Town Council Meeting was a firecracker during the public hearing- with some on the Council and the Mayor voicing opposition to the removal of Courtesy Busing. It is clear that the BOE needs to work to fix this during the next meeting. With that said some clarification on what was said during the meeting is important.

-T-T-The mayor indicated it would be difficult to install sidewalks on County Roads yet discussed sidewalks being installed on Plainfiield Avenue - a County Road-(tapinto.net/towns/berke…). It would be interesting to hear if we could pursue similar solutions over time on some of the other roads.

 Union County roads in Berkeley Heights:

1. Bonnie Burn Rd

2. Plainfield Ave

3. Mountain Ave

4.Horseshoe Rd

5. Springfield Ave

6. McMane Ave

7. Valley Rd

8. Glenside Ave

9. Diamond Hill Rd

-The Township Attorney indicated that designating hazardous routes was the responsibility of the School District - this is only true if the school decides on a Courtesy Bussing Routes based on those designations. The issue connected to the list developed by the Policy Committee had to do with Hazardous ROADS which then define the route the BOE would decide on.

This is why the BOE deferred to the township the last two years in concluding no hazourdous roads existed in Berkeley Heights Roads are the SOLE RESPONSIBILITY of the Municipality or County as we wrote earlier today. Roads and Routes are two different things (its ok though - we kind of made that same mistake in the second sentence of our last article).

-The Township Attorney did confirm that the work product developed by the Consultants was NOT PROPRIETARY- so based on his feedback there is no reason why those scores cannot be obtained,

Hopefully the BOE can figure out a way to quell the concerns many parents who are losing courtesy busing are expressing. We all have differing opinions on what should be done. My feeling is give Universal busing for this year or at the very least cap costs to $500 for everyone.-JM