Borough of Point Pleasant – For the 2020 calendar year, the Borough of Point Pleasant was selected to receive funding from the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s (NJDOT) Municipal Aid Program in the amount of $565,179.00. According to Borough Administrator Frank Pannucci Jr., “This is a very competitive grant program and the last few years the Borough has been successful in receiving funding because of the aggressiveness Mayor Sabosik and the Council have been going after the grants. Each year, the NJDOT receives over 600 applications requesting more than $300 million dollars of which the money goes to roadway improvements and not every town gets money awarded to them. Since 2017, to date this Administration has been successful in obtaining over $1.6 million dollars in grant money from this program and it’s something we are very proud of.”
According to Mayor Robert A. Sabosik, “Every year we put in for multiple projects and the State of New Jersey determines which ones get awarded and this year the State awarded us for two major improvement projects. One is a grant in the amount of $325,000.00 for the total road reconstruction of Oriol Way and another in the amount of $240,179.00 for sidewalk construction on Rue Rivoli and Rue Lido which currently do not have sidewalks. The sidewalk project is especially important because this Administration has been concentrating on putting in new sidewalks where possible on major roadways and building out from our schools. Besides the new sidewalks we just did on Bridge Avenue and Beaver Dam Road, two years ago we put in new sidewalks on Riviera Parkway connecting Nellie Bennett Elementary School. This grant we just received will enable us to build sidewalks on Rue Rivoli and Rue Lido that will connect to the sidewalks directly surrounding Nellie Bennett thus making it safer for children to walk to school, especially since these two roads connect the school to Bridge Avenue.”
Councilman Joe Furmato who chairs the Council’s Public Works Committee added that “I’m thrilled our efforts are being recognized. There have been years in the past where the Borough did not receive any grant money, but now the State sees that we put the money to good use on worthwhile projects and they are more prone to award us these essential funds. This money helps us continue to improve Point Pleasant without having to have the taxpayer locally completely shoulder the burden.”