Here is a brief look at some of Shamong Township’s events for the year of 2017
As Shamong prepares to say goodbye to the year of 2017, let us take a look back at some of the town’s highlights.
Township Committee News
• On Oct 3, Shamong Town Committee voted unanimously in support of a resolution to oppose legislative proposals regarding the Open Public Meetings Act and Open Public Records Act.
In June, the state Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee took action on two bills, Nos. 1045 and 1046, which, according to the Shamong Committee’s resolution, “would expand the Open Public Meeting Act to create impractical and burdensome requirements with respect to subcommittees and working groups established by the entire governing body, which would effectively limit the ability of small groups of local officials discussing issues of public concern for the purposes of informing the governing body.”
The resolution adds that “the bills would impose a financial burden on municipalities that would not be offset by a revenue source other than the property tax, making the bills unfunded mandates prohibited by the New Jersey Constitution.”
• On May 2, the committee unanimously approved three appointments to the township’s fire police. Edward Moniot, Bridget Heydon and Eric Zahr II received appointments. The three will serve until May 6, 2020.
• The township received a report from the Burlington County Board of Health regarding the number of rabies cases in the county this year. As of March 31, six cases of rabies were reported in the county. The report also stated there had been 680 cases of rabies in Burlington County since 1989.
• The township announced the property located at 111 Strawberry Drive is in the process of being sold. The property, which was acquired via a tax lien, was put up for auction. Two groups initially showed interest in the property during the bid process, but only one submitted an intent to bid form. The land was sold for the minimum bid of $70,000. The money will be used to help fund construction of the cemetery. A single-family home will be built on the property.
Elections
Shamong Township voters cast their ballots in the General Election on Tuesday, Nov. 7. Residents elected incumbent Martin Mozitis (R) for the open committee seat. He ran unopposed.
According to the unofficial results from the Burlington County Board of Elections, Mozitis received 1,437 votes.
For the Shamong Township School District Board of Education, a newcomer determined by write-in votes will join incumbent Melissa Ciliberti, who finished ahead with 54.41 percent of the votes.
On Nov. 7, voters approved the statewide referendum question on the New Jersey Library Construction Bond Act, which authorized the state to “issue bonds in the aggregate principal amount of $125 million” to be used as grants for public libraries.
Voters also passed the second referendum question that asked if voters approved of amending the state Constitution to dedicate all moneys collected by the state relating to natural resource damages to repair, replace, restore or preserve the state’s natural resources.
Shamong BOE and district news
• Lenape Regional High School District Board of Education member David Stow described it as “Groundhog Day” 2017 as he presented the district’s 2017–2018 school year budget at the LRHSD board meeting on April 26 and the board adopted the final budget.
Stow used the joke to let members of the public know the budget was unchanged from the figures released to the public in March when the board adopted its tentative budget for submission to the county.
For a Shamong homeowner with a home assessed at the average value of $308,169, residents will see a regional school tax levy increase of 1.19 cents per every $100 of assessed value, equating to an increase of $38.12 for the year. The budget’s overall tax levy will increase 2.23 percent.
Similar to the budget presented in March, Stow said the total 2017–2018 school year budget was still set at $159.1 million.
Stow also noted the budget added no new programs, no additional staff and no new special education positions.
According to Stow, state aid remained flat, with the district receiving the same $29,207,977 for the 2017–2018 school year it received for the 2016–2017 school year.
• The LRHSD Board of Education unanimously approved a four-year employment contract with the Lenape District Education Association at its meeting on June 21. The LDEA, which represents approximately 850 teachers and other staff including school counselors, child study team professionals, media specialists, nurses and athletic trainers, as well as administrative support staff, interpreters and paraprofessionals, ratified the contract on June 8.
The four-year agreement included an average salary increase of 3.19 percent, a move to a less-costly health insurance plan and the implementation of a more evenly distributed method for the contribution of each employee’s share for health benefits. In addition, the board of education gained additional flexibility in the scheduling and hiring of special education paraprofessionals.
“Negotiations with the LDEA went very well,” said Robert Bende, who chairs the negotiations committee. “Everybody was in agreement and very content with the final outcome.”
According to LDEA President John Faubl, the contract received overwhelming support from the association’s members.
“Speaking on behalf of my colleagues, we feel fortunate that the negotiations between the LDEA and the LRHSD Board went smoothly. The final agreement benefits all levels of employees from teachers to nurses to administrative support staff and interpreters,” he said.
