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109 <br />Special Council Meeting <br />4/10/94 <br />Page Seven <br />Mr. Basile said he does. <br />Mrs. Cinco asked for a five minute break. <br />Council recessed for approximately 10 minutes. <br />? <br />M Mr. Basile said I have been on the phone for a week; I have called people in your area, <br />CO my area, people on Hickory Hill. I got a 4-1 vote for keeping it the same way it is. <br />z Residents in the audience expressed disbelief. <br />2 Mrs. Cinco said at this time, Mayor Rinker will address the issue. <br />Mayor Rinker said it is clear that all of you would not be here if you didn't have a keen <br />interest in the outcome. What I have heard reverberate among other things tonight is <br />that you are all very much concerned about safety. In fact, Mr. Ehrhardt felt it was <br />necessary to cite my letter which I had sent recently. Safety is and remains an <br />overriding issue. Mr. Russo asked if I would acknowledge that certain mistakes had <br />been made; I would acknowledge that if we had been on top of this sooner and gotten <br />the word out sooner, all of this could have been spared a lot of the tension and anxiety <br />that I have seen develop. However, it is a different thing to talk about getting on top of <br />this early or later and still looking to the underpinnings of the decision that has to be <br />made. In that regard, he would agree that by voicing the concerns as ardently as you <br />have, it has required us to redouble and to really scrutinize this thing. It is unfortunate <br />that a lot of the mail that I have seen and that has been disseminated in the past week, I <br />believe has been very misleading. Contrary to the representation that we have not tried <br />to look at this, that we (or I) have had a closed mind, we have really explored this at <br />length. We have looked to a proposal that was worked out in two workshop meetings <br />which carried the theme of something that I had hoped we could do initially which <br />would be to have an escape route as they call it out on Highland. It was not until we <br />met in this workshop session that ultimately, with a lot of help from the Traffic Safety <br />Engineer from our Engineering Department, with input from the contractor, Mr. <br />Calabrese, through our safety people as well that we at least conceived of this $37,000 <br />plan which calls for building a temporary road structure on the south side of Highland <br />which would enable the contractor at least a measure of greater movement of his <br />machinery to allow traffic to pass through there. But, all that that entails has required <br />this $37,000 added on. It still does not satisfactorily deal with crossing traffic or the <br />mere fact that you would be lengthening the life of the project. Right now, the project is <br />geared for 60 days. In an ideal situation, it would be accomplished in 45 days. If we <br />add on this leg though Highland Road then it will extend it at least another 15 days and <br />in all possibility, another 30 days. So, it is an inside operation of 45 days on the present