Here is a look at some of the significant events that took place in 2017
Another year has come and gone for the town of Tabernacle. As much as we like to look forward, it is equally important to remember what was. Here is a review of some of Tabernacle’s significant events for the year of 2017.
Township Committee News
• In August, the Tabernacle Town Committee introduced an ordinance that would create a Department of Public Safety. The Department of Public Safety would include three divisions: the Division of Fire, the Division of Emergency Medical and Rescue Services and the Division of Emergency Management. Additionally, the head of the Department of Public Safety would be appointed by the township committee.
Although the ordinance faced a fair amount of opposition from committee members and first-responders alike, it was approved by a 3–1 vote on Aug. 25. A key issue in the discussion was billing. The EMS has been billing for its services and using the revenue to pay for equipment it needs, such as ambulances and other medical accoutrements.
Going into the committee meeting, the ordinance was worded in the following manner: “The Tabernacle Township Department of Public Safety, in order to support the provision of emergency services and the volunteer companies serving the township, shall bill for ambulance, transportation, rescue, response and other services provided by the emergency service entities operating within the township.”
Essentially, the way it’s worded means the township would take over the billing and the revenue that comes from it. In turn, the EMS would have to go through the township to obtain medical equipment.
However, because the issue of billing was so contentious, the committee decided to change the wording from “shall bill for … services” to “may bill for … services.” As a result, the committee didn’t officially take over the billing, but left the door open for the opportunity to do so in the future.
On April 10, the Tabernacle Township committee began making changes to the annual salary ranges for township employees. The committee unanimously passed on first reading an amended ordinance that would modify salary ranges for some positions. The highest proposed salary range is for the township administrator position — from $15,000 to $100,000. When Tabernacle resident Stuart Brooks asked the committee who establishes the salary ranges and how they are determined, Cramer said he establishes them.
“The range for the administrator is to allow the committee if I leave, either by their choice or my choice, that they have the ability to hire an administrator competitively in the market now,” Cramer said. “They are not going to hire an administrator for what they pay me.”
Cramer is paid $22,563.06, according to a township ordinance.
The amended ordinance also includes the salary range for the new fire marshal-fire subcode officer, who will be paid between $3,000 and $15,000.
The public hearing for the passed ordinance was held on April 24.
• At its meeting on March 13, Tabernacle Committee introduced the 2017 municipal budget and approved it on first reading, with a public hearing scheduled for April 24. It was at that hearing that the budget was narrowly passed, gaining approval by only one vote. Although the budget is 1.8 percent less than the one proposed in 2015, there is an increase of 3.9 percent compared to 2016. New Jersey law has a limit on the amount a budget can increase. However, because of the combination of being under the budget in 2015 and committee passing an ordinance to exceed the township budget appropriation limits to create a cap bank, the 3.9 percent increase is allowed.
The township funded the increase by raising the tax rate by 2 cents to 42.2 cents per $100 of assessed property value. In figures provided by the township, a property valued at the township average of $340,000 would see a municipal tax increase of $68 in 2017.
The biggest increase in the budget comes from the Tabernacle Fire Department. The spending on the fire department would increase from $60,000 to $106,500.
“The fire department increases are a result of the need for more training and for the fire department and the need to get new fire suits,” Cramer said.
Some of the items in the budget that are earmarked for capital improvements include three trucks — two dump trucks that can also plow and sand, as well as a pickup truck with the same capabilities. Another part of the capital projects includes setting aside $900,000 for the 2017 Road Program.
Toward the end of the budget discussion, Deputy Mayor Joseph Yates IV mentioned a $35,000 contribution the township gives to the First Aid Squad. Yates is happy with the job the First Aid Squad is doing and would like to make a change regarding the budget and the squad.
Elections
• The Tabernacle Committee election this year was uncontested. Only one seat was up for election, and the incumbent candidate, Republican Committeewoman Kimberly Brown, who has served on the committee for almost 18 years, was the only person to file an election petition. According to Municipal Clerk La Shawn Barber, no other petition was received for municipal office. Tabernacle committee members serve a three-year term.
