A lot can happen in a decade. For Moorestown government, it meant some historic milestones, new faces on council, improvements to and preservation of the town, and balancing costs, all in the effort to better Moorestown.
The Sun sat down with two current councilmembers, Phil Garwood and Greg Newcomer, who have been involved in the Moorestown government for years, to talk about what has happened over the past 10 years in Moorestown and its government.
In 2005, there were some historic happenings on council. That year was the first in 22 years the Democrats had power in Moorestown with Kevin E. Aberant, Jonathan Eron and Ann Bernice Segal on the council as well as Republicans Daniel Roccato and Howard A. Miller. Also, Aberant made Moorestown history by being the first and only Democratic mayor in Moorestown, with Roccato being deputy
Since then, council has had other historic events. In 2013, Stacey Jordan became the first female mayor. In 2015, Victoria Napolitano became the youngest mayor. Also this year, Manny Delgado became the first Moorestown council member of Hispanic descent. The council today is made up of four Republicans — Garwood, Jordan, Napolitano and Delgado — and one Democrat, Newcomer.
Garwood feels there might be some perceived divisions within the town, but he said that isn’t true. Everyone works together toward the same goal to make Moorestown better.
“We like each other; we get along; we work together. We do believe in finding a common ground to work with everyone moving forward, and I think that has been one of the biggest efforts that we made. While we will hold our ground, we try to find common ground,” Garwood said.
By working together, the council, along with many others, has accomplished many things over the past decade.
“The town is the work of many hands and the town is great because of that,” Newcomer said.
One of those hands is the Moorestown Mall. It has seen much redevelopment over the years, including an updated movie theater and the building of restaurants. It is now allowed to serve alcohol due to voters allowing the sale of liquor licenses within the town.
The township council approved a referendum that would allow the sale by auction of six liquor licenses with estimates that each license could sell for more than $1 million each in 2007. However, it did not receive enough votes to pass. In 2011, voters repealed the liquor ban. The liquor licenses were sold and restricted to the Moorestown Mall. Since its passing, all the licenses have been sold, giving the town a surplus of more than $6 million.
Other major happenings include the acquisition of a mobile stage for town events, the building of the library and Town Hall complex, the preservation of open space, updates to the recreation building, a township civility code, increased efforts in sustainability, and a visioning report as a reference point for what people would like to see within the town.
All of these improvements were accomplished, but not without dealing with major issues and challenges.
Since its beginning, Moorestown township council has kept up the Quaker tradition of hearing from everyone who wished to speak. They continue to do so today, but Newcomer feels it hasn’t been the same. Communication is key, and with the advent of computers, emails and text messaging, direct communication has gone down. Newcomer would like to see more people talking and attending meetings, from committee members to curious citizens.
“In 2005, we had a lot more direct communication in a lot of ways, and that is true everywhere, but one of the great things about this town is … we always look for input and hear out what they have to say in a Quaker tradition,” Newcomer said. “Many people have good ideas … we need to tell them to come to council meetings to express their ideas.”
Also, over the past 10 years, the municipal operating budget has gone up, as it has for many towns. However, Moorestown has adapted to these changes by reducing staff, looking for alternative revenues and grants, and working together to keep the services the town offers intact and growing.
A recent issue the council has had to deal with was finding the unregulated compound of Trichloropropane (TCP 1,2,3) in the town’s wells last fall. The council worked with the Department of Environmental Protection as well as other experts to come up with a plan to get rid of the possible carcinogen. As of now, the plan is to test Well 7 on a monthly basis, as it was a detect and then non-detect, put Well 9 on a pilot program, and work on the infrastructure of all of the water treatment plants in town.
For the future, Garwood would like see work done on the town’s bike paths, improvement of infrastructure, and growth in parks and recreation. Newcomer would like to see the use of solar panels in town, Moorestown become a champion for improving the arts, and civil debates brought back into town during election time. Both would like to keep costs down, while continuing good services, and see the old library come down and become green or open space for the township.
“I hope we stay the same path. It is hard to keep a government such as this from growing too fast. You have to make sure you grow at a measured pace and make sure we do our projects at a measured pace so we can sustain it,” Garwood said.
“We should celebrate more, as we did in 2005 with the year-long celebration. We don’t need Money magazine to tell us we are a great town. We are,” Newcomer said.
