Here’s a recap highlighting just some of the most newsworthy events from the year.
The year 2018 is nearly done, so perhaps it’s only right for residents to reflect on just some of The Sun’s biggest stories of 2018.
With that, here’s a recap highlighting just some of the most newsworthy events from the year.
Council and BOE reorganize
The year started as it does every year with Evesham Township Council and the Evesham Township School District Board of Education holding their annual reorganization meetings.
For the township, although there were no council elections in 2017, and therefore no new members to seat, council did keep up its tradition of rotating the member of council to hold the position of deputy mayor.
For 2018, it was Councilmember Deb Hackman who took the role.
“It’s a great team to serve with, and what we do could not be possible if we didn’t have the support of everybody that has been appointed or reappointed tonight to help us,” Hackman said at the reorganization meeting
As for the BOE, incumbent board member Elaine Barbagiovanni and newcomers Janis Knoll and Lea Ryan were sworn in after their election victories in 2017.
Knoll and Ryan replaced former board members JoAnne Harmon and Sandy Student, who each chose not to run for reelection after their terms were over last year.
The BOE also chose Joe Fisicaro Jr. as its president and Trish Everhart as vice president for the year.
“It’s a hard job, but with this particular board and the direction we’re going, hopefully we’re going to have a great ability to work together,” Fisicaro said the BOE’s reorganization meeting. “I feel blessed to work with this group.”
Goodbye to one township manager and hello to a new one
Evesham Township lost its two-time township manager in February when Tom Czerniecki took a job at Rowan College at Burlington County as the college’s senior vice president of operations and administration.
Prior to his departure, Czerniecki served twice as Evesham’s manager — once from 2007 to early 2012, and again from late 2014 through February of this year.
Some of of Czerniecki’s highlights include receiving the Outstanding Municipal Manager of the Year from the New Jersey Municipal Management Association for 2010, as well as overseeing implementation of a strategic plan that includes multiple redevelopment projects valued at more than $80 million, overseeing increases the township’s bond rating and overseeing the township’s partially self-insured insurance program that officials describe as having stabilized costs for the township.
“I leave with great friendships and the knowledge that Evesham, which I call home, is financially healthy and economically diverse; has a strong and well-maintained physical infrastructure; and strongly influences the quality of life enjoyed by residents through sound planning, environmental stewardship, property tax stability and excellent municipal services by a top-notch management team and workforce,” Czerniecki said upon announcing his departure.
As for Evesham Township’s new township manager, the position fell to Michael Barth, Evesham’s former chief of police.
While Barth retired as chief of police in 2013, he continued to serve as somewhat of a business administrator for the department.
With more than 28 years of service to Evesham upon becoming township manager, Barth said the township was a great place to work.
“I think this is a wonderful workforce,” Barth said. “The professionals are very professional. Everybody does their job.”
Evesham Township passes budget with tax decrease
Evesham Township passed its annual budget with a tax decrease this year.
This year’s budget clocked in at $37.6 million, which also included a decrease in the municipal tax rate from 43 cents per every $100 of assessed property value to 42.7 cents per every $100 of assessed property value.
Those residents with a home assessed at the average value of $270,500 saw an annual decrease of $6.38 in municipal taxes.
According to township officials, the municipal budget and township services again accounted for around 15 percent of a resident’s overall annual property tax bill.
For the remaining 85 percent, officials sad the bill is split between the other taxing entities in town, including about 41 percent of local property taxes going to Evesham Township School District, about 24 percent going to the Lenape Regional High School District, about 14 percent going to Burlington County, about 5 percent going to the Evesham Fire District and about 1 percent going to support open space funding.
According to the township, for every one cent the municipality raises or decreases in municipal taxes, the township receives or loses about $525,000.
Evesham Township School District passes budget with tax increase; deals with loss of state aid
As for the school district, budget figures were a bit more complicated this year.
Once passed, the district’s 2018–2019 budget totaled about $85 million and included a 1.83-cent tax rate increase per every $100 of assessed property value.
