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LOCAL NEWS CLIPS - SEPTEMBER 2010
TRENTON - About 30 New Jersey mayors appealed to Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday for help complying with a new limit on property tax and cost increases that takes effect Jan. 1. The mayors asked Christie to push the Legislature to pass bills that would contain some local government costs and help them hold expenses to within the new 2 percent cap. Related story: Forty Atlantic City police officers gather at Police Compound, as layoffs become official Christie and the Assembly Republicans accused their Democratic colleagues of stalling action on property tax-reform legislation. Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver said deliberation over various tax-reform proposals is continuing on schedule. The Assembly approved two bills Thursday designed to cut government red tape and control costs, and the Senate cleared five. The head of the State Police union also was at the Statehouse, warning of massive layoffs and corresponding crime spikes unless something is done to help fund municipal public safety. The union had called for a temporary exemption to the cap for public safety costs, but backed off when it became clear the proposal was opposed by the Republican governor and the Democratic leader of the Senate. "It's dead in this house, too," Christie said when asked about a bill introduced by Assembly Democratic Leader Joseph Cryan, then panned by Senate President Steve Sweeney, to exempt police, firefighters and emergency services workers from the cap. State PBA President Tony Wieners said there are 2,228 fewer police officers in New Jersey now than at the start of 2009, warning that number would accelerate when towns adhere to a 2 percent cap on spending growth rather than the current 4 percent cap. The mayors, who were accompanied by New Jersey League of Municipalities Executive Director Bill Dressel and Vice President Chuck Chiarello, said they will be forced to slash services in 2011 to remain within the lower cap unless they get relief from mandated costs such as employee pensions and health care and the arbitration system that awards police and firefighter contracts. Chiarello, the Democratic mayor of Buena Vista Township, said the governor had met with the group, listening to their concerns. "Everything's been in kind of limbo up until now," said Chiarello, who has been a strong proponent of parts of the tool kit. "We wanted to come up and press our case a little bit." He said that while Republicans had expressed a hope to enact the governor's proposals as soon as possible, and certainly by the end of the year, Democrats such as Sen. Jim Whelan of Atlantic County expressed a different view. "We heard from Democrats that they're concerned about enacting a one-size-fits-all proposal, and sitting back and expecting it to work," Chiarello said. "The challenges towns are facing vary, they said. And that's certainly true." Dressel said most municipalities operate on a calendar year, so mayors are preparing budgets now for next year. Christie on Thursday repeated his call for changes to the way public employee salary disputes are resolved through arbitration and criticized Democrats in the Assembly for inaction. "I wonder what the heck they're doing down there in the Assembly," Christie said. He and the mayors want reforms to be in place when the cap kicks in. Christie said arbitration reform was an essential component of his so-called "tool-kit" proposals because arbitrators often side with public safety workers when settling contract disputes. He said in Belmar, for example, police recently were awarded contracts with a 15 percent salary increase over five years despite the pending 2 percent cap. The Assembly unanimously approved two bills: one allows more groups to challenge costs to towns that the state mandates but does not pay for, such as requiring additional security measures at municipal courts and allowing more time between required re-examinations of municipal master plans. The Senate approved bills that restrict quasi-government employees from enrolling in the state pension system; allow state colleges to pool insurance coverage; bar retiring public employees from cashing out more than $15,000 in unused sick and vacation time; encourage municipal court mergers; and eliminate a 5 percent down payment by towns and counties for bonds. Legislative leaders said additional cost-control measures will be on the governor's desk by the end of the year, but the bills they pass will not all mirror Christie's proposals.
Buena assumes control of EMS unit (The Daily Journal, by Joseph P. Smith, 9/24/10) Buena Borough voted to takeover the Fire District No. 1's Landisville Fire and Rescue Company. For complete details go to: www.thedailyjournal.com
The newest exhibit "The Way We Were" opened at the African American Heritage Museum opened Saturday. For complete details go to: www.thedailyjournal.com
Cranberry Run's standouts (The Daily Journal, by staff reports, 9/10/10) Winners of the annual Beautification Program at Cranberry Run. For complete details go to: www.thedailyjournal.com
Goodbye to season of dancing, music and socializing (The Daily Journal, Opinion, 9/10/10) Resident extending appreciation of summer concerts. For complete details go to: www.thedailyjournal.com
Cossacks preserve culture in Buena Vista (The Daily Journal, by Joel Landau, 9/6/10) New Kuban Cossack Hall on Don Road held their annual fundraiser Sunday for this community center and historical museum. For complete details go to: www.thedailyjournal.com
Justin and Michael Hinrichsen of Buena Vista Township were sentenced to two years probation for their roles in setting homemade traps on roads in two western Atlantic County communities in the summer of 2009. For complete details go to: www.thedailyjournal.com
New Jersey's EMS volunteers benefit residents (The Daily Journal, Opinion, 9/4/10) Opinion on EMS volunteers. For complete details go to: www.thedailyjournal.com
