Courier Post coverage:
Are Merchantville Students off to Haddon Heights?
Merchantville's School Plan May Face Challenge
Philadelphia Inquier coverage:
Merchantville Board Votes to Sent Students to Haddon Heights High School
The full study can be found on the Merchantville School website or you can view it via Scribd below:
Merchantville FINAL Feasibility Study
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179 comments:
Inquirer: "But if Merchantville's efforts to merge the borough with neighboring Cherry Hill are successful, the students could end up in the larger township's schools."
Merchantville's efforts? I guess it is impossible for the media to get it right.
What's impossible is for this HH thing to work. We have a much better shot at a successful merger with Cherry Hill. The media got it right.
A new sending agreement is great folks - we've been calling for that for years, but the reality is our school budget has been predicated for years on parents pulling their children out of public school at high school, or sending them on to the Vocational school instead. If we succeed in establishing a new sending agreement, enrollment will increase, and so will taxes. Our fundamental fiscal problems will be compounded, and the need for merger even stronger.
maybe so, but the additional cost that results is insignificant when accompanied with the increased property value.
Assume we would now be footing the bill for an additional 60 students. If we paid the entire cost of the student, with NO state aid (which is unheard of), it would be an additional $720K per year. Whacked up amongst 1,600 households (not including commerical) its $400 a year. In all likelihood, with state aid, commercial input, etc., its somewhere near $150-$200 a year. and your property value increases maybe 5-10% instantly.
this shouldn't even be a discussion item. i'm all for the merger, but i'll take this too.
Mr. Lavardera, you should read the study. That is not the conclusion. We live in Merchantville because we want a small town. Anyone that wants to be part of Cherry Hill should move to that community.
I will not sell out Merchantville. There are other answers and the HH send receive is a solution. Our taxes will remain the same or increase slightly (as they always do ) and we will have the benefit from increased property values due to an improved high school.
so i am hearing there is no funding for this merger study. interesting...commission vote in august, on the ballot in nov.
sorry, we don't rush major decisions in cherry hill.
stick with haddon heights. great decision by the merchantville boe!
I want to stay right here AND become part of Cherry hill. My opinion is just as valuable as yours.
I can't stand these people who say move, how about when we Merge you can move to another small town.
In my opinion the study was a pack of consultants selling us their services for the next 5 years.
They will get their fees no matter the outcome. I felt like I was getting a sales pitch at the BOE meeting.
I'm reading through the study and my first impression is that the consultant is low in guessing the number of students we would send to HH. I think the "cohort survival model" does not accurately project the number of eligible students.
According to the Master Plan, in 2007 we had 71 students eligible for MES that attended other schools. And I am specifically referring to children in grades K-8.
The report's "cohort survival" analysis assumes that the same number of children will not be attending MES as they are part of (the primary?) reason for the difference between eligible children and enrolled children.
"Baseline enrollment projections were calculated using average cohort-survival ratios based on the last six years of historical enrollment data. These values were used to project enrollments for each grade from the 2011-12 school year through the 2015-16 school year."
The only way this model works is if MES continues to repel students aged 5-13. If MES improves, then more students will enroll and go on to HHHS.
alice,
why are we assuming that a change in high school, would result in a change in the number of students attending MES? The two don't correlate.
I would imagine it would be less than the increased number of students attending MES as a result of a better school system attracting more young couples to move to Merchantville in the first place.
I am not saying a new HS will attract more students to MES.
I am saying that the cohort survival model used in the report assumes that eligible children of Merchantville will attend Kindergarten in MES at the same rate they do now. That means about 25% of eligible students go to Kindergarten elsewhere.
The report undercounts the number of potential HS students because it assumes MES continues to repel students at the same rate it does now. If more students attend MES, then there are more potential HS students to be counted.
If MES improves, then wouldn't more students attend MES? And isn't our school board dedicated to the improvement of MES?
no matter how hard you try you just can't please everybody.
I'll stick with the conclusions of the hired guns representing the BOE.
Based upon what I have seen and read I believe our BOE all elected officials have the best interest of the children and the community of Merchantville at hand. It would certainly appear that they have done their homework and a poised on the doorstep of changing our send/receive agreement.
Good job BOE we are all behind your efforts.
We ALL are not behind their effort, Don't speak for me.
My child currently attends Saint Peter's school because I feel its the natural progression towards Camden Catholic.
A improved HS would have altered my decision.
thats true alice, but that is one factor in an extremely dynamic situation. maybe MES gets worse and less kids go there. maybe a charter school opens up and its amazing and everyone goes there.
you can only make so many assumptions before it gets too out of hand and what you are analyzing doesn't accurately reflect the actual result.
"you can only make so many assumptions before it gets too out of hand and what you are analyzing doesn't accurately reflect the actual result."
Exactly what I think this report does by relying on the "cohort survival" model without setting a tolerance range.
They are also a bit sloppy.
on page 33:
"...there is a theoretical potential for 159 Merchantville high school students in grades 9-12."
but on p37:
"In a worst-case scenario, if all of the eligible Merchantville students attended Haddon Heights High School, there would be approximately 135 Merchantville students in 2015-16"
If this correction is made and the cohort non-survivors reclaimed, then HH is near or over capacity.
This is the sort of thing that DOE will be looking at: does the cohort survival model make sense, and is the report internally consistent.
If you support this change, then you should make sure the report you are relying on is as accurate as it can be. Because there will be challenges to it, and you need to be prepared.
I have read to page 90 of the H.H. send/receive report and I am impressed with its investigation.
What I find most interesting is Alice's new position closely allied with those few who have claimed on this blog that we should do nothing, allow Pennsauken to continue so that many parents will find private placements, and Merchantville will be saved financially via fewer tuitions. Her argument is not the same but has the same result.
In her fervor to find number gaps in the report, Alice seems to ignore that the first class doesn't change for several years --all of today's high schoolers will be gone-- and it is only one class at that time. It is not until 2020 that all our children would be served in the Haddon Heights placement. There will be dozens of cost changes between now and then including the one Alice has been championing since the start ... increased Merchantville property values.
I have not read the financial section of the report yet but I am already convinced that the argument that all five school districts involved will benefit from the Agreement is worthy. I am pleased that Pennsauken will see a reduction in class size that will allow opportunity for Pennsauken teachers to work on improving basic skills of their own students.
As to Alice's speculation that Haddon Heights will be approaching its maximum enrollment potential, I rely on the scenario that our children will be attending a high school half the size of Cherry Hill West but with a student performance level matching West. An 800-student high school is friendlier to 9th graders coming from a small, close elementary setting. And we can hope that such a setting will reduce the threat of drug involvement that we hear so often about our close neighbor.
Good decision!
I have no "old" position on the send-receive. How could I have a "new" one? Indeed, I have taken no position at all on the send receive.
What I have done, is to begin to read the report critically. It's something I hope the BOE is doing before it brings the report to the DOE. Perhaps my suggestions will help.
I think the report undercounts the potential number of students for the reasons I have stated. The errors I note are there for all to read and should be corrected before the BOE goes any further.
I am continuing to read the report and I have found some more contradictions and omissions.
what is up with the posters posing as merger people against the send receive? are they serious? send receive has been an issue for this town for quite some time, it wasn't created to defeat consolidation, if FACT just the opposite is true, consolidation is being attempted to resolve the High School issue, that is a FACT! Maybe now it is morphing into something else, or at least there is an attempt by some to claim other issues. It just amazes me how people who claim to be neutral and just want a study pick it apart when one is presented to them. I anxiously await the feasability study done by the consolidation commission. How can the vice chairman of the commission makes such assumptions and claim the study is flawed? He has absolutely no basis other that opinion, he has no expertise or any other qualifications to make such claims. Now LaVardera is jumping on the same bandwagon. At least he has the intelligence to realize that Send Receive is a crucial issue.
The Board has my total support on this issue, they were elected by the Residents of Merchantville, unlike to Consolidation Committee who were appointed by a chosen few.
"...have not read the financial section of the report yet but I am already convinced..."
That's sad coming from someone with a background in education.
Don't care about the new send/receive. It's all a waste of time. Just want the merger with CH, period, end of story. This is such a huge waste of time and the MES BOE does not have my support either, they had it a very long time ago but have lost it.
The consolidation effort for us is not about the high school and we are not behind it for that, either. Before you speak for other people, you may think it is about that but for us it is not. We don't think it was propelled by the send/receive at all but by the grim reality that an independent Merchantville has run its course and is plain flat broke and running into the ground. No surplus, no where to turn, the clock is ticking. Why is that about the high school when you can't run a town.
If we are surrounded by all of the smart minds that post here, why do we have to bag our leaves...
We have to bag our leaves because we don't have a PW Dept. that can afford to pick them up at the curb. Ridiculous.
we have a new send-receive for leaves.
the merchantville commissioners are so biased toward a merger it is laughable. no matter what the report indicates they will vote to consolidate. so glad there are ch commissioners like klukoff and yarnell. longstanding community members that will protect our schools. shinn is in the audience and knows the financial ramifications. ch will not get hoodwinked due to political agendas! looking forward to tonight.
at anonymouse we dont care about send receive we want to consolidate dont speak for all of us - obviously I was not speaking for you or the few other posters (If that many)who are pro consolidation. You know its funny the consolidation people or their montra went from we just want a feasability study to make a sound decision to we want to consolidate the hell with anything else. I do not believe for one minute that the foundation for this consolodation is anything but the High School Issue. Many of my neighbors stated the first words out of the petitioner where "High School". The school Board did a thorough feasabilty study, pick it apart if you wish, but make sure you have a basis for doing so, otherwise you would be just like some of the anti consolidation people out there.
the poster that wants to stay where they are and merge. please do so. you will find yourself in the same township 10 years from now. at least you'll have a better high school!
