(PHOTOS in extended article). Dear Mayor and Township Committee Members,
As a representative of the Villas Home Owners Association and all residents of Twin Oaks Dr.,I must express our deep dissatisfaction with the so called snow removal of our main st. I have been inundated with phone calls from concerned residents inquiring when our street will be properly plowed and I have assured them it will be done shortly and thoroughly.
It is now 5 days after the blizzard of 2009 and all we received was a brief plow through Saturday night by a pick up a truck with a shovel. This helped in creating a one lane snowy and Icy Twin Oaks Dr. as plenty more snow fell since that token Township gesture.
We are 72 houses with an average paying $9,000 taxes (with no exemptions!). We hardly deserve the brunt of any budget cuts!!!!
Please respond promptly to myself and my fellow neighbors. We are anxiously waiting.
Thank you,
Yoni Silver
Where is our good mayor who was on comittee when all these projects were approved?
Where is the mayor when “Smart growth” have been approved that will bring more of these disastorous developments?
Where is the attorney who got these developments approved by zoning and said there will be enough parking for these developments? Where is that engineer who told planning and zoning these developments are good- there are enough parking and the streets are wide enough?
Can we still get an answer as why state and county roads were clean by Sunday morning while the list of streets that have not seen a plow were numerous. (Yes – there were cars parked but at least plow the middle!)
Does anyone want to answer these questions? Does anyone represent the people? Only Yoni and Hershel maybe we can use some real people who can do for the people!
Editor please post this
Pine River looks the same exact way- its terrible!
Thank your friends on the LAC. The developments now get Township snow removal instead of reimbursement for private removal, but they are LAST in priority.
I have one question who in Heaven’s name are these people??? I have been living here for close to 30 years and have never seen or heard such “tumult”. If you don’t like the services in Lakewood you are welcome to move back to Boro Park. Flatbush. Monsey or where ever else you came from. For the rest of us, plesase give us a break! Every Tom, Hershel and Yoni wants to an Askan… MASPIK!
Twin Oaks Dr. was always a township road and thus not effected by the lac deal with the township.There is no excuse not to plow by now
if you want a break get off the scoop and do something with your life
Well were are the elected officials. This is a very sorry story and all Steve is saying is great job. Where is he? As one of the posters said that he does snow removal for a living and if he was doing the job that township did he would be fired and Langert is thanking them Sunday morning for the great job?
(Oib ich hut mer aino yehudi bekomitee zai hot gemacht git oshii blit oif de mentshen. mir daf machen shain un nice – dois is de emes)
Twin Oaks DR. the main st, in the villas was always plowed by the township , it is an approved township road, they never got reimbursement and had nothing to do with the lac deal. so why last in priority???
its obvious frum de picthers that the mess is becuz you park your cars in the street and all the cleanup is narrowed around the cars.. Grab a shovel and dig; these developments were built without any thinking about how services will be provided. Hashem yishmor if a fire truck ever needs to get in. It’s a rachmonus on the residents but not the fault of the town.
I agree with Yoni – I have driven around Twin Oaks and where the sun doesn’t shine – it is a sheet of ice or so bumpy I thought my car was going to fall apart.
did you see the sheets of ice all over the middle of th streets??or did you miss that
Is this what they meant by the “Silver Alert”
You guys live in developments. Even with the developments that have a 1-car driveway, there are approx. 3-4 cars per house, including basements. There is absolutely no physical way for a plow to clear anything more than a 1 lane space with the ridiculous amount of cars parked on the narrow streets. Wanna blame someone? Blame the greedy developers who try to cram every possible inch of space without regard to future living conditions, and blame the township zoning board for letting them get away with murder.
they’re busy taking away our ems services because of special interests!!!!!!!!!
#1: If you plow the middle, where does the snow go? The state and county roads have shoulders upon which to pile the snow. Local roads cannot be plowed effectively (yes, even the middle!) when there is on street parking.
Drive around the Villas even when there is no snow and you wonder how in the world that development was approved (then you wake up and you know and good well why).
I believe the only solution the Township will ever come up with is they simply need to raise more TAXES!!
Lakewood – Love it or Leave it
why cant the township plow the villas and pine river. Why, because all the cars are in the way? so do it the morning when 95 percent of the cars are not there. thanks
John Franklin the head of Public Works sits on Planning board and he approved every one of those developments.
The Villas needed to keep Yankee Ort as their manager because he gets it done!
He gets the township down and gets the people’s cars off the roads so they can plow .
Connections+muscle= clean streets.
why cant the township plow the villas and pine river. Why, because all the cars are in the way? so do it the morning when 95 percent of the cars are not there. thanks
How arrogant of you to require the township to work around your schedule. There’s an entire township that needs plowing. Perhaps we can set up a beeper system, so you can notify a plow driver when you are leaving your parking spot and when you’ll need the spot back. You guys are too much.
