Is this just another case of paying more for less services or is bagged leaf collection the way of the world now?
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«Oldest ‹Older 1 – 200 of 231 Newer› Newest»The Borough vacuum never worked well. Just mow every week or two while your leaves are falling and, poof, the grass grows greener in the spring.
Decades ago when I was of working age I used to shovel our horse manure into feed bags to take to my boss' house. He claimed the manure was gentler on his grass and garden than fertilizer.
In today's world try mowed leaves -- even gentler than manure and with all the minerals that the trees had pulled out of the earth to start with.
Then there is always the quick solution my neighbors love. Let the leaves sail downwind in a good blow. You might even enjoy encouraging them to fly by tossing them into gusts. Your kids will love that remedy.
If this rain keeps up we could have contests to see whether our piles of leaves or the swarms of mosquitos breeding in them are biggest.
When I was a kid two territories were deciding if they wanted to join our union of states. It was a shock to me because in my mind 48 stars was immutable in the flag I pledged to each school morning. But there was great fanfare over the possibility including fights in Congress about balance between liberals and conservatives. And what sold me was the offer on a cereal box --I remember not which-- to buy an inch of Alaska or Texas. I still don't know how Texas got into the offer but there it was and I sent my dollar off to Battle Creek, Michigan, to become owner of an inch of Alaska (no mineral rights)... perhaps their youngest property holder.
Thirty years later I packed up my family and off to Alaska we went for a visit.
Well, if you think mosquitos are big in Merchantville you have not visited our northernmost sister state. You have seen the herds of caribou running across the tundra towards the North Sea. Why do they run? Mosquitos. And there is not a leaf on the north slope.
Try composting them.
Pile them up and run over them with a mower. Or run them through a leaf blower set to "vacuum". If you do this the leaf pile will be more compact and the leaves will compost faster.
Or use the shredded leaves as mulch for your trees and shrubs. Much healthier for the plants and less expensive for you.
The writing was on the wall for this one when we outsourced our trash collection. We started mulching years ago as the collection service started going downhill and we've kept the bulk of our leaves on site for many years now. But its one more service we won't be getting for the tax dollar. Never thought I'd be jealous of my friends in Cherry Hill raking their leaves to the curb.
I don't think this is going to play out well on the streets with a lot of leaves. Bagging is a tedious step that will greatly slow down the raking process. A handy tool for getting them in the can or bag is a Leaf Loader Although the demo photos are just a joke compared to the amount of leaves that come down in my yard. Really? Every single one of those in a bag? See you next April when I'm done...
How about if we ask Council to rent out the leaf gobbling machine to residents? 2-hour rentals, $40.
Hitch the machine to a golf cart. Have a handyman attach a hose to the exhaust chute going down to a rack of hanging bags.
I noticed that the sunrise and sunset times are the same these days (6:51). Most likely the sun is over the equator and heading down to Capricorn.
Long ago I read somewhere that vernal growth of plants and trees is above ground and that autumnal growth is in the roots to store up nourishment.
This creates a dilemma. I should be allowing my grass enough height to convert the waning sunlight into sugars BUT AT THE SAME TIME a passerby recommends cutting the lawn so short that a fallen leaf will fly away on the first breeze.
Dos anyone have good advice?
This is crazy.....Just what are my taxes paying for?? This town is heading down the crapper.
Merchantville used to be a nice town where those who ran and/or worked for the town went out of their way to make things easier for all of us. No it appears that they could care less about the actual citizen. Who wants to live in a town like this?
Sorry to be off point, but the prior related thread is now gone....
Does anyone know if the Property Reevaluation is underway? I know we all got the letters, but have the workers actually been coming through town?
Timeframe?
Yes, the revaluation process is underway. I had a visit from the reval company's worker on 9/22.
Posted on Cherry Hill Township's Website.
Public Works - Leaf Collection Guidelines
Bagging Your Leaves (recommended)
You can bag your leaves in open bags or place in open trash cans at curbside on your regular trash day and recycling day. Although many residents have taken advantage of this opportunity, many more do not. We hope that you will help save money and keep our streets safe.
Why should you bag your leaves?
* More timely collections and no inconvenience. Collections are made weekly on your regularly scheduled trash/recycling day.
* Collections every week. Inclement weather would no longer prevent residents from raking their leaves for pickup during a designated week.
* Cleaner and neater neighborhoods. Streets would not be as obstructed with leaf piles. Fewer leaves would blow onto your neighbors' yards.
* Safer conditions would exist. Children would not play in the streets in large leaf piles adjacent to curbs. There would be less potential for leaves to catch on fire. Finally, there would be fewer wet leaves on which cars could skid.
* Bagging would reduce the workload of the Township's fall leaf collection program, with cost savings to taxpayers.
Township Leaf Collection (beginning last week of October)
The regularly scheduled Township collection of leaves begins during the last week of October. Every street has signs posted when the first leaf collection will take place. This collection is performed using heavy construction equipment and large dump trucks. Residents must comply with the following guidelines to ensure pickup of their leaves:
* Do not rake your leaves until signs have been posted in your neighborhood.
* Landscape/lawn services must remove leaves from site.
* Note: Landscape/lawn services may use the Kresson Road Ecology Site at no cost. Permits may be picked up at the Cherry Hill Department of Public Works.
* Cars must be removed from the street between the hours of 7 am - 5:30 pm.
* Leaves must be raked to the parkstrip area near the roadway.
It is always difficult to collect the leaves at the right time and get everything completed before snow season (when we need the same trucks ready with snow plow attachments). Rain will slow down the process. We try our best, but ask for your understanding and help.
I have friends that live in Cherry Hill neighborhoods where the quantity of leaves is very high, much like my street, and the whole neighborhood rakes to the curb.
All those reasons for bagging are great, and true, but when you get to a certain quantity it gets ridiculous. I could easily have 100 bags. They would run the length of my property and stack 3 or 4 high, and I would do that 2 or 3 times per season.
So bagging, by all means, but many areas in Cherry Hill still rake to the curb.
To resident commenters at the 9/27 Planning Board meeting:
Every comment seemed on target, expressing concerns about the nature of the community, importance of keeping residences, value of ecology and esthetics. Alternative solutions. The photos of flooding -- WOW! And the "Awesome Parking Plan" made a big point humorously.
Then there came the emotional "whatever-is-decided-is-okay". That was generous. It reminded me of being a teenager and driving across the fairly new Walt Whitman Bridge to the Veterans' Stadium. A few of you might remember the old Vet. It was made of poured concrete and spacious to the extent that if you sat in the last seat in the upper row you were approximately a mile from the playing field. A friend and I climbed into that stadium with forty thousand others to see and listen to The Reverend Billy Graham. He was great. Our property owner of 82 W. has to be related.
The clean up of leaves is already a significant personal effort. A community which has significant trees and advocates for them should have services which minimizes the labor of all involved. The services should include continuation of the long-existing arrangements for bulk pick-up at the curb.
This change is really poor leadership and judgment by the mayor and council.
....and what happens to all those leaves in the street?
I know someone who started student-teaching French last week at a high school in south-central Los Angeles. 3,000 students, 89% Hispanic, 50% dropout rate. Test scores rate only 20% of the students proficient in English and
8% proficient in Math.
It is interesting that tens of millions of immigrants who came into this country over the past century through New York, San Francisco and Miami all learned/adopted our language and customs within a generation or two but not those who have walked across our southern border in the last 30 years. Why is that?
When I was a kid in rural Delaware Township (now Cherry Hill) I went to school with the kids of migrant workers. They all spoke and wrote in English. What is it that we are failing to do to assimilate today's immigrants? --20 percent proficient in English and 8 percent in math ... with math considered to be an international language.
We will pay dearly for this deterioration, especially with a 50 percent dropout rate. Education is the single-most important variable in the world for well being.
However, to answer Cruiser's point, allowing our country's educational system to rot will give us lots of cheap labor for mowing grass and raking leaves into bags.
ktbfw, on your first point, I agree that there is a serious dilemma regarding the english language proficiency of hispanic children. I think the government should wisely tax the citizenry and spend money on solving the problem. As you have said, it is more costly to the citizenry in the long run to let things run amok as they are. I don't agree that spending more on education is the way to wisely spend the money. I'll venture that in the LA high school you mention that considrable amounts are already being spent on the improvement of english language proficiency. If more money is to be spent, it has to be spent on something else. I am not sure what that is, but simply spending more on education will not solve the problem.
Getting back to Merchantville, I take it you are then recommending that the borough engage persons who are likely to be non-english speaking hispanics to clean up leaves put to the curb.
Geez Cruise!
When you say it like that...
"I take it you are then recommending that the borough engage persons who are likely to be non-english speaking hispanics to clean up leaves put to the curb."
...it sounds kinda - wrong!
It certainaly does not sound politically correct. But the reality is that is likely what would happen
Cruiser: "simply spending more on education will not solve the problem."
Considering that 90 percent of money in education is spent on salaries of teachers and administrators, I agree strongly with your hypothesis. If I were to suggest one single change to improve student learning in American education it would be the elimination of tenure across the board. My second reform would be the elimination of school work hours and job descriptions. Everything else would fall into place to create alive learning environments.
I used to think that teaching was a young person's job. Thirty five years in education did not change my mind. Yes, there are the many exceptions of skilled veterans but dollar for dollar a school administrator's best bet for picking coming-excellence is to hire a variety of enthusiastic graduates of a good universities.
Did I tell you the story of a man just out of school who walked through the front doors asking if we had a teaching position? Telling him we did not, did not dissuade him. He returned each week until finally he was offered a job no one else would take.
He was told, "If you will start a class for three psychiatrically-involved, emotionally disturbed teenagers that no public school can handle, we will give you an aide in the classroom, all the materials you want, access to our child study team on demand and a hall monitor for emergency safety backup. You can pick any three students out of this list of sending-school applications."
The starting teacher was excited about the opportunity. He worked so hard and so creatively that his students responded as they had never done before. In four months he asked for an additional three students, as he said, to broaden the peer group in the class. He ended the school year with nine successful students and the profound respect of our faculty.
It was not money, tenure, work hours that created that teacher. It was challenge. It was youth in experimental motion.
After reading the nonsense from those trying to sound smarter that they actually are, I feel that many of our Merchantville neighbors have too much time on their hands. Maybe they can bag or leaves as they share anecdotes that the rest of us don't care to read.
Warren: "our Merchantville neighbors have too much time on their hands."
If you are too short of time to read "leaf" anecdotes other than those "on topic", perhaps you would be better suited reading House and Garden. Of course remember that schools taught you to read H & G and if they should fail even at that, H & G would disappear... if it still exists.