I think I have a new motto for a T-Shirt... MERCHANTVILLE or MOVE!
Maybe I will sell them and donate the profits to the merger study fund.
At least with the new high school the merger group's homes will be worth more when they put them on the market!
You people are kidding yourselves if you really think this Haddon Heights idea is going to fly. Good luck. Cherry Hill has a better chance of happening than the new send/receive on the table any day.
wow how was the merger meeting? i had a conflict and couldn't attend. is it still scheduled for the november vote?
From what I understand the November vote will not happen. Not enough time.
They are still looking for funding.
has it changed to a 5 year plan?
the merger/consolidation issues are daunting, it appears to me that we are fortunate the school board has taken action. I wish the consolidation commission luck, I don't think thay have the horses to pull this one off. It is important to have a feasability study that scratches more than just the surface level. With this said I don't see why anyone would be against the send/receive. It is interesting to note that Cherry Hill residents were complaining about high taxes at the meeting last night.
what we were saying at the meeting is that "Merchantville is not ready for our taxes". there are many issues that weren't thought through. Merchantville is a DE district factor group receiving tremendous state aide for students. CH is a gh district. in other words, we get almost nothing. if merchantville would merge they would merge into gh and lose funding. as John said last night, due to the tax and school funding difference, the merger commission is $3M in the hole before they even begin. it doesn't take a study to determine this.
also no funding for this study. ladies and gentlemen, this will go on for at least 5 years.
Great move by the BOE. HHHS is almost like a regional high school. It will be a great fit for Merchantville.
Don't know why 700 petitioners cannot raise fifty thousand dollars or so for a feasibility study. A few years ago the Concerned Citizens group raised $10,000 from fewer than a hundred residents in their legal fight against the first Town Centre East redevelopment.
Why hasn't the petitioners' consultant found the needed money? Why haven't the study commissioners put money into the study pot? They are spearheading the merger. It's a case of putting money where the mouth is.
dude, there is no consultant yet. there is no rfp. go to the meetings. they may have an rfp by march. not really fair to ask people that sign a petition to pay for the study. it is just a very slow process. looking more like a 5 year process.
as opposed to showing up at the meeting and just spouting figures at the commission like 1.4M for value and 3M in the hole that you really have no evidence of, nor do you have all of the information, why don't you let the study figure it out. I mean, honestly, you suppose to know all of the answers that a professional consultant spending 5 months of time would need to gather information and make a fact based presentation to the commission.
stop being so scared of a study. When the results come back, read it and then make your judgments.
I agree with "Putting Money On The Table" that the petitioners for merging our town with Cherry Hill should make the financial commitment to their cause. They were convinced about the savings a merger would create. Well, putting up the money for a study to show others what they believe is a reasonable investment. If they are correct in estimating the savings, then they would get their money back by the consolidation.
For the petitioners to expect others to pay for their dream is unreasonable. Why should taxpayers pay for folly should that be the case?
Of course I oppose the widespread expenditure of tax funds, including highway fuel taxes and bridge tolls, on projects unrelated to their collection. We know about the bicycle path funding and grants to public television and the maritime museum by the Delaware River Port Authority. Bridge commuters paid a million and a half dollars for the museum director's yacht several years ago.
More recently our federal government has been throwing tax dollars into "outreach" schemes. This week Medicare is advertising a Request For Proposal worth $30,000,000 to any company or organization to create an outreach project to tell about Medicare. Who in America does not know about Medicare? I get a red, white and blue 100-page booklet every year explaining Medicare and its services. Brochures from every insurance company come in the mail every week during the months of re-enrollment. Congress has been making cuts in Medicare coverage and yet thirty million dollars is being offered to anyone who comes up with a new project to "reach out".
Do you know who is applying for the funding? Universities that have successful senior-citizen programs already. They want the money to fatten their programs, to add personnel, to build new wings on buildings still under construction with other funding. We are talking about Medicare dollars allocated for medical services.
The consolidation petitioners need to pay for the consolidation study themselves. They are the only ones clamoring for it.
ktbfw,
at the last merger meeting, the commissioners made it clear that this was not necessarily about "savings", "efficiency", and "effectiveness". for merchantville it was about better services. huh?
So in the end this really all about leaf pickup?
" for merchantville...about better services"
Gee, why didn't they say that long ago. I am willing to do research on services Pennsauken could provide. For free. I'll just walk 3 blocks to any border and ask the street cleaning guy or leaf pickup truck or any of the dozens of cops and three fire trucks passing through Merchantville every day. I met one of the housing inspectors so I know they are on the ball. And we know about the emergency squad. Some of our folks are on it.
Tell the commission to call me up and ask away.
There's good news for us at the state level too. Gov. Christy gave a good State of the State address, saying NJ was climbing out of its horrendous debt Mr. Corsine left us with shortly before he bankrupted his own company. Christy said his priority would be to pass legislation modifying teacher's tenure to include evaluations and student performance factors. Any reduction in staff would be based on those factors too rather than on seniority alone. And you might also want to know that his budget will allow for a 10 percent decrease in State income tax across the board.
So why should we need consolidation? We can clean up our school at home, send our older students to Haddon Heights, purchase our municipal services from next door, and sit back to enjoy a 10% tax break and rising property values as we rake our leaves to the curb again.
We need consolidation because the last paragraph of the previous post is a fantasy. There will be a study and it won't take 5 years. The HH send/receive is at least off until 2014 or 2015 as the BOE president quoted, so what's the difference? In the mean time we sit back and bitch about bagging leaves because we are entitled to better and will get it in the end. Patience is a virtue.
what makes you think that Cherry Hill will not change their leaf pickup procedure in the future to save money.
Because, for your information, Cherry Hill is in a program for leaf recycling which actually makes them money. So are many other towns. A great job by our fearless leaders to go out and do the same for a Tree City, USA. It is disgraceful how they run things and bleed us. A real shame.
Below is information posted on Cherry Hill Township's website under LEAF COllECTION. Looks like they are all in favor of bagging!
I will not be surprised if Cherry Hill switches over in the near future.(Say in three years...)
They will still get their money for recycling their leaves(and ours too)and save big bucks on pick up!
Go Cherry Hill!!
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.
The bagging the leaves information has been on the Cherry Hill website for 10 years. Way to be awake.
Maybe the study will determine it is cost effective to share services in the public works area. anything but the schools and a full merger that saves money gets my vote.
So Cherry Hill has not updated their website info in 10 years? Way to be progressive.
If my town found a way to both bag leaves and make money for the PW dept. as well, they get my vote. Sorry, CH has it going all the way around and Merchantville does not! At least it won't be a deterrent to a merger vote. Wake up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Making some money on recycling does not mean there is a profit. Collecting the leaves and furrowing the material and turning it over time and again until it mulches down takes space, time and labor that is not usually factored into the sale price, if there is a buyer. Most towns give it away to residents.
Pennsauken used to mulch leaves at the end of Park Ave near the creek. Not any more.
To change the subject just a dropping, I thought this morning I might be able to track in the snow the person who leaves his large dog's droppings along the bike path near the Hollywood streets. No success. My guess is that the owner is too lazy to take the dog for a walk in the snow and so used his yard. We can only hope.
A generation ago after retiring a friend and I took a contract to paint a Cape Cod house in Willingboro. The owner had several large, vicious dogs that spent time in the Cyclone fenced yard. It was July and one had to scrape a clear path through the grass along the bottoms of the ladders ... and the yard stunk awful. While we were present the dogs were kept indoors so added to the stench was loud, incessant barking.
My partner was at the top of a ladder painting a window which happened to have a missing pane. Suddenly she screamed and slid down the ladder complaining that a snarling bunch of teeth had lunged through the hole and snatched her paint brush. I had to finish the rear of the house and all windows.
Until recently I owned dogs and cats my whole life. They are the easiest animals to domesticate in the entire animal kingdom. Why is it that we have neighbors who cannot train and curb their animals?
Never say never. Anything is possible here folks. We, as well as many other Merchantville residents still would like to see a full-blown merger. But the HH plan is a decent back up. The police and pw depts. need major overhaul though, we can't survive as a town carrying all of this payroll.
Well, you need to read something besides this blog as far as the leaf programs are concerned. There is a lot of money in it and it benefits the environment. What is out town doing with what is bagged - throwing it away. And the cash that goes with it!
really, and where do you base your comments about overhaul? Didn't Cherry Hill lay off officers not too long ago? Amazing how consolidation people are pro consolidation without even looking at a feasability study....wasn't that the whole point of the petitioners and commission that is formed?
Funny, Cherry Hill just hired officers at the end of last year. Obviously, you are not paying attention. Are you looking at old links like the person who posted the CH website has not been updated in 10 years? The information regarding the feasibility consultant is posted there as well. Who says the pro-consolidation people do not want to see the study? You?
yes I do so the pro consolidation people are mor einterested in consolidating than they are the study, oh yes Cherry Hill did hire, but do you know if that was to replace or add more officers. I'll bet you don't have a clue
Merchantville should lay off a few officers too. That would make sense.
sure lay off the whole force and have the county come in.
Now two days of dog dirts on the snow one the bike path near the St. Peter entrance.
You guys need to get your priorities in order.
I don't know if any of you have attended the series of speakers at the Philadelphia Free Library.
Zbigniew Brzezinski will be speaking this Thursday evening about his new book Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power. He was President Carter's National Security Advisor.
