Both Merchantville and Cherry Hill councils have regularly scheduled meetings tonight, which will discuss some points of the merger study.
Per an article by Melissa DiPento in The Cherry Hill:
"Borough clerk Denise Brouse said the five members of the group are Merchantville residents Kathy Birmingham, Rosemari Hicks, Richard James, Council member Anthony Perno and George Wilkinson..."
"Members of the Cherry Hill commission are Platt, Roger Dennis, Tom Yarnall, board of education president Seth Klukoff and township business liaison Natalie Barney, said township spokesman Dan Keashen"
"On Monday, July 18 residents are invited to attend two public meetings in Cherry Hill to meet the commission members and to focus specifically on the consolidation study process. Platt said to keep in mind that no work has been done on consolidation yet and no information has been generated on the financial and human impact of a study.
The first meeting, at 7 p.m., will focus on Cherry Hill specifically. A joint meeting with Merchantville will be held immediately following the first session. Both will be held in the Carman Tilelli Community Center, 820 Mercer St."
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This forum will be moderated for anonymous attacks on members of either committee and also on vocal opponents to the merger study. If you have something of substance sign your name to it; otherwise, save your prose for the comment sections of your favorite local newspaper on your conspiracy theories. We're going to try and have a civil discourse here. Or we can just go back to silence. It doesn't really matter to me.
Mvl Cit: This forum will be moderated for anonymous attacks ... and also vocal opponents to the merger study.
How about vocal supporters of the study? Will Mvl Cit be deleting them too or is it just one way --"opponents"-- on deletions?
It seems to me that if a local politician is involved in orchestrating a great political happening --the merging of his town-- which could very likely catapult his personal political and professional career into a greater arena [characterized as a "bigger pond" by the deleted commenter], such a politician should be fair game for blog comment.
It is yet to be learned if such a character behaves as did the dramatized Senators in the classic movie "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" (James Stewart, Claude Rains, 1939). But political maneuvering on Merchantville Council --in this instance a minority member creating an impasse to the continuation of two redevelopment projects worth millions of dollars and costing Merchantville more than a million in debt so far-- certainly should be news worthy of comment/discussion.
I disagree with Mvl Cit's thinking that silence is preferable to allowing dissenting comments. It reminds me of the unfortunate philosophy of "neutrality" in the Merchantville Observer.
To me Mvl Cit would be fairer to reinstate the deleted comment.
The Cherry Hill article did not list the Merchantville meeting:
A public information meeting about the consolidation study process will be held on Tuesday 12 July 2011 at 7:30 pm. The meeting is to offer information on the study process, and hear concerns from those attending. The meeting is being held in the Fellowship Hall of Trinity United Methodist Church at Chapel and Maple Avenues.
Much of the information about the process was covered in our last public meeting, and because the letters circulated by the Mayor much of Merchantville has already been presented with a summary of the study process. But anyone who wants to share concerns and thoughts, please come out Tuesday evening.
Mvl Cit: This forum will be moderated for anonymous attacks ... and also vocal opponents to the merger study.
I disagree with Mvl Cit's thinking that silence is preferable to allowing dissenting comments. What is a blog for if not to offer opportunity for various sides of an issue to be explored?
If Mvl Cit will be deleting "vocal opponents" to the consolidation study, will he also be deleting vocal supporters of the study?
The archives of this blog show numerous complaints about one sidedness of certain internet sites. Is this blogspot headed in the same direction?
I hope not.
Point of clarification: The blogmaster reserves the right to moderate those comments that he/she believes crosses a personal line. This goes for comments about proponents and opponents for a merger study. The blogmaster does not have a dog in this fight, and will do its best to remain as Switzerland if citizens choose to express the pros or cons of the merger study on this forum. The policy and motives of public officials is fair game, and ktbfw's summary captures the essence of moderated comment without crossing the line of the previous comment.
The July 12 public-information meeting scheduled by the merger group conflicts with a regular Borough meeting so I will not be able to attend.
Here's my question, Mr. Lavardera. Of the five appointed members to the study group --Borough clerk Denise Brouse said the five members of the group are Merchantville residents Kathy Birmingham, Rosemari Hicks, Richard James, Council member Anthony Perno and George Wilkinson-- how will the group address internal bias in its fact finding process?
Four of the 5 members named above have indicated publicly that they are very much in favor of a consolidation, primarily for the high school. The merger group, including you, complained about potential bias in the previously-approved study committee that Council selected last winter so much so that the committee was dissolved before it started.
