By DON STINE
It will be a little bit difficult parking at Asbury Park’s City Hall for the next 30 days. Concrete was poured at the municipal parking lot last week and other work will continue into late May in an attempt to provide more parking.
“Please be patient, this will take several weeks,” Acting-City Manager Tony Nuccio said at last Wednesday’s City Council meeting. The city is repaving and metering the 125-space parking lot to provide more downtown parking.
Installing new concrete curbs and sidewalks should be concluded this week but the parking lot will be milled, paved and striped from around May 10 through May 22.
Many attending Wednesday’s meeting parked in areas around City Hall.
Under the project, the 125–space municipal parking lot, from Bangs Avenue to the nearby police department parking lot, will be expanded and have metered parking stations, similar to ones already installed in the city.
The existing parking spaces will be widened, resulting in a loss of 14 spaces. However, the new curb and sidewalk will be moved about eight feet closer to the municipal building, which also allows for 14 parallel-parking spaces along the western side of the parking lot.
City fire officials said they have no objection to any of the proposals as long as the project does not block ingress or egress from the parking lot for emergency vehicles.
In other business, Mayor John Moor praised acting-City Clerk Melody Hartsgrove, who took over for former City Clerk Stephen Kay, who recently retired.
“You have done a fantastic job for more than a year and sometimes under extreme pressure,” he said.
At the council meeting, the governing body also hired a new City Clerk, Cindy A. Dye who now works in East Windsor. Hartsgrove will go back to her former positions of deputy clerk and registrar.
