Township Committee Approves Lake Barnegat Drive Project

Lake Barnegat Drive will be seeing some relief in the near future as the township committee reached a compromise over the road construction project.

The Department of Transportation awarded Lacey Township a $250,000 grant for the Lake Barnegat Drive project but the total comes to $398,748.

Committee members Sean Sharkey and Helen DelaCruz were in opposition to bonding for the entire project so the committee accepted bids to find out what the township can get simply with the grant money.

“Now, my gut tells me we should be going with base bid at $240,000. But you know, I’ve seen a lot of things happening politically lately, locally and nationally and I’m a firm believer that sometimes you may have to compromise,” Sharkey said.

At a total of $291,015, the committee agreed to reduce the scale of the project and award a bid for the resurfacing of Lake Barnegat Drive road north of Lacey Road to Easy Street and a portion of Musket.

The top layer of the road is beginning to peel off and there are patch repairs in over 50 locations to slow down the peeling process, Public Works Director Casey Parker previously said.

Since Lake Barnegat Drive is one of the most heavily travelled roads in town, it takes a severe pounding on a daily basis, Parker said.

The project will cover 5,525 feet of paving but the committee excluded the drainage component, which consisted of milling out 12 feet of the shoulders on each side and relaying pavement on top as well as new debris shields and grades and larger retention basins to bring relief to the flooding on the east side.

“Certainly I’m very happy that they’re going to do the paving and alternate one. Certainly I would like to see the drainage component taken care of because of the ongoing problems we have with that retention basin,” Parker said.

But if Parker had to make a choice, he would put off fixing the drainage since it does work part of the time, he said.

Committeeman David Most voted to approve just the base bid and drainage but was pushing for the entire project, as he believes they are currently looking at a discounted rate.

“It doesn’t make sense to re-bid down the road…It’s going to be astronomical in comparison to just taking care of this project now,” Most said.

The second reading of the bond ordinance will be at the next township meeting agenda for Thursday, July 28. The township anticipates awarding the bid by Aug. 25 and beginning the project by the beginning of September, Parker said.

“That’s a great time to be paving. It still puts us in a good position to do the job,” Parker said.

The only negative being that school will be back in session, causing traffic issues, Parker said.

Once the project is awarded and approved by the DOT, the township can request 75 percent of the grant. The remaining money will be turned over to the township once the project has been signed off, completed, and approved by the DOT.