There’s only so much one can say about raking or bagging dead leaves. That’s why I find an anecdote about how to best spend money on education to be a welcomed interlude.
Keep posting your anecdotes, k.t.b.f.w. -- maybe you’ll give people a different perspective about important issues.
Warren can save some of his valuable time by just not reading anything you write. Or he can say something about bagging leaves.
Everyone: Be glad you have trees that shed leaves, provide shade, a habitat for creatures big and small. that filter the air and provide beauty to the neighborhood, your house and surrounding properties. Many people would give an arm to have your leaf problem in their neighborhood. Be thankful.
Re: Education- Everyone has an obligation to get involved. Its easy to suggest solutions and opine. Its another to get in there and see the problem(s) up close. Volunteer a few hours per month at your neighborhood school. It's an investment that will pay off.
Anonymous - the people who would give an arm to have our leaf problem would be smart enough to arrange for community pick up of the leaves. This community has no problem with trees. It likes trees. It appreciates all of the attributes you mention. The problem is that, so far, the community is not doing the smart thing when it comes to the fallen leaves situation. No one is saying get rid of the trees to resolve this problem. What has been arranged is not a smart way to handle this situation.
I presume you agree that involvement in education can include advocating to make significant changes to the way things are done now, even if the changes are not in accord with the education establishment's views on an issue.
For example, beings as ktbfw has mentioned it, advocating to get rid of tenure is good involvement in education? Or explain to the blog, what is the benefit of tenure to the education of children?
Softball positions on leaf collection or education are not going to improve these situations.
I hate the fact that this town is making me put my leaves in bags.
Warren,
I agree with you on that.
While at Home Depot today I noted that the recommended paper bags are sold in packages of five which cost $1.88 per package. I think I will need 100 bags or 20 packages at $1.88 each. This comes to $37.60 + 7% sales tax for a total of $40.23. Also needed will be back pain medications for bending over hundreds of times to fill the bags. All of this in addition to the annual ritual of blowing and raking the leaves.
The community needs a better solution to this situation than the simplistic "put them in bags" nonsense advanced by the mayor and borough council. They have avoided the problem rather than intelligently addressed it.
Hey guys,
The leaf vacuum machine never worked even when the leaves were dry. And they were never dry by the time the crew got around the entire town. So even if Council reversed itself and hired the necessary help and equipment, chances are your leaves would still not get sucked up before the first snow. We all know about that debacle.
However, when Cruiser adds up the cost of Do-It-Yourself bagging it certainly seems to be cost effective if those residents who want leaf vacuuming were to hire a company to vacuum their piles -- sort of the way Benjamin Franklin invented the Green Tree Fire Company for Philadelphia property owners insured by Green Tree.
This all reminds me of a reading teacher I knew long ago who complained to Medford Twp that its refusal to fly airplanes to spray the town's trees for the gypsy moth in the name of not wanting to endanger any residents actually caused a greater health risk because concerned residents would resort to climbing their oaks one by one to spray the tops with hand sprayers that spilled vapors, mist and drippings all over everybody. The town ignored both the residents and the moths and I never heard who died of what ... except the story.
Speaking of ecology, what happened to the old time tradition of burning leaves in the streets? It had such a delightful aroma and pretty much solved the fluttering leaf problem. Before Alice jumps in with statistics let me remind you to take the family for the winter ride down Route 555 through Gloucester and Cumberland Counties to enjoy the farmers' burning of peach and apple tree prunings in the fields. EPA agrees that preventing the spread of tree diseases is more valuable than adding CO2 and carbon particles to the air. Apparently grinding limbs up giving it out as mulch in a couple of years spreads diseases.
My recollection of the leaf pick- ups of recent years in my area is that they were done with a front end loader and a trash truck. The leaf vacuum had nothing to do with it.
Better thinking is needed on this situation.
Your recollection is correct, Cruiser. You just missed the causal link between "vacuum had nothing to do with it" and front end loaders. There were two reasons the Boro's vacuum was always in the shop. One, wet leaves would clog it and, two, twigs would jam it.
I am sure somebody's leaf vacuum works. We would just need to find out whose.
I hired a chimney cleaning company once to vacuum out three fireplace chimneys in a four-story building located 60 feet from the curb. The machine was so powerful it sucked a few bricks out of one chimney and across the yard into the machine with loud thumps. I had to tell the guy to cut the power for fear he would collapse the chimney lining.
That's the machine we need, er, you need because I prefer to mulch and save the $40.23.
Geez! Stop whining!
People complained loudly (and rightly) about the mess that was leaf pickup with the vaccuum. The town is trying to change from what didn't work to something that does work for many communities in NJ, and people are whining just a loudly - without ever having done it even once.
On Cove Road, the grass strip at the curb is too narrow to allow raking leaves there for pick-up, so my wife and I have raked and bagged leaves (to the tune of 100+ bags a year) for the past nine years. Yeah, it takes more time than just raking. Yeah, there is some bending involved. But it isn't nearly as bad as some of you make it sound.
I suggest that the borough should obtain bags and provide them to the residents without charging directly for them. That would address the cost issue where it exists for some residents. Many communities around NJ do that, and it works better than what Merchantville has been doing.
You already know that I'm no big fan of the inept gang of seven running the town, but in this case they deserve the benefit of the doubt. At least they're trying to resolve the issue. Complain after you've actually tried their solution for a few weeks.
Glad to see you are still a neighbor, Mark. Thought maybe one of those Boeing choppers had wuff-wuff-wuffed you away to an exotic land.
Speaking of seeing you (in your R/R engine photo next to your comment], Mayor North told me a couple of weeks ago that after the Pemberton railroad group acquired the Roebling switching engine to add to their collection at the Pemberton R/R station, their mayor told them that was too much, they had to get rid of everything. Friday afternoon I drove to Pemberton to check if Merchantville could use any of the trains to sit in front of our R/R station. Sadly, even I saw only junk.
When I lived in rural Burlington County decades ago a group of R/R enthusiasts leased an abandoned section of rail line from Juliustown to Jobstown in hopes of creating a tourists run using a rehabilitated steam train with coaches and Pullmans and even street trolleys they had collected and were refurbishing. The growing collection was stored in Jobstown and unwelcome there as well. The railroaders were bombarded with so many legal problems that over time the cars deteriorated and trees grew between the tracks. Politicians persuaded the railroad to break the lease. Some nice cars went to ruin in the fray. One day I went back to discover the lot had been cleared -- no improvement in my mind.
It is hard to enjoy the keeping of yesterday with the young crowd obsessed with lawn height and piles of leaves. Sort of makes the deal that the Lenapes struck with Fenwick to sell Salem and its trees for 20 gallons of rum seem like a pretty good idea. Bottoms up!
Don't tell me to stop whining. For $7500 worth of nothing I should be allowed to whine. I have bagged my leaves more than once, so Mark, please allow me to whine.
The town is not trying to fix something that didnt work, they are simply making others do it.These are the little things that make many people upset.
I am beginning to like the sound of us being swallowed by cherry hill. It seems as though we can't do a damn think by ourselves anymore.
If they gave us the bags, I will bag. Until then, Mark you and your wife can remove the leaves from the street in from or our homes.
So, Warren,
You think the leaves will all magically be picked up if Cherry Hill swallows Merchantville? Care to share the line of reasoning that led to that conclusion?
The borough isn't reducing services - they're still going to pick up the leaves. They're just changing requirements on how you need to have them ready for pickup.
If you don't like cleaning up leaves, have your trees removed (if a few homeowners did that, they would certainly get the attention of the elected officials!).
No, I'm not seriously suggesting you do that. I said it to illustrate a point - they are YOUR leaves from YOUR trees. Requiring them to be bagged is little different, in priciple, than requiring you to bag your trash. You wouldn't want folks to just rake their trash to the curb, would you? ;)
Here's the best idea, though - if you don't like the bagging leaves requirement, go down to a Council meeting and tell the Mayor and Council how you feel. Get involved. If they blow you off or ignore you, run for office. Get in there and change what you don't like. If you don't have the time or interest, elect someone who sees things more your way.
Mark said: they are YOUR leaves from YOUR trees.
No, they are not. I have 3 maples and a holly in my back yard. The leaves that will magically appear on my side yard will be buttonwood and oak. Those coming to my front yard will be any number of others.
Suppose I do bag MY leaves. Who should bag the other 75 percent that arrives each week?
Several years ago I suggested that the 4,000 employees of the State Dept. of Environmental Protection respoonsible for the State law forbiding the raking of leaves into the street until 12 hours before pickup, that they should divide themselves into teams of 8 and go to each of the municipalities and rake everyone's leaves to the curbs at the legal moment. Should I lobby to change their job description to bagging leaves?
Thank you for your suggestions.
Obviously, the only profound reasoning is coming from you. I just read the earlier post about the leaf collection in Cherry Hill. I am beginning to see the reasons as to why our town is where it is...
Warren, just to clarify...
Cherry Hill picks up bulk leaves at curb side.
re-clarification--
The regularly scheduled Township collection of leaves begins during the last week of October. Every street has signs posted when the first leaf collection will take place. This collection is performed using heavy construction equipment and large dump trucks. Residents must comply with the following guidelines to ensure pickup of their leaves:
* Do not rake your leaves until signs have been posted in your neighborhood.
* Landscape/lawn services must remove leaves from site.
* Note: Landscape/lawn services may use the Kresson Road Ecology Site at no cost. Permits may be picked up at the Cherry Hill Department of Public Works.
* Cars must be removed from the street between the hours of 7 am - 5:30 pm.
* Leaves must be raked to the parkstrip area near the roadway.
Those who are upset have every right to complain very loudly. I cannot even imagine the amount of bags it is going to take. And the added time to bag them. And the added cost to buy them. Cruiser is correct. Poor leadership Mr. Volkert. Has anyone asked Mr. Volkert for an explanation?
Let's start a contest to estimate how many bags it will take to bag all of the leaves in Merchantville.
Remember that all such bags, even the biodegradable paper ones, are an afront to good environmental practices. The bags would not even exist if the borough did not have a requirement to use them. The best environmental practice is for the bags to not even be created.
My guess is 25,000 bags.
If you don't like the new bagging rules, protest by just letting leaves stay on your lawn. Don't even rake them up. That's even less work than raking them to the curb.
With a needle and string kids could string the leaves into necklaces or Halloween costumes, each string having a different variety so to combine academics with recreation. Beautiful women could go trick or treating with just hundreds of strung leaves from bare shoulders to bare toes.
How many bags would that save, Cruiser?