Another speaker on March 20 intrigues me with her books I have not read, the latest being Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? From her other books (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, The Passion, Sexing the Cherry) my guess is that this latest is also about lesbian sexuality.
Didn't Benjamin Franklin start the library? He would have been interested in hearing both speakers I suspect. He was in both worlds.
Third day since the snow and there is a 3rd dog poop along the bike path. I tracked several footprints nearby. A child pulled his sled along the path, veering out around the defecation and there were adult prints to and from the area across to Merchantville houses along Chestnut near the one St. Peter tried to purchase.
Two unshoveled sidewalks --the only two-- raise my suspicion as to who is the negligent (and criminal) dog owner. One house has a car with a handicap tag. The other houses a family relatively new to our town.
Tracking footprints is not new. I met a police detective in Willingboro who had an honorary plaque on his hallway wall for solving a crime in which a teenager had robbed and murdered an old woman in her home. I asked him about it. He said with a smile, "The crime occurred in a snowstorm and I just followed the footprints back to a nearby house."
"Didn't Cherry Hill lay off officers not too long ago? "
A few years ago C.H. cut its municipal budget drastically to keep taxes from rising. The school board did too when the State cut back funding.
Looking from Merchantville, I was impressed with the fortitude of the officials in making needed but difficult changes. The newspapers gave good press to them too. However, as most things gravitate towards the mean, the C.H. municipality and school board reinstated their full complements as soon as they could find the money.
So the prospect of consolidating our town with theirs has no purpose for me because those guys seem worse than ours when it comes to constancy.
And constancy is another business with a sale sign? Revitalizing downtown stands a better chance with Cherry Hill - look at all the success they have had during a recession!! And you are making this about constancy? Merchantville can't rehire anyone they have layed off. Constancy?
Success! Have you been down Rt. 70 in Erlton lately? This is Cherry Hill's main street and it is a mess! Not the Race Track shopping centre that area is run by a company not Cherry Hill Township.
Hey merchantville. We in cherry hill don't want this thing either. There is nothing in it for us. We have everything we want. Look at the courier blog. It will be a strain on our exucational facilities and pull our students down. Go the the commission meetings send emails to the commissioners. Tell them you want to call it quits! We'll help you!
Chris said: "...[Merchantville] has no ability to attract young professional couples because we have a sub-par school system"
The several towns you mentioned, Chris, are all high-ranked socioeconomic communities with well-educated, highly-salaried residents. Your argument that a good school attracts young parents was not the case in several of those towns. It was the opposite. I remember when Evesham, Voorhees, Mt. Laurel, Tabernacle, Shamong, Medford were rural areas with average schools. When young, educated parents moved into those municipalities the schools improved dramatically.
It was the children of Haddonfield, Haddon Heights, Moorestown, Erlton, Colwick and, yes, Merchantville who settled in those rural areas as young adults that introduced prosperity to those communities and good students to their schools.
I am not arguing against creating an excellent school program in Merchantville. I agree that would attract families with children. But don't expect them to be high-DFG types.
thats exactly my point. well-to-do families are willing to take a chance on "average" school systems. we can't attract well-to-do families because are school system is not even average. its not even slightly below average. its flat out horrible. and this is not MES' fault. its Pennsauken. so until that is fixed, we have nothing to offer those young, professional families.
MES has some fault in this too. It used to be a benchmark school and has not been for many years now. All the while, benefiting from tax dollars that were collected even though families paid for private high schools. MES definitely has some blame. Agreed that it will not attract well-to-families and will definitely lose this one in the next few years. We are just waiting to see what happens with the merger at this point. Not optimistic about the option of HH as PHS is going to make it extremely difficult. If things stay the way we they are now, there will be yet another home in Merchantville listed at below market value, ours.
Chris: ...and this is not MES' fault
I would like to agree with you wholeheartedly, Chris, but our "horrible" school system, as you call it, is our fault. Let me suggest why.
The Pennsy railroad entered our town from Camden on a single track that doubled at Lexington Ave for the passenger station at Center [sic] Street and added a spur for the freight platform at Park, then added another spur for access behind the passenger station and a third spur for J.S. Collins & Sons Inc., right into their coal and lumber sheds, then continued on the double track with another spur for the Eastlack Coal Co. (Granite Fuel today) and two more spurs for E.S. Perkins Ice MFG and Diaries and Hower Bros. Coal Yard at the end of Chestnut Ave. before returning to a single to continue eastward towards Maple Shade. The railroad served everyone's needs with multiple tracks and individual spurs.
Unlike the Pennsy, our school constructed one single educational track for all children but which is maintained adequately only for the eager students having active, supportive parents. M.E.S. serves the top third of its population you might say well. The same might be true for our students at Pennsauken High School. Of the portion of our students who attend P.H.S., the top several enter the accelerated program and do well.
The "horrible" thing is the school board enabling this partial service for so very long even in the face of withering test results that repeated warn of single-track troubles.
I am curious as to where you base your opinion about the send receive and Pennsauken making it difficult? It sounds to me like you don't know anything at all about the send receive and are just pro consolidation. Don't be a minion.
If you have not yet noticed, and shame on you if so, our West End has a new food market with attractive awning and store front. Several interested people worked hard to make this happen including West End Task Force member Charles Macadam who owns the building.
Melo Food Market has opened on Maple Ave. between Wellwood Manor and Poplar Ave. Look for its attractive awning. And spend a few bucks if only as a Welcome To Merchantville gesture.
"Hot Food, Deli, Coffee, Cigarettes, ATM, Lottery"
Pennsauken already has their defense ready to go against the new HH send/receive. They already have one victory in their pocket from the last time the Merchantville BOE tried to do this and they are ready to go at it again. What would make you think they would make this easy?? Good for the new businesses on the West end, but it's not helping downtown. Wirth will be gone next - sad.
Oh Geez, that's right that case from years ago, guess what Einstein? It has no bearing on this issue, Pennsauken will do what is best for them and in the end things will change.
How long has the Merchantville Observer been publishing?
A year? Two?
At its beginning I was skeptical that a committee of volunteers could produce a fair, comprehensive news organ, especially holding to its announced policy of excluding opinion. Am glad that I misjudged.
It is not to say that the Observer does not fall into the trap of printing "pitch" as facts. Its article "Basic Skills Instruction Addresses Declining Test Scores" did just that in touting the school board's latest retread plan of adding more pullout remedial instruction to solve the plummeting student proficiencies. Perhaps the paper is too young to know that the Board has been plugging the hole in the dam with that thumb for a decade with the leak turning to flood.
Basic skills must be addressed in the classrooms in all instruction, all day, everyday, folks. You need to "observe" and print that.
On the whole, however, the Merchantville Observer is worth reading. And I am surprised to see so many local ads. Good job!
Disagree, the past with Pennsauken HS does have a lot of bearing on the issue with HH. PHS has a best interest in keeping our send/receive. Don't have to be Einstein to know that one - it's a given. And as for the sky falling, it started long before Wirth Florist in Merchantville but some of us never stick our heads out enough to notice what is going on in the world. Stop leaving in the past and move on already. Things will change and hopefully with consolidation being the end result, even if not, things will change but we won't get our best option.
"we won't get our best option"
Ya know, ya read about scientists learning how complex life on earth is with multipurpose organs and glands and RNA and DNA and imbedded instincts and so on. Even the complexity of the universe is a puzzle to us from the smallest quarks and energy vibrations to multiple universes within universes.
Yet there is always some guy down the street who knows it all ... and is ready to tell you that anything you work to create "just ain't gonna happen".
Our school board changed the election date from spring to November to coincide with political elections. With the change citizens will no longer be able to vote on the school budget.
I have been critical of school board decisions supposedly to improve student performance --none of which has been productive over the past half decade-- and here comes another bad decision, this one to shield the board's expenses from public voice.
Schools used to teach history. One lesson now lost was that school boards used to be political entities and school funding was manipulated by politicians. The problem became so chronic that in the first decade of the last century --a hundred years ago almost to the day-- school elections were moved away from the November election of politicians so citizens could vote separately for board members, school budgets and school issues.
Of course every school board member today believes the school shall not become tainted with corruption by this new move back into the political voting arena but there are at least two axioms that will prove our school folks wrong.
"Those who don't know history are bound to repeat it" and "If you don't know why a fence was put up, don't pull it down."
I wonder if the Board changed the century-old school election procedures just to protect itself from public criticism.
bologna. Having the election in November is so much better because you will actually have people voting unlike in when it was being held in the Spring and no one cares enough to get to the polls.
While there may be negatives to November elections, there are significant positives which clearly outweigh the negatives. Moving school board elections to November is the wy to go.
"... in the Spring and no one cares enough to get to the polls"
Those are our citizens who do not care what the school does.
It will be interesting to see how the school budget climbs without public oversight in the voting booth. I suspect the budget will hug the state ceiling with all going to increase salaries ...and no accountability anywhere.
A case in point is the new 28-hours-per-week basic skills instructor supposedly the Board's answer to the State warning that Merchantville school did not make "Adequate Yearly Progress" in improving student performance.
Let's do the math. The State mandates that employees working 20 hours per week must get benefits. Add 35 percent cost above the instructor's pay for benefits.
The part time teacher getting benefits will work with small groups of students pulled out of classes. This arrangement maximizes teacher's pay and minimizes instructional time. Also, the students must leave their classes when the instructor is available, not the reverse.
An accountable alternative would be to cut the instructional time below 20 hours per week. Two 14-hr/wk instructors could work with double the number of students. Not having to pay benefits, the Board could use that savings to hire a third instructor, tripling the number of students served at no additional cost.
