PAGE 8 — THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2011 LOCALSOURCE.COM UNION COUNTY LOCALSOURCE

OPINIONJTOJRIAL

When it snows,clear the hydrantWho knows? The snowstorms of this winter might

continue for another four or five weeks. After all, theGreat Blizzard of 1888, considered, well, the greatestin our recorded history, dropped more than 40 inchesof snow in New Jersey from March 11 to 14 duringthat year.

While most of us have learned, after nine stormsthis season, how to protect ourselves and our proper-ty, there is one precaution that we might have over-looked, and that's clearing away the snow fromaround our municipal fire hydrants.

If there is a hydrant on your property or nearby,either you or your neighbors should be keeping itclear, visible and readily accessible to emergencycrews.

The reasoning behind this precaution is simple. If ahouse fire occurs and the trucks arrive, several min-utes could be lost if the firefighters are forced to digout the hydrant. They would be able to identify thelocation without any trouble — there are maps andmemories aboard the truck — but during an emer-gency, when life and property are in danger, there isno time to spare.

Those lost minutes it takes for firefighters to clearsnow from the hydrant could be critical to the overallrescue mission. And during this winter, when thesnowpack seems to get deeper and deeper by theweek, the time it takes to dig out a hydrant growslonger.

If there is a hydrant on your property, keep it clearof snow. If there is one in your neighborhood, makecertain that somebody is assigned the task. If youknow a senior citizen who has a hydrant on their prop-erty, consider offering to clear away the snow forthem.

Similar to most precautions involving the preserva-tion of life and property, this one is simple and rathereasy to accomplish, but the rewards can be immeas-urable.

We urge all homeowners to do their part and helpmake our neighborhoods as safe as they can be thiswinter season. !

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KICK IT UP — Clark Recreation is currently hosting it's six-week indoor soccerprogram. More than 400 children play each Saturday for one hour. Indoor Soc-cer is one of the many programs offered by the recreation department.

The changing face of the countyUsually public officials can give

a pretty good breakdown as to themakeup of their community. Itcomes not from a sophisticated sta-tistical analysis. Rather the door-to-door grind of campaigns and thephone calls coming into town hallgive a good handle of who the tax-payers are in a community.

Mayor Joseph Menza in Hillsidefor example, made close estimatesof the ethnic and racial breakdownof his community as set forth by theU.S. Census numbers released lastweek. The statistical category of"White Non-Hispanic" comprise5,324 in his community. The"Black" population is now at11,384. The growing Hispanic por-tion of his community was peggedat 3,774.

One number which did mildlysurprise Menza was the overallpopulation of Hillside which actu-ally dropped 1.68 percent. Overall,Union County saw an increase 2.67percent. This meant the countyranked only seventh in terms ofpopulation gain.

Nearby Essex County actuallysaw a population decrease of 1.22percent. The big winners of popula-tion increase include Ocean Coun-ty, up about 13 percent and Somer-set County at 8.72 percent. Thegeneral consensus is that the state'spopulation is moving southeast andnorthwest.

In Linden, Mayor Richard Ger-bounka also had a pretty good esti-

LeftOutBy Frank Capece

mate as to the numbers of his city.He acknowledged that going doorto door in his city during his re-election campaign last year helpedhim see the changing faces of hiscommunity.

Linden's population, placed at40,449, actually increased 2.8 per-cent. In Linden "White-Non His-panic" made up 18,000 people.The black community is 10,869with the biggest jumps found in theHispanic portion of his communitywhich now tops 10,000. Gerboun-ka called the trend before he wasprovided with the numbers. He saidthat during the campaign he noticeda jump in Hispanic families in theeastern end of his city.

For Plainfield Councilman Adri-an Mapp his city's census figuresprovided good and bad news. Onthe good news front the city's rede-velopment efforts were paying offwith increase in population. A verydisappointing aspect was that thecity came within iess than 200 peo-ple of making the magical 50,000number.

Plainfield had conducted anaggressive effort to insure all citi-zens were counted. The 50,000number is especially valuable in

terms of calculating federal andstate aid amounts. The 50,000 pop-ulation mark held by only Elizabethand Union would have allowed thecity to apply individually for com-munity developments block grantmoneys. This remains one of thefew categories where funds areavailable to assist cash strappedcommunities.

The census numbers are alsocritical in terms of the new makeupof congressional and legislativedistricts which are about to be tack-led in Trenton.

The official census numbersconfirm that the state will be forcedto give up a congressional seat tothe skyrocketing populationincreases in the south and south-west.

More locally the jump in thepopulation will require a bigreshuffling of the Legislative Dis-tricts to accommodate the popula-tion moves in the state. One pub-lished report last week said theCentral Union County District rep-resented by Sen. Thomas Kean Jr.is statistically right on target interms of meeting the ideal numberof 220,000 for a district.

It should remind everyone thatwhen the next census comes aroundin 2020, everyone should partici-pate since the numbers really docount.

An attorney, Frank Capece is aresident of Cranford.