Holmdel Mayor Wants To See Penalties Applied To JCP&L

HOLMDEL, NJ — Issues within the Holmdel water drainage and power systems were brought up by township committee members at their last meeting on Tuesday.

Mayor Gregory Buontempo said he was frustrated with JCP&L's service.

"We continue to have every time a storm comes through outages in our town and it's unfair," Buontempo said. "Very frustrating that we're dealing with this over — like groundhog day with JCP&L."

The mayor said he is going to send a letter to the company telling them they are continuing to provide "inferior service." He is also reaching out to legislators about the issue.

"More significant, I feel, penalties need to be applied to JCP&L for not performing up to standards. If they're gonna be our monopoly utility, they need to perform better," the mayor said.

Just this week, thunderstorms in New Jersey left at least 44,000 homes without power in Monmouth County.

Committee member Prakash Santhana also raised the issue of water drainage in town.

"The plight of the residents at Palmer Square is getting worst. There's a lot of flooding. We have to do something about it," he said.

Santhana suggested that a retention basin should be created to address the issue, possibly in the two large tracks of land behind the TD Bank on Laurel Avenue. He asked whether a resolution could be passed to allow for an exploratory study.

"Middletown will also be impacted so they may be interested in joining us," he also said.

Mayor Buontempo responded by saying that a study from Rutgers from years ago had started to look into water drainage in Holmdel and that in order to do anything about it they had to look at a broader area, not just Palmer Square.

"It can't just be Holmdel because Middletown is gonna keep building and it's gonna keep flowing into Holmdel as we potentially build basins to help it," Buontempo said.

A couple of people spoke about how this is a big issue and how it needs to de dealt with before a catastrophe hits the town.

One resident said that efforts need to be doubled in cleaning stormwater drains.

"I've seen at times some of our stormwater drains pretty badly covered," he said.

Mayor Buontempo also took some time to also address the 9/11 ceremony in town, days after the 20th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, saying that there was a big outpour of support from the community.

"[I'm] very proud of the way everybody in town came together for the event," he said. "It just goes to show that the community that we have here is just amazing."