Why doesn't the school board organize remedial instruction to maximize the number of students served? Good question. Perhaps former board members including Cruiser and Gail have answers.
I say we put "School Board Changes" in charge of finding 3 qualified teachers, specializing in helping students who are already having problems grasping subjects, who are willing to work 14 hours a week.
Anonymous - I don't think there will be any difficulty in finding highly qualified part timers for the basic skills approach recommended by (ktbfw masquerading as) "School Board changes."
If I was cognizant of this approach with respect to basic skills when I was on the board I would have pushed for it. I can tell you at that time (1999 to 2006), the CSA was against anything other than full time employees. I recollect we discussed part timers in others areas and he strongly resisted such and swayed board members to his position. Full time, full benefits staffing has long been one of the edicts of NEA/NJEA. There are powerful forces in the education establishment constantly seeking to carry out the edict. Such is one of the many forces a board member has to deal with. Commonly the board has several persons who are adamant about employing only full time, full benefits employees.
"put "School Board Changes" in charge of finding 3 qualified teachers"
One ad in the local paper used to do it. Aah, first, we distributed the job posting among faculty as a courtesy, if not a contractual requirement. Today one does not need an ad. Use the internet to connect up to colleges' bulletin boards and to the County Superintendent of School office.
What will you get? (1) Experienced teachers who stepped out of education to raise a family and now want a route back into a school system. (2) Young teachers just finishing up their educational programs (January graduates, especially) and looking for a ladder into the profession. (3) Substitute teachers wanting a different, more-routinized experience. And (4) an occasional retired person wanting to spend his mornings working with youngsters needing help.
Want me to find you three excellent teachers to work with children needing help? I'll do it for free if the Board would try such a program. Don't want kids pulled from class? (I wouldn't) I'll match part time applicants to Merchantville teachers' styles so teams can be created to work harmoniously in the classrooms. Teachers learn to apply the help advantageously; the part timers learn how best to support a continuing classroom program; students feel they are getting help without being treated differently. After a few months you would be surprised to hear teachers complain about their "partners" only being part time, to see the part timers arriving well before their starting time and leaving long after their scheduled finish, to watch even the best students in class quietly grabbing the assistant by a pant leg for a moment to clarify a concept being presented at the front of the room.
Yes, there are pressures to make all part timers into full timers. Everybody wants to be the good guy. But then, look at the lines that form at an excellent restaurant, folks waiting their turn to be called to a vacated table. The long run opportunities are worth the wait ... part timers know that.
There is an excellent child study team specialist just back into our state who is working in a school cafeteria every morning and cramming down Annual Credit Units in her field at night to get back into a school system. She'll be my first candidate.
On the previous set of comments (BOE Study) Tonto made a couple of interesting comments on why Merchantville has financial problems -- officials serving themselves; building their own legacies. His is comment 203. You have to click on the title to see comments 201, 202 and 203.
Our mayor is stepping down at the end of his second term. He told me once no official should remain in office more than 2 terms, that it leads to thinking one can do more than what he is elected to do.
I would include the school board in that scenario although I suggest that long service can lead to doing nothing as well, which also is not doing what he is elected to do.
But you have heard all the complaints about Merchantville's government and school, again and again. In another school system a retiring administrator once told me that personnel involved in curriculum should leave after six years --that all the information and perspective one knows is shared in that time and so the person should move elsewhere then.
Awhile ago Gail and I chatted about the useful life span of a blogspot maybe being six years too. I may not be smart enough to hang up for that good reason but certainly the 9-minute, 51-second loading time of this blog via my dial-up connection is good cause.
As Tonto says more or less, we create our own demise.
Dear Train and Curb--No, we didn't shovel our sidewalks that snow. The weather report said that it was going to rain that afternoon. It didn't, and by the time we realized this, the sidewalk froze. We were stuck.
As far as the dog feces, it was not ours. My husband ALWAYS cleans up after our dog. In fact, on the few walks he's taken our dog where he's forgotten a plastic bag, he's come home and dropped off the dog, and gone back to clean up her mess. We've also been known to clean up other dogs' messes on our walks.
Thanks for being such a nice and welcoming neighbor. It's wonderful to come onto the blog and read the bitching about oneself and family.
Sincerely, Stacey at #74.
What are the next steps for haddon heights and merchantville? Has the info gone to the admin ct judge. Hoping my seventh grader can go to hh in 9th. 2 users away. Thanks.
things seemed to slow down a bit here. Now what can we pretend to know about so we can bitch about?
"Now what can we pretend to know about"
Coming elections. Similar to "Train and Curb" I have been following the tracks of Councilwoman Fields at work on Council, on the Planning Board, on the Wellwood Manor redevelopment project, on the TCE developer selection committee, on the bicycle path committee, and at various behind-the-scenes meetings including the one in which the mayor met with landlords of multi-family properties to discuss maintenance problems and on another to introduce alternative programs to the school.
She appears well informed always and makes good suggestions to the "earth movers" around her. I think she should be pushed to run for mayor next fall.
I hope that the usual scenario that when k.t.b.f.w. is for something that everyone else immediately becomes against it does not happen in the case of Ms. Fields. From all of my observations and dealings with her over the years she would be a fine mayor.
to hh parent,
we are doing everything we can to be sure hh is a reality for students soon. not sure if anyone was at the last merger commissioner meeting but the wheels are coming off the train and this looks more and more like a no go due to no funding and waning support. cherry hill residents are pushing back hard. hh is the best option
Cruiser: ...when k.t.b.f.w. is for something that everyone else immediately becomes against it
Thank you for the splash of water, Cruiser. You are good at keeping me sober.
Another thing I like about Mrs. Fields is her encouraging nods and smiles when folks are talking to any group she happens to be in. She invites ideas to the table.
Stacey: "...dogs' messes on our walks."
Yes, that half block up to Morris Ave is the problem area daily for dog messes. Do the culprits (not the dogs) believe they are not creating a sanitation problem? Or is it that they just do not care?
There is a renter, a young girl, living across the street who has a cab pick her up and return her home at least twice a day, sometimes more often. The Starr cab driver blows his horn loudly and repeatedly every time he arrives at the door and, of course, the girl is never ready at the time so the driver blows the horn again ...and again ...and again until she emerges.
The other day I told the driver that a resident one door away works the 3rd shift every night and sleeps during the day. The driver responded, "I'm working!" When he saw that excuse might lead to a call to his dispatcher, he said, "I can't blow the horn any quieter." He tapped on the horn and it sounded loudly. At that point the wife of the sleeping man came off her porch screaming at the driver. He proclaimed to her, "This is my first time here." She yelled back "It'll be your last if you blow that horn again."
Five minutes might have elapsed before the young girl came down her steps and got into the cab appearing completely innocent or so we were to pretend.
Ron Paul claims in his political speeches that whatever government gets involved in, its cost rises. I would add that when welfare pays for taxis for young girls with children, the noise level goes up with the cost.
Do you think the messing dog on the bike path has a master on the dole? and that is why the mess keeps increasing?
why the assumption that because someone is a young renter who frequently uses taxis is on welfare?
Maybe she is just smarter than the rest of us. Example: I pay $500 a month for my car, plus $100 for insurance, plus about $150 in gas per month. and don't forget about maintenance. All in all, it costs me about $26 a day to drive my car. I could probably take a taxi to work, about 4 miles, and be cheaper than $26 a day.
Maybe the young renter is upwardly mobile and takes a taxi to the airport frequently on business trips because its the same cost as parking.
Good luck with the big poop caper.
"I could probably take a taxi to work, about 4 miles, and be cheaper than $26 a day."
It took me several minutes and a cup of hot tea to recover from your $500/mo car cost but I am now back and agreeing with you on the young, jobless renter being smarter, perhaps.
That said, I might mention having affluent city friends who do not own vehicles and so do a lot of walking --I mean walking twenty long blocks on a blustery evening to see a live show-- and hailing taxis frequently and, to my surprise, making hourly rentals of those Smart Cars parked around town for easy pickup, and of course taking the Chinese buses to NYC for the theatre, and once in awhile taking a bus or subway across town, but most often imposing on their parents to borrow a car for a weekend in D.C. or to the Poconos or the shore.
At times I wonder aloud if it would be cheaper for them to own a car. They always answer, "Where would I park it?"
Cruiser will tell you that the suburbs are a gift of motorized vehicles. Personally, I cannot imagine anyone in America living without a car no matter where he lives or what his circumstance. Decades ago an historian on TV told us that the poorest American today is richer than the richest kings of a hundred years ago with today's foods, medicine, housing, plumbing, heating, communications and transportation. Did I leave anything out? And I can tell you that families designated as disadvantaged by Federal educational programs become eligible for educational, medical, dental, food, housing and transportation programs that few working individuals could afford to purchase for themselves. I am guessing that includes taxis today.
Need to get some opinions of when this merger might happen or when it will get on the ballot
I haven't been up on the merger meetings so I don't know any projected timeline.
Lavardera, do you know anything further for these folks? Thanks
timeline was supposed to be study by august, vote in november, but they have no funding whatsoever for a study, so really they just get together monthly and talk about how nice it would be to study if they money.
Next meeting in March. They are hiring someone to do the study and getting the funds. Get your info from other places than this blog!
interesting. i have been told by a very good source that they are discussing the rfp and are hoping to have the rfp completed by the march meeting (or april/may meeting). many of the prospective sources have turned them down. looks like funds might loosen up first quarter 2013.
Why don't the commissioners do the study themselves? Surely they have enough education. Break the work into 6 categories and accept two volunteers for each. What's so mystical/magical about consolidaton? It's shared services to the Nth degree.