New Jersey State Police
• State troopers from the Red Lion barracks took on the Seneca Golden Eagles seniors May 8, at Seneca High School. The Seneca Student Council sponsored the event. The Red Lion state troopers joined forces with the Seneca family for an entertaining evening of basketball and community team building. There was a K-9 halftime show and half-court shot scholarship opportunity for seniors. All proceeds were donated to Prom House 110 Carranza, the after-prom lock-in for seniors and their dates.
• Burlington County Chiefs of Police Association hosted its annual Fallen Officers Memorial Service on May 17.
This year’s ceremony featured the unveiling of State Trooper Sean Cullen’s name on the large granite monument that bears the names of all officers from Burlington County law enforcement agencies who have died in the line of duty.
Cullen died from injuries after being struck while investigating a collision on I-295 in Deptford in March 2016.
• A fatal car accident claimed two lives at the corner of Flyatt Road and Carranza Road at approximately noon on Dec. 18. Emergency personnel on scene stated the fatal accident involved an SUV in a suspected police chase with State Police. Both victims were in a vehicle that struck a utility pole and caught fire. The vehicle, a 1999 GMC Yukon, had been reported stolen from Shamong. The victims’ names were not released.
State Police Lt. Theodore Shafer said the crash occurred shortly after a state trooper attempted to stop the vehicle on northbound Route 206.
Sequoia Alternative School escorted approximately 50 students to another location for parent pick up after school due to road closures.
Student and citizen accomplishments
• Seneca awarded its Teacher of the Year Award to Kirk Seeley this year. With his family at his side, Seeley gratefully accepted the Seneca High School Teacher of the Year award from his peers. An alternate route teacher, he credited his past teachers and current co-workers for helping him get where he is today.
“A lot of my teaching has been observing what others do here. To be given this award, inspired from teachers here, and to have them recognize what I am doing is an honor,” Seeley said.
Seeley started at Seneca as a technician when it opened in 2003. Wanting to pursue a career in education and having a bachelor’s degree in mass communications, radio and television production, he went to Burlington County College, now Rowan College at Burlington County, to get his alternate route teaching certification at night while he worked during the day. In 2004, he was hired as a teacher at the high school. He now teaches television productions levels 1, 2 and 3.
• For her many years spent at the high school and her integral part in helping to shape Seneca to what it is today, Erica Maira was chosen as the 2017–2018 Educational Services Professional of the Year.
“To me, it is truly an honor to represent such an amazing staff. Seneca has a different vibe than other schools. It is quite an honor to have this from the Seneca family,” Maira said.
She credited her award to all of those who help her throughout the school, as she could not do it without them.
“It’s hard to talk about myself. Everything happens here because of everybody working together … Seneca is such a special place, with so much support; stuff couldn’t happen without them,” Maira said.
Maira has been part of the Lenape Regional High School District since 1983 as a biology teacher at Lenape High School. After teaching in Newport News, Va., for two years, Maira returned to the LRHSD in 1986 as a science teacher at Lenape and as the assistant gymnastics coach. She came to Seneca in 2004.
• Seneca High School announced Feb.14 that senior Kevin Woytowich was recently named a National Merit Scholar Finalist.
According to the National Merit Scholar Corporation, of the 1.6 million entries, only 15,000 Finalists nationwide were named. Of the 15,000 Finalists, there will be 7,500 students selected as National Merit Scholars.
• Seneca students Kayla Dauria and Katelyn Dever organized an event to donate hair to cancer patients. The idea to donate their own hair turned into an event at Seneca High School called the Pantene Beautiful Lengths Hair Drive. The event featured 24 girls and one boy who offered to chop off eight inches of hair to help those with cancer.
The hair, which was collected in bags and placed in a box, was shipped to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths Center in Grand Rapids, Minn., where it was used to create wigs for cancer patients going through chemotherapy.
“We both just wanted to do it and get the Seneca family involved,” Dauria said.
• Amanda McNally, a junior at Seneca, was awarded the Girl Scouts’ highest award, the Silver Award, for making a quilt for teenage girls at Robins’ Nest, a children’s service agency for girls ages 14–17 going through family trouble based in Atlantic City.
“My original idea was that I wanted to make a garden to symbolize hope and I wanted to donate toiletries to the house,” McNally said. “But then I went there and LeAnn DiBenedetto, my project advisor who was also a licensed clinical social worker at Robins’ Nest, was like ‘well we already have toiletries for these girls,’ and so we had to think of something else.”
DiBenedetto told McNally there used to be a lady who made quilts for each of the girls as a gift upon their graduation from the program, but she had passed away.
