WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. — One by one, they thumbed their nose at the law.
Small cars. Large cars. SUVs. Open-bed trucks and their larger siblings.
All speeding well over the posted 25 mph speed limit on a mostly poorly lighted road about as wide as a long birdie putt.
That was Monday night, just after 6 p.m. along Water Street.
“My father should still be here. These people just drive way over the speed limit. We’ve complained to the township for years, but nothing is ever done.”Edward Tomcics’s daughter, Marcia Pacchioli
That was where, on Christmas Night, 75-year-old Edward D. Tomcics was struck and killed by a Nissan SUV as he crossed the 17-feet-wide road to return home with his three teenage granddaughters.
Less than an hour after those vehicles speeded along Water Street on Monday, Tomcics’s family, friends, neighbors and concerned community members packed a township board of commissioners meeting to implore them to do something to address the speeding problem.
“It’s like this all the time,” Tomcics’s daughter, Marcia Pacchioli, said as she shook her head at the speeding vehicles outside 3243 Water St.
“My father should still be here. These people just drive way over the speed limit. We’ve complained to the township for years, but nothing is ever done.
“Now, my father’s dead. That’s why we’re going to the meeting, to see if we can get them to do something so another family doesn’t go through what we’re going through.”
'I told you so'
The board of commissioners spent the better part of Monday's more-than-three-hour meeting hearing complaints from angry and frustrated residents about what they perceive as the township being lax for years in addressing the speeding on Water Street.
“I’ve been here in the past to tell you that I’ll be back to say I told you so,” Anthony Jezik, a Water Street resident, told the board. “So now I’m here to say I told you so.
“As soon as I get off my porch, I have to look both ways at cars doing 40, 50, 60 miles an hour. You have to do something now. I mean, we did tell you this would happen.”
“How many times did he [her husband] come here to ask you to do something? My oldest granddaughter had to be the one to see her grandfather lying dead on the street. You all sit there and do nothing. Now I ask you, what are you going to do? Can I have an answer?”Edward Tomcics’s widow, Barbara, to Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners
Tomcics’s widow, Barbara, asked the board, “How many times did he [her husband] come here to ask you to do something?
“My oldest granddaughter had to be the one to see her grandfather lying dead on the street. You all sit there and do nothing. Now I ask you, what are you going to do?
“Can I have an answer?”
When an immediate response was not forthcoming, the standing-room-only crowd shouted at the board members, demanding an answer to Tomcics’s question.
Township Mayor Joseph J. Marx Jr. extended his sympathy to the family. He assured them he would do everything he can to address the problem, including installing speed control signs that are being ordered and erecting jersey barriers at the intersection of Eberhard and Lehigh streets.
Jersey barriers are concrete or plastic barriers used to separate traffic lanes, protect pedestrians and guide traffic.
“What I’m proposing to do is that we turn Water Street into a cul-de-sac, if that’s agreeable with the neighbors,” Marx said. “The only access will be from the bridge side; that will calm traffic.”
Some residents asked the township to install speed bumps on Water Street.
“Speed bumps would not work, I’ve been told by the engineers,” Marx said.
Investigation 'could take months'
The years of inaction by the township whipped those in attendance Monday into a frenzy.
“Do you think we don’t have any empathy for this family?” board President Thomas Slonaker asked the attendees.
“A man’s life was lost because of your negligence!” resident Loriann Fehnel screamed.
Earlier, Fehnel told the board she attended a board of commissioners’ workshop meeting on Aug. 5, 2019, when Water Street residents presented a petition requesting the board install speed bumps to address speeding cars.
After Tomcics was struck and killed, Fehnel said, she filed a Right To Know request to learn if anything was done to address the issue.
On Dec. 30, she said, she received the information she requested and learned a proposal to address the problem was drafted, but was never authorized.
As Barbara Tomcics was leaving Monday’s meeting, she said she was encouraged by some of the safety remedies she heard from the board, particularly Mayor Marx’s plan to create a cul-de-sac at one end of Water Street to restrict drive-through traffic.
As for the police investigation into the fatal incident, township Chief of Police Michael Marks said it “could take months.”
Asked whether evidence exists showing that the driver of the vehicle that struck Tomcics was speeding, Marks said the damage to the vehicle did not appear to support the narrative that there was a high speed involved.
Marks also said the driver submitted to a blood-alcohol breath test on the scene, and no alcohol was detected in his system.
'Nothing ever changes here'
Friends of Tomcics expressed profound sorrow at his death.
“He was the first person to greet me when I moved there,” said Rick Reigle, of Water Street. “Now he’s gone.”
Reigle closed his remarks to the board with a sarcastic, “Thank you, thank you.”
Two of Pacchioli’s daughters, Kaylee, 18, and Arabelle, 15, approached their mother outside their home before heading off to the board of commissioners meeting.
“This is how it’s been all the time, for years.”Edward Tomcics’s daughter, Marcia Pacchioli
Kaylee shared the last time she spoke to her grandfather.
“We all got out of the van a couple minutes before him because he’s a little bit slower because he has bad knees,” Kaylee said. “So, we were already in the house.
“Then I was in my bedroom and I heard a crash or something. I heard him scream. I came running out here and I saw him there. Then I ran inside to tell everyone else what happened.”
On Monday, car after car sped past the spot where Edward Tomcics, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam, was killed.
To those drivers, the 25 on the speed limit signs were merely the number after 24.
“This is how it’s been all the time, for years,” Pacchioli said. “Nothing ever changes here.
“And it cost my father his life.”