“YOU GUYS”
“YOU PEOPLE”
Why do we always have to be lurking around yelling and angry at anyone Jewish.
Cant we all get along?
What about the township notifying people in advance when they will be plowing the streets, so they can move their cars off the street?
Makes too much sense – right.
The township needs to work more toward a solution with their citizens than to criticize them.
#21- if they would of made an attept to come it could of been plowed. there still ice etc. all over. when someone hurts themselves or a car skids on the ice what are you going to say, that they shoudnt be driving?
This is one of the many reasons I would never want to live in the villas development..
Once there’s compacted ice adhering to the roadway, it’s too late to plow – the blade slides right over the top. Have you ever tried to shovel ice from your driveway? How’d that work out for ya? It’s the same principle on the streets.
What about the township notifying people in advance when they will be plowing the streets, so they can move their cars off the street?
Makes too much sense – right.
Maybe there is a solution that can be worked out in that type of framework, I don’t know,. Such a solution would require complete cooperation of the residents of the development. I can already hear the complaints that “where are we supposed to go with our cars? Can’t they figure out some other type of solution? I’m not home and my wife is sick in bed, what am I supposed to do?” etc. etc. You will never make everyone happy.
sorry, we build the town houses, extra apts, extra cars, in the street , we all want to be together in our own shetels , so maybe pay $$$ for private snow removal, there are lots streets in lakewood, i live on great block, single homes no renters or daycares, street was cleaned by 11am sunday driveways i cleared and packed snow on my lawn, township came again on sunday aft. and the streets are still clear and passable 14 th street area west of forest thank you
i live on a regular st thats not in any development , it long and straight and didnt have many parked cars , and it was a disaster, in the past PW has done a great job , i was suprised how bad of a job they did
#21- if they would of made an attept to come it could of been plowed. there still ice etc. all over. when someone hurts themselves or a car skids on the ice what are you going to say, that they shoudnt be driving?
I have no idea if they attempted to plow or not, but why does the fault lay with public works when the area is unworkable for a plow?
For the record, I do not work for the township in any shape or form. I’m just a longtime resident of Lakewood who is sick of all the whining and complaining when many of the issues are self-created.
I would love to know where all your tax money goes. I have had my business here in Lakewood for over 20 years and have seen tremendous growth in the community which to me means lots of more tax money for the town. Where exactly is all that money going. I haven’t seen any improvements anywhere in this town. Most of you are paying taxes right?
Mazel 2 –
What’s the point of mentioning “no renters or daycares” when talking about your “great block”?
Chateau Park is worse
“YOU GUYS”
“YOU PEOPLE”
Why do we always have to be lurking around yelling and angry at anyone Jewish.
Cant we all get along?
LOL. Just so you know, I’m as frum as you are. I’m Lakewood born and bred, I attended Lakewood Cheder and other yeshivos you heard of. You guys refers to you people who are constantly kvetching and complaining, looking for the closest target to blame, etc. Stop trying to find Anti-Semitisim under every rock.
Developments were always snow-plowed by township as most are township roads. (Aside for Elmwood). The Township agreed to plow the little middle (non-township) roads for the developments which takes minimal time and resource because the plows are there already for the township road in the development. As for taxpayer dollars, compact housing provides greater revenue to township per acre than all the single family homes with their own lots.
“The Township agreed to plow the little middle (non-township) roads for the developments which takes minimal time and resource because the plows are there already for the township road in the development.”
Sorry, but it doesn’t work this way. The regular plows are too large for the interior streets – the townshup must send a seperate, smaller plow for these streets.
all cars were parked properly in our driveways
i live on ridge avenue and it dangerous to drive. frozen bumpy patches of ice. Yesterday one truck put some sand in the middle of the road. Ridge is a narrow street and you need to drive close to the curb when another car is coming in the other direction but you cant becuase of all the ice. skip sidewalks that are full of snow from the plows.
Jimbo says:
December 24, 2009 at 12:00 pm
“YOU GUYS”
“YOU PEOPLE”
Why do we always have to be lurking around yelling and angry at anyone Jewish.
Cant we all get along?
LOL. Just so you know, I’m as frum as you are. I’m Lakewood born and bred, I attended Lakewood Cheder and other yeshivos you heard of. You guys refers to you people who are constantly kvetching and complaining, looking for the closest target to blame, etc. Stop trying to find Anti-Semitisim under every rock.
Ummm…. Did I say anything about NOT being Jewish?
You are just a self-hating Jew who has no problem CAUSING anti-semitism, because believe it or not, there is a lot of traffic on this site from all over the area, who you are antagonizing with your bigoted rhetoric.
So, you are the only one who called yourself out as an antisemite– and I couldn’t agree more!
and whats with West Gate?
