display as his daughter, Evalyse Pallante, looks on at a Red Bank Master Plan workshop Monday night.
RED BANK: ROADWORK TO CLOSE PINCKNEY
Pinckney Road from Broad Street to Branch Avenue in Red Bank is to be closed to through-traffic for repaving this week – weather permitting.
But it’s not clear what the weather will permit.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN GETS MARKED UP
Gianna Maita-Edwards writes a comment on a display at the session. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
About two dozen Red Bank residents grabbed Sharpies to weigh in on the borough’s Master Plan Thursday night.
They gathered at the Red Bank Middle School despite heavy rain to share their thoughts on the first wholesale rewriting of the vision plan in almost three decades.
RED BANK: DEBT, COMMITTEE NAME ON AGENDA
Financing for the Broad Street sewer project completed in July is on the agenda. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Capital financing and tweaks to the name and purposes of a committee stand out on a light agenda when the Red Bank council meets for a regular semimonthly session Wednesday night.
RED BANK: BOLLARDS, AND BARRELS, VANISH
Red Bank borough workers lowered safety bollards into their subsurface silos and reopened upper Broad Street to vehicular traffic Monday morning.
Marking the end of the abbreviated third season of Broadwalk, they also carted off the orange-and-white safety barrels used in conjunction with the bollards to keep vehicles away from the outdoor dining plaza.
RED BANK: BROADWALK ENDS SHORT RUN
The abbreviated third season of Broadwalk, Red Bank’s outdoor dining plaza on upper Broad Street, is scheduled to end Sunday night, with a reopening to vehicular traffic Monday.
Created by the borough council in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and renewed in 2021, Broadwalk didn’t get a green light for this year until late July, delayed by a streetscape project. Then it was allowed to continue another month past its original termination of Labor Day, meaning the new vehicle-blocking retractable bollards (seen at right) vehicles would remain up.
Though the council has not yet determined the future of the economic experiment, Bob Zuckerman, executive director of the downtown promotion agency Red Bank RiverCenter, said he’s “hopeful” the endeavor will return in the spring of 2023.
Meantime, here’s some info on the season-ending activities. While Friday night’s weather appears conducive to a final raising of wine glasses, the rest of the weekend could be a bit chancy. Here’s the outlook:
RED BANK: PARK DESIGNATION ADVANCES
A satellite view of the Senior Center, where the patio provides a view of the Swimming River. (Satellite image from Google Maps. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council initiated a process to create a new “passive park” behind the Senior Center Wednesday night.
Still unanswered, however, is the question of how big the park might be, and how it would be accessed.
RED BANK: NEW ‘PASSIVE PARK’ ON AGENDA
A 2021 view of the rear of the Senior Center, which overlooks the Swimming River. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposal to subdivide the Senior Center property to create a “passive park” is on the Red Bank council’s agenda Wednesday night.
Also on the table for the semimonthly meeting are matters relating to parking, parks and a committee name change. Here’s what to expect.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN INPUTS SLATED
Hackensack Meridian Health’s Riverview Medical Center and its holdings comprise one of three areas of town that will get special focus in the Master Plan. (Google Map from Monmouth County property records. Click green circles for site details.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank residents will have two opportunities to weigh in on the borough’s ongoing Master Plan update next month.
Among the topics: the future of three discrete sections of town, including the area around the sprawling Riverview Medical Center.
RED BANK: SPRING STREET PROJECT ADVANCING
Parking is prohibited this week on the southern half of Spring Street in Red Bank as “minor concrete work and fire hydrant replacement” is scheduled to begin Monday, acting borough administrator and police Chief Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen.
FAIR HAVEN: FAIR TO CLOSE OUT SUMMER
Squeezing summer for every last minute of open-air fun, the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair returns with eight nights of rides, seafood, 50-50 drawings and more starting Friday.
RED BANK: BROADWALK GETS ANOTHER MONTH
With the extension, Broadwalk is now scheduled to continue through October 2. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s council unanimously approved a one-month extension of the Broadwalk plaza Thursday night. But at least three of its members weren’t happy about it.
RED BANK: JOBS, BROADWALK ON AGENDA
A one-month extension for Broadwalk, now scheduled to end Labor Day, is up for council discussion. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Correction: The council workshop and regular sessions are slated for Thursday, not Wednesday as originally reported here.
By JOHN T. WARD
For its only public sessions of August, the Red Bank council will meet virtually Thursday night.
Among the business on the workshop and regular agendas: filling the posts of borough attorney and tax assessor; extending the Broadwalk dining plaza by a month; authorizing searches for a “strategic municipal planner” and a “municipal vision planner;” and greenlighting a “porchfest” event.
RED BANK: WALKING TOURS HIT THE BRICKS
Temporary sidewalk decals include a QR code that offers routes for Red Bank walking tours. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s Environmental Commission began a rollout this week of sidewalk markers downtown aimed at enhancing walkability in the central business district and beyond.
RED BANK: COPS + KIDS + COPTER = FUN
Always fun and mind-blowing for kids, Red Bank’s annual National Night Out Against Crime once again featured a visit by a military helicopter to Count Basie Park Tuesday night.
The police-sponsored festival featured free food, games, music and community information, organized this year by Patrolman Milton Gray IV. But once again, the New Jersey National Guard Black Hawk copter stole the show, giving kids an opportunity to explore the aircraft inside and out.
Check out redbankgreen‘s photos, below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)