Tonto - while I don't intend to act as you suggest, I am concerned that some will "protest" in that manner diminishing the appearance of the community.
Strung out - as a practical matter, I think what you suggest will save one bag.
Oh yeah, we really want this town. You people can't even figure out a solution to your leaves. you should merge with pennsauken just to get some direction.
The non-CH Anon can't stop talking about the merger. No matter what the topic, it always comes back to the merger.
When I was in the second grade, we used to drink sall containers ok whole milk. This was not good for us or the environment. Ha
Did the Planning Bord meeting regarding the parking variance for TCE happen? If not yet, when will it happen?
Cruiser: parking variance for TCE happen?
Fieldstone asked to "suspend" its request for a parking variance to give itself a chance to reexamine its entire redevelopment proposal. So there is nothing awaiting a Planning Board hearing.
The Planning Board chairman mentioned that the Fieldstone proposal "is being renegotiated at all levels." That occurs with Council, not with the Planning Board.
A comment was made on the TCE Parking thread a few days ago about errors in the Fieldstone agreement but the comment got spammed for one reason or another.
Renegotiations, thanks.
Comment has been released from spam folder.
OK, so I will take care of all the leaves that fall on to my property--bagging or putting in barrels and bringing them out to the curb. I will even blow the leaves off the public sidewalk on to my property, and then pick them up and dispose of them properly also. BUT--what about the leaves that fall into the street and then collect along the curb? Am I also responsible for collecting them, and preparing them for proper disposal? If so, clever Merchantville, for devolving care and maintenance of the public streets, on to private citizens. Is asphalt repair next? The guys are coming to patch my driveway next week, maybe Merchantville wants me to pay to patch the street, too? Your tax dollars not at work...
Merchantville no longer clears the streets when blocked by fallen trees. We don't have the necessary equipment or staff on hand. All this type of stuff will become "do it yourself". So why are our taxes so high? This merge is starting to look real good.
"what about the leaves that fall into the street... Am I also responsible for collecting...proper disposal?"
Did I tell you about the folks in Maine whom I visited fifty years ago? Each property owner was responsible for snow plowing the road from the neighbor on the left to the neighbor on the right. They seemed perfectly happy to do it.
A few weeks ago I was reading about New Jersey Freeholders' responsibilities a hundred years ago. In one record the freeholders were deciding who would pay for the construction of roads across the state, especially into rural areas. At one point they were convinced that the state should pay a percentage, the county (ies) being entered should pay a portion, and the individual property owners (their horses, wagons and produce all benefit from the roads) would pay a portion. My memory is that the latter amount was five percent.
Our legislative application is strange. The larger one's property ownership, the more he must pay for the same service, say, the fire department.
I am a large property holder with very little income. Why should I have to pay more for leaf collection in taxes, if resumed, than my well off neighbors?
This comment is off track so Warren you might want to bag leaves right now.
The other night I had a dream in which one sector of my mind cracked a joke for the amusement of the other parts of my mind. A view of a green valley appeared which was filled all the way to the hills at the horizon with brown bears ... like a Cecil B. DeMille film with a cast of thousands. With heads higher than the masses were two bears. I could see their heads, ears and snouts clearly. The tallest, much taller than the other, said to the other who apparently was attending too closely, the tallest said, "GET LOST!" My mind scanned the crowd for a moment and returned to the tallest bear who now had two shorter bears next to him. The tallest said again, louder, "GET LOST!" to which the next bear replied obediently, "I did."
Everyone else might think it a cute but unremarkable joke. I am amazed that the human brain can talk and, it seems true, joke with another section of the same gray matter that had been unaware of the thoughts or joke. Scientists believe the brains of man and lower animals have evolved as the result of necessity. Where does joking around with oneself come in as a survival tool except in Merchantville/Cherry Hill politics?
Two or three weeks ago the business department of Rutgers in Camden held its quarterly business meeting/forum. One of the four panelists was the C.E.O. of Cooper's Ferry Development Association, Anthony Perno.
With admirable confidence Mr. Perno predicted (his word) that the economic conditions were right and government redevelopment support (in terms of funding) was right for private businesses to return to urban areas. He added that being a developer he was naturally optimistic.
I do not want to throw water on his dream and I have a history in Camden myself which I would enjoy seeing others be able to emulate BUT my lifetime experience is double his in and around Camden and it leads me to an opposite conclusion.
In education there is a philosophy that "irregularities" must be controlled or the best teachers, programs and materials cannot succeed. Discipline, attention span, readiness, motivation are four.
The business world has "irregularities" that must be controlled too.
Perhaps some blog readers remember the Willingboro shopping center with two major department stores and sixty small shops ... all of which were successful at one time. The irregularity which brought that success story to ruin was crime. The borough refused to recognize the problem at first and then failed to eradicate it before consumers disappeared from the walks and merchants moved out.
Crime in Camden is the worst in our country. The labor pool is another irregularity in Camden. We have all heard about American manufacturers going to China and India for vast labor pools of cheap, hard working, well educated people.
The Cooper's Ferry C.E.O. said that the Cooper and Rowan medical centers could bring back the billion dollars spent each year by New Jersey residents at hospitals across the river. Well, my personal experience leads me the opposite way. I tried to make an appointment at Cooper for surgery but gave up after spending 4 hours over two days trying to get through its intake procedures. Did you know Cooper can lose a prospective patient's history within 24 hours? "I have no record of it, Sir, you will have to tell us again". Confidence in capability can be an irregularity.
Let me add another problem in rejuvenating Camden's business base that I noticed last weekend. For the past decade I sail down the Delaware River to the Chesapeake bay and back twice a year. This year there was one cargo ship and three oil tankers on fifty miles of the Delaware in two days. The Port of Camden was empty; the South Jersey Regional Port was empty. All of the ports of Philadelphia were idle but for that one cargo ship at the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority abelow the Walt Whitman Bridge. Why? because all of the goods we consume from China, India and Indonesia come in through the West Coast.
I don't know if the Rutgers business department knows about crime, labor shortage, technology and obsolete location. They did not talk about those problems. I was hoping they would.
Typical k.t.b.f.w. bashing of Mr. Perno. We have all seen this bashing many times before.
In any event, the conditions in Camden make little or no difference to Merchantville. We have been enduring the side effects of the conditions for years. It would be nice to see Camden improve and hopefully it will.
Hm. I didn't read any Perno bashing. I guess mentioning his name with the term "god-like" or something similar as a modifier to it constitutes Perno bashing in Cruiser's mind.
Cruiser: We have all seen this bashing many times before.
Why is it that one cannot disagree with another's professional business opinion without being attacked for personal/political bias? ...and painted with the tar brush "bashing many times before". With all the emptiness on this blog is there no room for alternative thoughts?
The facts are that the conditions in Camden do make a difference in Merchantville --in our municipal priorities, in our educational system, in our housing stock, in our business ratables, and in our own community wealth.
Just take one specific example. Our county tax burden is one of the eleven highest in the nation and our state cost is even higher. That money does not come to Merchantville. Hundreds of millions of dollars is being funneled into Camden. By whom? By the very same advisory development corporation commented on above. That corporation just got praised for doing so by a south Jersey business periodical a few months ago.
k.t.b.f.w.'s point is simple. Ya gotta fix the leaks in a bucket if ya wanna fill it. The leaks are high crime, low educational level of the labor pool, lack of confidence in the competence of the medical facilities, and obsolescence of the location. What's so personal/political about that opinion?
Tonto - the mention of Mr. Perno as the source of information about Camden which ktbfw goes on to discredit is an lndirect cheap shot at Mr. Perno. Why does ktbfw even mention Mr. Perno? He does this only to associate him with ktbfw's opinion on the information. ktbfw could have made the same post excluding mention of Mr. Perno. ktbfw mentions Mr. Perno only to seek to discredit him. It is another example of the ongoing bashing of Mr. Perno by ktbfw.
I don't get the reference to "god-like." What does this mean?
All About - I completely agree that ktbfw can disagree on the blog. This gets back to the question of why Mr. Perno was even mentioned. The original ktbfw blog was off topic. It was developed and posted solely as another example of ktbfw's ongoing effort to bash Mr. Perno. Had there been another author of the piece about Camden, I doubt if it would be a post.
I agree with you that the facts in Camden have an effect on Merchantville. My point is that those facts have long had an effect on Merchantville. There is nothing new in this other than, perhaps, the recent events mentioned may slowly start an improvemnt of some kind.
We have in ktbfw's piece his typical scientific evaluation of the local ports based upon a random boat ride down the Delaware. What nonsense. It is a biased statement with the intent being to discredit.
The hundreds of millions in special aid to Camden are directed toward the very conditions you cite. Money should be directed to where the problems are. The leaks in the buckets are being fixed. Fixing those leaks is a daunting task.
That this whole thread got into a post about leaf bagging was solely brought on by Mr. Perno's association with the information. ktbfw wanted to use it as an opportunity to bash Mr. Perno.
Now if Mr. Perno voted for this "bag the leaves" situation, I will join in the bashing but there in nothing untoward in Mr. Perno's handling of the Camden situation.
Gotte go. Need to bag my leaves.
good question Cruise, who voted for the leaf bagging?
I believe Mr. Volkert is in charge of P Works? This had to start with him.
I raked my leaves into the street. Tomorrow, hopefully the snow plows will push them right out of town. No bags needed!
Sounds like ktbfw bashing to me
I agree with Crusier. I should have pretended it was someone else on television for an hour giving rosey predictions about the success of a metropolis with the highest crime and poorest schools in the nation getting millions for bicycle paths into Collingswood, Cherry Hill and Merchantville -- just what the city needs thanks to the brilliant work of Mr. Anonymous.
Or maybe I should have praised our councilman for convincing our borough to double the cost of our own section of this Camden-linking bike path, from a zero dollar contribution by our town to a $75,000 Merchantville contribution. Or I could have blamed that spending excess and the new street, curbs, driveway apron and speed hump in front of the councilman's house on an outgoing councilman, say, on the lone Republican. Yeah, Markie did it!
What's that saying about praising the guilty and punishing the innocent? Is it written next to "I See A City Invincible" on the side of Camden's City Hall? No doubt that town is invincible with our county and state money paying for, first, the construction of a $25,000,000 prison saying it was an improvement followed by, second, the $34,000,000 demolition of the same prison saying it was an improvement too ... speaking of the very same planning company speaking out of both sides of its anonymous mouth.
Never mention who has a hand in spending what no one has in his pockets. No, that would be bashing. Better not to say anything other than about leaves. Yes, I'll say it was a good idea for Merchantville to spend tens of thousands on widening the bike path instead of on a leaf hopper for our front-end loader. Must have been Markie's fault, too. We can just pretend Markie never asked for new public works equipment which he never got -- but for the blame by guess who, er, Mr. Anonymous.
