By MICHAEL NUNES
Staff Writer
EAST BRUNSWICK — After more than a month, members of the East Brunswick Township Council said they have sharpened their pencils enough on tennis court repairs at Bicentennial Park to form a consensus about what materials to use to fix the courts.
“I am happy and I will be voting to support this ordinance tonight. We originally started out at $900,000 for tennis courts. We are ending up with about half of that now and we are doing the same amount of courts,” Councilman James Wendell said during the May 9 meeting. “This is a perfect position where you see government is working [for the people]. We are taking what was potentially going to be $1 million for tennis courts and we are turning it into $450,000 to $500,000.”
The township council voted unanimously to accept a $1.43 million bond ordinance that would provide funds to repair four tennis courts at Bicentennial Park and two tennis courts at Lenape Park.
In the current bond ordinance, about $500,000 is allocated for tennis court repairs at both Bicentennial and Lenape parks, $290,000 for lighting repairs at the township’s transportation center, $644,137 for a shared-service agreement for the purchase of a fire truck with Fire District 3 and new payroll software for the township’s Human Resources Department.
During the public hearing for the ordinance, one resident asked the council to pass it through.
“Hopefully, the tennis court reconstruction will occur because there are some cracks and, if not, cracks are growing [on the courts],” said Ronnie Li, a resident of the township who was speaking on behalf of herself and fellow tennis players. She also asked the council to move forward with using post-tension concrete when rebuilding the courts at Bicentennial.
The plan going forward will be to reconstruct the four tennis courts at Bicentennial Park with asphalt and wrap the courts with a concrete curb that will keep the material tightened in a way that prevents the asphalt from expanding and contracting, according to Wendell.
A point debate during the last bond ordinance was the possibility of using post-tension concrete and a rubberized mat at the courts at Bicentennial, which was originally slated to cost $917,250. Also included would have been funds to repair the two tennis courts at Community Park.
That version of the ordinance was defeated at the council’s March 28 meeting by a 3-2 vote.
According to the Gregory Potkulski, director of the township’s Planning and Engineering Department, the township would still like to try to use a rubberized mat on some of the courts.
“Bicentennial is going to be a reconstruction of asphalt, and at Lenape we are going to redo the fences, we’re going to fix the cracks and we are going to put that matting system over those courts. We want to try the matting system somewhere so we are going to try it at Lenape,” he said.
Council President Michael Hughes thanked Wendell for working to achieve a consensus on the dais and for lowering the price tag of the project.
“I do want to thank Councilman Wendell for the time and the labor that he put into this. We had initially three votes against this ordinance the last time we brought it up, it’s going to pass unanimously this evening thanks in no small part to him circling up with the other council members and staff,” Hughes said. “[The tennis reconstruction] came up $500,000 less than what was budgeted for, and he really deserves some credit for seeking consensus and bringing up the need for maintenance [of the courts].”
Contact Michael Nunes at mnunes@gmnews.com.