All the partisans were bragging about the top notch commission they picked. Time for the test of that assertion.
Talked to the new owner of Wellwood Manor for a couple of minutes Thursday afternoon. He said that the existing tenants now have uninterrupted electricity, plumbing and heat. He had been expecting to start renovations but the bank that had foreclosed on the prior owner now wants to be designated as the redeveloper (as opposed to the new owner who was designated by Merchantville Council). Having missed the deadline to apply, the bank has taken the issue to court, in effect stopping the rehabilitation project.
Schools have their "Opposites Day" and municipalities have those "forgiveness" periods when residents can pay up on tickets and fines and such without interest penalties. Why can't society have "legality-free" days during which lawyers would have no authority, power or influence to hinder or block people in their normal course of business? Or as an alternative, states might have a week each year for gunners to "cull" the lawyer population down to a manageable size ... say, ten per county.
Everyone loves to bash lawyers, including me. Fun, easy target.
But it seems the reasons for the renovation slowdown you describe has nothing to do with lawyers. It's the greedy and self-serving interest of the bank.
In fact, the establishment of "deadlines to apply" and the act of Merchantville Council designating the new owner as redeveloper, are all examples of the "legalities" you seem to find problematic.
What's the choice here?
We must allow for self-serving, capitalist business interests to have their day in court - to "appeal" decisions they don't like. It may be abused but at least it provides a check and balance for all parties involved.
I can see your "legality- free" days playing well in Sharia led nations or N. Korea though.
It is interesting that the regulars, Gail, Alice, cruzer, lavardera are not weighing in on the stalling/stoppage of the merger process. Is anyone attending these meetings? Looks like it might be over. Can anyone confirm?
I am not pointing a finger, let alone a gun, but the Merchantville weekly (internet) newsletter carried an Inquirer article published last week about Merchantville resident DyAnne [sic] raising questions about the gunshop approved by the Planning Board last year and opened shortly thereafter by another Merchantville resident ... incidentally, who has lived in our town far longer than Ms. Dy, if not his whole life. Ms. Dy hails from Brooklyn according to the Inquirer. The newspaper reported "raises questions" and "raises an issue" but I saw neither a question nor an issue, only a complaint.
I am not against folks lodging complaints. I may be the biggest in that category myself. However, timeliness of complaints is important and we all know one way to settle complainants' fury is with the simple request for them to "wait and see". It's been a year and all is well. Now might be a good time to ask Ms. Dy to review our police reports. The whole decade Ms. Dy has lived here Merchantville we have been save. It was no different this past year in crime statistics.
The fact is that nearly all the gun business in the shop is through the internet via UPS. There is no large inventory of weapons and ammunition on site and only a few customers on foot. The Planning Board knew that scenario before granting approval.
"Good luck with the big poop caper."
SAW THE GUY THIS MORNING. ABOUT 7:20. BIG, STOCKY, MAYBE 220 LBS, 6 FEET TALL, GREEN COAT WITH BLACK TRIM, LARGE SHAGGY DOG.
The dog did his poop along the bike path close to Morris Ave. The guy watched, turned and both walked away on the path towards Stacey's area.
I was driving by and could not stop to throw the poop in his face. Good thing. It would have been a Charlie Chaplin movie with me darting into a storm drain and him pulling me out by a trouser leg, the dog biting my ankles.
If I can figure out how to work the borrowed electronic camera, I'll take a picture for Chief Bauer. You could offer him a dog dirt bag if you should see him ... or a catcher's mitt.
Gee, I hope I do not know him.
Anonymous 2/12 8:18 PM - Have no doubt that it [the merger] is not over. Were it over, Merchantville.com and its weekly internet newsletter would confirm it with banner headlines.
Having set a goal as a kid to see all states in the USA, I packed up my family in the mid-'80s for a trip up the Alcan Highway --which was a 2-lane, muddy washboard during that rainy week-- to Alaska and then on another thousand miles up to the Arctic Ocean (yes, I know the Yukon and Northwest Territories are not our states).
The MacKenzie Highway which at the time was one lane in each direction of gravel of varied colors, red when the surrounding mountains were red and gray when the mountains were gray and white in areas having granite and so on, all sprayed with calcium to create a compacted, hard surface. Every 50 kilometers that ribbon of road would widen to a hundred feet and a lone sign read CAUTION--AIRCRAFT LANDING. A couple of large tires were chained to stakes along the sides. It was spectacularly beautiful country and the road fit perfectly.
Last night at our Planning Board meeting a resident complained about the work started on the St. Peter parking lot. The shade trees had been cut down. The Board Chairman replied that the police had been dispatched to stop the work because a site plan had not been filed --nor work permits I think-- and the shade trees had been a requirement of the initial variance to construct the lot.
So for now, although the St. Peter parking lot is wider than the MacKenzie Highway landing strips, no one is cleared to land.
I will share that there are some rumblings of calling it quits. There are just not enough resources to make this happen. The announcement may be as soon as next month.
That is not surprising. Cherry Hill government is not supportive of this merger.
Cherry Hill community activity has proven that Merchantville needs to overcome $3M right out of the gate due to loss of student state aid from changing factor groups and the difference in the tax profile between the two towns.
seriously, will you two stop talking out of your asses. you heard no such rumblings, and you know not what you speak.
Dusting off Lawrence Kohlberg's six stages of moral development, it looks like St. Peter is either at Stage 6 (universal justice supercedes society's laws [e.g.: Gandhi] or at Stage 2 (do what you want and try to avoid the consequences). Obviously being told to stop work on the parking lot until a site plan is approved and work permit is granted does not fit with St. Peter's reasoning.
What would the borough do if everybody in town did what they wanted without legal consent? Hire more police or join the merger movement? Doing either would excite the consolidationists. But how about Cherry Hill? Would they want a renegade church and disobedient residents in addition to all the other woes named in comments above?
I heard cherry hill is still deciding what the greatest asset will be...the chicken place, the tattoo parlor or the gun shop.
Exactly, Merchantville has already gone downhill. My house finally sold, I had to take a loss but it was well worth it to get out.
Good luck
Everybody these days if selling their houses is taking a loss. One might say something similar about selling old stocks. My mutual fund is still lower than when I bought it. The other day I was perusing through the new valuations of Merchantville homes. I saw one reassessed at $200,000 which had been purchased seven years ago for $275,000.
Cruiser knows I complain incessantly about governments, all of them, being too big but the truth is that the third of all American workers in government jobs is what has kept our economy churning even in today's depressed economy. Housing prices will rise in time. Do you know why? It's government's policy of supporting continuous inflation. Do you remember the "Steer Inn" on Rte 70 near the airport circle circa 1960? ...hamburger 15 cents; fries 12 cents; shake 25 cents. Today the same food costs seven times more. The food is not worth any more; farmers' production costs are lower. It is the money that is worth less.
Don't worry about your house. The trillions of dollars being dumped into the monetary system will raise its price. It's your retirement nest egg you need to worry about.
What should be the penalty for the renegade church removing the shade tree requirement for the variance they got years ago to turn a residence into a parking lot?
I seem to remember that a building code violation might run $5,000 a day until it is abated. What did Wellwood Manor have to pay in fines for not having heat for a week? $70,000? If a landlord fails to return a security deposit to a tenant the cost is triple the amount plus a possible jail sentence.
Rather than penalize the church I prefer lavardera's "Awesome Parking" plan for increasing the number of parking spaces. Somehow, ingeniously, he showed each of the seven homes that the church demolished returned to its lot and then he carved out parking spaces in the church's own backyard.
I say, now that the church has removed the shade trees it should be required to replace the demolished houses. There is no penalty in that -- only a benefit to the community.
In this week's Merchantville Online Newsletter there is a link to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll finding 57 percent of 900 people polled are against the governor's proposal to merge Rowan and Rutgers facilities in Camden. Following that link you will find that Professor Aregood of S. Dakota University wrote an article in the Star Ledger which condemned not only the proposal but our governor in particular. Aregood graduated from Camden.
I don't know if anyone in the real world has noticed. A huge amount of public money --our county and state taxes-- have been spent building, what?, buildings and more buildings across Camden for both Rutgers and Rowan. On Sixth Street the new Rowan building is across the street from Rutgers' new building. There is a court argument on who should have both.
I like competition and I recognize that our federal government used public money to bail out both GM and Chrysler corporations who compete with one another. But for chrisake, is New Jersey supposed to construct separate universities, competing for the same students, across the street from each other? What do we accomplish by that?
Ktbfw,
What about choice? It limits our students choices to only have Rowan within driving distance. there are many students who can't (for whatever reason) live away to get a rutgers unviversity education. They can choose to commute to rutgers Camden. As a cherry hill parent, I want our students to have that choice. It is also not fair to change in mid stream. If they are going to combine the schools they should do it as part of a five year plan. Students applying will know who will issue their diploma and existing students will get what they paid for.
Rutgers Camden is no better than Rowan. I don't see the big fuss.
Two crappy schools to team up like Kmart and Sears.
When and where is the next consolidation meeting?
If you read the papers today you will see that haddon heights is the only sj hs that did not move elections and budget vote to nov. why? Because they are going beyond cap with their budget and will also float a second question. They site decreasing state aid and decreasing tuition dtudents as the reason for the shortfall.
It is so clear that hh needs the merchantville students now, today! Merchantville needs to be very aggressive in changing the send receive. Hh needs the students. This should be allowed to happen in September for the 2012-2013 school year.
"Merchantville needs to be very aggressive in changing the send receive."
Interesting idea...similar to the Isreali premptive attack on Egyptian forces massing to to invade Isreal.