That increase set the new total K-8 school tax rate at $1.1782, which equates to a $49.39 increase in K-8 school taxes for an Evesham resident with the average assessed home valued at $270,500.
However, the district’s budget work this year went beyond the adoption of its final budget in May.
Due to a new school funding bill passed by the state after the ETSD had completed its budget, so-called “underfunded” school districts gained more in state aid and so-called “overfunded” districts in the state lost aid.
With the ETSD considered an “overfunded” district, the district was forced to deal with an immediate loss of about $815,000 in state aid that was already budgeted for the 2018–2019 school year.
The determination of Evesham being an “overfunded” district is mainly determined by a formula that considers increases or decreases in student enrollment, increases or decreases in a district’s municipal property wealth (ratables) and the personal wealth of residents.
With Evesham’s enrollment down in recent years, and its ratables and the personal wealth of its residents up, the local school district was all but guaranteed to lose some funding.
With that in mind, the board eventually passed a resolution to maintain appropriations already budgeted for the 2018–2019 school year by increasing the amount of unassigned general fund surplus used from its original budget by $477,227 and filing a request with the commissioner of education to grant approval to withdraw $338,000 from the district’s emergency reserve.
“We have a plan for the year and we’re not looking to cut anything that we’re doing right now because we’re already into the year,” ETSD Superintendent John Scavelli Jr. said in July. “There’s too much happening that we can’t undo at this point.”
Looking toward the future, if the current law remains in place, Scavelli said the district is estimated to lose money until the 2024–2025 school year, where the district would have lost about a combined total of $9 million.
“We have to keep an eye on the future, but we can’t have the answers to 2024–2025 right now,” Scavelli said. “We’ve got to get through 2018–2019 and plan for 2019–2020.”
Evesham Township School District fights to save Teddy Bear Academy
This year also saw the Evesham Township School District fight to keep its Teddy Bear Academy daycare open beyond the end of the 2018–2019 school year in June.
The situation began this August, when Administrative Law Judge Solomon Metzger ruled the district had exceeded its authority under state law when the district opened Teddy Bear Academy in 2014.
Metzger’s ruling stemmed from a petition filed with the state commissioner of education by Under The Sun Learning Center of Marlton, a local childcare facility.
Under the Sun, and later Metzger, believed the state statute prevents districts, such as the ETSD, from using their facilities to run daycares that operate outside of school hours and serve children who are not school age and who don’t live within a district’s boundaries.
Teddy Bear Academy opened in a previously unused wing of Marlton Middle School, and since it was first opened, has accepted children as young 6 weeks old living in any municipality.
At the time of Metzger’s ruling, district officials said Teddy Bear Academy was caring for more than 80 children and continued to serve a source of revenue for the district, as it had every year since it was opened.
Although the district also filed an exception with state Commissioner of Education Lamont Repollet, who could have rejected Metzger’s ruling, ultimately Repollet agreed Teddy Bear Academy should close.
In response to Metzger’s and Repollet’s decisions, the ETSD BOE used its October meeting to authorize the board’s solicitor to “file an appeal and other appropriate actions in the matter of Under the Sun Learning versus Evesham Township Board of Education.”
“I think the board’s resolution is to take any and all steps — legislative, judicial, what have you — and really try and keep this program open for the children, the parents, the families, the staff and the community,” said board solicitor William Donio in October.
Also, in late December, Evesham’s state representatives (State Sen. Dawn Marie Addiego and Assemblymen Joe Howarth and Ryan Peters) introduced legislation that would allow the ETSD and other district’s in similar situations to keep their daycare facilities operating.
Evesham embarks on vision study to help guide township’s future
Evesham Township once again solicited input from residents about the future of Evesham’s downtown with two visioning workshops this year.
Residents gathered at the Main Street Firehouse during the Taste of Evesham and later during a special event at the Gibson House Community Center to share thoughts about what they like and don’t like about Evesham’s downtown.
