Evesham Town Council Meeting 3/6/2018 - Relay for Life, Capital Budget and the Misleading Enrollment Numbers

Marlton Relay for Life Team and Evesham Town Council

Tonight's town council meeting began presided over by Deputy Mayor Deb Hackman, as Mayor Randy Brown was at the girl's high school basketball championship.

First up, Ms Hackman read a proclamation for 'Relay For Life'.  Relay For Life is in its 10th year in Marlton and helps raise both money and awareness for cancer prevention, and has raised over $875,000 in its previous 9 years, expecting to hit the $1 million mark this year.  The Relay Committee was introduced, with chairman Al Lutner speaking for a few moments describing both the history of the event and what to expect at this year's event, including games, food, Mummers, a Survivor Walk, a Survivor Luncheon, and a 12 hour relay event.

This year, the Mt Laurel and Medford branches have merged with Marlton Relay for life, and the annual event will be held at Cherokee High School on Saturday June 2, 2018 from 12:00pm to 12:00am (noon to midnight).

Please come out and get involved or donate what you can.  More information can be found the the Relay For Life website.

Next up, our new Freeholder Balvir Singh was invited up to say a few words.  As a new freeholder, he is going to as many of the local municipalities as he can to introduce himself to the local government and citizens.  After a brief introduction, Mr Singh left for another engagement.

Township Manager Mike Barth introduced the Township Capital Budget for 2018.  Unfortunately the video presentation he prepared was not working, so as much as I tried to scribble furiously to keep up, I was unable to keep track of everything.  The town will spend $2.61 million dollars on road improvement, the highest amount ever spent.  The town also received a transportation grant of $200,000 for repairs to Brick Road from Route 73 to the Cherry Hill line.  For more details on budget expenses, I will refer you to Zane Clark's article from the Marlton Sun.

The town will also spend $320,000 for upgrades to the golf course.  Bob Hennefer from Indian Springs joined Chief Barth at the podium to address the golf course improvements.  These improvements include adding additional tees closer to the holes, with the hopes of luring additional golfers to the course, as some of golf biggest growth potential areas are women, juniors and families.  Based on expectations of between 2000 and 4000 additional rounds of golf, the expenses for the new tees are expected to be recouped in 2-3 years. The course will also add heaters to the driving range, with the hopes of adding an additional 2 months to driving range season.  Councilman Zeuli asked that additional information be presented at next council meeting regarding expenses and recovery costs for the new heaters.

The ordinances discussed this evening can be found here.  All ordinances were passed 5-0 with the following exceptions:

• Mr Gillespie asked that Ordinance 3-3-2018 be tabled until 4/10/2018.  No explanation was given.
• Both Mr D'Andrea and Mr DiEnna voted no on 5-3-2018.  No explanation was given.
• Mr D'Andrea abstained from the consent agenda items.

Other items of note:

• Steve Sobocinski was appointed to the Evesham Environmental Commission
• Nancy Jamanow was appointed to the MUA board (taking Tom C's seat that was vacated when he resigned his position)
• Two members of the public who live next to the new condos on Elmwood Road asked the town council for help in resolving an issue with drainage on their property since the new condos were built.  They state they have been trying to deal with the property owner and the developer and have not been able to get the problem rectified.  They asked that the mayor and council deny additional Certificates of Occupancy and Building Permits to the developer until the deal with the issue.  The Mayor denied this request and asked them to go through official channels, as they have been attempting to do, and have been in contact with other township officials.  

During his parting comments, Mayor Brown took the opportunity to bash the school board yet again.  He pointed out that enrollment is up 23 kids since January 1.  That number is correct, and looking at previous years enrollment numbers, this appears to be part of the normal ebb and flow of mid year enrollment changes.  I won't detail everything the Mayor said, as it was almost identical to the bashing he gave last month at Town Council, and you can read my response to it in last month's blog post, about half way down.  I will bullet point a few things here however:

• Evesham K-8 schools have 244 classrooms.  Those 23 additional kids split among 244 classrooms amounts to one tenth of a new student per classroom, or one new student for every 10 classrooms, or less than 3 new students per school.  
• The number of students per grade has declined steeply in recent years.  At the end of this school year, the 8th grade class (the 2nd highest in population) will leave the district.  A new class of 1st graders will enter the district.  Based on recent trends, the replacement grade population will be much lower than the grade leaving it. (I leave Kindergarten out of the equation, because parents have many options other than public school for Kindergarten).
  
  
  

• The decision to close a school was based on capacity.  Based on the latest enrollment number, here are the current enrollment numbers against capacity (the number of students allowed by NJ FES standards).  No school is near capacity.
  
• According to BOTH demographic reports,Whitehall (paid for by the school) and Sundance (paid for by the town), enrollment will go down after 2018.  

And finally, the subject of SROs in the schools came up.  At the school board meeting two weeks ago, I was happy to hear the president of the School Board, Joe Fisacaro Jr, talk of the cooperation between the schools and the town, both in his public comments and in a brief conversation I had with him afterwards.  For once, ego and politics played no part, and all parties got together for the good of the town and its children.  It seemed that the residents of Evesham could hope there might be more cooperation in the future, that perhaps some new bridges could be built.  Unfortunately, that will not be case.

I leave you with three quotes from elected officials in our town.  The first is from School Board President Joe Fisacaro, Jr, from the last school board meeting, after the SRO announcement.  The second is from  Councilman D'Andrea from the Town Council meeting Tuesday night during the 'Around the Horn' portion at the end of the meeting.  And finally, from Mayor Brown, whose words directly followed and contradicted Mr D'Andrea's.

• Joe Fisacaro, Jr, 2/22/18 School Board Meeting - "I was happy to see for the last 72 hours the cooperation between township officials and our administration in working really for the right of the community in getting these officers and SROs in the buildings... Your [Mr Scavelli] idea what you said 'let's take the politics out of this'.....  for the first time, I've been doing this 14 years, I kind of felt that actually was true."

• Ken D'Andrea 3/6/18 Town Council Meeting - "I just want to also congratulate Superintendent John Scavelli, [Township Manager]Mike Barth, Chief Chew on all the great work they did and of course the boards and everybody else that was involved in the SRO Activity that has been going on. I appreciate all the concensus building, the collaboration that took place."

• Mayor Randy Brown 3/6/18  - "Ken, I won't agree with you on your statement of thanking John Scavelli for the SROs cause if we go back in the history, John Scavelli has been against SROs...  Exactly how this event happened, the night of Parkland, I texted  Joe Fisacaro Jr and Dennis Mehigan....So congratulating him [John Scavelli] is inappropriate."

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