Commissioner of Public Saftey Tim Kriebel welcomes Joseph Callahan Jr. to the Ventnor City Fire Department.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
VENTNOR – The Board of Commissioners Thursday, Feb. 24 announced that for the convenience of beachgoers it is considering an additional way to purchase beach tags. The board is also considering revising the way it informs motorists about No Parking areas at street ends next to the boardwalk bulkhead. Additionally, it welcomed a new firefighter to the ranks of the Ventnor City Fire Department.
Commissioner of Public Safety and Community Affairs Tim Kriebel swore in Joseph Callahan Jr. to a full-time position effective March 1.
Callahan is the son of longtime firefighter Joseph Callahan Sr. who worked for the department for 37 years.
Kriebel said Callahan Jr. is “highly qualified” for the job because he has more than three years of experience and is a certified emergency medical technician.
Administrator Thomas Ciccarone announced he has been working with the police and fire chiefs on a plan to unify no parking areas on beach blocks near the boardwalk. All street ends have been surveyed to see the state of various no parking zone markings.
“We are trying to get a unified approach to parking on these beach blocks,” he said. “We concluded that a general ordinance prohibiting parking within 75 feet of bulkhead or street ends would work on virtually all streets,” with some exceptions, he said.
Some of the street ends are properly marked but others have markings that label them as Fire Zones, which is technically incorrect, he said.
Ciccarone said he is working to get an ordinance introduced at the next meeting that would identify a 75 foot area as no parking areas along all street ends. The markings would be placed on the street surface clearly identifying “No Parking Beyond This Point,” which would help eliminate sign clutter, he said.
Unifying the markings on all street ends would create a few more paid parking spaces on some streets, including a metered street, he said.
“We will get the appropriate description to put it into the ordinance, which we hope to introduce on March 14,” he said.
The striping could be done in April or May and completed before summer.
Mayor Lance Landgraf expressed some concern about removing No Parking street signs, “which is what people look for,” he said, asking Ciccarone to check if the street painting signage will be enforceable.
Additionally, Ciccarone said the city is considering adding a new option for purchasing beach tags that would eliminate the need for beach tag checkers, who are mostly teenagers, to carry cash and sell physical tags on the beach. Instead, they would be equipped with a lanyard containing a QR Code to share with the beachgoer, who would then download the MyBeachMobile app and purchase a digital tag.
“This would not subtract, it’s an addition,” Kriebel said. “We have to educate the public that this is available and something they can do instead of getting in line on the weekend.”
Online sales would also eliminate the need to reconcile tags and cash for each beach tag checker and would reduce the workload for the Finance Office, Ciccarone said.
The app is currently being used in Margate, Sea Isle City and Long Beach Island towns.
Ventnor and Margate have a reciprocal agreement to share beach tags, but revenue generated stays in the town that sells the tags.
If Margate is doing it, Ventnor would have to do it too or it could lose revenue, Landgraf said.
Beachgoers could also continue to purchase physical tags at the jerseycapetags.org website, which mails them directly to the purchaser using the US Postal Service.
Ciccarone said the service has been a “slam-dunk,” and that it has increased tag sales. Adding a mobile app for non-transferrable digital tags would be convenient and offers an additional choice for purchasers, which he believes will further increase revenue.
“I would love to see them sell another 30,000 tags for us,” he quipped.
Beachgoers would be able to purchase physical tags at City Hall, even on weekends. Additional in-person sales kiosks can be implemented at the rear of the Community Building on Newport Avenue, and at the tennis courts at Suffolk Avenue.
Because clerks will accept cash, “we will need adults to fill those positions,” he said.
For more information, see https://www.ventnorcity.org/beach-information.
In other business, Ciccarone announced the dates for public review of the municipal and school district budgets.
He hopes to have the municipal budget ready for introduction at the March 14 Board of Commissioners meeting, with a public hearing and vote on April 11.
The Board of School Estimate meeting is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 28 revised date) at City Hall. Ciccarone said the district would not be requesting any capital improvement funds this year.
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