Message from Councilman Matt Adams | August 25, 2022

All Scotch Plains Residents Play an Important Role in Public Safety

Many eyes in Scotch Plains are already on Wednesday, September 7, when students return to local schools. As is the late August tradition, our Police Department is busy with preparations, as, once again, our streets will be filled with additional cars and school buses during school arrivals and dismissals.

With the expectation of beautiful early fall weather on the heels of a brutally hot summer, we anticipate there will also be an influx of residents walking and riding their bicycles, particularly in the vicinity of schools.

Recognizing the volume of anticipated traffic for Back to School, we continually ask the Police Department to identify new ways to ensure even safer streets in Scotch Plains.  With the state lifting all pandemic restrictions, and life slowly reverting back to normal after more than two years of Covid-related disruptions, the Police Department has already seen a steady increase in vehicular and pedestrian traffic throughout the entire town.

The public will see a number of tangible ways in which the Scotch Plains Police Department is stepping up traffic safety efforts, under the leadership of Police Chief Theodore Conley.

For example, the speed limit for the entire downtown area has been reduced to 25 mph to increase pedestrian safety.  That includes East Second Street, which then turns into Westfield Avenue and Plainfield Avenue as drivers head east toward Westfield.  For traffic control and safety, we believe in the strong need for uniformity, especially in such a busy part of Scotch Plains. 

The Township Council, which ultimately decides speed limits with the advice of police leadership, has focused on Plainfield Avenue, where our officers continue to place radar signs to further slow down passing vehicles, as well as solar powered pedestrian crossing signals, with push buttons to activate them.

The Police Department is actively identifying more locations to install these solar crosswalk signs, as they have added an important level of safety wherever students tend to cross. Students just need to press a button that prompts the sign to blink, further alerting drivers to their presence and their need to cross the street at designated crosswalks.

Based on community feedback and traffic analysis, the Police Department has also focused on other neighborhood issues. One solution has been the installation of a red/yellow blinking light at Rahway Road and Raritan Road. Another solution: speed humps added in the area of Winding Brook Way to reduce vehicular speeds and increase the safety for children in that residential neighborhood.

In the past couple of years, the Police Department has also recommended the installation of speed humps on residential roads in town that are common short cuts for motorists avoiding main roads, such as on Henry Street, Myrtle Avenue and Willow Avenue.  Each of these recommendations have been met with funding from the Council to achieve these important public safety objectives.

The police are continually looking at other side streets in Scotch Plains that are commonly being used as pass-throughs, especially when school is in session, and identifying other traffic-calming initiatives.

If you believe a particular intersection or other area of town is in need of traffic-calming measures, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly and I will pass the information along to the Township Manager’s Office and the Police Department for review.  I view this as a critical component of my duties as the Council liaison to the Police Department.

To ensure there is a strong and steady number of crossing guards this school year, the Township has contracted with an outside staffing company. This will ensure that more guards will be there to monitor the highly-used crosswalks for children to get to and from school, as well as a number of alternate guards to cover shifts throughout the school year to ensure continuity of coverage. 

A number of residents have contacted me, asking for more crossing guards on our streets. I have worked closely with these residents and the Police Department to get coverage at these newly identified crossings.  The new staffing model not only offers a dramatic increase in efficiency, it also allows us to add monitored crossings without worrying about staffing shortages at the main school crossing intersections.

As always, the Police Department will be closely monitoring traffic during Back to School, as we warmly welcome students back to the Scotch Plains public schools. It is important to note our police also closely monitor traffic issues surrounding the numerous private and parochial schools in our community too, further ensuring a safe environment for all of our students and residents during this annual time of seasonal transition.

There are so many things that make our community special.  Perhaps chief among them is the general sense of safety and security that we gain from living in a place where people look out for one another and where dedicated men and women dutifully answer the call to serve their community at an even higher level as members of our Police Department, Fire Department and Rescue Squad.  We don’t have to look very far for examples of the bravery and dedication of these public safety professionals than what we have encountered over the last few years with the pandemic, and also during events like Hurricane Ida, a year ago this Labor Day. 

Our public safety professionals are only becoming better equipped, better staffed, and more adaptive to the modern demands of their jobs by the Council’s investments in new cutting-edge equipment and technology, frequent reexamination of staffing needs, and constant training on the modern public safety landscape. 

This year, a new officer was added to the ranks of the Scotch Plains Police Department, a new ambulance is on order to go into service with the Scotch Plains Fire Department to supplement the already-stellar work of our dedicated Rescue Squad. There is also  comprehensive planning for a new, state-of-the-art emergency services headquarters to better serve the needs of our community.

Despite all of this continued investment in public safety, when you talk with our public safety professionals, they will tell you that the key to maintaining the safety and security that we have grown to enjoy in our community is much more basic than updated equipment and bringing on new talent in the various public safety disciplines. 

They will universally tell you that residents play an equally vital role in fostering public safety, and are often the first to identify and report matters that present a risk to individuals or property within our community. 

So, here are a few simple things to keep in mind as we head into Fall and Back to School:

• Slow down, and pay attention to your surroundings, please. Attentive driving saves lives.  Shaving a couple of minutes off your commute is not worth risking the safety of others.  Give yourself enough time to get there safely.

• Lock your doors, and bring your key fobs inside. Auto theft remains a significant problem throughout our region.  Do not make your vehicle enticing to a would-be thief.  Follow the Police Department’s advice and include checking that your vehicles are locked as part of your evening routine each day.

• If it sounds too good to be true, or too far out to be legit, your instincts are probably correct. Our local police blotter is littered with examples of individuals who have been victimized by fraudsters.  Avoid falling prey to a financial scam by verifying the legitimacy of an offer or solicitation.  If you cannot verify it on your own, call the Police Department, an officer will be dispatched to help.  Sometimes just saying that you will call the police to look into the legitimacy of something will wind up scaring away a thief with nefarious motives.  Never give out personal information over the phone, and only use verified e-commerce websites.

• Perhaps most important of all, if you see something say something. There is never anything wrong with being 100% sure.  Coming from a law enforcement family, I have heard this manta repeated throughout my life and it has shaped me for my current role as a councilman.  Our community’s valued public safety professionals are trained to skillfully look into reports of suspected problems.  You can be rest assured that every call will be answered.  The recent thwarting of a coordinated car theft ring that was attempting to operate in our town by our Police Department is a prime example of our effectiveness.

On behalf of the Mayor and my Council colleagues, I would like to express my deep appreciation to all of our community’s public safety professionals.  They continue to prioritize the safety of our residents above all else as Scotch Plains heads back to school once again, and throughout the year.