What mechanism will be employed to prevent this new committee from doing what your group had feared, this time in your favor?
Reverse Bias - see you at the meeting tonight. The commissioners will respond to your question themselves.
Please note: None of the selected commissioners have a bias towards merger, but all have expressed interest in having a study. You have confused the two issues.
I hadn't heard about the public meeting until today. How is information being distributed to the public regarding the study, meetings, etc.? Who is responsible for keeping the community informed?
I’m curious about why a meeting of the Merchantville consolidation commission would schedule a meeting on the same nigh and the same time that the Planning Board and the School Board are meeting. There are other days in the week; there are other weeks in the month.
You have declared, Mr. Lavardera, that “None of the selected commissioners have a bias towards merger, but all have expressed interest in having a study.” I’ve looked at the names of the commissioners and have personally heard 4 of them publicly express an interest in sending our high school students to Cherry Hill schools. Maybe you don’t call that a bias toward merger, but I do.
How can a public information meeting be held if the public is not informed in a timely manner about the public meeting!
Where is this information posted?? I just checked Merchantvillenj.gov and Merchantville.com and there is nothing posted! I even checked Merchantville NJ's Facebook page! Nothing!
When is this nonsense going to stop?
Information about the meeting was published as a legal notice in Friday's edition of “The Retrospect”. I was informed by a friend who subscribes to that paper. About 100 Merchantville residents once subscibed to the weekly "Retrospect".
Maybe the Study Commission didn’t provide the information to the MerchantvilleNJ.gov site, the Merchantville.com site, or the Merchantville Faceook page. It was only posted on the Merchantville Study for Consolidation Facebook page 13 hours ago. Perhaps the commission publicized the meeting some other way.
We probably all agree that if the public is being invited to attend a meeting, the public should be informed of the date, time and location of that meeting.
I did not attend the Council meeting last night but I heard that Councilman Perno late in the evening (10:30+) proposed a Resolution Of Support for the consolidation study group and that a vote on the oral motion passed, only to be challenged afterwards because some councilmen were confused about which group they were voting for, the original group or the "ad hoc" group requested by the merger group.
I understand that there could be coming discussion on recinding that new resolution.
In all, with late-night, top-of-head resolutions, unadvertised public-information meetings, confusion of our government officials about whom they are supporting, and study group members expressing interest in study outcomes, well, it seems we are off to a bewildering start on a very serious project.
Not good!
Lets be clear...the merchantvillenj.gov website is governed by the town is opposed to even a the idea of a study...and the merchanville.com and merchantville facebook pages are managed by individuals also opposed to a study. Do you really believe they would allow anything to be posted? They have already taken down information related to the study. And who cares if there is a planning board meeting and school board meeting. How many residents do you think attend these meetings? I went to two school board meetings in the last few months and there were only three people there...my friends to be exact and we planned on being there together.
And the meeting was in the Courier Post over the weekend...
Gail,
The meeting was scheduled for Tuesday because that was the night offered to us by the Church. There is another meeting on 18 July as mentioned in the article above so anybody who has a conflict for this evening, or prefers an air conditioned meeting can opt for next monday.
The commissioners we've selected were vetted for having no preconceived conclusions about whether a merger will be beneficial or not. All of the commissioners understand that the Study is intended to provide the information needed to make a decision. So Gail, rather than draw conclusions I suggest you speak with them if you have doubts. Otherwise you are simply making assumptions about what they think.
Further...why is the Merchantville democratic party so opposed to a mere study? Really - are you that threatened? The council is composed of puppets who strings are pulled by old democrats worried about their financial future. What do you have to lose from the information gathered by a study? And what of a potential merger? Does this have something to do with the MPWC and the benefits for democrats who previously held office? Frankly, if the idea of a merger was so ridiculous why are some individuals so threatened? Ultimately the people of Merchantville get the last word not the council, not the mayor and not the previous mayor who is apparently pulling the strings...c'mon gentlemen...interestingly enough at the meeting in which the council voted to "endorse" the study...Brennan was texting red faced as soon as the vote passed...Volkert looked so bloated and red I though he would explode and the Mayor was could barely sit in his seat...it was rather comical
@Gail...being in favor of a study doesn't mean you are in favor of a merger...if the data doesn't show the benefits for Merchantville, I wouldn't want to move forward with it either...And we did ask several other people to be on the commission team, those individuals opposed to a merger, and they all said no!
