Chatham Township Committee Unanimously Passes Resolution in Support of Preserving 53-Acre Drew Forest; Media Upgrades Coming
By Ed Barmakian for TAPintoChatham
The Chatham Township Committee unanimously passed a resolution in support of preserving the 53-acre Drew Forest at its regular meeting on Tuesday night.
The forest located on the property of Drew University is a "wildlife corridor that connects Giralda Farms" in Chatham Township to the Loantaka Brook Reservation.
Resident Joe Basralian, chair of the township's open space advisory committee, came before the Chatham Township Committee as one of the founders of "Friends of the Drew Forest" to advocate for the resolution in favor of preserving the Drew Forest (see below).
While Chatham Township supports the potential purchase of the land by the Borough of Madison, the resolution does not commit any township money toward that end.
In other business, Chatham Township Administrator Robert Hoffmann said that new cameras purchased for the broadcast of committee meetings had arrived earlier in the day and should be installed in time for Chatham Township's next meeting on Feb. 22.
In response to resident Stewart Carr, who brought up the poor sound quality of the broadcast in a call to the committee, committee member Mark Lois said that in addition to the new cameras, a new sound system will be installed with the money allocated for improvements in the recent contract signed with cable provider Comcast.
Lois also said that other upgrades will allow for live-streaming the meetings on YouTube.
John Ruschke, Chatham Township engineer, gave a presentation on road planning and the procedure used to determine which roads are in most need of improvement. He said that, on average, $325,000 is needed to maintain the roads on a yearly basis.
Chatham Township is slated to spend $587,000 on road repairs this year, but that includes $268,000 in grants from the NJ DOT. In answering questions from the committee, Ruschke said that the sooner the township can determine which roads it is targeting to repair, the better it is for planning.
Hoffmann announced that the poles for the new lights at Nash Field have started to go up.
