DOT Demands Removal Of Brick Garden Club Flower Beds: Officials

Brick, NJ — As you zip along Route 70 and Brick Boulevard today, take a moment to look at the flowers.

It's easy to miss them if you're not paying attention. The New Jersey Department of Transportation hasn't noticed them in the 16 years the Brick Garden Club has been planting them.

But the flowers and plantings — three beds of them — dress up the otherwise ignored, teardrop-shaped plot of grass where Brick Boulevard forks off from Route 70, which serves no purpose other than to manage traffic.

The club — a group of older, mostly retired women — raises money to purchase the flowers and plants, which officials said cost about $1,000, and then set to work planting and caring for them. At Christmas, the club members put up decorations to make the spot festive.

"It's a beautiful spot," Councilwoman Andrea Zapcic said Tuesday night during the Brick Township Council meeting.

Apparently, the state Department of Transportation doesn't think so. Robert Clelland, an inspector for the DOT, has ordered the beds — and a water spigot that the DOT approved in February — removed from the spot by the end of July.

"It's ridiculous," Council President Paul Mummolo said. "It's been there for years, and they just noticed it?"

"Don't they have anything better to do?" asked Councilman Jim Fozman, who sits on the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority.

It was the MUA's efforts to assist the garden club that drew the DOT's attention.

The club's members, Mayor John Ducey said, are mostly older women in their 70s. To help them "so they're not carrying big buckets of water 60 or 70 feet," he said, the MUA sought permission from the DOT to install a spigot on the spit of land closer to the beds. There is a fire hydrant on the little piece of land, and for years the hydrant had been opened so the women could water the flowers, Ducey said.

"We just wanted to make it easier on them," Fozman said.

The MUA applied for a permit — "we sent them (engineering) drawings showing everything," Fozman said — and in February the DOT approved the permit. The MUA installed the spigot in March, and for three months, all was fine.

The permit, Fozman said, was "thousands of dollars," and combined with the labor to install the water, the MUA has spent about $10,000 on the project.

Until Clelland's letter on June 15, which informed the MUA that the "hydrant" — the spigot — was not a conforming use on the site.

Fozman said the MUA has tried to negotiate with the DOT, offering to lower the height of the spigot, which is painted green and blends in with the plantings, but Clelland has refused to budge, he said, and has insisted not only the spigot but also the plantings be removed.

"They want them (the garden club) to apply for an Adopt-A-Spot," Fozman said.

Ducey said his office has been trying to intervene as well, to no avail, and urged township residents to get involved and urge Clelland and the DOT to allow the garden club's plantings and new water source to remain intact.

An email to Clelland Wednesday morning seeking comment on the issue was not immediately answered.

Clelland gave the MUA until the end of July to remove the spigot or face fines of $100 per day for every day it remains, Fozman said.

"We don't really have a town center, but this is right at the entrance way to our shopping area," Ducey said. "It beautifies our town. There's no good reason to remove it."

Clelland can be reached by email at robert.clelland@dot.nj.gov, Ducey said.

The DOT can be reached at 609-530-2110.

Ducey also recommended sending letters to Richard T. Hammer, the acting commissioner of the DOT:

Acting Commissioner Richard T. Hammer
Department of Transportation
P.O. Box 600
Trenton, NJ 08625-0600