Get real, Cruiser, or get honest ... either way.
You are a liar kbfM. The decision to pave Morris was made before Mr. Perno moved to town let alone ran for council. Why are you not ripping Mr. Brennan who's road was also paved at the same time. I have seen you try to take on Mr. Perno and understand why you wont do it again. Or if you do plan to look like a fool in public again, rather than on the internet, please let us know. I would love to see you challenge Mr. Perno on the facts at council. They say don't write things on line that you wouldn't say to someone's face. Coward.
Guess Who - Have no doubt that I am doubtful about the effectiveness of high cost government programs trying to solve the problems of Camden. But I believe it is important for the government, which is all of us, to persevere in this regard. Great peoples and great nations do not ignore messes like Camden.
I am not impressed by the concept of creating bike paths from Camden to the suburbs and have stated that in prior blogs. I think such paths will not do Camden any good and will not do the suburbs any good.
Improving the bike path in Merchantville is a different matter. This current path is busy and enjoyed by residents. The cost of the original path to Merchantville was a bargain. As I understand planned improvements there were two deals - one at a zero cost to Merchantville and one at a $75,000 cost. Merchantville took the $75,000 deal. To evaluate this we need to know the amenities which would be obtained for zero and the amenities which will be obtained for $75,000. I'll venture that the additional amenities in the $75,000 deal are well worth the cost. The criticism seems to be coming from those who are strictly opposed to any spending. I trust that council and the mayor got a great deal for the $75,000. In any event, I am glad they took the initiative to improve the bike path. "Continuous improvement" is the norm for a great community and the bike path improvements are part of Merchantville's compliance with that norm.
I dont understand the ranting about Markie. He has nothing to do with all of this and heretofore has not been mentioned. In prior blogs I thanked Markie for his service and I now do so again.
The bike path widening and the leaf hopper are really not alternatives for the spending of money. The reason leaves are not being collected has to do with the elimination of public works staff. Even if the hopper was obtained, there are no staff to use it.
The prison in Camden has nothing to do with Merchantville or this discussion. Looking at it aside from Merchantville and this discussion, it does seem like a collosal waste. The bigger waste was the building of it in the first place. Eliminating it, while very costly, still had the beneficial effect of getting rid of the original mistake.
Getting off topic, but having no where else to go, here are some numbers of general interest about borough finances.
Here are the "fund balances" for the past several years per the audited financial statements. "Fund balance" is commonly referred to as "surplus." Surplus changes for many reasons all of which are disclosed in the audited financial statements. A principal cause of decreases in surplus is that it is used to lower the tax rate.
School District - at June 30:
2008 $589,856
2009 $949,711
2010 $695,012
(The School Board used about $400,000 of the $695,012 in setting the tax rate for the year ending June 30, 2011.)
Borough - at December 31:
2008 $721,907
2009 $415,429
2010 $208,400
There are regulations which prohibit governmental units from using all surplus for tax reduction because another common use of surlus is that it serves as a reserve for unexpected expenditures.
All that said, it appears that there is little or no surplus available for the School Board or Borough Council to use in lowering future tax rates as has been done in recent years.
Cruier: ...it [surplus] is used to lower the tax rate
You do not mean "lower the tax rate". You mean decrease the amount of budgeted increase. The tax rate never went down for the decade I have lived here.
The other week I heard that we sold a dump truck to a neighboring town. Will we see that at the end of the year other than in an accounting ledger?
Cruiser must mean that the surplus is being spent instead of raising taxes even higher. This must have been what the petitioner who came to my door was talking about. According to her when the surplus is all gone taxes will have to go through the roof and services will need to be cut at the same time. How many years have they been spending more than they bring in?
Didn't "Markie" try to sound a warning about this?
Doesn't anyone ever pay attention to details much more relevant than bagging leaves or widening bike paths (a mere $75,000) or a speed bump on Morris street (a much used cut-through from Maple Ave. to Merchantville Ave.)near both Perno's & Lavadara's homes? Surplus decreases occur when council pays for properties (over $1.2 million)that are currently sitting vacant, vandalized and no longer paying property taxes (prior to purchase by the town over $70,000 in property taxes from these 3 properties)because they (the council) purchased properties without signed agreements with any purchasers/tenants to utilize those properties. Let's look at the realities here. Wake up fellow townspeople!
Bonds were issued for these speculative actions. Even without them- council has been spending more than its revenue for the last three years. With the surplus nearly gone it's about to get ugly. Or has the town been mismanaged on purpose all along?
Lessen the increase - your words are better than mine. Call it "decrease the amount of increase."
Anonymous 11:59 AM - The petitioner who came to your door was correct.
Deciding when and how to use surplus, when it is available, is a normal function of Borough Council and the School Board. There is nothing scandalous or irregular about it. When you elect persons to these offices you are entrusting them to appropriately manage surplus. Sometimes Council or the Board will choose to use surplus to reduce the tax rate; sometime they will choose to save it as a kitty for future years. Sometimes surplus goes up if, perhaps, expenses are less than budget or revenues are more than budgeted. Right now the situation for Merchantville is that no surplus is available to use next year for minimizing the tax rate increase. Nothing has happened to increase surplus and all of it has been used in prior years.
tonto - I think many have sounded warnings about this. There has been no secret about finances being strained and the situation with surplus being part of the strain. The question is what, as a practical matter, can be done.
Anonymous 9:33 PM - your points are one side of the issue. You forget that the bank deal was an integral part of resolving the mess of derlict properties at Maple-Chapel. The community wanted that mess cleaned up and it got done. It was risky to acquire the old bank without a deal in place for it but it was also risky to do nothing and let Maple-Chapel go from bad to worse. The final chapter on the bank and the related land is yet to be told. I hope the final chapter will be a good one.
Anonymous 10:04 PM - I don't think the town has been mismanaged on purpose or anything like that. The way this part of finances was managed seems to me to be the way the preponderance of the town people wanted it. That it would lead to the impending situation of the "surplus well" now being dry was understood through these years.
This discussion only supports the merit of a CH/Merchantville merger. Folks can say the merger is only "about the high school" but there is alot more to it than that.
"...risky to do nothing and let Maple-Chapel go from bad to worse."
What "worse" could that have been? I don't see it. When the property was "derelict" it paid taxes. Now it does not.
The bank property is now "worse". It also pays no taxes.
The situation is much worse than when we "got it done."
Cruiser: Why do folks continue to say that this is about the High school alone? In my conversations with some of the petition group this issue is never even mentioned.
Anonymous 8:01 AM - I think the reason that some people think the merger talk is only about the high school is that they want to believe, and want everyone else to believe, that other than the high school everything else is all right with the continuing existence of the borough. I think persons who advocate that "all is all right" are driven by emotion, not facts, or have a vested interested in keeping things as they are. As these numbers point out, eveything else is not all right. There are significant financial and service matters (leaf bagging being only a small one) to deal with which will only become more acute in the near future. Merchantville does not have sufficient ratables, partcularly commercial ratables, to support the services needed to run a modern municipal government. That is the major problem. Sooner or later the tax rate will get so high the citizens will scream for relief. The primary relief is merger with a community which does have significant commercial ratables. It can never be done with simply extreme expense cutting.
Cherry Hill is the obvious better choice because not only do you get a community with sigificant commercial ratables, you also get the high school. Two problems are solved. Property values improve, etc.
The possiblity of merging with Cherry Hill is a golden opportunity and the high school is the Midas Touch. Property values improve and the economic mix of community residents improves. Great deal if you can get it.
Bagging leaves is Bullsh**. I am now in favor of this merge. My Cherry Hill neighbors have lower taxes and leaf pickup. Everyone I know in Merchantville who was against this are now for it. Hopefully it happens.
Cruiser places a great emphasis on EXISTING municipal services and suggests, perhaps rightly, that Merchantville cannot continue alone with our existing services without ratables that can support those services. What he has not yet told us is that our police force is our most costly municipal service by far. Cutting our force by a quarter or a third would bring big tax savings.
The Cherry Hill police force per capita is less than 3/4 the size of Merchantville's. So there would be that cut in police services to Merchantvillans if we were to choose to become absorbed into C.H. Before deciding if a merge would be that magical Midas Touch, residents should look at the at-home alternative to Cherry Hill's thin police force ... cutting our own.
A second municipal (and school) savings could come from freezing salaries and cutting benefits of public personnel. Cruiser would have you believe that such is impossible.
Merchantville teacher salaries are near or in the top ten percent of the State. Yet, despite the millions of dollars N.J.E.A. is spending on promotional ads, student performance of Merchantville students is not comparable to our State averages. Why not freeze salaries and cut benefits until student performance approaches the top ten percent of student performance, where our salaries are?
I do not know if our Merger Study Commission is considering these two alternatives. In fact, I have not heard about our study commission. Last year Alice pointed to the Chester Twp. merger commission to assure us that there would be good communication between commission and residents. The Chester group met publicly every month for many months. Where is our commission and where is Alice?
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. BERTRAND RUSSELL
I'm with KTBM. Rather than throwing our town away let's cut the police and schools down to an affordable size. Maybe we could even outsource policing to Pennsauken or the county. Who's with me?
ktbfw preaches his usual pompous "cut everything 1/4 to 1/3 staff-wise and then have the remaining staff take salary and benefit cuts." Good luck having a quality community come out of that approach. How simplistic! Get real.
In the education area, ktbfw has enough experience to realize that such a tactic, if it could even happen, would take years to bring about. If you are going to say something, say something which has practical possibilities.
I have stated many times on these blogs that the community should have the absolute minimum of staff it needs and those persons should be fairly compensated. Borough Council and the School Board have to plunge into the morass of coming up with the right number of people. Council and the Board have to understand that the purpose of Merchantvile government/school is to provide services not to provde jobs. I presume they are on board that the purpose is to provide servcies.
Absent some kind of a miracle (such as significantly more money from Trenton), the outlook for Merchantville is tax increases for many years which exceed the increases of surrounding communities, accompanied by service decreases.
What is this winter's plan for plowing the side streets should there be a significant snowstorm?
More whining about snow removal already? Why should we expect the borough to pick up all our unbagged leaves and plow every bit of snow? Maybe people should think about pitching in to help the survival of Merchantville in light of financial difficulties. It's called VOLUNTEERISM. Every block could appoint a captain to coordinate volunteer snow removal. Let's remember that this is a good old fashioned small town- we can pull together and get these jobs done. Town identity and pride is about more than just services. STOP WHINING!
