By JOSEPH KELLARD
"There's always room for improvement, and that's why we have these town meetings," Santino stated in his opening comments.
Residents who live on Harrison Avenue, the street running along the south side of the motel, told Santino and George Gudmundsen, inspector of the Fourth Precinct, that in recent years the motel has deteriorated considerably in both its appearance and its clientele.
"There's kids getting drunk in the rooms, people selling drugs, women soliciting for prostitution, people urinating on our lawns, people running down the block from the motel and fighting in front of our houses. Are you going to wait for someone to get raped there before you do something," said Steven Birdie, who lives directly across from the motel.
A woman whose house is right behind the motel said that garbage, from papers to beer bottles and syringes, is constantly dumped in her backyard, and her home has been burglarized three times, all of which she blames on the people who frequent or live at the motel.
Other residents claimed that they believe the motel has become a welfare motel where people live year round, and they questioned the legality of this and other circumstances.
Gudmundsen explained to the residents that the police always respond to residents' calls regarding disturbances at the motel, but that they were doing all they could "within the law."
"You may have a man and a woman having an argument in the motel and that may spill out onto the street, but if we get there and they are back in the room and have quieted down, there's nothing we can do unless we are there to witness it as it is going on," he explained.
He stressed that the police only have so many resources and many other incidents to tend to in the communities that the Fourth Precinct covers, some of which are of comparatively greater priority.
While town officials discussed with residents certain legal matters regarding what would be need to prosecute certain crimes and to get the motel shut down, Gudmundsen said that in the mean time neighbors must continue to call 911 about any suspicious or overt criminal incidents.
Marlborough Road still a concern
Also attending the town meeting were residents of Marlborough Road, located across the street from the Oceanside High School. Three weeks ago a student of the school drove recklessly and flipped his car over two properties along the block.
"Someone is going to get killed on this block. It's inevitable," said one Marlborough Road resident.
Other residents complain that, despite that the street is a narrow block with parking permitted on both sides of the road, many high school students still speed. Some of the residents suggested converting the road into a one way street.
"We will look at every means of traffic control for the street," Santino promised, including converting the street into a dead end.
More traffic concerns
Other issues that residents raised at the meeting were calls for greater police enforcement of drivers who pass stopped school buses with departing children, to enforcement of residents who break building codes by allowing their properties to become like junk yards, to getting traffic lights installed at hazardous intersections.
Santino also informed the crowd of various projects the town has in store for Oceanside, including renovations of parking lots at the Oceanside train station to the building of a soccer field in Oceanside Park.
