December 8, 2018 Pine Barrens Tribune

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Making Christmas More Colorful Yes, Virginia, Coloring is a 'Creative Art,' Worthy of a Prize PG 17

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December 8, 2018 – December 14, 2018

Proposed Repeal of Squad Status Tabled Once Again

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By Mark Hatoff

For the Pine Barrens Tribune

TAXATION RESERVATIONS

Photo By Joe Giuliani

Seneca High School, the sending school for Woodland students who are part of the Lenape Regional High School District.

Woodland Official Suspects His Township Is Being Made to Pay an Increasingly Disproportionate Share of the LRHSD's Budget By Mark Hatoff

For the Pine Barrens Tribune

WOODLAND—The fifth consecutive year of escalating tax payments made by Woodland Township to the Lenape Regional High School District (LRHSD) has left Township Committeeman and former Mayor Matthew Henrich increasingly convinced that the township has been getting a raw deal in regard to the amount of money its residents are being assessed. In recent months, Henrich has been on a quest to show that there is something inherently unfair and disproportionate about those payments, given the limited number of students in the community that are sent to the district, as well as the rural demographic of the township. When Henrich was serving as mayor two years ago, he met with LRHSD

Superintendent Dr. Carol Birnbohm and current Lenape District Board of Education President Margaret Estlow, who at the time was representing Woodland as just a board member, after what Henrich referred to as a particularly big tax increase. “They talked me through the (New Jersey Department of Education) tax formula, but it didn’t make sense to me,” said Henrich, who served as Woodland’s mayor from 2012 to 2017. Then, after seeing Woodland’s school tax levy rise again for the fifth consecutive year in May, the committeeman brought his concerns to the Sept 12. LRHSD Board of Education meeting. “I went to the district meeting and they had a written statement already prepared,” Henrich told the Pine Barrens Tribune in an interview last month. “They knew I

was coming. I went there to specifically ask our school board president why our taxes have gone up 54 percent in the last five years. She had no comment and the board secretary (Constance Stewart) read a pre-written statement about the last 12 years. “Our towns taxes go up by $330,000 in five years and the school board president won’t respond to questions asking ‘why?’ It is a total joke. They expect me to stay for another hour (after the meeting) so the superintendent can tell me it is (the fault of) the state formula. Total nonsense— our board president needs to explain this to me and the residents.” According to figures provided to Henrich by accounting firm Holman Frenia Allison, P.C., (the auditors for See TAXATION/ Page 18

TABERNACLE—Residents of Tabernacle Township who have spent the past couple of months hoping for a quick rescue of the Tabernacle Rescue Squad (TRS) as their longtime emergency service medical provider may be waiting a bit longer. Any expectations that the latest Tabernacle Township Committee meeting on Nov. 26 would bring word of a contract agreement between township officials and the TRS were dashed by a pronouncement indicating that the issue remained unresolved following an executive session lasting two and a half hours. The committee’s announcement, upon reconvening shortly before 11 p.m., that it would allow Public Safety Director Arch Liston to continue negotiating with the TRS meant that a proposed ordinance to repeal an existing one designating the TRS as the township’s sole provider of emergency service would remain in limbo for the time being. The proposal to set aside the long-standing ar rangement with the TRS, or iginally introduced by a 3-2 vote following an executive session of the committee on Sept. 24, was first tabled on Oct. 22 following a public hearing that drew a standing-room only crowd and heard from 17 residents and stakeholders. The latest announcement represented the third time the contemplated repeal has been tabled by the committee. The repeal ordinance was pushed by Liston after he discovered that the municipality had never formulated an agreement with the rescue squad in its history and attempts to do so in 2016 were unsuccessful when contract negotiations broke down. Liston, who had told the committee that a formal agreement is a necessity, urged the governing body to nullify the rescue-squad ordinance in order to force the organization to come to the negotiating table. However, Committeewoman Kimberly Brown and Committeeman Richard Franzen questioned the advisability of the move, eliciting an opinion from Township Solicitor Peter Lange that it was not necessary to repeal the existing ordinance in order for negotiations to proceed. The end result of the October meeting was a unanimous vote by the committee to table the repeal ordinance, with the intention of having representatives of the TRS and Liston sit down to work on a contract. It was hoped that, once reviewed by Lange, such a pact would be approved and signed at the Nov. 26 session. Although those negotiations have not been officially made public, statements made by TRS Captain Stephen Cramer during the public See TABLED/ Page 11

INDEX Beyond Auto......................23 Business Directory............14 Community Events..............9 Christmas Countdown.......16 Dental Column...................11 Coloring Contest................17

Gardening Column............22 Health................................10 Help Wanted......................21 Hobbyist............................12 Jobs...................................21 Local News..........................2

Marketplace.......................20 Opinion................................8 Student Lounge...................5 Worship Directory................9

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