2340                               Municipal Charters

ABSENT
Councilman Harry Fullbrook

Convening—Approval of Minutes, August 25

The Mayor and Council of the City of Salisbury met in regular session
at City Hall at 8 p.m. on Monday, September 8, 1969 in the Council Cham-
bers. The meeting was called to order by the President of the Council the
Lord's Prayer was repeated and minutes of the previous meeting held on
August 25, 1969 were approved as written on a motion made and seconded
by Rodgers and Seidel.

Appearance—Vine Street Petitioners re
Truck Traffic and related problems on Vine St.

A large delegation of residents of Vine Street appeared before Coun-
cil relative to an earlier petition to have something done about the heavy
truck traffic on their residential street and to present a new petition con-
taining approximately 54 names to support and restate their position.

Council President Martin called on the Executive Secretary to review
the results of studies made by the Public Works Dept. and the Police Dept.
and these were read to the Council and to the residents. In summary, the
Public Works and Police Depts. observed that most of the truck traffic
occurs in the early evening hours and results from the routing of one par-
ticular truck company with contributions from a few others. These trucks
come in from Snow Hill Road and proceed to Messick Ice Company before
going on to Route 13. Police and Public Works Dept. surveys indicated
no major traffic problems.

Mr. George Sullivan questioned the studies made by the Public Works
Dept. and advised the traffic counts were not taken on days when traffic
is heaviest. He recommended going back and taking counts at other times
and questioned the theory of the Ice Company destination as the only
reason Vine Street was being used excessively by heavy trucking com-
panies. Another gentleman pointed out that trucks transporting live chick-
ens and others carrying large logs and cut trees were certainly not headed
to Messick Ice Co. since they needed no ice for such cargo.

Councilman Martin asked what alternate streets could be used if Vine
Street was posted to prohibit heavy trucks from using it and was told by
P. C. Cooper that College Ave. and E. Main Street were the only legal and
logical routes from Snow Hill Road.

It was noted by Council that Ryan Trucking Co., the company who has
the most traffic on Vine Street, had been contacted by the Chief of Police
and they had promised to reroute their trucks to relieve the situation and to
cooperate fully.

Further discussion of the problem resulted in a decision by Council
to relieve the residents on Vine Street of the heavy truck traffic as much
as possible by posting the street with signs prohibiting trucks that are
thru-trucks with more than two axles. Chief of Police, Leslie Payne, re-
quested the decision on whether or not a truck was a thru-traffic truck be
left with the Police Dept. Councilman Powell motioned the above which
was seconded by Seidel and carried unanimously. P. C. Cooper asked and
was advised that the posting should also be done on Washington Street
and was authorized to proceed with same as soon as possible.

In addition to the truck traffic problem, several residents brought up
other problems which they felt were connected with the traffic complaint