According to officials running the study, many residents are concerned there aren’t enough civic gathering places downtown, and for that, officials say there needs to be more parking.
Officials have offered one suggestion of connecting several of the parking lots that already exist alongside and behind buildings downtown to create more of a flow and ease congestion.
The vision workshops also offered residents multiple possibilities for potential civic activities that might be developed downtown, such as movies in parks, interactive art, a multipurpose lawn, a main square, a water feature, outdoor games, a beer garden and more.
Officials move closer to township-owned miniature golf course in Evesham
Evesham, of course, already has its municipal-owned-and-operated Indian Spring Golf Course and country club, but this year township officials have moved closer to using land at Indian Spring to open a miniature golf course as well.
As recently as a December council meeting, officials approved $340,000 in bonds for the course, in addition to bonds approved earlier in the year.
As of current plans, the course will include 18 holes and measure about 19,000 square-feet.
The course would be open every day the Indian Spring driving range is open, hitting about 260 to 275 days of operation per year.
With hours from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., officials believe the course could generate revenues around $200,000 per year when considering operating costs and debt payments.
With those figures, officials see a three- to five-year return on investment for the project.
As for location, while officials originally envisioned the course’s location directly along East Main Street/Tuckerton Road and adjacent to the Indian Spring driving range, most recent plans have the course inward and away from the road to a spot between the parking lots for the driving range and Gibson House Community Center.
Interfaith service shows solidarity at Congregation Beth Tikvah in late October
Hundreds gathered at Evesham’s Congregation Beth Tikvah in response to to the attack that occurred at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh during Shabbat morning services on Oct. 27, where a gunman shouting anti-Semitic remarks killed 11 and injured six others.
While Congregation Beth Tikvah’s Rabbi Nathan Weiner described his congregation as a group “mourning the loss of life” and “encountering its own vulnerability,” the event was also filled with prayer and message of peace, tolerance and hope.
Various religious leaders of different faiths from the Evesham community and greater area spoke during the event to ask those in the local community to embrace strength by rejecting hate.
Religious leaders in attendance included representatives of Marlton United Methodist Church, Temple Beth El in Hammonton, St. Joan of Arc Parish, Christ Presbyterian Church, Wiley Ministries, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, St. Mary of the Lakes in Medford, Medford United Methodist Church and more.
A letter of support was also read on behalf of the Iman of the Islamic Center of South Jersey, who could not attend the service in person.
In addition to the attack in Pittsburgh, Congregation Beth Tikvah’s Rabbi Emeritus Gary Gans used his time to reference a man charged with shooting and killing two African-Americans at a supermarket in Kentucky after he allegedly first tried and failed to enter a predominantly African-American church.
Gans also spoke of a man in Florida charged in connection with the series of mail bombs sent to public figures — a man who Gans said used social media to rail against politicians and minorities.
“We collectively must speak out against this domestic terrorism,” Gans said. “Not just to the Jews who have been the canaries in the cave for so many decades and generations, but for all of us.”
Mayor Brown decides against reelection bid
Big political changes also came to Evesham Township in final months of 2018.
First, in September, Mayor Randy Brown announced he was dropping his bid for re-election.
Brown, who has served as Evesham’s mayor for the last 12 years, cited professional opportunities that had become available to him in the coming years as the reason he had chosen not to run for another term.
Brown said the unspecified opportunities would prevent him from serving another full term as mayor, and with that, he wanted Evesham’s voters to have a clear choice in who would lead the town for another four years.
“I’m not going to give you the line that ‘I need to spend more time with my family,’ because I spend plenty of time with my family … this is purely a professional, business decision,” Brown said at the time of his announcement.
Brown has long described himself as Republican for most of his adult life, including when he managed former mayor Gus Tamburro’s 2003 campaign for mayor.
However, Brown was registered as a Democrat when he ran against Tamburro, who was was backed the Burlington County Republican Committee, in the spring of 2007, although at the time, the township’s municipal elections were still technically nonpartisan.
