Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • February 1, 2012 Wyckoff Planners will hear from ShopRite opponents February 8 by John Koster On Feb. 8, residents opposed to the Inserra ShopRite application will have their first chance to speak at the Wyckoff Planning Board meeting which will begin at 7:30. Two applications unrelated to the ShopRite case are also on the agenda. The ShopRite hearings have been in progress for more than a year. There have been several special hearings devoted to the testimony of the professional experts for the applicants, the Stop & Shop supermarket at the nearby Boulder Run Shopping Center, and the Hekemian Company that owns the land on which Boulder Run is located. Special hearings have now been discontinued, planning board officials said, and the ShopRite hearings will be continued after other business before the Wyckoff Planning Board has been heard. The experts for ShopRite completed their testimony early in October of 2011, and the corporate opponents then presented their case. Inserra, the parent company for the proposed new ShopRite, has already complied with suggestions from the Wyckoff Shade Tree Commission and from the Wyckoff Design Review Committee for changes to the original plan to offer a façade more in harmony with Wyckoff’s “rural residential” character and to provide additional shade trees and buffer screening for the expansive parking lot. The lot where Inserra wishes to build the new ShopRite has been vacant for more than a dozen years following the closing of the Wyckoff A&P and the adjacent Walgreen’s store. At one point, before the Boulder Run Stop & Shop was renovated at the site of the former Grand Union supermarket after Grand Union declared bankruptcy and closed the building, Wyckoff, which had once been served by two major supermarkets located within easy walking distance, had no large supermarket at either parking lot near the center of the township. The ShopRite plans have led to the closing of a small strip mall that included the former site of the Wyckoff Department of Motor Vehicles office. Wyckoff volunteers are being urged to pick the spots they want to clean up in advance of the April 14 “Team Up to Tidy Up” event. Many child-friendly targets will be available for younger children who are best advised to keep away from roadways and railways. Group leaders may call (201) 891-7000, extension 101. Volunteers will be welcome at Wyckoff Town Hall at Scott Plaza at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 14. All will meet in the second floor courtroom for an orientation and light refreshments. Cleanup assignments will be finalized and a group photo will be taken. Past events have brought out as many as 250 adults, teens, and children. This year, reusable shopping bags with the 2012 Team Up to Tidy Up logo will be distributed to the first 100 volunteers, along with supplies such as work gloves and litter Volunteers urged to choose cleanup spots bags. The rain date will be April 21. Anyone who is registered on the website will receive a cancellation notice in the event of inclement weather. Team Up to Tidy Up started when a group of residents on an evening walk noticed how some sites not under the control of individual residents or local government had become littered with paper and plastic trash. The Partners in Pride group, made up of these residents and their friends, began a regular volunteer cleanup that expanded to include church groups, Scouts, the Wyckoff Lions Club, and visitors from as far away as China and Korea, along with elected officials and members of the township’s administration. The work generally lasts about two hours, and volunteers generally enjoy the camaraderie as they tidy up Wyckoff. J. KOSTER Registration is now under way for fall classes at Grace Nursery School. The school will be open for visits Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. during the month of February. Parents and children are invited to tour the school, Grace Nursery School holds Open House observe classes in session, and pick up registration information. Grace Nursery School is located at 555 Russell Avenue. For more information, call (201) 891-4895.