Why don’t you blame the one who made the snow? This isn’t New England, Canada or the upper mid-west states where this is a common occurrence. And if you can only make one swipe with the plow down the middle because cars are parked there, who ever drives over the edge of the snow when another car is coming from the opposite direction, pushes the snow back in the middle.
Ummm…. Did I say anything about NOT being Jewish?
You are just a self-hating Jew who has no problem CAUSING anti-semitism, because believe it or not, there is a lot of traffic on this site from all over the area, who you are antagonizing with your bigoted rhetoric.
So, you are the only one who called yourself out as an antisemite– and I couldn’t agree more!
Come on man, stop while you’re not too far behind. You accused me of yelling and being angry at anyone Jewish. I mean, really. None of what I said was bigoted in the least, and nobody took it that way, aside from you. Know when an argument is lost and just leave it alone.
I am a born and bred lakewooder – never lived in a development always private housing.
my parents’ block – just individual houses, parking only on 1 side was plowed so terribly, there’s no excuse! if the side where there are cars was not plowed down, I understand, but where there are NO CARS and down the middle, NO EXCUSE for icy still day 3 or even 4.
I also live on residential block, there is parking on 1 side, of which there is hardly a car ever parked (as we all have our own driveways with sufficient parking and use them!) – do you think this road was plowed down??? NO WAY!! Icy like crazy. NO EXCUSE
Please don’t give me “it’s the developers fault” etc.
For developements, I agree it’s dangerous to even drive a bus during NO SNOW as the streets are so narrow ($$$$$$$$$$$$ is what it’s called, disgusting!!) but regular streets with cars off the road, or only on 1 side, why were the streets so icy and thick for so many days???
PW FAILED!!!
ACCOUNTABILITY??????
WE DEMAND A INQUIRY INTO WHY THEY FAILED TO PLOW THE STREETS PROPERLY…
I called the public works dept. to express concern regarding Shemen court and all I got was thank you and enjoy the rest of your day. That was coming from the supervisor on call mind you. I then called the office of the mayor and it’s already been almost 2 hours waiting for a response. Lakewood Scoop maybe you have some ideas? The dangers of snow piled 6 feet high at the corner as well as not being able to drive down this and many other blocks is unfathomable. All I can say is TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!!!
I am awaiting response from our deputy mayor who was so proud of the way the cleanup was done. Shame on them. In other communities they have it plowed and salted down to the pavement here in Lakewood it’s like driving an obsticle course and parking you can forget about. Oh, I forgot the majority of us don’t comprise special interests.
and the city will be leaving for the holiday arriving back Monday
btw. i dont think the public knows that brick township school system is still closed due to the snow, the reason is that they dont have a public works department as good and efficiant as lakewoon. kudos to john franklin
I think that the people of lakewood are getting a raw deal. I live in Howell and they did a great job in all of the neighborhoods.
in your 72 houses how many children are being bussed at 800 per kid? if we can reasonably assume 4 kids per house (without counting the families that live in your basements) thats 576 kids. Now let’s look at your numbers. 72 x 9000 = 648,000 total taxes paid by your development. Your Bus bill alone is 800 x 576 = 460,800 HELLO!!! That leaves 180k for the town to DO EVERYTHING ELSE FOR YOUR DEVELOPMENT. Its never gonna happen. WE LOSE MONEY ON EVERY HOUSE BUILT!!!
Miller Road is beautiful, it was plowed down to the street at 9 am Sunday Morning, since no cars are allowed to park along it, they could do a great job, thanks Lakewood Twp!
I have no complaints about the snow removal. The township plowed my street, and the entire development, down to blacktop by Monday afternoon. Of course, there were no cars parked on the streets, which made it easier to plow. Luckily we live in a single family houses with driveways for cars. I feel sorry for those of you who live in those townhouses and other houses with basement apartments with no driveways and the narrow streets. Perhaps you can blame the town fathers for letting Lakewood be over-developed. May I ask why you are moving from Brooklyn, Muncy, etc. to Lakewood where , with all the building, the town will just be like those towns in the near future? And as mentioned in an earlier post – think about getting the fire trucks down those narrow streets with on-street parking. The town fathers were told about that just before they approved the development.
1. The average is well under 4 bussing age children per home.
2. Basement tenants seldom have bussing age children.
3. Taxes are paid in the years before a family has bussing age children and in the years after.
Your numbers are overly simplistic and entirely misleading.
Is that so? Prove it. Call the board of ed and find out exactly how many children are bussed from that development. The answer just may shock you
why is busing cost $800 per child???!! that’s outrageous??
That is what we are charged. it’s a matter of public record
I work in camden nj and the roads there are so bad it makes lakewood look like so clean, in camden every street has 6 inches of ice on it, there are cars getting stuck every 3 feet. Traffic is backed up everywhere!! So stop crying and be happy with what you have! At least you can drive with out getting stuck, there are streets here that STILL never got plowed!!