• On Nov 7, township voters cast their ballots in the 2017 General Election. Locally, residents elected Brown. The official results from the Burlington County Board of Elections reports Brown received 1,571 votes.
• Incumbents Kevin McCloy, with 1,159 votes, Julia Sailer, with 1,072 votes, and Megan Jones, with 1,086 votes, will fill the three open seats for the Tabernacle School District Board of Education, having run unopposed. New board members, Gail Corey and Megan Chamberlain were sworn in on Jan 5.
• The Tabernacle Township Committee reorganization meeting on Jan. 3 once again saw the swearing in of Stephen Lee IV and Yates as committee members, as the public chose them in the November election last year. Both Lee and Yates were also nominated and approved to continue as mayor and deputy mayor.
Tabernacle and LRHSD BOE News
• On Jan. 17, the Tabernacle board of education recognized the passing of former board member and Medford representative Arabelle Pennypacker, who died on Dec. 31, at age 99. Pennypacker served on the LRHSD BOE for a decade from 1985 to 1995.
Before her time on the board, Pennypacker also worked for the district, starting her career at Lenape High School as a librarian and eventually rising to the position of head librarian.
Pennypacker was the first woman to become head of a department at Lenape, and she eventually became the head librarian for the entire LRHSD until her retirement in 1984.
• The LRHSD Board of Education unanimously approved a four-year employment contract with the Lenape District Education Association at its meeting on June 21. The LDEA, which represents approximately 850 teachers and other staff including school counselors, child study team professionals, media specialists, nurses and athletic trainers, as well as administrative support staff, interpreters and paraprofessionals, ratified the contract on June 8.
The four-year agreement included an average salary increase of 3.19 percent, a move to a less-costly health insurance plan and the implementation of a more evenly distributed method for the contribution of each employee’s share for health benefits. In addition, the board of education gained additional flexibility in the scheduling and hiring of special education paraprofessionals.
“Negotiations with the LDEA went very well,” said Robert Bende, who chairs the negotiations committee. “Everybody was in agreement and very content with the final outcome.”
According to LDEA President John Faubl, the contract received overwhelming support from the association’s members.
“Speaking on behalf of my colleagues, we feel fortunate that the negotiations between the LDEA and the LRHSD Board went smoothly. The final agreement benefits all levels of employees from teachers to nurses to administrative support staff and interpreters,” he said.
• Lenape Regional High School District Board of Education member David Stow described it as “Groundhog Day” 2017 as he presented the district’s 2017–2018 school year budget at the LRHSD board meeting on April 26 and the board adopted the final budget.
Stow used the joke to let members of the public know the budget was unchanged from the figures released to the public in March when the board adopted its tentative budget for submission to the county.
For a Tabernacle homeowner with a home assessed at the average value of $263,533, residents saw a regional school tax levy increase of 3.76 cents per every $100 of assessed value, equating to an increase of $97.59 for the year. The budget’s overall tax levy will increase 2.23 percent.
Similar to the budget presented in March, Stow said the total 2017–2018 school year budget was still set at $159.1 million.
Stow also noted the budget added no new programs, no additional staff and no new special education positions.
According to Stow, state aid remained flat, with the district receiving the same $29,207,977 for the 2017–2018 school year it received for the 2016–2017 school year.
New Jersey State Police
• State troopers from the Red Lion barracks took on the Seneca Golden Eagles seniors May 8, at Seneca High School. The Seneca Student Council sponsored the event. The Red Lion state troopers joined forces with the Seneca family for an entertaining evening of basketball and community team building. There was a K-9 halftime show and half-court shot scholarship opportunity for seniors. All proceeds were donated to Prom House 110 Carranza, the after-prom lock-in for seniors and their dates.
Burlington County Chiefs of Police Association hosted its annual Fallen Officers Memorial Service on May 17.
This year’s ceremony featured the unveiling of State Trooper Sean Cullen’s name on the large granite monument that bears the names of all officers from Burlington County law enforcement agencies who have died in the line of duty.
