Meet the Candidates for Voorhees Township Committee: Week 2
Every week, The Sun will ask candidates in the Nov. 3 election for Voorhees Township Committee seats to respond to questions pertinent to local issues.
This week’s questions:
1.) What are some new ideas or approaches that you can bring to Township Committee and how will they benefit the town?
2.) What are some ways you believe Township Committee can work to ensure that Voorhees tax dollars stay in Voorhees?
Democrat: Jason Ravitz
1.) What are some new ideas or approaches that you can bring to Township Committee and how will they benefit the town?
My running mate, Michelle Nocito, and I have extensive business backgrounds and will use our private sector experience to manage the municipal budget.
As vice president of retail operations for the Ravitz Family Shop Rites, I have vast experience in managing budgets and implementing cost-saving measures to reduce expenses while ensuring that our customers receive the highest quality products and services.
Voorhees residents are entitled to the highest quality and most efficient municipal services township government can provide.
I am not a politician but a businessman. I will use my business experience to evaluate every tax dollar Voorhees receives and make sure the taxpayers are getting the quality municipal services they expect and deserve.
One of the major ways Michelle and I can help stabilize taxes and control spending is to bring new businesses to Voorhees while helping existing businesses thrive.
I have been involved in a number of economic development projects for my family-owned business and will use those same innovative techniques for business retention and development in Voorhees to bring in commercial tax revenue and help relieve the property tax burden on our residents.
Voorhees is a great community, and I believe it is important to promote Voorhees both locally and regionally to attract new businesses that will create new jobs, bring in commercial ratables and promote long-term tax stability.
2.) What are some ways you believe Township Committee can work to ensure that Voorhees tax dollars stay in Voorhees?
The best way to keep Voorhees tax dollars in Voorhees is through programs such as our “Shop Voorhees” program, which I support, along with my running mate, Michelle Nocito.
The program encourages residents to shop in our community by providing them tax credits through purchases from participating Voorhees businesses.
Michelle and I will work tirelessly to retain businesses in Voorhees and promote the township to bring in new business.
As the commercial tax base grows, the tax burden on our residents will be reduced.
Michelle and I also believe that an effective partnership with the Voorhees schools through more shared services arrangements and a school board sub-committee made up of members of the Voorhees school boards, Township Committee and residents will also help keep Voorhees tax dollars in Voorhees.
Michelle and I believe that Township Committee and both the Voorhees and Eastern Regional school boards can increase shared services agreements so residents are not paying for the same services three times.
By working together, the separate taxing entities in the township can help cut costs, yet maintain the high level of municipal services and great public schools that Voorhees residents expect and deserve.
By doing so, we can keep Voorhees tax dollars in Voorhees.
Democrat: Michelle Nocito
1.) What are some new ideas or approaches that you can bring to Township Committee and how will they benefit the town?
My running mate, Jason Ravitz, and I have business backgrounds and intend to use that experience in crafting the municipal budget.
As a financial advisor, I am cognizant of the importance of managing money and budgets.
I intend to implement additional cost-saving measures to reduce expenses while ensuring that our residents receive the highest quality and most efficient municipal services township government can provide.
I will watch every tax dollar Voorhees receives and spends.
One of the major ways Jason and I can help control taxes is to generate additional revenue by bringing in new businesses while helping existing businesses thrive. Business retention is just as important as new business development.
I am also a proponent of establishing an enhanced partnership with the leaders of our schools to make sure our children receive the finest education and continue to make Voorhees such a desirable community in which to raise a family.
2.) What are some ways you believe Township Committee can work to ensure that Voorhees tax dollars stay in Voorhees?
I support initiatives such as our “Shop Voorhees” program, along with my running mate, Jason Ravitz, because it encourages residents to shop in our community by providing them tax credits through purchases from participating Voorhees businesses.
I will work passionately to promote the township to bring in new business. As our commercial tax base grows, local property taxes will be controlled.
Jason and I also support an increase in shared services agreements so residents are not paying for the same services more than once.
Several such shared services programs already exist and have led to significant cost cuts while continuing to provide efficient municipal services.
Republican: Dave Adamson
1.) What are some new ideas or approaches that you can bring to Township Committee and how will they benefit the town?
A cornerstone of my candidacy for township committee is the idea that government should be reaching out to residents.
Sure, most meetings of the committee are open to the public, but if you have ever been to a meeting you would know they are sparsely attended.
Most Voorhees residents are too busy working too hard to pay their taxes that, thanks to long entrenched politicians, are too high.
As a member of the committee, I would institute rotating town hall meetings throughout town that are separate from regular committee meetings.
These meetings would give taxpayers an informal setting to raise questions, concerns and issues directly with their elected officials.
By going right to the people, we can make sure issues really affecting our residents on a daily basis can be handled quickly.
I also would also push our township to tackle the growing abandoned housing value problem in our town.
This problem has grown out of control and continues to hurt our property values. While the township has finally started to take a serious look at the abandoned home issue, we need to ensure that our policies to require banks to keep up properties and encourage their sale to new residents are strongly enforced.
