Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • March 6, 2013 Wyckoff Pay-as-you-go grass collection considered by John Koster The Wyckoff Township Committee is considering possible plan to offer residents who request curbside pickup of grass clippings to pay-as-they-go -- at $150 per household per year if 400 homeowners send in their checks. Mayor Rudy Boonstra and the Wyckoff Township Committee discussed whether enough residents would sign up to make the proposal viable. They estimated that about 20 Wyckoff residents had contacted them to request that clipped grass pickup be retained, while Wyckoff officials urged that the grass clippings be composted on the premises or brought to the Wyckoff Recycling Area by the residents or their contractors. The grass pickup -- and the expense -- have been deleted from the joint Wyckoff-Franklin Lakes contract with the collector, obtained at what Wyckoff officials call advantageous terms. “I think it’s worth having a discussion,” said Township Committeeman Brian Scanlan. “I think we would have a target number of residents we would need to make this work.” Scanlan said the contractor had estimated the cost of a house by house grass pickup contract at about $60,000 a year. That led to an estimate that at least 400 households would need to sign up and pay before May 1 to allow the curbside grass pickups to continue as they did prior to 2013. “I think the prospect of getting 400 is pretty remote,” Township Committeeman Douglas Christie said. “A decision would have to be made before May 1 to trigger the program,” said Township Committeeman Kevin Rooney. The township committeemen pointed out that all checks for private deals with the contractor would have to be received before the program could be arranged with the contractor. Anyone whose check was accepted could receive three stickers authorizing grass pickup. However, if the program did not receive the estimated 400 checks of $150 required to be viable, each fee would have to be returned by voucher and could not be held in abeyance pending the final count on the checks. The township committeemen were in agreement that, if the grass clipping pickup were restored, it would have to be pay-as-you-go, in Mayor Boonstra’s words. Some Wyckoff homeowners wish to compost their own grass clippings, both for environmental and financial reasons. “It’s a lot of money,” Rooney said of the contract. “We’re trying to save pennies.” The Wyckoff Township Committee has appointed nine citizen delegates to the Russell Farms Resident Advisory Committee. The members of the newlyappointed group will study the recreational potential of the Russell Farm tract on Sicomac Avenue and Russell Avenue in concert with two liaison delegates from the township committee. The citizen delegates include Lisa Russell Farms Resident Advisory Committee appointed Ambrose, Abbe Kooper, William O’Connell, James Sheehan, Carrie Soumas Thompson, Susan Gurak, Robert Harz, Randy Hoogerhyde, and Scott Fisher, who is head of the Wyckoff Department of Public Works. The resolution, voted unanimously and adopted without controversy, did not list the two township committee liaison members. Township Administrator Robert Shannon will serve as the committee’s recording secretary. The Russell Farms advisory group is slated to remain operational for a maximum of one year and will deliver recommendations for the use of the 5.4-acre site, with the expectation that a mixture of active and passive uses will be considered. The township committee retains the ultimate responsibility for future use of the site. The price of the property was $3.1 million. The land purchase, including the clean bill of environmental health from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, was covered with $1,859,000 from the Bergen County Open Space grant Wyckoff obtained from Bergen County, $1,204,000 from the municipal Open Space Tax authorized by Wyckoff voters in 2007, and $37,000 from the township’s capital improvement fund, part of the municipal budget adopted a few days before. The owners who sold Russell Farms to Wyckoff, Cole & Burke Realty Investments and Barrister Land Development Company, had originally intended the site for condominiums and later for singlefamily houses, but the pesticide pollution left over from the days when the tract was a working farm forestalled construction. The real estate market then slumped due to the general economic situation. The Township of Wyckoff moved to purchase the tract, but would not consummate the deal until the pesticide contamination had been handled. Meanwhile, the township committee is now exploring the possible purchase of the Maple Lake site for further acquisition of open space. J. KOSTER