By MELISSA DIPENTO
It’s been about a year since officials from both Cherry Hill and Merchantville, along with state Sen. Jim Beach, met to talk about the possibility of a merger between the two municipalities.
A merger would mean combined government services and schooling for the 70,000–plus residents in Cherry Hill and 3,800 borough residents.
At that point, both governing entities were interested in taking a deeper look at what consolidation would mean for each municipality.
Residents in Merchantville signed petitions supporting a consolidation study.
Mayor Frank North appointed a commission, he said, of qualified individuals, including one school board member, three former mayors and a planning board member.
He said his group was ready to make their application to the state Department of Community Affairs last summer, but council voted to rescind the resolution to study a merger in unison with Cherry Hill, when the township had not come up with its own commission to study consolidation.
Cherry Hill Township spokesman Dan Keashen said, at that time, Cherry Hill had not yet created a formal committee to look into the matter, but was interested in doing so.
The merger did not move forward previously because the two municipalities arrived at the conclusion to study a potential merge by different means.
Then in May, Gov. Christie added his signature to a law (A-3587) that clarifies a New Jersey municipality’s ability to study consolidation, essentially allowing two entities to arrive at the agreement to study a merger in whichever way they see fit.
Assembly Democrats Lou Greenwald, Pam Lampitt, Connie Wagner and Valerie Vainieri Huttle sponsored the bill to ease municipal consolidation after the state rejected a merger study by Merchantville and Cherry Hill.
On June 13, Merchantville passed resolution R11–83 to support a grassroots group, Merchantville Connecting to the Future, to participate in the consolidation study if it is done at no cost to the borough.
The group, led by council member Anthony Perno, also includes residents Kathy Birmingham, Rosemari Hicks, Richard James, George Wilkinson and alternate Dan Fiedler, borough clerk Denise Brouse said.
North said he had hoped to see a different group representing Merchantville, one with more overall knowledge of how government works.
“They’ve never been on council and they are not familiar with things like debt service and tax rates,” North said.
Perno said the group he heads up is ready and willing to look into consolidation.
“What is the financial impact of merging? There’s two ways to approach this. To raise taxes or cut services,” Perno said. “We want to look at the savings. Is it enough savings or not enough to lose the town?”
North said he feels Merchantville residents may be most concerned with what schools their children will go to.
The borough has one K-8 school and has a sending/receiving agreement with Pennsauken High School.
North previously said many parents choose to send their students to regional private schools in the area.
“This is all being driven by the schools,” North said. “I support a study, I don’t support our study group.”
North said he had previously suggested to Cherry Hill Township officials that Merchantville could take all of the Cherry Hill K-6 students west of Rt. 38 to the elementary school in the borough, all of the borough’s seventh and eighth grade students could attend Cherry Hill junior high schools and borough high schoolers could choose between Cherry Hill East and West.
He also said the township could take over the current borough school building.
At the July 11 borough meeting, Brouse said a few council members questioned the resolution passed at the previous month’s meeting and expressed interest in holding a special meeting before the next regular meeting in August to further clarify and discuss the grassroots group that is interested in studying the merger. Brouse said no action was taken and the June 13 resolution still stands.
Meanwhile, Cherry Hill Mayor Bernie Platt also appointed a committee recently, which he will head up.
Roger Dennis, dean of Drexel University Law; Tom Yarnall, a member of the Cherry Hill reform committee, a civic action group; board of education president Seth Klukoff; and township business liaison Natalie Barney will also participate on Cherry Hill’s commission, Keashen said.
Members of the newly appointed Cherry Hill and Merchantville commissions last night held two public meetings; the first for Cherry Hill residents, followed by a joint meeting of both municipalities, to give residents a chance to voice their opinions about a potential merger of the two entities.
The 10-member joint commission, representing Cherry Hill and Merchantville, recently applied to the Department of Community Affairs for consideration to study a potential merge.
Be sure to check back here for more from the July 18 meeting.
