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LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE
YARD SALE

MICKLETON – The Little Red Schoolhouse, located at 12 Harmony Rd. in Mickleton will hold its annual Yard Sale on Saturday, April 24 from 8 a..m. to 2 p.m.

Over 50 vendors are expected to attend. Hot dogs, hoagies, sweet treats and beverages will be sold in the enclosed porch. Those interested in renting a table for $25 may call Gloria at 223-5111.

Come enjoy the great deals, or sell your treasures. For more information go to www.littleredschoolhousemickleton.org

Traffic Causing Issues
For Woolwich Fire Company

by Michael Williams

SWEDESBORO – Traffic at the intersection of Kings Highway and Auburn Avenue has been creating serious issues for the Woolwich Fire Company. During rush hours cars have been lining up bumper to bumper at the traffic light, blocking the entrance to the fire house.

The borough’s town council discussed the issue and possible solutions during the regularly scheduled town meeting on March 15.

“Cars aren’t supposed to stop there at all,” said Councilperson Joanna Gahrs. “If traffic has stopped for the light and a fire call comes in, then the fire trucks can’t get out.”

The council agreed that firefighters should not be forced to deal with unnecessary traffic obstacles when responding to a fire call, or trying to save someone’s life. They proposed investigating flashing caution lights as a possible solution to the problem. During a fire call the lights would flash to warn drivers of an emergency, and help prevent traffic from blocking the entrance.

There has also been an issue with cars cutting through the fire house’s parking lot, and endangering fire fighters during training drills and other exercises conducted in the lot. The council plans to deter this issue by increasing police presence in the area and ticketing drivers for the violation.

In other business, Councilperson George Weeks announced that the borough should save some money with their new metal recycling program.

“We changed the company we’re bringing the metal to. Scrap metal right now is worth its weight in gold…and we found someone that will give us a more fair market value for the metal.”

The new metal disposal program should save the borough around $5,000 per year, said Weeks.

In new business, Mayor Thomas Fromm revealed a plaque presented to Swedesboro from Boy Scout Troop 13, displaying the names of all 58 of the troop’s Eagle Scouts.

The level of Eagle Scout is the highest attainable rank in the Boy Scouts of America and requires a great level of discipline and dedication.

“Nationally only 1 percent of all Boy Scouts become Eagle Scouts, so we have a much higher percent of boys in our area that come in and stick with it,” said Weeks. “When you look at the list of names on there, they’re people who are involved in the community, business leaders and community leaders. It’s something that sticks with these boys for their whole lives.”

Finally, starting on April 1 the borough will have a new municipal clerk. Dolores Connors will be retiring as the current clerk and the council approved Tanya Goodwin as her replacement.

Over $1 Million in Bond Ordinances
Will Fund Water Main
Construction and Road Work

by Beth S. Biermann

EAST GREENWICH – The East Greenwich Township Committee adopted a $410,000 bond ordinance to cover the cost of constructing water mains along Rattling Run and East Rattling Run Roads at their regular meeting on March 9.

The water main project was delayed when Committeeman William Bumbernick abstained from voting for the bond ordinance when it had its second reading and public hearing on Feb. 9.

His abstention, combined with Committeeman Brenden Garozzo’s absence, resulted in failing to get a super majority vote needed to pass the ordinance. At the time, Bumbernick stated that he had an issue with how the ordinance was written, not whether the project needed to be done.

The cost of the water main project will cost close to $1 million. The $410,000 bond will cover a portion of it. The remaining $590,000 is already in the bank, leftover from a previous bond that funded the construction of a replacement well at the intersection of Rattling Run and Wolfert Station Roads, the site of the township’s new water tower.

The Committee also introduced a $600,000 bond ordinance to cover the costs of reconstructing Union Road.

The Union Road reconstruction has been planned to take place in three phases. The first phase, from Harrison Twp. to Wolfert Station Rd., is already completed. The second phase, funded by this $600,000 bond, will involve the section of road from Wolfert Station Rd. to Cedar Rd. According to Mayor Fred Grant, the township is applying for state aid for the third phase, from Cedar Rd. to Cohawkin Rd.

Work on Phase 2 of the road reconstruction will begin by taking cores at different sites to determine the degree to which the subgrade below the asphalt is degraded. These studies will determine the extent to which the road will have to be reconstructed. This section of road is much wetter than the completed Phase 1 and the section that will be done in Phase 3. The excessive moisture in this section has caused more settling and more damage than the other two sections.

According to Twp. Engineer Ted Wilkinson, the estimate of $600,000 is “on the high end” and he is hoping the analysis shows that less of it is unstable than what is expected. He added that the Township can bank any extra money for use in Phase 3, in the event that the state cannot come up with all of the funds for Phase 3.

Grant confirmed that the bond order can specify that any extra funds be rolled over into next year.

Bumbernick abstained from the vote, stating that he wanted “to be sure that we are not borrowing more money than we need and then have extra money sitting in the bank”. He preferred to wait until the core samples were taken and the scope of work was better known.

Despite his abstention, the bond ordinance was successfully introduced. The second reading and public hearing was scheduled for March 23.

Council Rewarded For Efforts In Safety

by Michael Williams

LOGAN – The council was awarded $2,700 through the Joint Insurance Fund (JIF) Safety Incentive Program for its efforts in maintaining safety as priority in the township.

Tom Narolewski, a risk management consultant for Logan, stood before the council during the regularly scheduled meeting on Mar. 16 to present the award.

“[Earning this award] is a very time consuming and tedious task,” said Narolewski. “It’s a great, great effort, and it really says a lot for the town.”

