WESTFIELD – The City Council conducted a public hearing yesterday on its petition to the state Legislature for acceptance of Paper Mill Road as a pubic way at which residents and council members spoke in support of the home-rule process. Nobody spoke in opposition.
The Council initiated a home-rule petition, which required a public hearing, last November seeking authorization from the State Legislature to “consider Paper Mill Road to be a public way” to facilitate a road improvement project.
Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Crean has been seeking a way to accept the road as a city street to enable the city to used state or federal funds for reconstruction of the heavily travelled roadway. Currently, as an unaccepted road, repairs and improvements can only be done with city funds which has delayed the improvement project because of the high cost.
The Law Department recommended that the city seek legislative approval for the “special procedure” to establish city ownership of the right of way for the street, making it eligible for state road-improvement funding under Chapter 90.
“We tried to repave the road and discovered that the city does not own it, so we’d have to use funds from the city, not the state,” Crean said as the hearing was opened by the City Council. “The road needs to be reconstructed. My immediate goal is to get it accepted.”
“We held a public meeting two years ago at the (Paper Mill Elementary) School and asked residents to sign over their land rights (for the road right of way) to the city,” Crean said. “We did not get the 100 percent compliance we needed.”
“The next option the city considered was taking the land under the road through eminent domain, but that option is both expensive and time consuming,” Crean said.
The eminent domain process allows residents to challenge the payment given by the city in court, a process which could take years. Under that process the courts could award a higher restitution to the property owner for land that is already in used by the public as a road.
“We’re at a serious point,” Crean said, adding that heavy truck traffic hitting the numerous potholes is causing structural damage to houses along the road.
“We’re going to the state to take the road so we can do the improvements and get reimbursed by the state,” Crean said. “We have no alternative solution. Residents can’t wait any longer.”
Council President Brent B. Bean II opened the hearing to members of the public. Residents of Paper Mill Road and adjoining street unanimously spoke in support of the home-rule petition. Several residents said they have lived in that neighborhood since Paper Mill Road was a dirt street and that they have witnessed the increase in traffic as new subdivision neighborhoods were constructed, and a playground and elementary school were built, all increasing the volume of traffic.
Other speakers, including several City Council members who use the street frequently, spoke of the potholes and lack of drainage.
“The potholes are getting bigger,” one resident, Susan Teehan, who has lived at 320 Paper Mill Road since 1970, said. “In fact at this point they are so large that traffic has to swerve around them. Please pass this. We are taxpayers and want our road accepted and treated as any other road in the city.”
The home-rule petition was referred to the council’s Legislative & Ordinance Committee and will be brought back to the full City Council for the vote to submit it to the Legislature.
