The email to our Town and County leadership sharing the issue @ Watchung Plaza and the Petition was sent on March 18th.
We received several responses from Montclair Township Councilors:
Summarizing their feedback -
(This is the optimistic part:)
- We're aware of the issue at Watchung Plaza
- We're elevating the urgency for addressing Watchung Plaza
- There's an overarching strategic approach to address many of the dangerous intersections in Montclair and Watchung Plaza is high on that list
(This is the skeptical part:)
Someone in our community shared this New York Times article from 50 years ago, literally to the month:
The article speaks to the dangerous intersection at Watchung Plaza and the inability of leadership to address it. So, in 50 years - we haven't been able to fix this issue. WTF? Literally, WTF? Shame on all of you -
Next steps -
Please, please - share the Petition link to others in the community as we're nearing 1,000 signatures which will elevate this Petition on the change.org platform. Elevating the Petition on change.org will bring greater awareness of the issue and our cause.
What else?
I shared the current Petition with the editorial staff at the New York Times along with the NYTimes article from 50 years ago to encourage their team to publish another article and hold our current leadership responsible for addressing this issue. If anyone in our community can fast-track this process with the Times, please reach out to me and let's get it done!
Again...we understand the inherent challenges with government to get anything done. We get it. That said, we have an opportunity here to hold our current leadership responsible for addressing public safety as job #1.
As always, please reach out with any questions or thoughts.
Thank you