By Sunayana Prabhu
TINTON FALLS – The borough has obtained nearly $1.8 million in grant funds to offset the costs of construction projects to be completed in 2024. An overview of these capital projects was presented during the March 5 council meeting.
“We are very proud of these grants and a lot of hard work’s been done by municipal employees to receive these,” said Thomas Fallon, Tinton Falls chief financial officer, at the Tuesday meeting introducing the borough’s 2024 budget. Fallon acknowledged the borough’s engineering department, the administration staff and the council. “Everybody works hard on obtaining these grants and they really help reduce the costs of these projects.”
Road development and maintenance are “typically the largest budget item” under capital investments, explained Tom Neff, borough engineer. He said the engineering department is entering the first year of an expanded road program for which they will spend nearly $4 million. “It is the largest road program that the borough has ever done as far as mileage of the roads and the dollar amount being spent,” Neff said. The borough is responsible for 85 miles of roads.
In addition to a New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) Municipal Aid grant of $314,292 for Hockhockson Road and another $219,420 for Essex Road, the borough has received a Community Development Block Grant of $161,000 for Wardell Road. The road program, designed in 2023 to be completed in 2024, includes paving work on 22 roads, from Essex Road and West Park Ave (Shafto to Heritage) to Wardell Road, Hockhockson Road, Peach Street (Hance to Springdale) and more.
The borough has also secured $600,000 and $74,000 from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (NJDCA) Division of Local Government Services and the Local Recreational Improvements program, respectively, to develop softball fields at the Sycamore Recreation Complex on Sycamore Avenue by the Mahala F. Atchison Elementary School.
The project at the complex includes the construction of two softball fields. An existing soccer field will be converted into a 200-foot synthetic turf softball field and open space will be used for a natural grass outfield and a synthetic turf infield softball field. The project is scheduled to be completed by July.
A $195,000 Monmouth County Municipal Open Space grant will be used to upgrade Wardell Park Restrooms. The project will include the construction of a new restroom building, a water and sewer extension and a pump station.
Additional capital projects covering park improvements include new lights for T-ball fields at Hockhockson Park.
A few years ago, the borough acquired around 60 acres for Walz Park, between Shark River and Shafto Road, which is currently in the “survey, permitting and design,” stages, Neff said, for the development of walking trails, a playground, a fishing platform at the small lake on the property and a restroom.
The borough also received a $50,000 NJDCA Public Safety Operating Aid (Municipal Complex Security) grant. This money will be used to spruce up municipal facilities with a new LED monument sign for the borough hall, fuel island and dispenser upgrades and an extension of the retaining wall and landscaping buffer along Pearl Harbor Drive and the Department of Public Works building. Other proposed capital projects include drainage pipe repairs at Pine Brook Road and Wardell Road.
Long-awaited library improvements will finally gain momentum with the forthcoming NJ Library Construction Bond Act grant of $217,500.
Borough administrator Charles Terefenko said borough professionals “exert a lot of time and energy” to obtaining these grants “because we want to do most of our improvements without incurring a whole lot of debt.” Terefenko noted grant applications are an “arduous task.”
“People don’t realize how involved it is to apply for the grants, get the background information needed for the grants and make it through those various stages in the grant pro cess,” he said. The first public hearing of the borough’s 2024 budget is scheduled for Tuesday, April 2.
The article originally appeared in the March 21 –March 27, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