Everyone should know that these meetings are being held to comply with the Consolidation Law. There is one meeting in Merchantville 12July, and one in Cherry Hill 18July, and one combined meeting in Cherry Hill 18July.
The purpose of these meetings is to inform people in Merchantville that there has been an application to the DCA form a Study Commission. Since the Mayor has sent several letters to every household in Merchantville informing them about the process, and since our group has already hosted a public meeting on Consolidation, the citizens of Merchantville are already know about this.
There is really no more information than that at this point. The commissions will not formally begin until the DCA approves the start, and we won't know their meeting schedule until then. And findings or conclusions not until the study has been conducted and reviewed, etc.
All this meeting is for is to say we are at the start and everybody knows that already. Our Anonymous opponents of the Study here may like to make this sound like a scandal, but there is really not much happening yet. Come out and see for yourself.
k.t.b.f.w., I went to the caucus before the Council meeting last night. Councilman Perno was not in attendance last night, and Councilman Brennan left at around 6:30.
Confirming LGR's comment above, after Council retracted their Study Application Resolution our group approached several of the Commissioners proposed by Mayor North. They all refused our request to be on our proposed commission.
Last night Council members made some statements about not trusting Cherry Hill because they refused to work with Council. These Councilmen may continue with that story but its worthwhile knowing what was painfully obvious to our group sitting on the sidelines while Council attempted to form an application with Cherry Hill. Lets boil it down to the essential important facts:
Last fall Joan Brennan posted a series of "Articles" on Merchantville.com criticizing Cherry Hill and the effectiveness of their government.
Later Mayor North proposed a slate of Commissioners that included Joan Brennan's Husband, former Mayor Brennan.
And then to nobody's surprise but Council, they could not gain the trust of Cherry Hill's officials.
Thats what happened. Council casting blame and suspicion at Cherry Hill at this point is staggeringly lame. They made their bed...
Let me go on record to say that I am in favor of a merger study. No one asked me if I wanted to be on the commission.
To LGR: I know, better than most, that being in favor of study doesn’t mean you are in favor of a merger.
To Lavardera: I am not making assumptions about what the commissioners think. As I said, I have personally heard 4 of them “publicly express an interest” in sending our high school students to Cherry Hill. I consider that to be a bias toward merger. You, apparently do not. I don’t even care if they have a bias toward merger; I only care that you said they did not.
To Tired of the Nonsense: If you are awake in this town more than 4 hours a day you know that two of the online sites mentioned are very tightly controlled by individuals opposed to consolidation and that the official Merchantville website is not really set up to publish anything other than “official” Boro news. My suggestion was simply that maybe none of the sites was even asked to publicize the meeting tonight. Do you know if they were, “Tired of the Nonsense”?
But since Mr. Lavardera has said there is not much happening yet and that the meeting tonight will not be held in an air-conditioned room, I’ll watch the All Star game tonight instead.
Did I say something offensive when I posted: “We probably all agree that if the public is being invited to attend a meeting, the public should be informed of the date, time and location of that meeting.”? That would be scary.
Gail, I think we could find a lot of people who would like to send our students to alternate high schools who are not bias towards a merger.
The proposed commissioners have solid skills and backgrounds to qualify them for doing this job. George is a former Councilman and a successful local business owner. Kathy is a long time resident, and manages her own business in our downtown. Rich is a former teacher and guidance counseler served on our schools self study commission. Rosemary is also been a business owner and is expert in Human Resources. Anthony is a current councilman and in important tie back to Council. And our alternate Dan is a Wharton grad.
Aside for Anthony being a current councilman none of our commissioners have any stake in any organization that may benefit or suffer from a merger of towns. They are all citizens like you and I and are approaching this with an outlook for what is best for the citizens of this town. That was our goal in asking people and I think we've assembled a strong and knowledgeable group for the job.
An add was placed in the Courier. The mayor and clerk were informed last week. A notice was placed at borough hall. The mayor was asked by one of our group to add to the town website. Nothing came of it. We did try Gail.
A second meeting of the same format will be held jointly with Cherry Hill and Merchantville at 8 p.m. on July 18, held in the Carman Tilleli Community Center at the Cherry Hill Municipal complex at 820 Mercer Street in Cherry Hill.
Again this meeting is to offer information on the process of applying to the Local Finance Board to study consolidation of the two municipalities.
