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A guide to Chatsworth's annual celebration of the Pine Barrens' most exalted export.
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October 13, 2018 – October 19, 2018
Police Chief Seeks Community's Help After 22 Deaths Blamed on Drugs By Douglas D. Melegari
Staff Writer
Photo By Bill Bonvie
SHOVEL READY Browns Mills Students Participate in Groundbreaking for New State-Funded, State-of-the-Art Primary School By Bill Bonvie Staff Writer
BROWNS MILLS—It is not every community that has the chance to give its youngest residents the benefit of a state-of-the-art primary-school facility paid for entirely by the state, rather than by local taxpayers. But that’s what the Browns Mills section of Pemberton Township can look forward to three years from now
when work on the $59 million DenboCrichton Elementary School, which has now finally begun, is scheduled to be completed, courtesy of the New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA). This past Wednesday morning, a group of local K-5 pupils, donning hardhats and wielding shovels, had the unique opportunity to take part in the official groundbreaking ceremony for the new facility, which will eventually
replace the two schools they currently attend. The new st r uct ure, which will supersede both the half-century-old Alexander Denbo Elementary School and the already demolished Aletta Crichton School, for which the Isaiah Haines School is serving as a temporary substitute, will be a 126,000 squarefoot, 47-classroom facility designed to See SHOVEL/ Page 11
PEMBERTON—“Unflattering statistics” that indicate Pemberton Township lost 22 of its residents to drug overdoses in 2017, and also administered Narcan 129 times last year, have caused the municipality’s chief of police to sound the alarm in hopes that he can join with others to combat the crisis. “We have to do something, people are dying,” Police Chief David H. Jantas told the Pemberton Township Council a few weeks ago. “There were 81 deaths by overdose in Burlington County last year and we had 22 of them.” Jantas said the township has the “unfortunate distinction” of leading all other county municipalities in overdose deaths and Narcan (overdose reversal medication) deployments. “We get the Narcan f rom the cou nt y prosecutor's office, through a cooperative where Deborah Hospital, Virtua and Lourdes (medical providers) are contributing to make sure that we have Narcan,” Jantas said. “I can tell you that I routinely have to reach into forfeiture funds to buy more Narcan, so that we have enough. We get our allocation through the county only once a quarter.” Jantas added that 100 of the 129 Narcan deployments occurred in the Browns Mills part of Pemberton. He also said that the Narcan statistic is probably “significantly higher” because it does not reflect private administrations of the drug in the township. “I was at a meeting last September, applying for a grant, and a representative said Pemberton Township had 17 (overdose) deaths—that was as of last September,” Jantas said. “I said, ‘No, no, that number is way too high.’ The man said, ‘This is the number we have got.’ I came back to the station and I talked to my lieutenant who keeps the numbers. “He said, ‘Chief, on location the number might have been lower, but when a person gets to the hospital and they relapse and (the physicians) don't get to them in time, it still scores as a death for our town. So, these numbers come from the morgue when they’ve figured out what was the cause of death.’ That is a real tragedy.” The rising and substantial number of local drug overdoses stems from a “nationwide” opioid epidemic that kills at least 115 people per day in the U.S., according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Figures from the Centers for Disease Control indicate that roughly 72,000 people died nationwide from drug overdoses last year, an increase of 39,000 people over 2015. The epidemic began after healthcare providers See HELP/ Page 17
INDEX Automotive................... 19 Business Directory....... 14 Community..................... 8 Cranberry Festival........S1
Health............................. 9 Opinion........................... 7 Hobbyist....................... 13 Worship Directory........... 8 Local News..................... 2 Marketplace.................. 16
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