By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
It’s not often that the mother of a Sea Isle City councilman shows up at a meeting to propose a solution for something she wants fixed in town.
Kathleen Edwardi was all business Tuesday when she urged her son, Frank Edwardi Jr., and the other members of City Council to have Sea Isle place another one of the popular beach mats at 72nd Street to help beachgoers navigate their way across the sand.
“Try to get down there in a walker or a wheelchair. It’s almost impossible,” she told the Council members of the challenges for senior citizens and disabled people to gain access to the beach without the help of a mat.
In response to Kathleen Edwardi’s concerns, City Business Administrator George Savastano said in an interview that the city hopes to add another beach mat at 72nd Street before the end of the summer season.
The pathway through the dunes to the 72nd Street beach already has a mat, but Edwardi wants another one added to make it easier for beachgoers to walk across the sand. She said the existing mat is simply too short.
“It’s wide enough, but it’s not long enough. And that’s the problem,” she explained in an interview after the Council meeting.
By extending the existing mat at 72nd Street with another one, it would help beachgoers from getting bogged down in the deep sand, Edwardi said.
The non-slip, plastic mats lie on top of the sand, providing an easier transition from the pathways over the dunes to the beaches. They are sometimes referred to as “Mobi-Mats,” short for mobility mats.
Kathleen Edwardi, 75, lives on 72nd Street and uses the beach at 72nd Street. She said the beach is popular with senior citizens, disabled people and young families.
She handed Council a petition containing the names of other homeowners who want another beach mat placed at 72nd Street.
“It’s not just old people. It’s also younger people with their kids or grandkids,” Edwardi said of the beachgoers who struggle to walk through the sand at 72nd Street.
A slight incline on the pathway to the beach adds to the challenge of walking through the sand, she noted.
“It’s hard on my knees by the time I get to the beach,” she said.
She believes that Sea Isle should make it a priority to extend the beach mat at 72nd Street to accommodate the city’s visitors and vacationers.
“These people spend a lot of money to get to the beach. Why can’t they have access?” she said in the interview.
Looking ahead to the summer season, Council approved a $44,380 contract in February to buy 25 new beach mats.
From time to time, residents will appear at City Council meetings to urge Sea Isle officials to buy more of the mats to improve access to the beaches for senior citizens and disabled people.
“They’re very popular with our residents and our visitors,” city spokeswoman Kathleen Custer said.
Overall, about 90 percent of the beaches from one end of the island to the other have mats, she said.
Currently, there are no mats between 88th Street and 93rd Street because of heavy beach erosion there that allows the ocean to wash high up on the sand during high tide, Custer noted.
“It was just not feasible with the high tide there to put mats on those beaches,” she said.
Mats are also not placed on pathways that serve as vehicle entry points to the beach. They include 22nd Street, 29th Street, 44th Street, 57th Street, 75th Street and 92nd Street.
Tractors used for beach maintenance work would destroy the mats if they were put on the beaches serving as vehicle entry points, Custer explained.
The beach pathway next to the pavilion at John F. Kennedy Boulevard also does not have a mat because of a steep incline down to the beach.
On the beaches that have mats, they will remain there roughly until the weekend of Sept. 16-17 for Sea Isle’s Fall Family Festival. By Oct. 1, the mats will be placed in storage until the 2024 summer season, Custer said.
