Attached is a drawing of the mutual driveway that exists in the rear of our homes on Madison Ave., Brighton Ave. and a good part of Lewis Street. Over the years numerous people, particularly contractors have illegally dumped their waste from jobs on this roadway. Over the years we have had to have the City come and clear out the excess debris. At one time City Engineer Michael Carr’s office had city trucks and re-grade the driveway back to its original level.

Last August I notified code enforcement that things had gotten very bad back there. Unfortunately, before the City could react the trash was set on fire, caught my wooden garage door and destroyed the roof of the building.

While rebuilding we noticed the roadbed of the driveway is now over two feet above the original grade. This means that each of the properties serviced by this easement are now being flooded from normal rainfall and melting snow.

Today massive trucks were back there dumping more soil/millings. I spoke to Mr. Scalla who had no knowledge of any permits. I called public works who had no knowledge of any of this, but promised to send an investigator. A short time later the trucks returned; I took photos of them and their license plates and called public works again. I asked them to send an inspector as soon as possible. To my utter astonishment the inspector told me that it was the City dumping back there.

If this remains, I will have to raise my garage floor over two feet to keep the water out, a cost the insurance company will not cover, but, this will not help all the neighbors with their problems.

The simplest thing would be for the City to take responsibility for its own property, have an engineer plan to re-grade the driveway back to its original drainage plan (No. 7 School towards Lewis Street then onto Brighton Avenue.) Then the City can bring in the equipment to remove all the excess debris so I can once again have my garage door apron which is now under two feet of debris.

Thomas P. Ward –

Editor’s Note: See Photos – Page 10 in print Edition July 17, 2013

This letter was sent to Perth Amboy Mayor W. Diaz, the Business Administrator, Public Works, Feist Engineering and the City Council