Have you heard the latest one about Mayor Randy Brown, interim Township Manager Bill Cromie, and Director of Finance Tom Shannahan driving through Evesham Township? To make a long joke short, the punch line seems to be the conditions of the roads in several communities in town.
Brown revealed that he and the two township representatives recently drove throughout the township to take stock of the various conditions of several roadways in Evesham and found two communities in dire need of road repair and road resurfacing.
Brush Hollow and Cambridge Park were easily the two communities in the biggest need for road repairs, Brown said, with Woodstream coming in a close third to the two “winners.”
“We need to take a look at our infrastructure in town. To keep values up we will need to invest in our infrastructure,” Brown said.
While some of the roads in disrepair throughout the community could be micro surfaced — which is a less expensive option that consists of a treating road surfaces with a mixture of dense-graded aggregate, asphalt emulsion, water, and mineral fillers — but many will still need the full-blown road resurfacing to completely repair them.
If the township jumps on this now, Cole said construction could possibly begin in some of these communities by August or September.
Before the current administration came into power in 2008, Brown said the township ignored or didn’t invest funding into the township’s roadways for many years.
Currently, the township is completing work on both Braddock Mill Road and Charter Oak Lane. Last week, the township council members approved a resolution to awards a contract for the resurfacing of Lincoln Drive (phase II) to Arawak Paving Co. for an amount not to exceed $323,800.
In other township news:
Members of council and the Evesham Township Police Department honored Kevin Gourley, a 9-year-old resident of Heritage Park, for becoming the first youngster in town to collect all 74 police trading cards.
In July, the Evesham Township Police Department resurrected an old but successful program to make police officers seem more approachable to young children.
Each officer in Evesham was given a number of their own specialized trading cards, which they would give to township children while out on patrol. Each officer carried several of their own cards to give to children who came up and introduced themselves to the officer. The cards featured a picture of the officer on the front and safety tips for children on the back. Each officer was given 500 cards.
The police department pledged to give a new bicycle to the first Evesham Township kid who collected all of the cards. Gourley posed with Officer Tom Magee — the officer in charge of the card program — and his new bicycle last week.
Gourley got off on a great start during the Fourth of July, collecting about 20 cards from officers during the township Independence Day festivities. For the next six months he approached officers while they were on patrol and when they were coming off of their shifts at the police department to get his cards.
He even got the trading cards for the police department’s K9-units.
“The officers were all nice and easy to talk to,” Kevin sad.
Brown proclaimed Gourley as a “junior police ambassador” as well for his efforts.