What happened to our community center activities for the kids for the Fall? Merchantville use to do both an outside Fall party with a pumpkin patch and activities and also a Halloween party. It seems feasible to cut one but BOTH? What's on the agenda for X-mas, Easter, etc. - all cut as well?? This town is losing its identity without the merger so those of you against it who want to preach this BS try to justify this nonsense! The identity is shrinking along with services, property value, a struggling school(close it!) and now even the little things like community get togethers. All the while our taxes are getting higher trying to sustain things we can not sustain (i.e., the police force) at the expense of our kids??? Merger, merger, merger, merger, merger, merger - bring it on! Cedar is mad about leaves - how about you?! Time for all of us to want better and if it means the merger so be it. Don't settle for less than what we deserve for our tax dollars, not for ourselves or our kids.
Why pretend everything is for the kids? PLEASE. Many of us are senior citizens without children. The most important thing for the majority is police protection! If I have a problem I can reach the chief on his cell phone. Would we get that type of respect from the Cherry HIll police? NOT LIKELY!!! Pumpkin picking and Christmas parades are just bells and whistles. Cherry Hill would probably increase funding for Merchantville community events and hold giant parades down Maple. WHO CARES? Our soul as a community would be destroyed. If you want better services and fancy community events move out and leave the rest of us alone.
@ Don't Settle for Less...
What rock do you live under??!
Not only did the Borough NOT cut any Public Events the Merchantville Public Events Committee has been on fire this year! Under the new leadership of John Grasso along with an amazing group of volunteers events like the Egg Hunt and Birthday Celebration have been bigger and better this year!
Over the summer they added a summer movie series with free water ice and popcorn. This was a huge hit with my kids!
Based on their track record so far I will bet Breakfast with Santa and the Holiday Parade will be a big hit too!
As far as the Fall events at the C.C. are concerned you should ask the Junior Women's Club they are the ones who sponsored it not the Borough.
Maybe you should get out from behind your computer and find out what a great town you live in!!
How does Cherry Hill manage to have lower taxes and better municipal services? I don't think it's because their elected officials are smarter or harder working- nope. Hardworking guys like Steve Volkert and Frank North do the best they can with the hand they're dealt. They don't have fancy degrees or polical connections, but they work hard. The system is unfairly stacked in favor of cities like Cherry Hill with its large commercial tax base. We need to DEMAND more financial support from Trenton!
Anonymous - what a load of garbage! Did you watch while our hardworking mayor bought a bank building for a sliver nder a million dollars, lying to us all about a done deal for a brewpub. At one Council meeting North told a resident who asked about the deal that he "guaranteed" it. Is he paying the cost of that ill-advised purchase? No, WE are!
The difference between our elected officials and Cherry Hill's is that Cherry Hill's works for the town, while ours work for their legacy and the maintenance of their own fifedoms.
North and his hand-picked cronies, like Brennan and his before North, have driven this once-great little town into the dirt with their legacy-building and power-retention policies.
Bring on the merger!!!!!
Yeah Right... Like Mayor Platt and his band of Merry Men are down right Super Heroes!
Ask people who live in Cherry Hill what they think of that huge library
on Kings Highway or better yet the closing of their one and only historic building.
Have you taken a ride on Rt 70 through Erlton? What a mess! The grass down the middle is over grown. There is no signage or plantings. This is their "Main Street" area. Some of the older homes that they brag about are located in this area. I image that long ago this was an area they took pride in but now I think all Cherry hill cares about it throwing up another strip of half empty shops and paving over what little land is left!!
No thank you!!
Not sure what you all think or know, but having lived here for a long time I can tell you there was no "outcry" from residents re: the Maple/Chapel concerns. In fact, this is the first I have heard about it. That sounds like a feeble attempt to cover up the "sliver less than a million" acquisition cost + the over $60K a year in property taxes from the PNC location on Centre. We were told by our politicians that we had to do the deal because the bank was going to leave town. Not true, according the management at PNC. They were going to use the office space for the bank, rehabbing it to fit their needs. And what about the other deal to pay more than the appraised value for 2 buildings owned by Merchantville residents and business owners to acquire properties for "the" Town Center East development which threatens to drown our town center in over-development in limited space? In this poor real estate market with a glut of too many homes for sale and prices about 40% lower than 5 years ago,why would we pay more than the appraised value? No one else in the state and certainly not in Merchantville is paying extra for real estate unless it's our town's elected officials. They work hard, but seem to dig deeper and deeper holes into which they plow our money as taxpayers. And we really don't have a choice...they are all running unopposed. We need control and sanity imposed on runaway spending of resources we don't have. And while we're at it, the most recent town center east project was explained at a planning and zoning hearing regarding that project, by a representative of that development company that the citizens and our zoning/planning board have no say in all of it because our borough officials signed a redevelopment contract with them in March of 2010 and since it is a redevelopment project that's a done deal. Sounds like we're living in a town similar to Boston during the reign of an English king who took taxes without representing the common good of the colonies in America. No wonder a "tea party" movement is taking place in this country...what happened to the greater good and representation of the citizens of your community? Now,suddenly, Fieldstone (the 2nd developer of a Town Center East project) has pulled back OR is it out of this deal? Who knows? We, as tax-paying citizens, are not told anything until it is one of those "done deals" we always hear about but never see. I'm ready to hear about a merger with Cherry Hill. It couldn't be much worse.
Don't "What" me! Where is your explanation as to what happened to the Fall activity. Don't give a crap who sponsored it, it was not there. Lame. Your the one who needs to get away from your computer and stop pointing fingers. It was something we were looking for because we do pay attention to the fact that it was once an activity available that was not this year. Our town is so obviously losing it's identity.
"...they are all running unopposed."
Our anonymous neighbor has a lot of thoughts about the failings of our town officials and their tyrannies, comparing some to the taxation by King George III who, just as a reminder, decided us Colonists ought to pay a portion of the cost of his stopping the French from taking claim to the Ohio Valley.
Anonymous asks, "what happened to the greater good and representation of the citizens of your community?"
Without agreeing with much of what Anonymous says, I would like to add a question to his.
What force and what thinking is at work in this last decade or two that would convince Republicans to abandon their own party and serve within the Democratic party here in Merchantville? ...or should I say, here in Camden County?
@ Don't Settle fro Less...
You are to funny!
So because an organization like the Merchantville Jr. Women's Club decides one year not to do a Pumpkin Patch the town is going to hell? Really?
What about all the other great things they do? I guess if it does not involve a pumpkin you could give a crap.
I still stand behind my original statement. Get out from behind your computer! Better yet, join one these great organizations and sponsor your own Pumpkin Patch!
I know I'll be there!
Anonymous 11/3 2:37 AM - There was plenty of outcry about Maple-Chapel including on these blogs. I, one of many, was glad Merchantville government took the initiative and caused the area to be redeveloped. What was there before was an unsightly, unsafe mess and it had been that way for years with no end in sight.
It seems to me that nothing has been covered up in any of this. Even without the scrutiny of government watchdogs, the key information was all on the table.
Whether the purchase of the bank and the land related to it was a wise decision or not is yet to be determined. It would have been nice if the brewery deal went through but even without it, the jury is still out on the ultimate wisdom of that purchase. While the community took a risk in acquiring the bank and land, keep in mind that doing nothing would also have been taking a risk. I, like many, support the mayor and Borough Council on this one. Only time will tell if ultimately it is a good deal for the community. I feel good people are working hard on it.
How much time,cruiser?
I suppose it is easy to judge something a success when you have no standards.
There was no outcry on this blog about the undeveloped lots on Maple Chapel. I challenge you to find any other than your own posts.
We traded a vacant lot for three vacant buildings. We traded actual tax revenue for debt. Excuse me for being less than impressed.
One sprinkles the most sugar where the tart is burnt.
Five years.
If the community did not want Maple-Chapel cleaned up, why was it cleaned up?
Why did the community overwhelimingly return to elected office those who cleaned up Maple-Chapel if such clean up was not what the commuity wanted?
The community wanted Maple-Chapel cleaned up.
As a practical matter, in Merchantville, in the early 21
st Century, the only deals which are available are deals like the deal which was done. I agree the deal was not impressive but it is the only deal you can get.
The only recent bad "deal" is the requirement for leaf bagging.
And cruiser returns to form...
@ What Now?? Why don't you get out from behind your computer and look at what other communities CONSISTENLY do for theirs? Mount Laurel, Washington Township, Cherry Hill, Mount Holly, Moorestown, etc., etc, etc., all of our surrounding communities have all of these events this year. Face it, get out and look around - it's not about a pumpkin patch - it's all over. This community is just not what it used to be...and it never will be. Things have change for the worse and they need to get better. Not settling for less than what our other NJ communities have - NEVER!
@ Don't settle for less
You said, "This community is just not what it used to be...and it never will be.
I grew up here and now my children are going to the same events that I did as a child. Can you please explain to everyone what are all these things that are now missing that used to be?
An important point to note in this discussion is that were Merchantville to merge with Cherry Hill, the types of events described in prior comments would continue. Events of these types are found throughout the various areas of Cherry Hill. Whether the events happen is really up to the people who live in the various areas.
"If the community did not want Maple-Chapel cleaned up, why was it cleaned up?"
ROFLMAO!
You wrote that there was an outcry in the community and on the blog in favor of a clean up. Well, where is your proof of this statement?
Yes, cruiser has returned to form.
Cruiser tells the truth and thus has never lost "form."
The community wanted Maple-Chapel cleaned up and is glad it has been cleaned up.
I for one do not give a rat's ass if someone cried out or not!!
The redevelopment of that corner is a massive improvement over what used to be there! Who cares how it got there!
Why is it that every time something decent happens in this town people come out of the wood work to rip it apart...
Enough already!
Did anyone see this from the Courier today?
Both candidates realize any merger is a loser for Cherry Hill.
Another elephant in the township living room — albeit a shrinking one — is the ongoing talk of the possible township consolidation with Merchantville. Buividas opposes the plan, saying that such mergers usually lead to increased taxes for the larger municipality.
“I’ll be opposed to (the merger) if the studies come back and say that our schools will be overcrowded and our taxes will be raised,” said Cahn. “But if the merger committees say there might be some benefits for the township, we’ll certainly look at it.
“But I think (the plan) is losing traction. On the Cherry Hill side anyway.”
Why is it that every time something decent happens in this town people come out of the wood work to rip it...
Because everybody has a different idea of what constitutes and improvement. Even the professionals have varying ideas to improve the same spot.
