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Tabernacle’s Administrator Calls It Quits After Two Decades in Post and Total of 34 Years of Service to Township, Including Leading DPW
Tabernacle Township Administrator Douglas Cramer.
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By Douglas D. Melegari Staff Writer
TABERNACLE—Douglas Cramer, a 34-year employee of Tabernacle Township, with two decades spent as the municipal administrator, is officially hanging up his hat and retiring from the municipality on Dec. 1.
Cramer, known for his steadfast leadership in the community for more than three decades, announced his retirement during an October Tabernacle Township Committee meeting, with his replacement selected during a special Nov. 8 session.
Perhaps Cramer’s tenure could be best summarized by a remark this newspaper has heard uttered before by locals in tune with township politics – “Doug Cramer is Tabernacle.”
Cramer, in a recent interview with this newspaper following his retirement announcement, disclosed that he moved to Tabernacle in November 1978.
“I grew up in Vincentown,” he said. “My family had a farm in Tabernacle. It was the Cramer Homestead at one point in time back in the 1800s. So, I always had roots here.”
Working for municipal government, he said, “was not on my radar in college.” Instead, he envisioned entering “the business world” as he came to know his family’s business while growing up.
But as life would have it for him, Cramer began serving on the municipality’s Planning Board, about a year before landing a regular job for Tabernacle Township. He had also served a stint on the township Zoning Board.
“We brought Tabernacle Township into compliance with the Pinelands National Reserve,” he said of one of the most memorable accomplishments while being involved with the municipality. “We worked very hard on that as a board at the time.”
Cramer remembered the exact date – March 18, 1987 – when he became supervisor of the Department of Public Works for Tabernacle.
“I ultimately moved up from ‘supervisor’ to ‘director,’ and that was really just a title change when I got my certification as Certified Public Works Manager,” Cramer told this newspaper. “That happened somewhere in the ‘90s.”
Then, in June 2001, he became the township’s administrator/director of Public Works.
“I hope that my lasting legacy is that I took care of the residents of Tabernacle Township, and I handled them fairly and handled their issues both fairly and efficiently,” Cramer declared. “I hope I haven’t cost them a whole bunch of extra money on anything. I think I’ve been rather prudent on that.”
Besides helping to make Tabernacle compliant with the Pinelands Commission’s rules and regulations, Cramer said he is also glad to have overseen “the building of a new emergency services building” for township first responders, hoping that too becomes part of his lasting legacy.
“I have enjoyed the position of township administrator/director of Public Works because there is always a different challenge every day,” he said. “Because I live in the community, it is always gratifying to move the town forward without forgetting the past.”
Cramer presided over his last township committee meeting on Nov. 8, as a governing body session that had been scheduled for Nov. 22 was pushed back to Dec. 6.
The governing body, during its latest session, selected Casey English, the township administrator of Carney’s Point, to fill the post being vacated by Cramer.
The Tabernacle committee, after much back-and-forth recently with how to fill vacancies in the Tabernacle clerk’s office and advertise for them, in the wake of LaShawn Barber’s retirement as municipal clerk earlier this year and some other changes to municipal government, ultimately decided on Nov. 8 to hire Everett Falt, an assistant borough administrator for Roselle, as township clerk/registrar for Tabernacle, and Shana Gosik, technical assistant in Mansfield, as deputy township clerk, with Natalie Lewis, who held that latter post, becoming secretary of the Tabernacle fire department, Tabernacle fire marshal’s office and DPW.
“They have inherited excellent staff; let them do their jobs,” said Cramer of his advice to his successor and the others who are taking over the reins of the Tabernacle government. “You have a great group of residents; listen to their concerns. And work within the budget the committee provides you.”
Cramer told this newspaper that he is now “at a point in life” where he wants to spend more time with his newborn grandson and family.
“I am going to miss the people,” Cramer declared. “I wouldn’t say that I will miss some of the issues, but I will miss the people and some of the challenges – the rewards of the job.”
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