NEWARK — Dwight Willis, who heads up the block association on Newark’s Columbia Avenue, Friday stood a few feet from where 5-year-old Julianne Vega perished in a hit-and-run incident and had this lament: His pleas for speed bumps on what he called a "racetrack" went unheeded.

Ironically, it turns out his narrow one-way street was on a list of 43 stretches in Newark’s West Ward to get "speed-calming" measures.

"Obviously, a tragedy like this just illuminates how government is too slow at times," said Ron Rice Jr., the West Ward councilman who attributed the oversight, in part, to an administrative delay in replacing a surveyor who went out of business. "It just really hurts my heart. ... Obviously, we didn’t work quick enough."

In a neighborhood populated with children, young Julianne was struck and killed about 8:38 p.m. Thursday while crossing her street just a few yards from her handsome brick two-story in the city’s Vailsburg section. She was pronounced dead at University Hospital at 9:04 p.m.

By 5:10 p.m. Friday, Robert Laurino, the acting Essex County prosecutor, announced the surrender of 24-year-old Saleem Wright of Irvington. At 2:30 p.m. Friday, Wright turned himself in to the Rev. Ron Christian at the Christian Love Baptist Church in Irvington in a surrender coordinated by the suspect’s attorney, Gerald Saluti, and the prosecutor’s office, Laurino said.

"Today, we can take solace in the fact we have made an arrest," Laurino said.

He was being held on $150,000 bail at the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark, facing charges of death by auto, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and endangering an injured victim, crimes that can carry a 10- to 20-year prison term, Laurino said.

One of the first breakthroughs came at 2:54 a.m., when a 2005 blue Mercedes Benz CLK convertible, registered to Wright and fitting the description of the suspect vehicle, was discovered at 7th Avenue and North 11st Street in Newark. It had visible front-end damage, officials said.

The investigation is continuing, Laurino said, but officials would not confirm reports that four people were in the vehicle. "It probably was traveling at a considerable rate of speed," he said.