Merchantville school could pass a resolution to reimburse parents who enroll their graduated 8th graders in Haddon Heights -- an amendment to the send/receive agreement effective 9/1/12.
25 years ago the Lumberton board approved building a new school but the electorate voted it down ...a couple of times. So the board signed a 20 year agreement to rent a new school that a private builder constructed on the same property and having the same design that the board had wanted.
Of course in the next three elections all those board members were defeated and school administration fired but by then the building was completed and occupied.
I call that "aggressive action".
Oops! Sorry for the misspellings:
Israeli, preemptive, Israel.
The next commission meeting is scheduled for Tuesday March 6th.
Time and place to be determined.
The Climate Prediction Center issued its forecast for March saying TEMPERATURE may continue ABOVE NORMAL for much of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains .... the March PRECIPITATION outlook is for normal precipitation in our area. When the Nat. Weather Service talks about "normal", you may remember, it is using the new 30-year average which now includes the 1990s, the decade of warmest annual temperatures in our recorded history.
As the world continues to emerge from the last "Mini Ice Age" with each new century warmer than the previous, it makes it easier to visualize the Norsemen making explorations in open boats prior to that ice age. Nodod, Leif Erikson's great-great-great uncle, discovered Iceland in about 861 A.D. and Erik the Red, Leif's father, when banished from Iceland, founded the first Norse colonies in Greenland in 986 A.D. and raised Leif there. There are two different accounts of Leif's discovery of Vinland (Newfoundland) both written around 1200. In one book he was blown off course while returning from Norway to introduce Christianity to Greenland and in the other Leif had heard the story of merchant Bjarni Herjólfsson who claimed to have sighted land to the west of Greenland after having been blown off course and so Leif put together a crew and explored that land, first landing at Baffin Island, then Labrador and finally wintering over on Vinland, there building a settlement he named Leifsbúdir ( L'Anse aux Meadows today). Accounts written around 1075, and those written around 1200 and archeological digs done in the 1960s suggest there may have been several Norse settlements including a waypoint and ship repairing settlement in Northern Newfoundland and another around the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Leif is last mentioned alive in 1019, and by 1025 he had passed on his chieftaincy of Eiriksfjord to a son, Thorkell.
Is it time to get out our spring jackets?
Whoever it is who writes these essays such as the one above: I hope you will get your own blog.
It's very easy to do and its seems to me you really need a place to let your imagination run free.
Maybe some place where your ramblings are not off topic?
I forget... What was the topic again?
Leave collection, BOE, Cell Towers, Merger, pooping dogs...
Sorry, that would be "Leaf" collection!
MARCH FORECAST was on topic with Merchantville's leif collection. He just spelled it wrong like everybody else on this blog.
But I would like to go off topic for a moment. Why is there no federal government holiday for the real discoverer of America? Only Wisconsin celebrates Erikson Day.
Columbus did not discover America. He landed on the Dominican Republic, thinking it was India, and then went home. He never knew the American continent existed much less laid eyes or a flag on it. And while he was governor of that island he allowed his men to enslave, torture, rape and murder the natives so viciously, the Spanish Crown called him back to Spain and stripped away his titles and wealth acquired by the savagery.
So Columbus kept a diary and Leif did not. That is a lesson Merchantville school should learn well -- if our children are not properly taught basic skills they will never get a day named in their honor no matter how significant their contributions to the world.
The basic skills tests are coming up in quick time. I hope every teacher and every student is reviewing the Three R's every day, all day long ... just to get their names in the history books.
I like the Merchantville.com weekly online newsletter. After a brief synopsis of one news item there is a list of linked topics to look up, or not. Each downloads quickly which is an important factor to dialup-ers.
This week there is a link to our board of education announcement of a school board vacancy. If anyone should be interested in becoming a force in improving our school or lowering its costs, apply to be appointed before end of Tuesday, Feb 28. That's tomorrow ... although I cannot believe February is over already.
How important is being associated --or avoiding association-- with a significant negative event?
I remember soldiers not saying for decades that they had fought in Vietnam while WW II veterans were draped in glory by the VFW and American Legion.
The other day I was working in the yard in an old Penn State University hoodie when a friend stopped by and asked if I weren't embarrassed to wear it. She answered "YES" to my question on whether Penn State should be held culpable for an employee's unlawful behavior. So I pursued, what did she think of the Church of Rome's cover up of its clergy's infractions. Although once heavily involved she said she "hates" the church now.
Here in Merchantville we have two possible "HATES" going on right now. We have a school which not only is allowing children to slide beneath the State minimal level of achievement, it was deemed last year by the New Jersey Department of Education as not making acceptable progress to correct the deficiencies. My question is, "Will good, smart citizens refuse to serve on the school board because of its deleterious behavior? Will they not want to be associated with failure?"
And the second question is what should the Boro do about the church down the street that shows no respect for local ordinances in building a maintenance shop without a building permit and ripping down a required barrier fence and 7 shade trees on its parking lot? That's not even to mention the unanswered neighbors' complaints about flood lights shining into their bedrooms and regular flooding from an inadequate parking lot drainage system.
Should we burn their sweatshirts and disassociate ourselves from them?
Would never sign up to be part of Merchantville BOE. I am a certified teacher in this state and just can not be part the politics of MES or this town. We need the merger to happen for MES along with several other issues that have been discussed on this blog. Why are we trying to hold on to this school? Let it go.
"Why are we trying to hold on to this school? "
Because there are 350 children there today and tomorrow and for coming years even if a consolidation were funded and studied and approved by voters ... all IFs.
OFFICIAL NOTICE:
The Merchantville / Cherry Hill Consolidation Study Commission will hold a public meeting on March 6, 2012.
The Meeting will be held in the Merchantville Community Center located at the intersection of Somerset Avenue and Greenleigh Court, Merchantville New Jersey. The meeting will begin at 7:30pm.
All you merger folks should give up the dream. Be realistic. Spend time making mes a higher achieving district. Get a boe seat or get actively involved. Changes can happen. It's not that difficult. There are strength in numbers. The merger will close the school immediately and your children will be bussed to 3 different schools. It that what you desire? Mes and then HHS are your best options. There is the slimmest chance a merger will take place. Even if they happens, it is still 5 years away. Do you want to wait that long. I watched parents talk about their children going to Haddonfield hs for years. It never happened. They moved away or their kids went to pennsauken. "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. "
You would have to get not just one but a lot of BOE seats all rowing in the same direction to begin to bring about significant change at MES. There are many on the board who believe things at MES are essentially fine just the way they are and the community should keep rowing in the same direction it has been rowing.
Insofar as the HH deal is concerned, it largely depends on the attitude toward it (and any other similar deals) within the Department of Education in Trenton. My observation, based on personal experience, is that the DOE staff does not favor such deals and it does all it can to disapprove or delay such deals. When I was on the board around 2003-2004 there was a project underway to change the send-receive to Cherry Hill High School. As part of that project I was in a group of M and CH BOE members who met with a regional DOE executive who made it very clear that such a change would never happen. While the DOE has to enforce a law which theoretically allows changes in send-receives, it has considerable latitude in approving such changes as the previously attempted Merchantville-Haddonfield attempt illustrates. Its typical tactic is to drag things out interminably and after they get done a process of legal challenges in the courts begins. Unless the current MBOE has indications from the NJDOE that they now welcome such changes, the community should get ready for a long, hard road to hoe in its attempt to change to HH. Five years could easily be how long the process would take and it could end with M being rejected.
Nonetheless, I think the BOE should proceed with the HH project. But it would be done as a back up plan for the clearly preferred merger with Cherry Hill. The merger of Merchantville and Cherry Hill is a golden opportunity and the change to Cherry Hill High School is the Midas touch within such a deal. Hopefully when all is done, whatever happens, the children of Merchantville will have the opportunity for a much better high school experience but it won't be for quite a few years.
I have not been following the Presidential Primaries and so do not know how Republican candidate Ron Paul is doing, if he is, but there is one point he made sometime ago that continues to ring in my ears -- anything government gets into raises its costs. If he hasn't already I'd like to add the corollary which might fit Merchantville with respect to consolidation -- the bigger the government, the higher the costs.
When I was a teacher in a small, rural NJ district half a century ago, we used to use large districts as our examples in negotiating salary increases. Cherry Hill and Willingboro were our favorites as wage standard bearers; C.H. being rich and Willingboro having State and Federal funding support. Aah, there was another factor, too, in Willingboro's salary schedule ... nobody wanted to work there because its exploding population crowded the classes with poor, disadvantaged kids. Raising salaries was a matter of increasing supply to meet demand ... an economic principle that Dr. Paul talks about.
Today there is no supply problem of too few teachers. There is only the rich-government problem. And big government is into everything. Take the Federal housing agency responsible for providing low-cost mortgages. Putting aside its financial transactions being a principle cause of the financial collapse a couple of years ago, Freddie Mac since 1991 not only is in the mortgage business, it has a foundation that gives money away in three areas: "Stable Homes/Stable Families", "Foster Care and Adoption", and "Academic and Career Success". The "Wednesday's Child" television advertisements appearing in every major metropolitan area featuring children available for adoption is funded by Freddie Mac Foundation. The Foundation operates a "Heart Gallery" where the public can go look at photos of 70 or more hardest-to-place children.
The Freddie Mac Foundation has raised public awareness on issues facing children and their families, and aggressively addressed them by supporting replicable programs with demonstrated results.
ktbfw words make a nice sound bite but they completely ignore the facts. In New Jersey and elsewhere the big governments are more efficient than the small governments hence there is the wise effort to merge the smaller governmental units into the big ones.