This is the way it is in this town everyone out for themselves silver is only worried about the villas why?? Because he lives there. We make a whole geratchka and create a lac and then its the same thing all over again just different people different orginazation! The bottom line is most of us do nothging to help the tzibbur and of the few that actualy do tend to focus on the things that affect them personaly. There is a real miut shebimiut that actualy are there for EVERYONE and all they get is criticism when we all get off the computer and stop complaining and actualy DO something to help instead of just bashing those that try and might not do a PERFECT job. At least they try. What have YOU tried to do for the tzibbur lately??????
i am not disputing that it’s a matter of public record, all i’m saying is – just like so many things paid with taxpayer money is subject to a ripoff (like we just witnessed with the snow plowing – lack of)- privatize the BOE and I’m sure within 1 year they will have the budget cut in half!!
bussing is a rip off at $800 per kid says:
DECEMBER 24, 2009 AT 4:15 PM
i am not disputing that it’s a matter of public record, all i’m saying is – just like so many things paid with taxpayer money is subject to a ripoff (like we just witnessed with the snow plowing – lack of)- privatize the BOE and I’m sure within 1 year they will have the budget cut in half!!
The busing is already privatized, it says STA or Murphy on the side of the bus, not Lakewood Board of Education. And since I had some free time, I drove through Bricktown, the roads have 4″ solid ice and schools are closed. Toms River is not much better.
Busing cost 48,500 a DAY, u do the math??
enough kveching
Let the township take back their busing. Then let’s enroll all of our kids in public school. Bankrupt the system. Let the state take it over or send the children to jackson and brick. Our taxes would be cut, but the boe would not like it. They are too busy figuring out ways to siphon millions to those they feel are deserving.
To #13 – buss mir says: “…Then let’s enroll all of our kids in public school…”
I say Go Ahead. I know you won’t. And YOU know you WON’T. You don’t want your precious little children to associate with regular kids. Both boys and girls would have to be bussed together and be together in the class rooms. He he he. I KNOW YOU WON’T DO IT so don’t make statements like that.
where are u …ICEMAN…..silent on this issue ……
ICEMAN …this is your topic
4×72 is not 576, it’s 288.
If you are going to make up numbers you might as well do the math correctly.
NUMBER 50′ RIGHT
I saw plow trucks go down my block [14th west of forest area] 3 times without plowing anything.
the plow trucks need to be assigned streets & times, and a superviser should be constantly checking on progress !
#16 (page 2) is Right & #17 is wrong that #50 is Right. Which makes #50 wrong.
If I am #19 then #19 is right that #17 is wrong that #50 is right.
Being that #50 is wrong then #16 is right then #17 is wrong then #50 is wrong. I can reference #50 being wrong based on the #16 being right.
So #50 is wrong as referenced by #16 (page 2) referring to him being wrong and together with the established fact that #16 is right then I am right.
People in glass houses should not throw stones. While i agree that the Township can improve their snow plowing, WE (the collective Oilam) are waiting to see CONCRETE steps from the school board to cut the out of control spending in the school system. Isn’t it a fact that the LAC promised us that if we elected you we would see tax relief? WHERE IS IT???
Not another building should be approved unitl there’s enough parking for atleast two cars in every home. Blame the “Just say yes” planning and zone boards and the township committee for this problem. Welcome to New York, NJ. We say yes to every thing, BUILD BABY BUILD. The new developement on Pine street is the perfect example, CANNOT get two vehicle passed each other-let alone a plow truck, garbage truck nor emergency vehicle. Get MAD Tell Mayor Bob, Ray, Steve, Meir, and Miller enough is enough -lower the density and bigger driveways
park up on the lawn and sidewalks before it snows, atleast the side walk wouldnt need much work to be cleared. this way the road gets a good cleaning
otherwise stop complaining- “ASK NOT WHAT THE TOWN CAN DO FOR YOU BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THE TOWN” – move your car off the street and your road get cleared faster
FYI- Possible snow next shabos prepare to park off the street next friday to ensure the better service from Public Works.
Billy’s Weather -a free service to all Lakewood residents -50% right all the time
To Mr silver,
I am a resident of twin oaks dr and would like to know why the culdesacs were not plowed untill sunday, when we have a resifdent that lives in the devolpment that has a plowing company. Im sure he would have done it quicker than whoever did it and would have done a better job. also why dont we have our cudesacs salted so they are not a sheet of ice?!?!?!? My driveway and walkway were clean and salted but as soon as i pulled out i was stuck on a sheet of ice. why dont we support our own people.????!!!!!!!!!!???? by the way who is on the board???? last time there was supposed to be a meeting i was waiting out side and all the lights were off in the house where the meeting was scheduled to be. Maybe we need to make a bi-monthly meeting and address the issues we have.