SHAMONG TOWNSHIP — A winding dirt trail through Wharton State Forest eventually opens up to a sandy expanse in the heart of nowhere called “quarter-mile” by the off-roaders who go there and “The Scar” by the people who say it is being destroyed. Piles of garbage and bonfire ash are scattered throughout the landscape between deep mud wallows carved out by the thick, knobby tires of trucks that go romping there. In various places, tire tracks go into the grassy areas surrounding it, forging new paths through the wetlands. “This is one of the last natural places we have left,” lamented Russell Juelg, director of outreach for the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, as he walked the Burlington County area. The spot is unique because of its breadth in such a thick forest, but the destructive activity that regularly goes on there is a long-standing, persistent and hard-to-manage issue. Illegal off-roading has only grown harder to control in recent years as more people have purchased vehicles, development has pushed riders into preserved lands and legal places to ride have diminished. A state bill approved by former Gov. Jon S. Corzine at the end of his term mandates that the Department of Environmental Protection designate three parks on state-owned land for all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes and snowmobiles to alleviate the problem — a task much harder than it sounds. “Places keep falling through on us,” said Lynn Fleming, assistant director of the DEP’s Division of Parks and Forestry. At least three proposed locations in the north, central and south of the state were squashed after local residents and environmentalists virulently opposed them. Last September, the Zoning Board in Little Egg Harbor Township shot down an application for a proposed 120-acre park off Thomas Avenue. “This is something that’s just getting dragged out,” said Dale Freitas, president of the New Jersey Off-Highway Vehicle Association, who applied to open the site and continues to search for another. No public sites The last public site in New Jersey was the New Jersey Off Road Vehicle Park in Woodland Township, Burlington County, which closed in 2008 when the owners’ lease of the land ran out. Another proposed site at a former sand mine in Monroe Township, Gloucester County, outside Buena Vista Township, also got dropped from consideration after years of opposition from locals fearing the noise and environmental impact to the area. Buena Mayor Chuck Chiarello, who is also the longtime chair of the Pinelands Municipal Council, was among the plan’s opponents. He said he has been working to help find suitable places for off-road parks, but said all the locations proposed so far have been in environmentally sensitive areas, defeating their purpose. “It’s a big problem and it’s not getting any better,” he said. In the past year, state park police issued 94 summonses for illegal off-roading, including 64 in the Pinelands, according to the DEP. They issued another 144 warnings, 66 of which were in the Pinelands. There were another 389 documented sightings of illegal off-highway vehicles in state parks, 313 in the preserve. “As far as issuing warnings, our program is aimed at educating the public before enforcement action is taken, when possible,” said Larry Ragonese, the DEP’s press information director. “The goal is not to fine people, but to educate and work with them to try and prevent intrusions into our parks that damage the natural areas.” Off-road enthusiasts say finding a legal place to ride would go a long way toward getting riders out of sensitive habitat deep in the Pine Barrens. “Some of the enviros that are concerned about this activity need to realize that we are struggling,” said Fleming, who started with the DEP as a park superintendent in Wharton State Forest, where she said illegal riding has always been a problem. Any street-legal vehicle can legally use the extensive network of trails that crisscross the tens of thousands of acres of forest in the Pinelands, but some people abuse the privilege by leaving the trails, rutting through streambeds, dumping garbage, starting fires and otherwise destroying the land. Special permits Freitas’s organization and others often obtain special permits for races and joyrides through the forest, which they have to get approved by the Pinelands Commission and DEP. They map out a course, and guides and park police monitor the events. At the end of October, the Jeep Jamboree USA organization is sponsoring its 17th annual event in Hammonton. Environmentalists outraged about the destruction of sensitive habitat say these rides encourage people to go back into the areas, but the organizers say they educate their members to respect the land and strictly regulate riders if they don’t. “We wouldn’t be here year after year if we didn’t tread lightly and stay on designated trails,” said Pearse Umlauf, Jeep Jamboree vice president. “There’s a great saying that’s ‘stay on the trail or stay home.’” Umlauf said. “If you’re out there and not respecting the environment when you’re out there, then you shouldn’t be out there.” Umlauf, who works out of the organization’s California headquarters but had a house in Stone Harbor when he lived on the East Coast, said off-roading could be a boon for the state if private or public entities could find a way to accommodate it. California sites In California, he said the six off-road parks there bring in an estimated $11 billion to the state economy. They don’t come without problems. An Aug. 14 race in Lucerne Valley ended with eight people killed when a truck left the course and hit a crowd of onlookers. But advocates say regulated sites would be safer and cleaner than trying to enforce proscriptions in an area as vast and unmanageable as the Pinelands. “It would take an enormous force to be able to patrol the Pinelands and be on the watch for ATV riders,” Ragonese said. Shortly after Fleming started at the DEP in the mid-90s, there was a year when they only had four park rangers for all of Wharton State Forest, the largest park in the state at nearly 122,500 acres. Even when rangers stumble upon riders, they cannot chase them because of the possible legal ramifications if the riders crashed during the pursuit. And if they do get fined, off-roaders have plenty of other places to go. And mud-bogging trucks remain legal on the state roads into the park, so for them it remains a matter of education and enforcement, two things that officials expect to be a long-term struggle. In July, nature photographer Albert Horner wrote a blog post about the “quarter-mile” location in Shamong. He found it on a satellite image and thought it would be a good place to photograph, but said he stumbled upon desolation. “It is one of the foulest places I have ever visited during all of my hundreds, if not thousands, of travels within the Pinelands National Reserve,” he wrote on “Pinelands Musings,” coining the phrase “The Scar.” As of Tuesday morning he had 131 comments on that post, many in support of his condemning the destruction there, many maddened by his anger toward off-roaders. “We get tickets back there all the time, we pay them and keep wheeling,” reads one. “My truck is by far the most illegal thing to drive on the road, but I do, cuz I want to play in the mud. Point is … that we want to do it and no one will stop us.” A counter post reads: “It’s a shame booby traps are illegal. I’d like to ruin those nice big tires.”
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Address: Buena Vista Township
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