Mayor’s Message: Michael Mignogna
As we welcome 2012, we should take one last moment to reflect on 2011:
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- On May 15, the Voorhees Town Center was born. With the move of our Town Hall into the Voorhees Town Center complex as well as the opening of restaurants like the Firecreek Grill and Doghouse Cafe, the area is now becoming the “downtown” we never had.
- The Virtua Medical Campus officially opened on May 22 when all patients were safely and efficiently moved from the old facility to the new one. The new hospital has brought 1,000 new jobs to Voorhees in addition to a $10 million sewer improvement.
- Voorhees’ five-year road program continued with the repaving of Victor Blvd., Franklin Dr., Abbey Rd., Foxton Ct. and Harwood Dr. New sidewalks were installed along Centennial Blvd. from Main St. to Connolly Park and on Haddonfield-Berlin Rd. from Lions Gate to Eagle Plaza.
- Improvements were made to our parks and athletics fields, including a new turf field at the Rabinowitz Baseball Complex as well as new dugouts.
- Voorhees Township introduced our new website in October, allowing us to share more information with our residents and making access to Township information more user friendly.
- Voorhees continued a partnership with Rutgers University and VECEF to study the 37-acre Voorhees Environmental Park (former Buzby Landfill), to make it a community destination.
- On December 29, Voorhees continued with an aggressive open space preservation program when 20 acres of land were purchased in the Ashland section of our community. Voorhees partnered with the State of New Jersey and the County of Camden in protecting this land now known as Ashland Woods. Since 2003, Voorhees has preserved 223 acres of land for open space.
- Voorhees continued with an aggressive shared services program, partnering with 7 other municipalities to form the largest shared services coalition in South Jersey. The agreement will save Voorhees approximately $138,000 in trash disposal fees. Voorhees also merged into the County dispatch system, saving $400,000 a year. The Township formed an agreement with an energy company to buy utilities directly from the provider, saving approximately $125,000 per year. We entered an agreement with Eastern Regional High School for both snow removal and trash removal and will continue our leaf collection agreement with Gibbsboro. Voorhees will engage in only sensible shared services agreements. We will not be part of the proposed county-wide police force.
- Efforts to create additional Voorhees revenue continued with our membership in www.voorheesprospector.com, allowing available commercial property to be advertised over the internet all over the world. Over the last two years, this site had over 150,000 hits. Voorhees continued in the State program “Live Where You Work” to encourage those who work in Voorhees to live here. A partnership continued between the Economic Development Committee and the Voorhees Business Association with a Business Retention Task Force to help our local businesses continue to thrive.
- The Annual Summer Series at Connolly Park was bigger and better than ever. Our four concerts included Parrott Beach, Strawberry Fields: A Tribute to the Beatles and Oh What a Night!.
- On October 15, the Voorhees Township Citizens Cultural and Diversity Advisory Committee sponsored “International Day 2011.” The event included international foods and multicultural displays to celebrate and embrace our community’s diversity.
- Voorhees partnered with our schools to work against charter schools in our Township. While charter schools may be appropriate for low performing school districts, our schools provide the highest quality education to our students.
- Voorhees said goodbye to a beloved member of our family when John Maurer, Director of Public Works, passed at the age of 58. John started working in Voorhees in 1990 as a laborer. He was then promoted to head of our parks and ultimately became the Director of Public Works. John’s passion was the maintenance and preservation of our open space parcels and our recreation complexes. John was responsible for the conversion of the former Lafferty Asphalt Plant to our 49-acre oasis known as Connolly Park. Voorhees is a better place because of John Maurer.
- With the addition of such new businesses as Sony Music Holdings, Virtua, Magellan Hill Technologies and the expansion of American Water, over 1,600 new jobs came to Voorhees in 2011.
Thank you for giving me the privilege of serving as Mayor for 2011 and I will embrace the honor again in 2012. On behalf of the Township Committee, we look forward to another successful year.
