Park Finished As Recreation Scheduled For Summer

Bowker Memorial Field in Whiting was praised recently by Mayor Kenneth Palmer for its immaculate appearance. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)

  MANCHESTER – Mayor Kenneth Palmer spoke about the township’s summer recreation program during a recent meeting of the governing body.

  “Recreation is open and taking reservations for the summer programs and everything else we are able to offer. If you haven’t already done so sign up at rec desk. It is a new online registration portal and it makes life a lot easier using it as opposed to the old way of drop and scroll,” the mayor said.

  He noted a resolution passed during the night’s meeting approving a company to come in to do striping work “at Bowker Memorial Field. A couple years ago we installed an irrigation system to those fields and with all the limited play last year (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) the grass on the softball fields look immaculate.”

  “I’d like to applaud and thank our DPW (Department of Public Works) because if you go out there and look at those fields it is like a professional softball field. The grass looks so nice and the fields look great. We are done with revitalizing that park. The striping and the painting is the last part of that process. It really is a nice park,” the mayor added.

  The mayor said, “I encourage everyone to go out to Bowker Field in Whiting to check it out.”

Photo by Bob Vosseller

  “With our return to work and opening the (municipal) building to the public, I’d like to thank Mickey King (interim business administrator) for putting together a plan where all our employees will be coming back to Town Hall. We are looking to open the building to the public on June 14 or June 15,” the mayor added.

  He said that there would be a limit to the number of people in each department “so we don’t have five people going into the building inspections. That is what our receptionist will take care of – letting people in and out. We are going to open the building back up. It is time to start back to our, and I hate the term, new norm and start moving forward.

  “I want to thank our employees for working and making all the split sessions work and to keep doing what we need to do for the residents,” the mayor said.

  Township Clerk Sabina Martin noted during the meeting that she had been contacted by the Board of Elections. “All our polling places will be opening. We have a couple of changes because some of the villages are not open for elections.”

  “We have found new locations. We will be putting that on our website and contacting those villages to tell them where their new polling location will be temporarily until their club houses reopen,” Martin added.

Photo by Bob Vosseller

  She said the Board of Elections contacted her office “to let us know that we are at full capacity and all the polling places are open throughout the county and they are very short of poll workers. If anyone is interested in working as a poll worker, please contact the Ocean County Board of Elections. Their phone number is 732-929-2167. They are desperate to get some poll workers. They do send you to a training session prior to you working the polls.”