Cullen died from injuries after being struck while investigating a collision on I-295 in Deptford in March 2016.
Student and citizen accomplishments
• Seneca awarded its Teacher of the Year Award to Kirk Seeley this year. With his family at his side, Seeley gratefully accepted the Seneca High School Teacher of the Year award from his peers. An alternate route teacher, he credited his past teachers and current co-workers for helping him get where he is today.
“A lot of my teaching has been observing what others do here. To be given this award, inspired from teachers here, and to have them recognize what I am doing is an honor,” Seeley said.
Seeley started at Seneca as a technician when it opened in 2003. Wanting to pursue a career in education and having a bachelor’s degree in mass communications, radio and television production, he went to Burlington County College, now Rowan College at Burlington County, to get his alternate route teaching certification at night while he worked during the day. In 2004, he was hired as a teacher at the high school. He now teaches television productions levels 1, 2 and 3.
• For her many years spent at the high school and her integral part in helping to shape Seneca to what it is today, Erica Maira was chosen as the 2017–2018 Educational Services Professional of the Year.
“To me, it is truly an honor to represent such an amazing staff. Seneca has a different vibe than other schools. It is quite an honor to have this from the Seneca family,” Maira said.
She credited her award to all of those who help her throughout the school, as she could not do it without them.
“It’s hard to talk about myself. Everything happens here because of everybody working together … Seneca is such a special place, with so much support; stuff couldn’t happen without them,” Maira said.
Maira has been part of the Lenape Regional High School District since 1983 as a biology teacher at Lenape High School. After teaching in Newport News, Va., for two years, Maira returned to the LRHSD in 1986 as a science teacher at Lenape and as the assistant gymnastics coach. She came to Seneca in 2004.
• A team of four middle schoolers from the area made a trek to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, N.Y., to take part in the 11th Annual Math Competition, held April 5–7. The contest brings together students from all over the country to test their math skills. Out of 36 teams, the Olson Middle School’s team finished in third place.
The team was comprised of three students from Olson Middle School — eighth-grader Kirstyn Loftus of Tabernacle, and seventh-graders Jenny Barton of Tabernacle and Aidan Lohne of Medford. Camille Corman of Woodlyn Middle School was also a member of the team. Because it is pretty uncommon to have a lot of children with hearing loss in the same school, the rules for the competition stated team members could live within 50 miles of the schools.
• Seneca High School announced Feb.14 that senior Kevin Woytowich was recently named a National Merit Scholar Finalist.
According to the National Merit Scholar Corporation, of the 1.6 million entries, only 15,000 Finalists nationwide were named. Of the 15,000 Finalists, there will be 7,500 students selected as National Merit Scholars.
• Seneca students Kayla Dauria and Katelyn Dever organized an event to donate hair to cancer patients. The idea to donate their own hair turned into an event at Seneca High School called the Pantene Beautiful Lengths Hair Drive. The event featured 24 girls and one boy who offered to chop off eight inches of hair to help those with cancer.
The hair, which was collected in bags and placed in a box, was shipped to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths Center in Grand Rapids, Minn., where it was used to create wigs for cancer patients going through chemotherapy.
“We both just wanted to do it and get the Seneca family involved,” Dauria said.
• Amanda McNally, a junior at Seneca, was awarded the Girl Scouts’ highest award, the Silver Award, for making a quilt for teenage girls at Robins’ Nest, a children’s service agency for girls ages 14–17 going through family trouble based in Atlantic City.
“My original idea was that I wanted to make a garden to symbolize hope and I wanted to donate toiletries to the house,” McNally said. “But then I went there and LeAnn DiBenedetto, my project advisor who was also a licensed clinical social worker at Robins’ Nest, was like ‘well we already have toiletries for these girls,’ and so we had to think of something else.”
DiBenedetto told McNally there used to be a lady who made quilts for each of the girls as a gift upon their graduation from the program, but she had passed away.
“So they were like ‘all right, that’s something that you could do for us,’” McNally said. “‘We need gifts to give to the girls when they leave.”