Cruiser has a limited memory regarding the Maple/Chapel corner. Before the one-floor retail plus a bank project was approved, the Borough had received two proposals for two/ three story buildings. One proposal was all apartments; the other had retail on the ground floor with residential above.
Who knows why Council threw out those proposals and the town plan and purchased a new town plan more favorable to one floor retail and bank. Immediately following that plan --some say even before-- a new developer placed on the table his proposal for one-floor retail and bank, the town providing the bank.
Cruiser says today that plan is a good plan but back then he was saying the town needed three or four floors in redevelopments ... for the ratables.
All of this is why people come out of the woodwork.
I have not said in recent times that any plan was a good plan. I said what is now at Maple-Chapel is an improvement over what was there before.
In the past I recollect there were other projects for the site and I may have commented on the merits of one versus the other.
As to the reasons why the borough may walk away from a project, I will provide a completely hypothetical situation. Let's say the borough checked on prior projects done by a developer. Multiple, reputable persons say the developer is a terrible mess and all involvement with him should be avoided. The borough quietly walks away from that guy not saying anything. To me, that is a completely appropriate way of handling the situation. The elected officials and staff who handled it in such a manner are doing the right thing. There is nothing untoward in such handling of such a matter.
When people come out of the woodwork merely to vilify people who are doing the right thing, it does not do the community any good.
A question to "Running Unopposed": Is it possible that, with the strength of South Jersey's Democratic machine and the "behind the scenes" Democratic political boss (George Norcross), the only way to be elected in Merchantville and Camden County is to run as a Democrat? I think that may be a large part of the reason that Republicans in Merchantville have decided to switch parties. Not positive, but suspect that is part of the reason. An other part may be that many Republicans just don't see that their party MUST do something to represent the middle class (most of Merchantville residents are in this class) before that class is completely gone from our town, our county, our country. Just some thoughts to ponder...isn't that what blogging is all about?
Anonymous 11/8 2:34 AM - I tend to agree with you that the Democrats are so strong in Camden County that it is mostly futile running against them as a Republican. This leaves local Republican organizations with candidates and platforms who are not appealing to the electorate. Merchantville in 2010 certainly demonstrated that.
Likewise the Republicans offer nothing to the middle class other than their worn out trickle down theory.
I believe the economic dream of hard core Republicans is to have 90% of the population living in a shack, eating a can of beans a day and working for a pittance until the day they die. Thus the need for a lot of education and old age benefits is eliminated. It would be a great nation for those in the top 10%.
Cruiser: "living in a shack, eating a can of beans a day and working for a pittance"
You went over the top on that last political comment, Cruiser, unless you are joking. Let's skip that comment for a moment while I tell you I agree with you on why some proposals are abandoned (quietly) and others survive.
Yes, credentials of developers is a big reason. The proposed design is another big reason for a rejection. But if I remember correctly in the case of the Maple/Chapel redevelopment --"Gone to Far" will be interested in this reason-- the rejection of the Maple/Chapel proposals for apartments was a direct reaction to the public storm over the AST project with four stories of 103 apartment units and cutting off the rear section of the PNC Bank, leaving it without a drive-thru or parking spaces. Officials responded to the objects by eliminating apartments at the Maple/Chapel project and moving the bank to that site.
Perhaps that was the correct political decision but, in my mind, it was a poor economic decision. The ratable we gained at Maple/Chapel for retail-plus-bank is less than what we lost by removing PNC on Centre St from the ratables list.
Now, back to you, Cruiser, with your accounting of Republicans. Well, no, maybe I won't bother. It wouldn't do any good. A couple of years ago I complained that my neighbor's dogs must be Democrats because they were always bitching. He renamed them Reagan and Ike.
I find that changing a label does not change the person. Half of our Council were Republicans three years ago. We still have the same quality in decisions that Cruiser continuously raves about.
Notice of meeting posted on the Borough Hall doors
An informational meeting about the property revaluation and the new appraisals that will be used to determine future property taxes is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at the Merchantville School auditorium on Wednesday evening, November 9.
It must be those erstwhile Republicans on council who swayed the majority to the leaf bagging arrangement.
REVALUATION - thanks for posting the meetingnotice.
Kudos to Princeton!
Oh please.
Not the same thing!
At the end of the day they are still Princeton. No name change. No idenity lost.
It is still Princeton, just bigger.
No name change or identity lost here either. We can keep our name and identity, just have municipal services and government across route 38. No big deal unless you're one of the people who lose your position. The rest of us just save the money.
No name change or identity lost here either. We can keep our name and identity, just have municipal services and government across route 38. No big deal unless you're one of the people who lose your position. The rest of us just save the money.
So Cherry Hill is willing to change their name to Merchantville? Wow! That's great! Frankly, it is much better than having your town named after a restaurant that was torn down years ago.
Westmont is part of Haddon Township. Bala Cynwyd is part of Lower Marion. Unincorporated towns have their own place names.
"Unincorporated towns have their own place names."
Not once the post office is gone. Pennsauken has its post office on Westfield. It does not need a second one ... and USPS is looking to save money by consolidating offices.
There is no talk now but you can bet that when Merchantville gets absorbed, its P.O. address will too.
Princeton will keep its post office. In fact, there is a slew of big businesses that located themselves on Route 1 just outside of Princeton just because that area is served by the Princeton Post Office. There is magic in that name on the letterhead and envelope.
Princeton P.O. - So how does your logic apply to the several (Cherry Hill, Woodcrest, etc.) post offices within Cherry Hill each of which have a name aside from "Cherry Hill."
The existence of a post office is determined by how much business it has not by whether or not there is a local government with that name.
Regardless of whether there is a Merchantville local government, there may be a Merchantville post office so long as there is sufficient business for a Merchantville post office. The possibility of a merger has nothing to do with it.
Lets face it, the separate neighborhood names in Cherry Hill are just that... neighborhood names. No one outside this area is familiar with those names. When someone in any of those areas writes out their return address it simply states Cherry hill, NJ. If Merchantville is absorbed by Cherry Hill our return address will be the same... "Greetings from Cherry Hill, NJ"
Sounds good to me, no one knows where Merchantville is anyhow. I always say between Pennsauken and Cherry Hill.
I an gonna need more bags.......
I’ve been told that it is my responsibility to bag all the leaves on my property. So I assume it is the Borough's responsibility to clean up the leaves now covering all the streets from the curb trees?
In case you were too busy raking the flying leaves to notice an astronomical conjunction, this morning your clock and calendar synchronized at 11:11, 11/11/11. You can see it again tonight or wait one hundred years, to November 11, 2111.
If you are into twelves, well, check clock and calendar in about a year and a month [12:12, 12/12/12]. After that mark on your calendar to look for 01:01 01/01/01 starting in 2101.
Stonehenge is a clock synchronous with the solar year at solstices and the southwest Native Americans of Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) constructed "buildings aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles, requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction." [Wikipedia].
Without taking credit away from the ancients' astronomical discoveries, I find the calculation of that Greek, I forget his name, who using a well on the equator in Egypt to establish true vertical, measured the angle of the sun's rays seven hundred and some miles to the north at the same time of day, month and year to calculate the circumference of the earth by the angle of the apex. And he pretty much got it right two thousand years before Columbus did his own measuring and blew it by half.
Columbus never found out where he had sailed before he died. And he was so mercilessly cruel to the natives he enslaved that his fame, titles and wealth were taken from him by the Crown. We should honor the Anasazi each October, not him, for they calculated where they were (and when) and were peaceful with their neighbors (until the Spanish wiped them out).
It all makes complaining about leaves a silly matter, don't ya think?
Burning leaves is out of the question here in Merchantville and it may be, too, in Cherry Hill. I am in agreement with that ordinance although there is something magical about the wafting aroma of burning leaves on a crisp autumn day.
Not so sixty years ago out Route 70 along the tree line beyond Springdale Road. It was Delaware Township to us and the road was Route 40. There is suburban housing there today but back then where the woods ended was a sand pit which was a southwest desert to crawl across and launch raids against Indians to us ten year olds. My cousin and I were U.S. Calvary and Charlie and the big kid whose parents were farm hands at Barton's Farm on Greentree Road, they were the Indians in the desert. As I sneaked out to the edge of the woods those natives sprang out of a pile of leaves and captured me. The fate of an army prisoner in those days, what else?, was to be tied to a fence post and burnt to death. Johnny tied me really tight with baling hemp while Charlie carried armloads of red oak and bright yellow Norway maple leaves to my tethered feet.
All fun in kids out playing in the fields, you say, but wait. The Barton kid smoked and he lit one of his matches to add some realism to our war. The aroma of those burning leaves I shan't forget.
Thank heaven we live in less troubling times although Warren has a point about bagging. It's something the Indians didn't have to worry about.
It is silly.......silly that Merchqntville has found another way to stick it to the people who remember Merchantville actually doing something FOR the residents.
I'm burning my leaves this afternoon. Screw this!!!
okay so I burned my leaves in the backyard this afternoon and recommend it as the best option.
Why are seniors being forced to rake leaves into bags???? Public works and the police department should never suffer cuts. It's time to cut EDUCATION in Merchantville. Schools only affect those with school aged children not all households. Households with seniors are a growing segment of the population!!! If we laid off 3 teachers making $100,000 per year in Merchantville think of all the day laborers we could hire. There's an idea. Public works could rake my leaves for me and taxes wouldn't have to go up one cetn!!
YOU PEOPLE ARE ALL IDIOTS.
"Schools only affect those with school aged children not all households... think of all the day laborers we could hire."
Where have you been for two hundred years? The quality of schools dramatically affects all households ... especially our seniors and our society.
The reason we can afford hundred-thousand-dollar teachers --and I do not support the remuneration system at all-- is because the educational level of our citizens allows them to earn our keep.
Anonymous proposes cutting teacher salaries and boosting borough workers' pay. Well, maybe he has not read the Council resolution granting our town workers a 2 percent raise retroactive for this year, another 2 percent on top next year, and then 1.5 percent on top of those in each of the 3rd and 4th years. Add that up. It is not a simple 7 percent in 4 years. It is a "compound interest" calculation. When you figure these raises along with the annual raises of prior years, you will understand that our employees are getting paid as well or better than tens of millions of workers in private enterprise during the longest, deepest recession we have suffered in fifty years.
I remember when the mayor supported the unionization of Borough workers. He assured Council that he had no problems dealing with a union.
In contrast, I find abhorrent the philosophy of allowing cuts in the numbers of workers in order to raise the pay rates of those left. It is a clever labor argument. As a teacher half a century ago I was a part of it. We knew that the employers would eventually add back in the lost positions and that they would be added in at the higher rates. And by accepting the temporary cuts, we teachers avoided the alternative -- performance-based pay. I am convinced that the system as a whole is expensive and causes a degeneration of quality of work.