Brown then officially became a Republican again for his re-election in 2010, which took place after voters approved a referendum moving the township’s elections to November and making them partisan contests.
Brown’s last re-election came in 2014, after he decided against running for Congress. Brown’s name was also floated as a possible candidate for lieutenant governor in 2017.
In reflecting on whether the decision not to run for mayor was “the hardest decision he ever had to make,” Brown said it was just another choice in a long career.
“If you ask yourself what’s the best for the team, whether that team is the township, the employees or the family, I believe it was best to do it now,” Brown said when he announced his decision.
Democrats win November election, take control of township council for 2019
However, Brown’s decision not to run for another term as mayor wasn’t the only political “shocker” in Evesham this year.
Brown was ultimately replaced on the local Republican ticket by incumbent Councilman Steve Zeuli, who, along with Hackman and Republican Jay Levenson, lost the November election to Democrats Jaclyn Veasy, Heather Cooper and Patricia Hansen.
According to the Burlington County Board of Elections, out of 20,932 votes cast locally, Veasy received 10,892 votes (52.04 percent) in the race for mayor, compared to Zeuli’s 10,026 votes (47.9 percent) for mayor.
In the race for two open seats on township council, Cooper received 10,917 votes and Hansen received 10,905 votes, compared to Hackman’s 9,763 votes and Levenson 9,497 votes.
Veasy works as a senior claims adjuster at a national insurance company, Cooper works as a resource and development director for a local nonprofit, and Hansen is a retired human resources assignment specialist for Amtrak.
With the election of Veasy, Cooper and Hansen, control of township council will be in Democrats’ hands in 2019, which marks the first time Democrats have controlled council since elections in Evesham became partisan affairs.
Yet each campaign had differing responses as to why voters broke the way they did.
On the Democratic side just days after the election, Evesham Township Democratic Committee Chair Phil Warren said Evesham’s Democrats ran “great candidates” this year and worked hard for their victory.
“They (Veasy, Cooper and Hansen) worked hard to get here, knocking on over 4,000 doors with nearly 30 dedicated volunteers, making phone calls, building support, and delivered a positive vision from day one of their joint campaign,” Warren said after the election.
On the Republican side, Brown pointed to local voters’ anger at Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ 3) and President Trump as to the reason why his fellow Republicans lost on the local level.
MacArthur, who also lost his race for reelection, helped advance legislation in the U.S. House (which was ultimately defeated in the U.S. Senate) through which states would have been able to waive a requirement in the Affordable Care Act that prohibits insurance companies from using pre-existing conditions to charge consumers higher prices for health insurance premiums.
MacArthur was also the sole congressional representative from New Jersey to vote for the federal income tax overhaul that put a $10,000 federal cap on the SALT (state and local tax) deduction used by many New Jersey residents.
“How does a congressional candidate (MacArthur), who has been a congressman for four years, lose the county by 30,000 votes when Jim Saxton and Jon Runyan were Republican congressmen in this district for a decade — you do that when you’re not in touch with the district,” Brown said after the election. “That’s how you do it.”
In turn, Warren said voters were more focused on local candidates than Brown might believe.
“Ironically, despite blaming President Trump and Congressman MacArthur for the loss, Mayor Brown might actually be the single biggest reason his candidates lost,” Warren said after the election. “He has spent years being less tolerant and more focused on self-promotion, propaganda, and divisive rhetoric.”
New faces on the BOE for 2019
Finally, the Board of Education for the Evesham Township School District also saw voters call for a bit of turnover in 2019.
Although current board president Joe Fisicaro Jr. won his bid for reelection, incumbent board member Jeff Bravo lost and incumbent board member William McGoey chose not to run.
According to the Burlington County Board of Elections, out of 36,145 votes cast locally, the three winners were Fisicaro, who received 6,921 votes, newcomer Melissa Flemming with 6,881 votes and newcomer Christopher St. John with 6,334 votes.
Other results included Bravo with 5,494 votes, Eric Sperrazza with 5,333 votes and Lewis Kipness with 5,068 votes.