Cruiser's comments of 2/29 strike me as those of an Arm-Chair General. Worse so, because his long tenure as member / President of the BOE is when the decline at the school started. He should know better.
He surely knows about shifting demographics, NJEA / contract issues, the High School problems and the difficulty of reaching today's kids with mindsets, methods and technologies that are past their prime.
This is not to say that Cruiser and his then Board of Education didn't do the best they could with the financial and institutional realities they had to deal with.
Still, many could (and have) second guessed his past decisions - like removing the principal position, adding those duties to a Chief School Administrator who may have been effective at paperwork, but not so much with getting the best out of students and the teachers.
In the years since Mr. Cruiser's leadership of the Board of Education they have taken bold steps to change the send / receive relationship with PHS. Looking at the Feasability Study and the planning that preceded it, it's apparent that the current BOE has been persuing this specific path for at least 4 to 5 years.
As parents, we are very pleased that they have chosen an innovative, young outsider to replace the retired, former CSA. From both our kids and teachers we talk to, there is renewed excitement building and a focus on higher expectations and greater accountability. We feel confident that this will be reflected in a better education (not to mention test scores).
I hope that Mr. Cruiser, who knows these realities all too well, hasn't lost the ability to see the value of these actions. Even more, let's hope he isn't deliberately trying to create an issue in furtherance of the merger agenda.
The merger issue is greater than just these school issues, and acknowledging a turn around at the school doesn't undermine the potential value of the merger.
Ah, cruiser bashing! How refreshing.
Keep in mind the following points when bashing cruiser.
Cruiser did not alone eliminate the principal position. The vote was 7 to 2 in favor of eliminating the position. Many, many New Jersey schools the size and situation of Merchantville do just fine without a principal position. While that event is often recalled as some kind of turning point in the fortunes of the school, in reality it had nothing to do with the deteriorating trend. Those recalling the event as the turning point are merely using that as balderdash to avoid talking about the real issues or to deny that there are other real issues.
Expressed another way, are you saying that if the principal position was never removed that the deteriorating trend would not have been? If your answer to that is "yes," you are sadly mistaken. The principal position had nothing to do with the deteriorating trend.
In my mind the principal position was eliminated because it was deemed not necessary, a relic of the days when the school was much, much bigger.
Then and now I think that the deteriorating trend in the test statistics of the school is caused by the increasing presence of poor, disadvantaged children in the mix of children in the school.
Disadvantaged children are difficult and expensive to deal with. Merchantville simply does not have the resources to do it well. That does not mean that things can not be tweaked to do things differently so as to produce a better result. It is in this tweaking that I saw great reluctance by fellow board members. When things were suggested which were different from the way things were always done at the school, they objected to change.
For the Merchantville community I think that the high school issue is a principal cause of more affluent families choosing to not live here. We are in competition with the communities around us for the more affluent families. Faced with the reality of not being able to attract the more affluent families, the property owners and landlords lower their prices to the point where less affluent and poor people can afford them. Their children show up at the school in increasing numbers. A good mix of the economic classes is something which Merchantville has always had but now it is drifting, ever so slowly, to too many lower income people in the mix. I think a varied economic mix is a good thing.
Have no doubt that during my time on the board various opportunities to change the send-receive were pursued but to no avail. I described one of them in my 2/29 blog. I am delighted that the current board has found a possible partner in HH. This opportunity should be agressively pursued. I also said that on 2/29.
If the current board is more open to making whatever tweaking or perhaps significant, real changes are possible at the Merchantville school, I am delighted to hear that.
As to my overall agenda, let me be as clear here as I have been in my prior blogs: it is to merge with Cherry Hill. It would be the best thing for the children and the community. A merger may or may not come about but it is clearly the best alternative for Merchantville. Meanwhile the send-receive change to HH should be pursued. I said that on 2/29.
The possibility of a merger with Cherry Hill is Merchantville's golden opportunity.
not only do affluent families not move to merchantville, many families move by 8th grade. it is well known in the community. the merger may be the golden opportunity but those of us in Cherry Hill especially on the west side are against this. some of us speak out at the merger meetings. some of us have spoken to the mayor directly. it seems clear the present government of cherry hill want this to go away. this is a different group than when platt was mayor with a different mind set. the students of merchantville will not challenge our children. this is a threat to our community and it cannot take place. i would strongly suggest merchantville to embrace the hhhs relationship and move it along quickly. soon this will be your only opportunity.
by the way, kt, medicare administration runs about 2% of operating costs. private health insurance runs between 10 and 15%. An example of government running more efficiently than the marketplace.
medicare administration runs about 2% of operating costs. private health insurance runs between 10 and 15%. An example of government running more efficiently than the marketplace.
The key word is "costs" which the administrators are responsible for. Medicare rented an Oxygen Concentrator for my 93 year old mother. It was a co-pay in which she paid $30 a month and Medicare paid $670 a month. She used it for 20 months at a total cost to her of $600 and $13,400 to Medicare. THE RETAIL COST OF THAT MACHINE AVAILABLE IN ANY HEALTH APPARATUS STORE WAS $730 plus tax. I suppose the rental company (Apria) at the end of the rental took the machine back, changed its filters and tubing, and rented it to another Medicare patient for another 20 months for another $13,400. Of course the Medicare administrators received 2% above the cost.
However, Medicare does not always rent health equipment. Kennedy Hospital thought my mother might benefit from periodic purging of carbon dioxide from her blood. I forget the name of the machine ... something like C-PAC? Kennedy ordered that machine which Medicare paid for --about $7,000 I was told. Kennedy used it once and discharged my mother. Kennedy kept the machine and charged Medicare for its service as well. Add 2% for Medicare administrators.
Perhaps I have a provincial mind. I call the whole system "corruption" of a good idea.
That was a horrible counter-argument. you are suggesting that a private health care co. would just buy the machine and give it to you?
The biggest difference is that Govt isn't in it for profit.
Maybe I missed it, but no discussion of a 150' cell tower? Yikes!
when people stop using cell phones, they can start complaining about cell towers in neighboring townships.
What do the equipment vendors charge insured patients who have insurance other than Medicare? You are really not sure of your inference unless you answer that question.
I recollect a television news piece about the General Accounting Office being very critical of what Medicare pays for the rental of motorized wheel chairs. I believe the inference was that special interest politics had a hand in the formulas for determining how much is paid. Sort of like the Medicare Part D law, passed in the Bush administration, which prohibits Medicare from negotiating lower prices with the drug companies.
The principal reason that Medicare administrative costs are so much lower than commercial insurance companies is that the commercial insurers pay commissions, advertising and other marketing costs.
I do happily use a cell phone and have no intention of stopping, but it seems the ugly tower might be easily and better placed in a more industrial area...like down behind inspection station. The elite members of MCC would still have their fees off-set by the monthly pay out and the rest of us plebes wouldn't have to take up to a 20% hit on our property value. Given the recent property reassessments, I have already been slammed by the housing market fallout and with the tower, in CH but so very close to my door, don't think it likely to recover before I retire...in 15 years. Time to cut losses?
I wish I knew something of what a cell tower does. One might think it only broadcasts radio signals but where might they get them from? Incoming microwave signals?
Radio waves are generally considered as safe. Let's hope so because we are bombarded with them every second of every hour and have been during my lifetime and my parents' lifetimes too. But microwave, a shorter wavelength of radio, is not a safe radiation. We have all heard the horror stories of unsuspecting employees in microwave receiving and sending stations developing lethal diseases.
I knew a teacher who lived on a hill directly between two microwave towers twenty miles apart. Every day on my way to work when passing her house my Fuzz Buster started to wail as it passed through the signal path so I mentioned the hazard to her and her family. She asked me to tell the symptoms of microwave radiation that I had read about. "The initial symptoms are sterility and weight loss", I said.
She paused and then asked, "Could I stay in the microwave path another two years?"
The consolidation meeting met and adjourned in short time. Two commissioners who resigned were replaced and then the Chair announced that the Cherry Hill legal office quashed the pending Request For Proposal for finding a study entity until three questions could be answered about C.H.'s sponsorship of the RFP ... legality, liability and jurisdiction. In plain words, who would be on the hook if the RFP were called into question by a complainant. So future meetings of the Commission will be put on hold until those questions are answered. The Commission will ask the Department of Community Affairs for answers.
I was one who until now was thinking the Commission itself should do the feasibility study to save time and money. Seeing the group get smacked to its knees in the opening round by its own corner, well, it makes me ponder over anyone being able to do it. While I was listening to the somber discussion, brief though it was, my mind leaped back to my childhood when I was secretary of a "junior" fire company organization. We were mostly 13 years old with no legal authority and no money but for our $1.25 dues and a few paltry fund raising events. Our meetings were just like the Commission's, centering on who would be responsible if one of us should fall off the fire truck or get hit by a 600-pound fire hose nozzle and what we might buy with our revenue. Then we adjourned and waited eagerly for the next fire siren to ring ... our teenage dream during a long, hot summer.
Do you believe it might be that CH leadership does not want this to happen. CH town council has gotten tremendous push back from community members that are against this merger.
maybe the end has finally come...
How were they "smacked to their knees"? Does this mean there will be no November vote?
This is a concern for us that wanted our kids to go to CH schools. It sounds as if we need to more fully embrace Haddon Heights and craft this to work for Merchantville.
