Carolyn Jacobs and Rick Short are running to fill a one-year unexpired term on Cherry Hill Township Council this fall. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
Rick Short
- ) Township council has approved budgets with no municipal tax increase for five consecutive years. How would you continue this if you were elected?
The ”no municipal tax increases,” while true in a vacuum, does not reflect the true condition of our township’s financial condition. The town will have its county taxes raised because of the county police. The town will have its school taxes raised because of the dilapidated condition of the buildings, and if the tax rate were a true bell weather, why do we have 20 pages of sheriff’s sale notifications. Easy to make a statement, but it does not reflect the condition of our Community.
They are trying to swap community building residential housing, with Costco’s, Wawa’s, and high-density housing that does not blend with our community. I will try to keep taxes down, but my true aim is to build transparency, which will allow our community to prosper. At this year’s announcement in the council meeting when the Mayor announced “no tax increase,” there wasn’t much applause, because the meeting was loaded with people complaining about the Mayor’s lack of transparency concerning new buildings that are destroying neighborhoods.
2.) Do you feel the township has done a good job with preserving open space?
No! Look at the fiasco called the Woodcrest Country Club Development. How much will be left for “open space?” We have a finite amount of open space in our town, and the town has squandered it for projects (like Costco). The Mayor allows developers to build high-density housing that they believe will add to the coffers of Cherry Hill. Most projects that have been permitted, have allowed variances for higher density and higher buildings, but have not addressed the added traffic.
Carolyn Jacobs
1.) Township council has approved budgets with no municipal tax increase for five consecutive years. How would you continue this if you were elected?
Our taxation record is the result of the recognition that Cherry Hill is a prime investment locale. Our residents have been making meaningful investments in their homes, adding to them and helping to keep overall home values high throughout town. On the other hand, commercial developers are finding Cherry Hill desirable and many underutilized properties are being given a new lease on life. I will continue the work that Mayor Cahn and Township Council have undertaken to assure that Cherry Hill maintains its reputation as a great place to raise a family, with exceptional schools, services and amenities, as well as being a town that is business-friendly. Our commercial landscape may be changing as unused and underutilized properties are being turned over, but the residential character of our town remains strong. Our cornerstones are still families and neighborhoods — vibrant and diverse.
The flip side of maintaining a stable tax rate is being able to control municipal costs while sustaining the levels of service that a first class community demands. I have been fortunate to see firsthand how the current administration works tirelessly to manage spending. I have devoted a great deal of time delving into the details of the new budget and have supported efforts to take advantage of shared services agreements, grant funding and shared buying pools, all of which help to reduce municipal expenditures.
Rating bureaus have, consequently, rewarded our township with the highest possible bond rating in recognition of our financial stability and Cherry Hill is on track to pay off a major portion of our municipal debt in the next few years, well ahead of schedule.
I am committed to assuring that we as a town continue to improve our financial position through increased revenue balanced with managed spending and will work to assure that our tax rate “winning streak” continues into the foreseeable future.
2). Do you feel the township has done a good job with preserving open space?
Yes I do.
Cherry Hill experienced tremendous growth through the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and, over the years, the township has been very much “built out.” There is nothing that we can do today to undo the nature of our town, one of developments and neighborhoods. We can, however, continue to work hard to preserve remaining available open space.
In spite of our rapid growth and development, we still enjoy more than 50 parks and recreational facilities, miles of recreational trails that traverse our parks and woodlands, historic properties in which we are making significant investments and a great deal of open space that has already been saved from development. The township has been judicious in its use of open space funding and has worked closely with the county in many joint ventures to preserve what remains. The biggest and best examples include recently saving the iconic Woodcrest golf course from commercial and institutional development and creating accommodations permitting Springdale Farms to remain a working farm with both retail and recreational uses that benefit all our residents. As a member of the Planning Board in the 1990s, I am proud to say that I approved these actions for Springdale Farms.
I am fully aware of the high priority that each of us, residents and government alike, place on open space preservation and guarantee that there will always be plans in place to use the entirety of the annual open space tax allocation to its best advantage. Although we would all love to have every remaining open plot of land or parcel preserved as woods, parkland or playground, we must also reasonably face the realities of available funding to do so. I can guarantee that open space preservation will remain one of my top priorities.