According to JIF’s website, the program rates towns based on a set criteria of standards, “such as holding regular safety committee meetings, completing monthly safety inspection check lists, attending safety training seminars, completing thorough accident investigations, and viewing safety training videos with employees.”

Towns are awarded ratings of ‘Basic Qualifier’ as well as bronze, silver or gold. Logan earned a ‘silver’ rating, and just barely missed gold, said Narolewski – a tremendous accomplishment for the council.

In other business, Chief of Police James Schmidt announced police are working on an emergency alert system for Logan residents.

“We want to put a system together where we could send out instant alerts to residents regarding changes in trash pickup day, snow issues, or emergencies,” said Schmidt.

In the event of an emergency or notification, an alert would be sent out instantly through text message or email. Though Gloucester County already has an alert system, Schmidt hopes to create a system that focuses primarily on Logan Township.

In public forum, Michael Schooley stood before the council to represent the Kingsway Youth Lacrosse Association’s plea to use Kingsway’s football field as the association’s home field.

“We recently opened lacrosse to kindergarten, first and second graders in effort to help inject this sport into the younger students in our township,” said Schooley. “But unfortunately, we are without a home field this year.”

Since the football field is similar in dimension to a lacrosse field, Schooley asked the township for permission to share the field. He offered to help maintain the field through the use of revenue generated by the lacrosse teams, and said that the sport may attract new visitors to the town’s businesses.

The council made no judgment on the issue, and advised Schooley to bring his plea to Logan’s sports committee and Public Works Department.

“If either of these two bodies has an issue with this, we’re not really in a position to override them,” said council person Lyman Barnes.

With the lacrosse season beginning this month, Schooley said he’d take the necessary steps to obtain permission to use the field.

“Even if we only get half a season on the field, that would be tremendous. From a competitive standpoint and a cost standpoint I think we can all agree that this is a challenge for the players,” he said.

Days later, in a follow-up email, Schooley said that issue had been resolved. The association was able to obtain the use of a field on High Hill Road in Woolwich.

Townships React to State Aid Cuts

by Beth S. Biermann

Woolwich will be receiving $423,000 in state aid this year, a loss of $107,000 over last year. This represents over 20% of funding that is being lost to the township. Mayor Joe Chila expressed his disappointment that “Woolwich has been at the forefront of consolidating services and none of that was taken into account” when the state aid cuts were calculated.

Chila went on to say that the governor’s intention “is for us to tighten our belts” and that is what they will try to do. The township is considering having recycling picked up every other week instead of every week during certain months of the year. The committee has already voted to reduce the vegetative waste collection as a cost-cutting measure.

In addition, Chila mentioned that the public works department had been planning to hire seasonal workers for the summer months to help in maintaining the township’s recreational field and parks. Instead of doing that, recreation organizations may be asked to help perform those duties in order to cut the budget in that area.

Chila also described the “very disturbing significant hits” that seniors and school districts are taking with the governor’s proposed budget. The seniors will lose their property tax rebate and for the first time in his eight years as mayor, the state will be taking money away from the school districts. This, according to Chila, will hurt the quality of education, and he is concerned about the tax rate increases that the Swedesboro/Woolwich and Kingsway school districts will put in front of the voters in April.

Chila said that the township is still working on the details of the budget and it will not be ready for a public hearing until at least the April 19 regular committee meeting.

East Greenwich will lose $148,000 in state funding compared to last year, bringing their total down to $1.8 million in municipal aid received. Mayor Grant could not be reached for comment.

Teachers, Sports and Band
To Be Cut From Kingsway Budget

by Michael Williams

WOOLWICH – The Kingsway Regional Board of Education meeting started on a positive note: outstanding seniors were presented with “senior of the month” awards, and were given the chance to announce their plans for the future in front of the board and family.

Unfortunately the optimism did not last for very long.

With Governor Christopher Christie’s proposed budget cutting $820 million from public education, the board was faced with the extremely difficult decision of how to deal with the cut in funding.

School districts in New Jersey operate as separate entities, so each individual district must decide how to deal with the reduced funding.

“We’ve been sitting down for two or three weeks trying to think of how to do this,” said Superintendent Avé Altersitz said, “We’ve been trying to think of a way that’s going to make the least amount of impact on the kids.”

While the board realized that some programs and areas would have to be cut, they were very concerned with the ripple of effects that may result from the cuts. For example, if electives are cut, the board feared students would likely end up being lumped into study halls. Massive study halls with limited supervision could then result in a safety hazard to students.

The board debated every conceivable angle of where the cuts should come from – sports, after school programs, staff, but could not come to a unanimous opinion.

Making matters worse, Board Secretary Andrew Eubanks announced that the district would be charged interest on an SDA grant that was used to fund the construction of Kingsway’s middle school and additions to the high school.

“One of the provisions in our state aid is that we are being charged interest on that grant money of $85,000,” said Eubanks. “When I saw that, I was livid.”

After over two hour of deliberation the board was able to approve a budget proposal by a 5 to 3 decision.

For now it appears that, among other cuts, the district will be cutting six teaching positions and eliminating two new positions. Sports that require regular travel and the use of additional facilities such as sports like golf, swimming, bowling, winter track, will be cut from the budget entirely. Marching band and various after school programs will also be cut.

Over time and as money becomes available, the possibility remains that the programs can be brought back. Unfortunately, the board did not express much optimism in finding extra money in the budget anytime soon.

With the severe cut in state funding and the hefty expenses Kingsway will be facing, the board regrettably acknowledged that tough decisions will have to be made.

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