To clarify where we are in this process and why these meetings are happening - Our application with Cherry Hill to form a Study Commission has been submitted to the DCA. It will now go to the Local Finance Board to be reviewed, and voted upon. Before the application is considered by the Board three public meetings must take place. One in each town, and one combined meeting in one of the towns. Merchantville's meeting was on 12July, and the combined meeting is on 18July as posted above.
A Study Commission is not officially formed until the Local Finance Board approves the application. At that point the Commission will organize, a regular schedule of meetings is established, as well as regular channels for publishing information on the progress of the Commission and taking in concerns from the public.
If you can not make it to a public meeting and you wish to learn more about the process we are entering, there is a detailed description of each step on the Courage to Connect web site. They have published a Guidebook that goes through the process step by step, and contains much more detail than we could cover in these public meetings.
http://www.couragetoconnectnj.org/guidebook/
How many residents attended the mandatory July 12 informational meeting?
Is it just a "pro-forma" task by Courage To Connect in order to qualify for the DCA process? Sort of looks that way from the organizational effort.
The West End Revitalization Task Force, which is not dealing with a matter nearly as important as merging towns, got about 45 residents to attend its first public meeting and 43 completed surveys on what the residents thought.
The Task Force is now working out the scheduling and notices for the second public meeting.
Lavardera, tell me which group appears more serious in getting the community informed and involved.
I will estimate that about 20 people attended the July 12 meeting. Keep in mind that the public may be so satisfied and content with the idea of a study that they could see no need for them to personally attend the meeting. Such could contrast with the motivation for participation in West End events where there could be widspread dissatisfaction with the situation thereby causing the meetings to be highly attended.
The study is a good idea and should proceed. The vast preponderance of the citizens realize that and support the study.
I counted 39
More than a guess, here is a quote from a resident who emailed me this morning.
"I was at a public meeting regarding the study of merger between Merchantville and Cherry Hill last night. Not many attended, and a main complaint was almost no one knew the public meeting was going on. The next meeting is MONDAY at 8pm in Cherry Hill. I'm trying to get word out that this is taking place so citizens may be informed no matter their feeling on this issue."
Do you remember in reading class learning about main idea and drawing conclusions? Pick the best conclusion for the following statement.
NOT MANY ATTENDED THE MERGER STUDY MEETING.
A. ____ The public may be so satisfied and content with the idea of a study that they could see no need for them to personally attend the meeting.
B. ____ Almost no one knew the public meeting was going on.
"Is it just a "pro-forma" task by Courage To Connect in order to qualify for the DCA process? Sort of looks that way from the organizational effort."
Courage to Connect did not organize the meeting. This meeting was organized by the petitioner group to satisfy the requirements of the consolidation law. Again this is designed to notify the people of a town making a Study Application that such an application is under consideration. In our case this is information that has already been distributed to every resident by the Mayor and reported in the Observer and distributed to every resident.
There was no new ground covered here. The kind of input that is desired by citizens and encouraged by our petitioning group will really begin after the application is accepted by DCA and the Commission is organized.
"Lavardera, tell me which group appears more serious in getting the community informed and involved."
Both groups appear more serious than you who is unwilling to post under their own name.
Lava: "The purpose of these meetings is to inform people in Merchantville that there has been an application to the DCA form a Study Commission. ...and since our group has already hosted a public meeting on Consolidation, the citizens of Merchantville are already know about this. "
Lava, I am confused. You are holding meetings to inform but you already had a meeting so citizens already know. What portion of our 1500 households have you contacted?
And my second question. You told me to go to a meeting for answers to my questions on candidates' biases and how they will work around those biases. Then you say the meetings are only to explain the application process.
Will candidates be open to public questions about their biases and how they will work around internal bias in the fact finding process?
Wikipedia: The term pro forma (Latin "as a matter of form") is a term applied to practices or documents that are done as a pure formality, perfunctory, or seek to satisfy the minimum requirements or to conform to a convention or doctrine.
Mr. Lavadera said: Both groups appear more serious than you who is unwilling to post under their own name.
Please tell me you will not be going back to the repetitious complaints over commenters not singing their own names.
"signing"
I am in favor of the study and part of the group behind it, and I agree that we did not do a great job at publicizing the meeting. This will not happen again. Keep in mind that we are all private citizens doing the best we can with no support from the town. They will not post it on the official website. The other two on-line venues are a joke - so we need to use word of mouth and manual distribution. I have already sent out a personal email to 20 people and spoke to the majority of my neighbors. Soon we will have a PO Box and email address. We are trying our best to communicate with residents/neighbors.
