Pulseline

PulseLine, November 13, 2012

I just read Mary O’Connell’s Ward 4 Notes and learned there is a plan in place to widen Western Avenue. Concerned citizens can learn more about the City’s plans at a meeting being held at 7 p.m. at Highland Elementary School on Wednesday. According to Councilor O’Connell’s notes the project will impact people living on Western Avenue from Noble Hospital to the Bates Road split. The city engineer will be at this meeting to present an overview of the planned destruction of the character of this street. The proposed plan apparently includes a new traffic light, widening of Western Avenue, removal of trees within the tree belt, new sidewalks and the installation of several traffic islands. Not only will this have a detrimental effect on the property values along Western Avenue, but the proposed project is anticipated to take two years.  If you hate the sound of this as much as I do, please be at this meeting to voice your displeasure.

I would like to know what the Westfield Council is going to do about one of their own. Mary O’Connell is to worried about trying to prevent what ever the Mayor is trying to do and she only helps her friends – she needs to represent Ward 4. I read an article a couple of weeks ago when she calls her fellow councilors cowardly and and that the shirk their responsibilities. I know she made statement that are uncalled for but please don’t her Ward 4 because of her game playing.

I’m just wondering when are they going to paint the traffic line for stop in the road right in front of the Westfield Gas and Electric? I mean there are no stop lines there and I see some people, boy, they stop in between the two lights.

The concrete park in the center of Westfield there by the library looks very nice. But I can’t wonder when I drive by that half the lights are not working or are not on. We going to get the contractor back in to do that or do we need to pay for that all over again?

Good morning. I’m calling about the recent article in The Westfield News concerning the home, I believe it’s off Forest, that has chickens and they’re concerned that there may be an onslaught to become a zoo. And I’m just wondering if there’s an ordinance in the city about houses that have jackasses on them. Is this considered a zoo, too? C’mon people – life is much too short.

I wonder if the Westfield post office has had a layoff of employees. I was there about 10 a.m. Friday. There was one clerk working and the line was six deep. The person in front of me left and so did the person in back of me. I decided to leave after waiting between eight and ten minutes. Guess I’ll do what others do and pay my bills by automatic withdrawal from my checking account. I also wonder why my mail gets delivered anytime from 1:30 until 6:45. I guess the workers have many different shifts or they work a lot of overtime.

I have some advice for the woman that works at The China Star restaurant. I just want to say that in this day and age being friendly with your customers is paramount. Now, especially in this time of need. I didn’t realize how rude she was until I experienced it firsthand. I had heard from other people that she’s very, very rude to people, and I was in there tonight with my wife and this woman was so rude that we wanted to walk out. I just wanted to let her know that, just some advice that, you need to be nice to your customers in order to get them to come back. She’s just very, very rude and I just wanted to know if anybody agrees with me. Thank you.

This is to the Westfield Police Department and to the mayor. Seems as though calling City Hall or calling the Police Department doesn’t get any response. So I guess I have no other alternative but to put it in the paper. Reading the PulseLine in the past I’ve noticed that people have complained about the college kids just crossing in droves from The Woodward Center across to Stanley Park. This past week we had a gentleman killed up there on a bicycle and it just goes to show you how dangerous of a situation we have on Western Avenue in the afternoon with the traffic and with the college getting out. I know the college parking lot has a light at it to control traffic but when they’re parking at The Woodward Center, they’re parking at the old Stanley Home Products building, they’re parking at the church… You’ve got cars coming out from four different angles at once with no one having any patience… It just seems as though the Police Department and/or the mayor has to sit down with the college at some point and get a control of the traffic and the foot traffic up there. I mean, most of these college kids are good kids and a lot of them are very courtesy, but there are others that come out of The Woodward Center and they just walk across like they own the road and they think it’s their private way and they can just walk. And there’s no crosswalk there. They just endanger themselves and they have no fear of the oncoming traffic. Now, in the afternoon when this gentleman met his demise on Western Avenue, as unfortunate as it was, for anybody that was stuck in that traffic to see how bad the traffic was piled up, either back down Bates Road to Route 20, or down Lloyd’s Hill, or even on Western Avenue trying to proceed west, it was phenomenal. The city of Westfield and the college have to come up with a better exiting plan to the college. This is just pure disaster waiting to happen. There’s been numerous accidents up there and where they’ve crashed into other cars or they’ve crashed into the stone wall at Stanley Park and we’ve got to get a control of this before there’s another real emergency up there where another death might happen. I thought the long range plans was for the college was to exit down out of the old Sheraton Inn property onto Route 20 and that would make all the sense in the world and keep all this traffic out of the residential area. I mean, my God! At the very least, sit down with the college and come up with a plan. The college does not own Western Avenue. The college does not own Stanley Park. And the Westfield authorities can’t be turning over our city to the college and letting them do what they want. Please, let’s get our heads straight and do the right thing here. Thank you.

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