MICKLETON — The East Greenwich Township Committee discussed the community’s economic future at their meeting on April 24, and saw a lot of good news on the horizon.
“There is a lot of nice development taking place in town,” commented Mayor Dale Archer. Archer indicated that a strip mall had started construction on Berkley Road, and the convenience store chain Royal Farms hosted the Committee for a luncheon. They opened for business on April 23.
“We met the director of marketing and some of the executive committee,” Archer explained. The fourth New Jersey location of Royal Farms can be found at 170 Berkley Road in Clarksboro.
Royal Farms expects to employ about 50 workers in Clarksboro and approximately six management positions.
Elsewhere, Archer pointed out that the Peaslee Annex on Cohawkin Road is now completely gone, and the Committee and the firefighters will be going through final preparations for the building of a new firehouse on that site. The new firehouse was funded by the sale of the Mount Royal Firehouse.
Also, Committeeman Stephen Bottiglieri mentioned that the community’s recent shredding event on April 21 had been successful, along with New Jersey’s Tree Recovery Campaign for April. Free tree seedlings were available to East Greenwich Township residents for the month beginning on April 7.
The intent of the campaign was to replace trees damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Seedlings come with instructions on how to store, care for, and plant them. The Tree Recovery Campaign hopes to distribute over 500,000 tree seedlings to New Jersey residents over a five year period.
During the public portion of the program, Christopher Fay of Mickleton questioned how East Greenwich could enhance safety at crosswalks. Archer indicated that Gloucester County is responsible for work done on crosswalks that are their property. But the mayor said that school crosswalks were separate.
“We’ve done studies, added painting and flashing lights to ours as improvements so far,” he noted. “The Thompson Park crosswalk is set for striping later this year, and we’ll look at the signage at this location.”
In other news, the Committee passed an ordinance that would establish traffic and parking regulations for Greenwich Crossings. Archer explained that the community developer did not give them the right to establish these regulations without an ordinance.
The Committee also expected to discuss the hiring of two full time police officers in an executive session. Archer added that this hiring had already been accounted for as a line item in the Township’s 2018 budget.
by Robert Holt