“So they were like ‘all right, that’s something that you could do for us,’” McNally said. “‘We need gifts to give to the girls when they leave.”
McNally is proud of her project as well, but at the moment, she’s looking forward to her Gold Award project.
“I’m in between working with the elderly and continuing on with my Silver in a different way,” she said about what direction to go in for her Gold Award. “I’ve grown to appreciate and want to work with this kind of thing more.”
• For the last two years, a local sister duo has held the title of International Junior Miss New Jersey Teen. Julianna Rankel, 19, won the pageant in 2016 and this year her younger sister Jess, 16, was awarded the crown at the 2017 pageant held in Parsippany over the weekend of Dec. 1–3.
• Seneca High School’s Family, Career and Community Leaders of America club attended the state Spring FCCLA Conference at the Cherry Hill Crowne Plaza March 23 and March 24. Students in FCCLA applied what they learned in fashion and clothing curriculum to design various articles of clothing for the fashion competitions. Likewise, students in FCCLA applied what they learned in the foods and nutrition curriculum to design various dishes in the food competitions. At their conference in the fall, the FCCLA was victorious again in the food preparation, fashion, and recycle/redesign categories.
• Seneca High School’s Student Council hosted its annual spring blood drive March 3 with the American Red Cross. Seneca’s students and staff donated 77 pints of blood from 100 donors that will potentially help 231 people. A senior Student Council volunteer said, “Helping others in this way showed me how much Seneca cares about the community, as well as the importance of donating time and effort to a worthy cause.”
Local sports
• The Seneca Youth 135-pound football team won the West Jersey Youth Football Championship on Saturday, Nov. 25. The final game was played at Lawrence High School against Florence. Seneca won 34–0 and ended the season undefeated with an 11–0 record. The team is coached by head coach Tom Besser, and assistant coaches Adam Cunard and Pat Smith.
• One week into the season, it would’ve been tough to find someone who felt Seneca High School field hockey would win a championship in 2017.
The Golden Eagles entered the season with a slew of new starters after losing 11 seniors from the 2016 squad. They also started the year slow, losing 4–2 to Camden Catholic High School, 7–2 to Shawnee High School and 5–1 to Bishop Eustace Preparatory School in the season’s first week.
However, those losses would pave the way for what would turn into a magical season for Seneca. An influx of youth and the team’s rapid maturation over the course of the season took the Golden Eagles to new heights. Seneca won its first sectional championship when it defeated Robbinsville High School, 5–0, in the Central Jersey Group II title game on Nov. 2. Seneca advanced all the way to the NJSIAA Group II state championship game, where the Golden Eagles’ playoff run ended with a 2–0 loss to Rumson-Fair Haven High School.
• The 11u Jersey State Bombers baseball team, a part of the We Drop Bombs Baseball Academy, finished out the season on a high note. The team played a total of 31 games, and its record was 22–9.
“This was our fall season, and it went really well,” Chris Murray, head coach, said.
This season, the team played in four tournaments, two of which it won. Its record was 14–4 for the tournaments. At Sports at the Beach, the Bombers outscored their opponents 37–18 and went on to beat the Delaware Rockets in the championship game, 13–3. At the 20-team Diamond Nation Tournament, the Bombers outscored their opponents 49–14, and went on to beat LVBA Blue 5–4 in the championship game.
Other town news
• The Lenape Regional High School District was named a 2017 GDL Champion by the New Jersey Teen Safe Driving Coalition at a ceremony held May 31. LRHSD was among a small group of honorees identified by New Jersey’s teen safe driving advocates for efforts to promote the proven principles of Graduated Driver Licensing. The school district was honored for its Heads Up, Eyes Forward! campaign, which spreads messages about safe driving and the dangers of driving while distracted. Under the direction of John Donaldson, faculty advisor to the LRHSD’s student-led New Jersey Brain Injury Alliance Champion Schools Teen Safe Driving Program, the Heads Up, Eyes Forward! team continuously develops innovative ways to spread its message in New Jersey and beyond. The students’ messaging has even appeared on signs along the I-95 corridor from Boston to Washington, D.C.
• Burlington County completed a 2,400 square-foot expansion project on the Burlington County Animal Shelter. The improvements included three new community cat rooms, improved dog runs, new electronic display screens and a new pet drop-off office.
• The Lenape district hosted a coding night on Dec 14 for all students district-wide.
Shamong held its first annual lighting contest on Friday, Dec 15. The contest was judged by Mayor Timothy Gimbel and Deputy Mayor Mike DiCroce in the three categories; most elegant, most elaborate, and best overall.
