Street acceptance process stalls
By DAN MORIARTY
Staff Writer
WESTFIELD – The City Council voted last week to send a list of streets being proposed for city acceptance to the Law and Engineering departments.
The Council’s Legislative & Ordinance Committee was poised Thursday night to bring out Hillcrest Circle, Rita Mary Way, Colony Circle, Stony Lane, Birch Lane, Aviator Way, Park River Drive, Park River Circle and streets within the Devon Manor subdivision for an acceptance vote by the full council.
However, Ward 2 Councilor James E. Brown Jr., chairman of the L&O, made a motion to amend the original motion to accept those street, directing the Law and Engineering departments to layout the orders of acceptance.
Brown said that the step to layout the order of acceptance is a requirement of state law and is needed to support other aspects of the street acceptance process, such as the taking of land.
Brown’s motion to amend the acceptance motion drew a number of questions and comments for other council members.
At-large Councilor Brent B. Bean II said the council’s process is dragging out the acceptance process, while At-large Councilor David A. Flaherty questions the financial impact of the process.
“Why not just accept these streets (and let the administrative process catch up),” Bean said. “We’ve been talking and talking… just pass them and get them into the pipeline.”
“How will we pay for this?” Flaherty asked. “All of the legal time, the engineering, the surveying and land takings… it’s an expensive process.”
Earlier in the council session a request by Mayor Daniel M. Knapik to appropriate $20,000 from free cash to the Engineering Department to survey those streets was sent to the council’s Finance Committee.
Brown said the Law and Engineering departments’ process will bring the street acceptance process into compliance with state law and positions the council to vote on the acceptance motion.
“This grants us the authority to accept those streets,” Brown said. “We need to know what we’re accepting.”
Flaherty said the process will provide information about the ownership of the land on which the streets are located and abutting property.
Brown said that streets constructed under the city’s subdivision ordinance are not a major issue, but that several of the streets on the list do not comply with the subdivision requirements.
Dan Moriarty can be reached at [email protected]
