Your Weekly Update: A Week in Review of the WW Town Council, by Supriya Mamidi

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At the June 12 Township Council meeting, the Council adopted the 2023-03 Ordinance.

Andrea spoke about how she had been aware of the proposed Ordinance for many months. She attended a meeting about it with the State, back in August 2022. When the Ordinance was going to be presented to Council, Andrea insisted on first conducting meetings with the WW Township engineer. Mike and Andrea discussed maps with the engineer to better understand them.

Mike explained why the Ordinance was created by saying that, “the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have issued revised and updated flood damage prevention standards that incorporate references to other affected standards such as the state construction codes so as to avoid conflicting standards or vagaries. The NJDEP and FEMA require the proposed revisions to the land use ordinance in order to assure the availability of property owners to participate in National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the township to receive funding from FEMA in the future. That’s what this is about.”

Geevers pointed out that the Ordinance was looked at in depth by the Planning Board and Environmental Commission. It is also in accordance with the West Windsor Master Plan.

Sonia Gawas, Councilwoman recapped the most recent EC meeting.

The Parks and Recreation Commission met on June 7 and talked about the wayfinding signs, which can be found in several parts of WW parks, and were placed with the assistance of WWBPA.

The Shade Tree Commission met on May 24th. They discussed 2023 Arbor Day and New Jersey Urban and Community Forestry Program requirements for continuing education. They are collaborating with a Girl Scout that is working on a project that involves building spotted lantern fly traps.

Mayor Marathe provided some updates on infrastructure changes.

The Cranbury Road sidewalk phase 2B project is continuing. A majority of the curb is complete, big portions of proposed landscaping are done, and there have been a few issues with underground utilities which are being worked out.

Residents of Rabbit Hill Rd started a petition to fix the road. The project has been approved and will be funded by NJDOT.

In WW Community Park, the basketball, pickleball, and tennis courts are being renovated. Tennis courts will also be built along Hendrickson Drive.

The last project is occurring at Washington Road Circle. Between January 1, 2021 and July 20, 2022, there were 154 crashes at that intersection. To reduce the number of accidents, on May 26, NJDOT made striping changes. DOT has placed yield signs and will be monitoring the traffic.

The Mayor and Council congratulated and honored the WW teams who qualified for the 2023 FIRST championships. The teams are the MidKnight Inventors First Robotics Competition level from WWP school district, the Don’t Blink First Tech Challenge level from Princeton STEM academy, and Dream Squad First Lego League level from Girl Scouts of Central and South NJ (WWP Girl Scouts).

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