A second meeting of the same format will be held jointly with Cherry Hill and Merchantville at 8 p.m. on July 18, held in the Carman Tilleli Community Center at the Cherry Hill Municipal complex at 820 Mercer Street in Cherry Hill.
No KT, I won't return to that. I also won't be cross examined by anonymous commenters. Anybody who is afraid to say who they are here knows where to find me, and I'm happy to answer any and all questions. See you on Monday.
Pick the best conclusion for the following statement.
NOT MANY ATTENDED THE MERGER STUDY MEETING.
A. ____ The public may be so satisfied and content with the idea of a study that they could see no need for them to personally attend the meeting.
B. ____ Almost no one knew the public meeting was going on.
.......
In the real world it sounds like everyone involved recognizes that the word could have gone out in a better way. And there are also valid reasons why this is difficult for a group of citizens without an organizied set of resources behind them.
However, having a little academic fun with the question, the best answer would have been "C." - NONE OF THE ABOVE.
There was no valid reason to choose either answer based on information within the statement provided.
Any group that successfully garnered 700 signatures on a petition and successfully secured a resolution by a neighboring municipality and successfully requested a change in State law, all with front-page news coverage in multiple papers, surely has the resources to plan and execute a well-attended community meeting about their primary mission.
Because such a local meeting is required by law, I say THE MERGER GROUP SHOULD SCHEDULE ANOTHER MEETING WITHIN THE BOROUGH so that all residents, including the elderly and disabled, can attend. It is inappropriate and callous for the group to admit it erred but then suggest everyone can go out of town to catch up on what the group screwed up on.
If the group should not offer a replacement local meeting, I suspect someone might complain to the Department of Community Affairs about the group failing to comply with the spirit of the law. Negligence should not be an acceptable excuse.
Does anyone want to see this project take another tumble? I'd prefer they show that they can and are eager to do things right.
KT There is another meeting Monday night. See you then.
I have lived in Merchantville for 22 years. I am totally in favor of the proposed study regarding consolidation. Furthermore, although I have an open mind and will read the results of the study with interest, it seems to me most probable that the benefits (high school, tax base, property values, services) of consolidation with Cherry Hill will far outweigh the detriments. I would be interested to hear from those opposed what they see as the negative aspects to consolidation that they are certain they know about even now, without the need for any study.
As one of the original petitioners, I really wouldn't want to jump into anything without careful review. A study would involve looking under Cherry Hill's hood and kicking the tires. If it doesn't doesn't look good we just walk away.
interesting. i speak to young families in merchantville and they learn early on that they need to have a high school solution. most of the merchantville families do not send to Pennsauken HS. They send to Camden Catholic (even though they may not be of the Catholic religion)or Bishop Eustace.
However, they want to maintain local control of the elementary school education and like the local Merchantville School. They also like the idea that there is no bussing and their kids walk to school. The down side to the merger for merchantville is that the first move that will be made is that the merchantville school will close its doors forever as well as the library. there is not room for all the merchantville kids at barton or kilmer so they will be separated and bussed to one of the 12 CH elementary schools. this will all be decided by the Cherry Hill Bd of education and the Twp of CH. No, there will not be a Merchantville School Board member as part of the CH Board because it will be one town.
Be careful what you wish for. Be very cautious of having the parents of only high school aged kids running the Merchantville show.
In Cherry Hill, we don't want this merger. Our town is large enough and we are happy with the population in our elementary schools. We can work our own financial challenges and don't need a non proficient population of students pulling us away from AYP.
i don't need a merger study to waste $100k of tax dollars to tell me what I already know.
Thank you but please pursue Pennsauken. Cherry Hill has nothing to gain and everything to lose.
All a very lame attempt to scare people about the school.
The study will tell us what makes sense regarding the school, and then we can all decide how we feel about it. This anonymous poster has no insight on what might happen and just wants to try to scare people. I doubt they are even from Cherry Hill.
Soon the Study will start and we'll have answers.
But I have to admit that one of the best parts will be coming back and reading just how foolish these anonymous comments have been.
lavardara,
nothing will move forward for at least 2 years. to date there is no finding. if all goes well my child will have greaduated form cherry hill by that time.
Lavardera,
I'm sorry that I keep doing this. You're right. I really don't know what I'm talking about and don't live in Cherry Hill.
lavardera: "the best parts will be coming back and reading just how foolish these anonymous comments have been."
I wish there were a way to move Mr. Lavardera to discuss the issues rather than to attack commenters, named and unnamed.
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