Cruiser will agree with me on this one.
Cruiser agrees with you on this one.
Without diminishing my dismay about the bagging of leaves I learned today about a fine point of the collection process.
Today, Tuesday, is my assigned collection day (east side of town). Bagged leaves were in front of my house awaiting pick up.
The truck went by. Picked up stuff from some neighbors but not mine.
Upon inquiry at Public Works I was advised that the Borough has to separately pick up "leaves only" and leaves commingled with branches and brush. They were doing commingled stuff today. For the rest of this week, every day, they will go through the east side and pick up leaves only. Next week they will repeat the process on the west side.
Commingled stuff has to be incinerated at a high cost to the taxpayers. Leaves go to a less costly compost site.
So they are burning leaves, commingled ones. It could be a complaint and I love complaints as do all blog readers and writers.
But wait a minute. There is also the beauty of it all -- leaves, branches, trees.
I have a red maple out front that is stunning to look at these past couple of weeks. It is seeing the light of God. And the Japanese maple out back, it is such a beautiful dark red. The bright yellow of the Norway maple is mostly on the ground now but still vibrant in those thousands of fat, yellow hands that flutter as you drag your feet through them just for the noise and aroma.
Should I complain that the autumnal wonder is too short?
I can wade grief,
Whole pools of it,--
I'm used to that.
But the least push of joy
Breaks up my feet,
And I tip--drunken.
Emily Dickinson
brown, yellow, pink or red
now is the time that they're dead
pretty in the tree
yet they're falling to our feet
screw this town
I'm rakin' em in the street
non-tea or leaf bagger 2011
3rd Tuesday is also the day for electronics pick-up on the East Side.
However, neither leaves nor electronics were picked up. I was home all day and no trucks even came through the street.
I can see that this leaf bagging is working out just as well as the leaf scooping did last year. IOW, not at all.
Leaf pick up is the ENTIRE week.
Also when I have any electronics out by 7am it gets picked up. Cruiser did the correct thing, when in doubt he called.
"...love is a passion entirely unrelated to our merits." P. Eldridge
My electronics went out Monday night. I am up at 6AM each day.
It was not picked up. No trucks came through.
Public Works FAIL.
" I am up at 6AM each day. It [electronics] was not picked up."
Hey, sleep in for a few days. Maybe it will get you into a more charitable spirit. Or read a book that can carry your mind away briefly.
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to pay for it, immediately or in the long run. Thoreau
Yeah, Yeah...all of that...but seriously...they're NOT going to clean the leaves in the street? Lots of flooding in the streets when it rained the other day. Everything is blocked by leaves.
Do I get a tax rebate/refund/deduction if I clean the street?
Probably just have to wait for the snow plow...shared services...snow & leaves!!!
I also put out electronics on the first Tuesday. It was not picked up. I put them out again on the 3rd Tuesday. Again, not picked up.
I get to try again in December.
At that point, it will have taken one month to get an electronics pick-up.
Charity? The stuff's not donate-able.
The "Village" People
I forget how many elderly people are living in Merchantville but I know that the Senior Apartments has just a tiny percent of them. Before our younger set goes out campaigning for adoption into Cherry Hill which is a younger community than ours in all ways, how about if we take a look at bringing services to our elderly ... so they can continue living with us for as long as their needs are met.
The "village" concept is a growing movement among older adults determined to stay in their homes. The idea of "aging in place" is not new, but what Philadelphia's 65 active villages offer are the perks that residents of retirement and assisted-living communities receive but in the villages, primarily from volunteers. Rides to the doctor or grocery store, someone to do repairs, personal care, and more. The downsides include keeping them financially viable.
Two of Philadelphia's villages are Penn's Village (pennsvillage.org) in Center City and East Falls Village (215-438-7479). Their organizers say they would be happy to share what it takes to be a "village!"
Anyone interested? Or is it all about leaves.
Cherry Hill offers a great deal more services for its seasoned citizens.
Let's all pull together and make this merger happen...... for the children.... and seniors.
And everyone else!
Beings as trash will not be collected on Thursday (Thanksgiving), will it be picked up on Friday?
Or does everything have to be retained until next Thursday?
Let's see, the 2 websites, the Facebook page & the observer all say Friday pickup due to the holiday.I'd say Friday.
Anon 12:43:
Such subtle sarcasm...such a light touch. You could write for Leno! Color me impressed.
Is there anything else going on besides the parade this year for the holidays? Nothing at the Merchantville Community Center? The Merchantville website has last year's event posted but nothing about this year - does anyone know?
Hopefully if you had company on Thanksgiving day, they didn't have to navigate many bags of leaves at your curb side like some did on the west side of town. And those bags are still there. This is disgusting.
Chapter 11 day comes around mid year. Maybe instead of community center events we should look into liquidating the community center.
I agree, its a luxury our town can no longer afford after the poor investments of the last 10 years.
Why don't we develop that space into condos rather than buy privately owned property.
Any estimates on how many ratables we could fit in that lot?
Besides the Christmas parade on Friday evening Dec 2, there is a Holiday House Tour on Saturday, Dec. 3, from 2 PM to 8 PM. Rickets are available at Aunt Charlotte's and McFarlan's Market.
Thanks, Cruiser. The Holiday tour is on the website. Is the Community Center event cut? All of you who want to say that your kids are attending the same events as you did years ago know anything? If it's not happening this year, just say so.
Look again at the calendar.
what calendar? asking for information here, not sarcasm.
It's a shame people even have to think that things they were used to having may be cut. It is a sign of the times, unfortunately.
MerchantvilleNJ.gov has a calendar.
Well I was sure used to having leaves picked up in bulk at the curb and that is gone, gone, gone...
Taxes going up, up, up. Services going down, down, down.
How can anyone support our current town government?
Despite its lapses of judgment like this leaves thing, the local town current government is better than any alternative which has been presented.
that calendar not the first place most people would look for anything, really a bit obscure, like what goes on behind the scenes in this town! AMEN to the above Anonymous post!!! cruiser, you drank the kool aid long ago.
Along with all the other festive events in Merchantville this December, there is the annual “Breakfast with Santa” On Dec. 17th from 10:00 – 11:30am held at the Merchantville Community Center. This is a wonderful free event for the children in our community.
The Public Events Committee can always use more volunteers. Come out and be a part of the fun!
Grinches need not apply.
I got stuck this morning around 8:15 by a leaf collection truck. The truck was stopped in the middle of the street, making it impossible to get around them.
I watched as 2 men opened up the plastic bags full of leaves and emptied each bag into the truck. After several minutes, they had only opened and emptied 3 bags so I gave up and turned around.
I understand the vacuum had its issues but there is no way this method is more cost-effective!
Very Interesting Find:
Go to Cherry Hill Townships website, then go to purchasing, then go to RFP and scroll down to something that involves Merchantville..........
www.cherryhill-nj.com/news.asp?intCategoryID=61&intArticleID=495
Try this link and scroll down
Revaluation letter came. Higher taxes. Would never get that assessed value on the market today. More taxes, less services. And not worth appealing, won't win. Happy Holidays to us.
Got my revaluation letter. The assessed value is up what I thought it would be (65%). However the new value causes an 8% tax increase. Yikes!
Yesterday I also happened into a store in town while the proprietor was opening the revaluation letter. In his case, the assessed value increased but the tax slightly decreased. While this is a small sample, it seems the effect of the revaluation is that the increase in the value of commercial properties was less than the increase in the value of residential properties. Thus the effect of the revaluation will put more of the tax burden on residential properties and less on commercial properties.
In prior discussion on this blog, there was a belief that Merchantville commercial property was not as valuable as residential property. That belief certainly seems to be well established by this revaluation.
Things are not going to get easier for homeowners.
What is happening on the consolidation-study front?
Just wondering if consolidating with Cherry Hill is worth giving up home rule? In the long run...we'll probably give up more than we'll get back.
Just wondering if consolidating with Cherry Hill is worth giving up home rule? In the long run...we'll probably give up more than we'll get back.
kHome rule is doing nothing for us now but making us poorer - there is nothing worth holding on to at this point. We will prosper and gain with a Cherry Hill merger.
Our assessed value was raised 55%, what is interesting is I had a private company do the same assessment at the same time for refinance purposes and they came in 10% lower than my OLD assessed value.
Clearly this assessment was done to raise taxes, it in no way reflects the true values of the homes.
Just our town giving us the shaft during bad times. Thanks! If you had hopes of selling your home they crushed that, who would buy into these taxes.
There are other reasons than these revaluations people would not buy in Merchantville. This just made it practically impossible to make it feasible to move. That is why we are now so pro-merger or any other option that may come along. Merchantville is just not sustainable as a donut-hole town, it needs to look past it's small borders for revitality.
Its strange...
There are big things happening in Merchantville and they are going unreported and meetings that impact the future of the community that are not well attended. Did any hear that the School Board is completing the send-receive agreement with Haddon Heights? Also, there is a public meeting of the merger commission at 7pm on tuesday and the community center.
Where is the discussion regarding these two major initiatives?
Well, if the school board is completng a new send-receive with Haddon Heights, that is good news for the kids and I am very glad for the kids' sake that such a thing could actualy happen. For tax paying homeowners it is not such a good thing. If a new send-receive with Haddon Heights goes into effect, it will cause many more Merchantville children to attend high school on the taxpayers' dime and will greatly increase Merchantville property taxes. Know the way the numbers work between a send-receive and a merger. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
I would be surprised that a new send-receive with Haddon Heights could come to be anytime in the near future. I base that comment on my experience while I was on the school board. Significant powers-that-be do not want these things to happen and, like in past efforts, they will mightily strive to kill it. If times have changed and the powers that be cannot strongly oppose, then something could happen. The school board should/Observor should comunicate more specifics on this matter.
Funny, heard that the send/receive with Haddon Heights was not happening. And if it does what is wrong with the kids going to high school on a taxpayers dime? That thinking people in Merchantville should pay outrageous taxes and not be able to send their kids to public school is a constitutional violation of the taxpayers' rights! Who the hell are the powers that be to violate that right? And if they so perceive that right, they will have a fight on their hands they will be sorry they started.
Cruiser raises good points on the talked-about Haddon Heights merger. And Gail could add more on the percentages of H.S. students now attending schools other than Pennsauken who might switch over to the free Haddon Heights receiver.
Did you also notice that Cruiser has not complained about the revaluation tax increase he anticipates. He has said all along that higher property values are good for Merchantville. Perhaps Anonymous might best review his past comments and Alice's ideas about valuation. They both are interesting.
