Congressman Andy Kim officially swore in Councilman Quinton Law and Deputy Mayor Sue Mammarella to town council at Moorestown Township’s reorganization meeting on Jan. 3.
“I wanted to congratulate this council and say that all of us are with you over the course of this next year going into 2022,” Kim said.
“And for all the residents of Moorestown, I just want to address and say that I know we’re going through a lot and we have been for quite some time, and what we’re witnessing here in this room is an effort to try to make sure we’re rising to the challenges of our time.”
Council started with opening comments.
“This past year has been an incredible, incredible year for Moorestown and I’m very proud to be a part of it,” Councilman Law said. “I’m thankful for my council colleagues. We don’t always agree, but I know that every person sitting up here is dedicated to making Moorestown the best that it can possibly be.”
“I’m happy with where we are at the start of 2022,” Councilman David Zipin said. “We’ve added some much-needed staff on the township side as well as the police side so that’s at least some sort of progress to bring things back to where they need to be.”
Councilman Zipin also announced Moorestown’s new PCR testing site on 501 Pleasant Valley Ave.
Mayor Nicole Gillespie addressed council’s progress on bringing revenue sources to Moorestown and progress on infrastructure needs.
“Last year we addressed some long-standing issues with our sewer treatment plant, we began maintenance to our water towers and repaved 13 of our township roads, and have a plan for additional roadwork this year,” she said.
Mayor Gillespie also addressed several issues that are seeing progression or completion in 2022: repairs on the 100-year-old concrete water main that runs through Kings Highway’s water treatment plant to Poplar Avenue, progress on the Lenola Streetscape and Percheron Park projects and wrapping up a final conditional judgement of compliance and repose for Moorestown’s Affordable Housing plan.
Mayor Gillespie announced that Brightcore Energy has received funding from New Jersey to install 19 solar projects on commercial buildings in Moorestown’s business project district off North Church Street.
According to Mayor Gillespie, that award, along with the work of Sustainable Moorestown, makes 2022 the year of the environment in Moorestown.
“We’re going to start doing things and talking about them and learning from them so we can get better,” she said. “Each quarter will be focused on a specific theme and we’ll start this first quarter with energy use.”
“This will be a year for us to learn together, explore ideas and changes that we can make now and start developing plans for even bigger and happier changes,” Gillespie said.
Next on the agenda, Mayor Gillespie reappointed Chris Chesner as a Class II member of the planning board to a term expiring on Dec. 31 and reappointed Deanne Bertino to the Library Board of Trustees to a term expiring Dec. 31, 2026.
Thirty-six appointment resolutions for 2022 were motioned for approval including appointing several committee members and a resolution adopting the 2022 temporary budget.
Eighteen consent agenda resolutions were adopted, including appointing a designated employer representative for drug and alcohol testing of commercial driver’s license drivers and designating the depositories for township funds for 2022.
Council gave closing comments and Deputy Mayor Mammarella addressed Moorestown’s PCR testing site.
“My advice is do lots of rapid testing when you’re visiting family; it saved me a few times over the holidays,” she said.