Part of filling these homes requires a cut in property tax rates.
Homes in Voorhees are sitting on the market for far too long because the taxes are so high that it becomes undesirable to move here. This must change if our town is to continue to attract new families.
Additionally, taxpayers often do not realize how much money we could be saving on public contracts in Voorhees.
Because these lucrative, hourly paid contracts and full-time jobs are often handed to political donors and friends of those in power rather than the lowest and best bidder, significant tax dollars are wasted.
Heidi and I are proposing to pay a flat fee to a number of township professionals (as other towns in South Jersey do) to save money, and to make sure that politics stays out of the contracting process.
Finally, I want to reinstitute the Citizen Budget Committee that Mike Friedman proposed a number of years ago so concerned residents can have a direct hand in how our tax dollars are spent.
Heidi and I would also be a solid vote to pass great new plans that Friedman has proposed to increase efficiency and lower costs for our town over the years that have been ignored by those in charge.
2.) What are some ways you believe Township Committee can work to ensure that Voorhees tax dollars stay in Voorhees?
As a small business owner, I know that the tax climate in Voorhees is not welcoming to business, and we need to change that on both the commercial and residential side of the issue.
First, we need to continue to promote and further expand the Voorhees property tax rewards program through the Shop Voorhees program through the economic development committee. This will encourage our residents to shop here more often.
The township should also utilize social media and our web presence to promote local businesses that participate in township programs.
Develop links to various websites to our township website and feature a “Business of the Week” with specials on our township.
Develop, generate and encourage small businesses to come to Voorhees, through an economic zone and an incubation program.
With all of the vacant commercial space in town, the committee should encourage an investor incubation program to move in and attract new businesses and technology companies to begin and grow in Voorhees.
Our town should lead a small business technology revolution in South Jersey.
Finally, we should create sponsorship opportunities in Voorhees for different township fields, properties and equipment.
This would have the dual effect of bringing in non-tax revenue to our budget and promoting local business.
This simple, outside-the-box idea is a no-brainer, but the current politicians in power refuse to try it.
Republican: Heidi Handler
1.) What are some new ideas or approaches that you can bring to Township Committee and how will they benefit the town?
The committee currently pays higher priced professional and contractor fees for many different positions accounted for in our yearly budget. We will eliminate expensive legal and engineering services by setting a flat fee rate for such services. This is a method being employed in several towns, including nearby Haddonfield, but not in Voorhees thanks to one word: politics.
We will also look to consolidate professional positions, especially township lawyers, where possible. This will save significant tax dollars. When elected, we will effectively end the political patronage, back-scratching arrangement that the current majority in power has maintained for 15 years.
As a practicing physician, I have a unique perspective and understanding of the way the medical field has been growing in our town.
The continued growth of the medical sector in Voorhees will make our town a local destination for health-care services in the coming years.
I want to ensure that we are encouraging growing segments of that market, such as senior care and urgent care services, are sizable portions of that growth so that we do not end up with a ton of pretty, but ultimately empty medical buildings up and down Route 73 in the near future.
Finally, I believe we should be seeking more non-tax revenue sources and greater efficiency.
First, we should be seeking more shared services agreements with local school districts and municipalities.
While we have a few with towns such as Stratford and Laurel Springs, we could be doing so much more in this space and getting paid for it.
Voorhees is one of the largest towns in our part of Camden County, and we should utilize and monetize the efficiencies that size provides us where possible. We should also be looking at sponsorship arrangements with local businesses to generate non-tax revenue.
Not only would this greatly benefit our budget (and we could pass the savings directly on to taxpayers), but it would promote our local businesses as well.
There is no reason that our trash trucks and utility vehicles cannot have advertisements for local restaurants and services.
There is no reason why Wawa should not sponsor a local park, playground or field. This added revenue, all from such a simple idea, would be a great benefit to our yearly budget.
2.) What are some ways you believe Township Committee can work to ensure that Voorhees tax dollars stay in Voorhees?
The best way to keep Voorhees dollars in Voorhees is to encourage businesses where people actually want to spend their money to come here.
Sadly, outside of the few great restaurants and a handful of retail locations, the Voorhees Town Center is mostly occupied by government offices and vacant space.
We need to incentivize businesses to come here and stay here.
Until we get our tax situation under control, businesses will keep popping up in neighboring towns and counties that offer more for less.
By lowering township spending and passing those savings on to both residential and commercial taxpayers, we can finally make Voorhees business friendly.
We will also increase the number of businesses in the Shop Voorhees program by offering incentives to new businesses.
We will create links on the Voorhees website that highlight new Voorhees businesses, have a Voorhees “business of the week,” have photos featuring local residents enjoying themselves at Voorhees businesses, have details about Voorhees Restaurant Week similar to what other towns provide, and add a place where private employers looking to hire Voorhees residents can post job opportunities.
Lastly, we will look into the feasibility of having a featured Voorhees business on the bottom of each Nixle report and possibly sell the space for revenue.
Just like with the sponsorship plan I mentioned above, this will bolster both our local businesses as well as bring much needed revenue into the Voorhees township budget.
