Hurricane Sandy left many communities in New Jersey demolished, residents without homes, and approximately 2 million people without power. While Voorhees was left unscathed with power outages, downed trees and power lines, others were not so lucky.
On Monday, Feb. 11, committee members approved a resolution to adopt Highlands, NJ– a Monmouth County shore town deeply affected by Sandy.
According to township manager Larry Spellman, committeeman Michael Friedman brought up the idea to adopt the Highlands before the meeting. But Friedman said Voorhees resident Pamela Brown presented the idea to him the morning of the meeting.
“It moved quick,” he said, adding that Brown, like himself, is originally from Monmouth County.
“She told me what devastation the Highlands have been through,” Friedman said. Approximately 1,300 out of 1,500 homes were completely destroyed or are deemed unlivable, he said.
After Sandy, the Highlands community started a Facebook page showing the devastation and cleanup efforts. Hope for the Highlands — a non-profit organization “devoted to the relief of the needy and/or displaced and the general recovery of the town of Highlands, NJ” — was also created to aid residents, businesses and the community infrastructure, according to the organization’s website.
Voorhees residents will be able to assist Highlands’ residents through Hope for the Highlands, Friedman said.
Friedman said the plan is to post a list of ways residents can help out on Voorhees Township’s Facebook page and on the township’s website. The township will collect certain items and will store them in one of the township buildings before driving the items to the Highlands, he said.
He said Brown is planning to reach out to Voorhees schools to gather more items for the donation drive.
“It will really raise awareness here. We will be able to take them under our wings. We are all New Jerseyans. It will do wonders for our souls here in Voorhees,” he said.
The initial impact of Sandy was devastating, but Friedman said the idea behind adopting the Highlands is to not only aid them in their time of need, but to show Voorhees residents the aftermath of Sandy is just as ruthless now than it was a few months ago.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize the true devastation. This isn’t over for those folks who were as hard hit,” Friedman said.
Other meeting news
The committee approved the decrease in tax collection rates at the meeting. The tax collection rate is now set at 98.52 percent in calculating the budget appropriation reserve for uncollected taxes in the 2013 budget.
Spellman said the township wouldn’t be able to tell if the change will affect Voorhees residents until the 2013 budget is adopted.
“We wont know what that means for the tax payers until we adopt a budget,” he said.
The committee approved a shared services agreement with the Voorhees School District allowing armed officers to be stationed at every school, and the township can now take the next step and hire officers, Spellman said.
Committee members also approved a contract with a collection agency, Penn Credit Corporation, for the private collection of municipal court debt.
Spellman said since the law was changed by the state last year, the township is allowed to use a collection agency to collect court debt.
He said before the change, the township was only allowed to send notifications. Now the township hired a company to collect court debt.
“Hopefully we will see some revenue come in this year,” Spellman said. “Some of our debt goes back ten years.”