I'm going to throw another idea into the mix. Everyone knows the Centennial House on E. Chestnut opposite the triangle to be redeveloped. The 1921 survey of Merchantville homes (Princeton Library Archive) shows that house as a duplex. Sometime since it was subdivided into attached single homes. Should the housing values increase in Merchantville substantially, other duplexes and multi-family buildings could be made into singles just as apartments were converted into condos decades ago in various communities with rising property values.
Here in Merchantville, for instance, the green 5-unit apartment building at the Gilmore/Park intersection was two attached singles fifty years ago and could be converted back easily if market conditions were favorable.
The revaluation letters left off some vital information for homeowners considering an appeal.
In reading the letter, I don't know if the info on my property card changed. Since the appraisers did inspections of each home and the purpose of the inspections was to update the property card, we should have been a copy of our "new" card to verify the accuracy. The property card is important to your assessment because the info on the card is the info appraiser uses to determine value.
The letter also doesn't say what value was used for the land and how that was determined.
The appraiser's website for sales used in the revaluation is http://www.ppareval.com/
The appraiser's website also lists the asking prices of "For Sale" houses. Instead of this information, I would have preferred a list of sales that the appraisers did not use and why they did not use them. I found 6 sales (so far) that were not used, but I will have to check each sale's SR1A card separately or pay for access to a special website to find out why the sale wasn't used.
As for whether it is worth taking the time to go over your assessment and speak with the assessor informally about the revlauation (informal appeal) consider that you will have this assessment for 10 years or more. Even a small change downward will save you money in the long run.
The website for SR1A's is www.vitalgov.net.
Access is rather expensive at $55/ annum for something you will use for about 1 hour.
They never even came into my house yet they assessed it up $100k
The market value of the home is 137k lower than the towns new assessment.
Soooooooo glad I bought in Pennsauken rather than Merchantville.
Sales Ratio form (SR-IA) is designed to provide assessors with information on all sales in their
taxing districts. The form, which is a multi-copy carbon
system similar to many merchandise sales slips, is serially numbered for easy reference and provides
exact copies for use by the assessor, the county board
and the Director of Taxation alike. The form replaces the present single copy card.
The form provides a "Remark” space wherein the assessor can briefly state the reason why a sale should or should not be used in computing ratios. For example, the sale from
Doctor Sherwood to James (Jim) Blackwood and wife would be recognized only by the local assessor as a wedding gift sale by the doctor to his daughter and his
son-in-law. The price would not be true value so the ratio would not be usable.
Other features of the system include:
1. Orderly flow of information at assessor, county and state levels.
2. Ready identification by serial number of each transaction not deemed usable or requiring cor
rected figures.
3. Elimination of duplicate reports of same transaction.
Hi cruiser, can you expand on your comment regarding tax assessment being what you expected (65%). Leave it to me to ask dumb question but do you mean that what your assessment states is 65% of market value? I just got mine and it is 30K less than I paid 7 years ago, and 10K less than my (senior cit) neighbor whose house seems smaller and not in as good repair. I am very confused....
nevermind cruiser...I read again and think you meant it is up 65% since your last assessment....
I meant up 65% from the previous assessment.
In comparing to your nearby senior citizen's house, you would not look to condition. The difference is likely caused by difference in the square footage of the house, the lot size and the improvements mostly meaning number of bathrooms but also such things as porches, patios, decks, garages, central air conditioning, sprinkler systems, etc.
I think that is the way it works.
Thanks cruiser....she does have a bigger lot I guess. I am still trying to understand how all this works.
The Consolidation Commission met Tuesday evening at the Merchantville Community Center. Although it was their 4th meeting according to the chairman, it became their first official meeting upon the commissioners being sworn in. Officers were elected.
The chair announced that a professional consultant could now be sought. No, whatshername from the petitioners' group did not enter with her application and vitae in hand and melodic foot tapping by the partisans.
From the sparse audience a question was raised about who would pay for the study and consultant. The Chair did not know, saying the Commission would have to find funding. The former mayor of Maple Shade, sitting at the table as a liaison from the Department of Community Affairs (?), said something that this listener either could not hear correctly or did not understand. It seemed to reinforce the "we don't know" status with a drift of "something will happen somehow".
Mr. Perno, announcing that he was a Merchantville councilman, said that our Borough had indicated that it did not have resources. He was asked by a resident if he were representing Merchantville as a liaison to which he replied that Council had passed a resolution of support for him to be on the Commission but that he was not a liaison.
A Cherry Hill resident, no, two residents commented on an earlier estimate by some unknown source about the disparity in property values in the two communities creating a benefit to Merchantville of $1.4 million dollars at a cost to C.H. of the same. Others questioned if the estimate would be different pending property revaluations taking place in both municipalities.
Following adjournment the public had time to return home to see the last half of N.C.I.S.
The Consolidation Commission met Tuesday evening at the Merchantville Community Center. Although it was their 4th meeting according to the chairman, it became their first official meeting upon the commissioners being sworn in. Officers were elected.
The chair announced that a professional consultant could now be sought. No, whatshername from the petitioners' group did not enter with her application and vitae in hand and melodic foot tapping by the partisans.
From the sparse audience a question was raised about who would pay for the study and consultant. The Chair did not know, saying the Commission would have to find funding. The former mayor of Maple Shade, sitting at the table as a liaison from the Department of Community Affairs (?), said something that this listener either could not hear correctly or did not understand. It seemed to reinforce the "we don't know" status with a drift of "something will happen somehow".
Mr. Perno, announcing that he was a Merchantville councilman, said that our Borough had indicated that it did not have resources. He was asked by a resident if he were representing Merchantville as a liaison to which he replied that Council had passed a resolution of support for him to be on the Commission but that he was not a liaison.
A Cherry Hill resident, no, two residents commented on an earlier estimate by some unknown source about the disparity in property values in the two communities creating a benefit to Merchantville of $1.4 million dollars at a cost to C.H. of the same. Others questioned if the estimate would be different pending property revaluations taking place in both municipalities.
Following adjournment the public had time to return home to see the last half of N.C.I.S.
I have not solved the repeat-entries proablem that I and a few others experience from time to time. This time the blogger machine told me I had not typed in the correct word verification, so I typed in its replacement. Then the double entries appeared under the banner "Your comment has been saved".
There is another problem that neither the blogmaster nor I know how to solve. On occasions, a comment is saved and then a day later disappears into the spam bin. The blogmaster suggested that perhaps the periods I use in my moniker to separate the letters is a cue to the spam detector that the message is spam. I'm sure Cruiser would agree with that conclusion and might suggest that our leaf collection should be as good.
On Sunday, December 11, a couple of us will be driving down to Greenwich NJ south of Bridgeton to enjoy the holiday house tour of 24 pre-Revolutionary homes on Ye Greate Street leading from the historical monument on the dock at the Cohansey River which commemorates the hamlet's own dumping of British tea after the Stamp Act was passed in Parliament. Greenwich was a prominent seaport in the 1700s I suppose because of the 50-foot depth of the Cohansey River which flows with a strong current directly into Delaware Bay.
If you have not visited Greenwich which is pronounced phonetically as a rebuff to the British (Grenich) pronunciation, put it on your Bucket List. Most of the homes are red brick in Federal period style with traditional Swedish architectural interiors ...much like Rancocas Village and Society Hill. You will find many Greenwich tour hosts in Colonial costumes sharing homemade sweets.
We have room in the car for a few. Tour fee $12, noon to five with lunch being offered in various homes.
Did I mention that Greenwich was Rockefeller's first consideration to be made into a Williamsburg? I am glad he decided it was too remote. Speaking of remote, the hamlet is surrounded by farms on all sides for many miles.
Tuesday night's meeting of the Consolidation Commission was a very crisp, business-like affair and likely a disappointment to those coming to it seeking something derogatory about the process. k.t.b.f.w. has strived mightily to find negatives among the positive aspects and basically has come up with nothing. He was even home in time to watch his beloved NCIS.
This was an organization meeting and they organized. The members were officially sworn in, committees were created, meetings were scheduled and the path to a final report was established. It all happened just as it should happen. I become more impressed with the Commission and the process at every meeting.
I'm not sure I like the way the final vote will be tallied, requiring 3 votes from each municipality's commissioners. Conceivably, we could have all 5 of one town voting for consolidation with 2 of the other town, and it getting defeated regardless of a 7-3 vote.
I believe the requirement for the vote on the Final Report of the commission to be a majority of each community's commissioners comes from the law and there is little the CH/M commission could do but go along with it.
If three commissioners from each community approve the Final Report, then it goes to the voters of each community and it must get a majority vote in each community.
Here is the editorial opinion of the Courier Post regarding last night's meetingand the need for similar meetings throughout New Jersey:
http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20111207/OPINION03/312070001/For-taxpayers-study-mergers?odyssey=mod
Since when do we put any stock in the editorials of the Communist Post?
I have several observations from the consolidation meeting held on tuesday night:
1. Mayor Bernie professing on his soapbox how this was going to be a transparent process.
2. Mayor Bernie stating that the Chairman of the commission had been picked and sworn in last week?
3. Not a clear answer on why Cherry Hill council posted an RFP for a consultant, and who was going to pick the consultant, Cherry Hill or the Commission.
What concerns me is that it would appear that the selection of the Chairman, and swearing him in before the first Official meeting is not transparent, much the same as the RFP where there was no mention of which until it was leaked.
Mayor Bernie was correct in saying that this process needs to be transparent, the Commission must work harder at making this a reality.
4. A member of the audience telling another audience member that they were out of line in their questioning. (It should be noted that the questions were coming from a Cherry Hill resident about taxes and the audience member confronting this individual was part of the Merchantville Petitioning group.
5. that meetings were not scheduled past July as the Vice Chairman stated that the original petitioning group wanted this on the November Ballot and it would have to be submitted by August. Which is somewhat confusing as the RFP put out by Cherry Hill anticipated the process of conducting the study to be completed in a year.
6. Interesting to note that soon a DCA representative was assigned to the commission, and that County School executive was there.
I truly hope that the Commission does a thorough job of studying the aspects of Consolidation with a neutral approach, and that a quality feasability study is done. I have some concerns based ona few comments made that they might be trying to do things on the Cheap.....the adage "You pay for what you get" rings true.
Take my observations as you will.
This will not move forward as there will be no funding. Merchantville has said they will not contribute, ch will not contribute and the state has no money.
This will die a slow death.
Does the new mayor take platt's spot as a commissioner when he begins office?
Interesting that there is no representation from the merchantville school board.
What is the status of the haddon heights send-receive agreement?
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