McNally is proud of her project as well, but at the moment, she’s looking forward to her Gold Award project.
“I’m in between working with the elderly and continuing on with my Silver in a different way,” she said about what direction to go in for her Gold Award. “I’ve grown to appreciate and want to work with this kind of thing more.”
• For the last two years, a local sister duo has held the title of International Junior Miss New Jersey Teen. Julianna Rankel, 19, won the pageant in 2016 and this year her younger sister Jess, 16, was awarded the crown at the 2017 pageant held in Parsippany over the weekend of Dec. 1–3.
Local sports
• The Tabernacle Athletic Association Team №3 “Sharknados” defeated Medford Team №4 by a score of 5–3 to win the 2017 Fall Pinelands League Division 3 Girls Soccer Tournament Championship. The Sharknados entered the tournament with an undefeated regular season record of 9–0–1 and advanced to the championship game by beating TAA Team #4, 6–1.
• The 11u Jersey State Bombers baseball team, a part of the We Drop Bombs Baseball Academy, finished out the season on a high note. The team played a total of 31 games, and its record was 22–9.
“This was our fall season, and it went really well,” Chris Murray, head coach, said.
This season, the team played in four tournaments, two of which it won. Its record was 14–4 for the tournaments. At Sports at the Beach, the Bombers outscored their opponents 37–18 and went on to beat the Delaware Rockets in the championship game, 13–3. At the 20-team Diamond Nation Tournament, the Bombers outscored their opponents 49–14, and went on to beat LVBA Blue 5–4 in the championship game.
• On Aug. 5, one year after finishing as runner-up, the New Jersey Mystics Softball Team, won the WFC World Series National Championship.
The team defeated the Wisconsin Bandits, 8–0, at the World Series Final in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The team features players from Medford, Tabernacle, Cinnaminson, Lumberton, Southampton, Woodbury and Pemberton.
“Going into the fall, the №1 goal was to win nationals,” head coach Rich Onorato said.
To start the tournament, the team went 8–0, giving it a top seed in its initial bracket, called the red bracket. It ended up sweeping the red bracket to make it into the gold bracket, the last game of which would be the final.
Their first game of the gold was also against the Bandits, which they lost 1–0. However, because the Mystics were undefeated, the Bandits would have to beat them twice to move on. They played another game, and the Mystics came out on top.
Other town news
• Kenya Williams Jr., a former student and football player at Lenape High School, is suing the Lenape Regional High School District for $1 million in damages for racial discrimination and bias Williams and his family claim Williams faced while a student at Lenape. The civil rights lawsuit alleges Williams, an African American, and other African American members of the Lenape High School football team, were subjected to an “increasingly hostile and harassing environment” at Lenape where “taunts of a racial derogatory tone” were used against them.
• On Nov. 7 in the general election, voters approved the statewide referendum question on the New Jersey Library Construction Bond Act, which authorized the state to “issue bonds in the aggregate principal amount of $125 million” to be used as grants for public libraries.
Voters also passed the second referendum question that asked if voters approved of amending the state Constitution to dedicate all moneys collected by the state relating to natural resource damages to repair, replace, restore or preserve the state’s natural resources.
• The Lenape Regional High School District was named a 2017 GDL Champion by the New Jersey Teen Safe Driving Coalition at a ceremony held May 31. LRHSD was among a small group of honorees identified by New Jersey’s teen safe driving advocates for efforts to promote the proven principles of Graduated Driver Licensing. The school district was honored for its Heads Up, Eyes Forward! campaign, which spreads messages about safe driving and the dangers of driving while distracted. Under the direction of John Donaldson, faculty advisor to the LRHSD’s student-led New Jersey Brain Injury Alliance Champion Schools Teen Safe Driving Program, the Heads Up, Eyes Forward! team continuously develops innovative ways to spread its message in New Jersey and beyond. The students’ messaging has even appeared on signs along the I-95 corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C.
• The Lenape district hosted a coding night on Dec 14 for all students district-wide.
• Tabernacle hosted its fourth annual Tree Lighting Ceremony on Dec 1.
