Last month, Merchantville Borough Council passed a resolution to support the Courage to Connect's application for the study. A meeting is scheduled next Wednesday, July 13th in Trenton at the Department of Community Affairs Local Finance Board meeting. I am going to assume that the discussion will include who is going to pay for a study and what organization would conduct the actual study.
Do you think the state will foot the bill? If Merchantville is asked to pay for a portion of the costs, what should be the maximum percentage or dollar amount?
The Cherry Hill Sun posted a letter of Cherry Hill resident in regards to the merger. Do a majority of Cherry Hill residents share her view, or is there more than meets the eye?
Do you think the state will foot the bill? If Merchantville is asked to pay for a portion of the costs, what should be the maximum percentage or dollar amount?
The Cherry Hill Sun posted a letter of Cherry Hill resident in regards to the merger. Do a majority of Cherry Hill residents share her view, or is there more than meets the eye?
Enjoy the car show.
17 comments:
The link to the letter does not work.
Who should pay for the merger study?
The seven hundred petitioners who requested the merger should pay for the study.
When I was unhappy with the plans for the Town Centre East redevelopment project that AST was approved to build, I found a handful of other residents who also had concerns and we created an LLC and hired a lawyer.
Why shouldn't the merger advocates do the same?
Let me add ... our group also did all of the research needed to show Council, the Planning Board and Historical Preservation Commission the adverse effects the proposed structure would create and we filed legal action against the parties for violation of ordinances and public law.
In the end the Borough modified its ordinances, updated its master plan, hired a town planner for recommendations on parking and traffic flow, and selected a new developer having plans that conform with our town environment.
We did not ask the public to foot a bill for our work in the public's interest.
What have we gotten from the merger group? Vague assertions on schools and tax relief. And we created a study group that remains a secret from the public.
We should pay for that pig in a poke? Cat in a bag? Horse with its mouth shut?
I SAY "NO"! Let them do their study at their cost and I will look at the results.
Oops. Read: "They" created a study group [not "we"]
Here's the last paragraph of the letter to the editor of the C.H. Sun.
I hope that the Cherry Hill/Merchantville merge goes through. It would benefit both communities. Cherry Hill gets the extra tax money (which we need, believe me), and Merchantville gets access to the schools that are some of the best in the state. The township governors should work it out and get the merge passed, for the communities of Cherry Hill and Merchantville alike.
Keenan McElwee
Yesterday at the Merchantville Auto Show an old man displaying a handsome '54 Chevy spun his childhood story of buying a hunting shotgun and being invited by the Merchantville principal to bring it to school for the principal to examine and correctly identify.
It was a good story about a long-ago Merchantville principal and it led to the teenager's hunting territory which started at Merchantville's border with Delaware Twp at Chapel Ave and the Pennsylvania Reading Railroad. The boy hunted through fields and woods northward to Park Ave and out Park (probably along the Merchantville golf course)to today's Pennsauken Middle School and along Haddonfield Road all the way to the Pennsauken Mart.
The story is of a different time and different environment and different attitudes despite the GPS coordinates remaining fixed.
No child could bring a gun to school today. A principal would have lost his job if he had assembled a shotgun for a student and instructed him on how to handle it.
And today's town issues are about maximizing municipal and school services and paying "going" pay rates and so on. The Letter To The Editor above says it succinctly. Cherry Hill "needs" money badly and Merchantville wants a better school system.
It's big time stuff. It has nothing to do with an involved principal helping a kid learn about his new gun. That was small-town stuff that is gone.
I don't think it was the huffing and puffing brovado of those opposed to AST/TCE which ended it. The end was caused by the withdrawal of financing in the real estate market collapse.
Congratulations to all associated with the auto show. It was a great event.
cherry hill will pay nothing toward a study. the groups ate looking to get 100 % state funding.
looks like this will be moving forwaard in 2015.
i believe it is really clear there are only a handful of resident that are interested in this study.
there are even fewer in ch that what a merger. most are ambivalent. but we will change that when we get the merchantville proficiency scores out to the public.
there will be no free rides on the cherry hill tax dollar.
I'm so sorry their I go again. I'm being such a jerk. Sorry. It's a compulsion and I really should stay on my meds . Actually I know that this would work out best for both towns. I'm just jealous.
Cruiser: Congratulations to all associated with the auto show.
Yes, and a nice collection of antique vehicles too. Someone said there were 800 in total.
I am curious about how young people think of the cars. To me "antiques" are the unmodified cars and trucks of the 1930s and '40s.
The cars of the 1950s and '60s seem more like "neat" cars than antiques, though I remember thinking at the time that heavy chrome, high fins and huge engines were distractions to what I thought was modern. That's when I shifted to foreign cars.
Yesterday I heard the owner of the red Smart Car say that the car ran 40 miles to a gallon of gas. I thought to myself, my 1959 Renault Douphine averaged 42 with four occupants. However, they weren't built well enough to last 50 years.
It's obvious that their aren't more than a dozen people in town who really oppose this study. I am one of them. Be warned that a vocal minority can often win.
"It is obvious that their are not more than a dozen people in town who really oppose this study."
It is NOT OBVIOUS to me. One might say that about bonds and grants. Every time I see a bond issue in a polling booth that reads "green", "enmvironment", "reform" I smile knowning no matter what my vote is, the petition will pass.
But this merger study will be costing money if done well and if it's opponents are loud enough ... well, we'll see then.
@ Not Obvious:
are you threatening to hold up the wishes of 90% of residents, which favor the study, by mobilizing a vocal minority (many with vested interests) to make the study more expensive???
Data: "threatening to hold up the wishes of 90% of residents...?"
You're good, Data! Tell me, is life easier for you not bothering with any facts behind your assumptions? More efficient? More peaceful? Numb like menthol or Novocaine?
OR should I just assume it all and congratulate you?
Do you know what I am talking about or don't you read this far either?
@cruiser 6:07PM
It was never the goal of CCM to kill the TCE project.
As ktbfw wrote, the result of CCM's input was that the Planning Board adopted many of our recommendations and the boro also changed the redevelopment guidelines to meet our recommendations.
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