No one was "smacked to their knees". These are just motions that have to be gone through. Why have a long drawn out meeting if not necessary. These people are legitimately going through the process, give credit where it is due. And there has not been strong showing in CH against the merger - only a small push back which is to be expected. Not enough that the leadership there would not want our tax dollars. That is what it will all come down to - money. Just like the Wawa that was approved on Haddoonfield Road. And the cell tower will most likely go through as well. Money, people, that is what it is all about. If you lose sight of that, you lose sight of the real issue. Ch wants money and Merchantville needs it. Perfect combination.
lavardera,
What is your take on this? Is the merger going to a vote in November or is it years away?
HA! I don't you are getting this.
There is a strong majority in CH against the merger. Town council leadership has changed and there is no interest in moving forward. There was barely a quorum and if it had started on time there would have been no quorum. Yes, we care about money AND education. We will continue to share some services and maybe even expand such as public works. However, there will never be a complete merger and we will not share our schools. Sorry. You really should work on cleaning up your own educational mess and not look to other towns to save you.
Our towns are not compatible. Can't wait to see you proven wrong. 6 months or so...
"There was barely a quorum and if it had started on time there would have been no quorum."
Wow....it started, maybe, 5 minutes late. Barely a quorum = 5 commissioners at 7:30 and 6 commissioners at 7:35.
Nice fearmongering.
Actually it was 10 minutes late and public meetings are required to start on time. I guess they do things loosey goosey in Merchantville. No big surprise.
Again, the towns are incompatible. Its over 6 months...tops...
Was Platt there or is he still Florida?
"just motions that have to be gone through"
Perhaps you are correct in saying that Cherry Hill's legal office was doing its job in not wanting to sign off on the Commission's RFP until questions about who would be responsible/liable were answered. But the commissioner who had prepared the document (twice) decided to resign from the Commission to "spend time with his family" directly after the C.H. refusal. That does not sound like "going through the motions" to me. Neither does the Commission's cancellation of already-scheduled, already-published, sunshine-compliant future meetings sound normal while waiting for the Department of Community Affairs to answer 3 simple questions. How long could that take? Two days?
No, I do not think getting the three answers is the problem requiring the cancellation. It suspect it will be what Cherry Hill decides to do (or not do) after getting those answers. And what answers does anyone think will be coming down? If Cherry Hill is the Commission's legal sponsor and C.H. signs the RFP, it seems apparent that the signator will be legally responsible. Surely the C.H. legal office knows that.
Between the lines I read vanishing support at the C.H. end. ABut the meeting is on You Tube. Why don't you check out the mood.
Does this sound like the "usual process"? If you review the video and read the article, it sounds more like the door is ready to shut and lock.
http://sj.sunne.ws/2012/03/07/merchantvillecherry-hill-merger-stalled/
The Merchantville Borough/Cherry Hill Township Consolidation Commission met last night to update the few residents in attendance on the status of the proposed merger between the two municipalities.
Vice-Chairman Rich James said several members of the commission met with Cherry Hill Mayor Chuck Cahn’s staff, including Business Administrator Lenore Rosner and Township Solicitor Bob Wright, to discuss issuing an RFP to open bidding to for an organization to perform a municipal merger study.
At a previous meeting, commissioners said neither municipality was ready to foot the bill to pay for a municipal study.
At last night’s meeting, James reported that the process was moving slower than expected.
“As of this date, (the) Cherry Hill administration is not prepared to assume the role in the RFP. One of the governments has to issue, facilitate and open the process and function as a fiduciary agent,” James said.
James said commissioners Tom Yarnall, Rosemari Hicks and George Wilkinson, who resigned prior to the meeting, were told by township officials they were not ready to move forward due to possible legal implications and responsibilities of being the agency that puts out the RPF.
Cherry Hill resident Colleen Horiates asked the commission why Merchantville, then, couldn’t assume responsibility for the RFP.
James said the borough only has one full-time employee and that the burden would be too big for that one employee and the part-time staff.
Commissioners said they would get in touch with the state Department of Community Affairs to try and square away the details of issuing an RFP.
Until those questions are answered, James said, the commission would not meet.
“From my perspective, the RFP process has to be solved before we can proceed with anything else,” James said.
Also at the meeting, James also announced a commissioner shuffle.
Since the last meeting, Pat McCargo of Cherry Hill resigned, bumping up Elliot Stomel from an alternate to take her place.
Wilkinson resigned and alternate Dan Fiedler took his place.
Those remaining on the commission include chairman Roger Dennis, James, Kathy Birmingham, Hicks, Cherry Hill Board of Education President Seth Klukoff, Merchantville Councilman Anthony Perno, former Cherry Hill Mayor Bernie Platt and Yarnall.
There will be more answers coming. Patience is a virtue, as they say. On thing is sure, the plight of Merchantville will only be a downward spiral with more shared services, trying to sustain a police force and a school that is steadily declining that the town will surely go broke keeping. Any families that can afford to move, will and those of you left here will see a lesser quality of life in this community. We will stay another couple of years and if the merger does not look feasible then good riddance. It's a shame, there is no where to go but down for this town.
Interesting. So you want us in Cherry Hill to now be responsible for a town that is in a "downward spiral" and also assume responsibility for a school that is "steadily declining". Referring to the at-risk student population and the test scores.
WOW. That sounds like a good deal for Cherry Hill. You have a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery and getting struck by lightning at the same time!
Lottery and lightning, indeed. I have a far more plausible solution. When Platt comes back he should bring Beach to Connect (with courage) and the three of them ride the River Line to Trenton, introducing legislation to amend the consolidation law so that no municipal government would be needed for a pocket full of petitioners to merge two towns.
It seems to me in retrospect (not the paper) that Stocker, Platt, Perno and the boys --should we name Lavardera?-- would have had a better shot at consolidation if they had accepted Merchantville Borough's study commission rather than to run around it. A majority of Merchantville Council had agreed to a study, including the mayor, and last Monday that commission would have had the needed governmental signature on the Request For Proposal ... no lottery or lightning necessary.
@"We will stay another couple of years and if the merger does not look feasible then good riddance."
Please do not stay and wait for a merger that may or may not happen, pack your bags now, and go!
Oh,one other thing...GOOD RIDDANCE!
Such a warm and frendly place.....
It is a shame what all this merger talk has done to this town. People are trashing the town they live in, their neighbors and even the children.
How sad that it has brought us all to this point.
I see it differently, I think its sad that the local government has brought us to this. Everyone wanted to live in Merchantville when they moved here.
I am grateful for their efforts, even if it doesn't lead to a merger it has been a driving force towards change. The attempt to change the send receive to HH is a great example.
" it has been a driving force towards change"
Good point. The threat also moved Council to start trimming the municipal budget. The serrendipitous outcome of the petitioners' effort is: better high school send/receive agreement, new elementary school superintendent, tighter municipal budget, shared/contracted public-works services, updated property assessments -- all needed changes. And yet, local citizens keep the power to decide what redevelopment is best and who will govern the community.
The petitioners' tactics reminded me of when I was a college kid involved in summer training with the Marine Corps. One assignment was to lead a squad of men five miles across unknown terrain during a moonless night to attack an enemy outpost. All I had was a topographic map and a WWII compass with florescent dial that no longer glowed. It seemed impossible until a grunt lit a match for me to site a star along the compass course. We followed that star for two hours, finally coming to a quiet encampment of tents, all inhabitants sleeping. I didn't wait for dawn; we attacked the outpost. Unfortunately, it was our command post, not the enemy target a couple of degrees to the east where the star had been when first seen.
The petitioners thought they could bypass Merchantville government in their trek to consolidation and they got lost in the woods.
Oh Please, Now you're giving credit to the merger group for something that they had absolutely NOTHING to do with!
Talks with Haddon Heights have been underway for years! Long before any merger discussions. Get you facts straight!
Exactly, its been all talk for years til there was a threat of the school being closed in a merger.
"giving credit to the merger group for something... "
Oh yes, that is the rule. Winning teams must congratulate the losers and praise their effort regardless. Then the losers can walk away thinking their idea was worth the contest but the winning team's is better. Good players might move to the victors' camp.
Let's hope our side is smart enough to continue the wrenching adjustments so that everyone thinks he has won. And Cruiser will again say local officials work hard and deserve our support.
The fact remains that no matter what happens here this is a town very divided. It will never be the same. The merger groups on both the sides of Cherry Hill and Merchantville are doing the right thing by asking difficult questions and referring to Trenton for answers, but what are you doing but bashing them?! They still have the support of many, many citizens on both sides. Yes, very, very sad.
There is no merger group on the cherry hill side. A couple of the cherry hill commissioners may believe this is a good idea. Other are extremely sceptical. Some cherry hill residents don't really care. However many of us are against this merger and if necessary the opposition will become bigger and stronger. This is just about over. Cherry hill will go right back to doing what we do beat. Merchantville on the other hand has been scarred. Bust you can overcome. The next 10 years will be very telling. Merchantville needs to change the send receive immediately. The hh deal can literally save your town. Without is your name will be pennsauken within the next 10 to 15 years.
"Merchantville on the other hand has been scarred." [speaking of bashing]
The truth is closer to Merchantville being a nice town to live in and attractive as well. Merchantville students have gone to Pennsauken secondary grades since the 1950s and even today the individuals who apply themselves can do well. NASA recently hired a lawyer who, after graduating from P.H.S. a decade ago, became a lawyer specializing in international and astronomical law. Did most of his study on grants and scholarships.
So, don't worry about our town. We'll pull through just fine.
Right, Cherry Hill resident. Great job not wanting the Wawa on Haddonfield Road or the Charter School opening in September. This is all about money for everyone and it is just as plain and simple as that at the end of the day. Merchantville is not pulling through all of this just fine. It is scarred. It's not bashing, it is the truth.
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