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Health & Fitness

Gloucester Township: A Great Place to Live…

[Disclosure: This blog is written from my perspective as both a candidate for a seat on Gloucester Township Council and as a concerned citizen of Gloucester Township with questions and concerns about reckless spending and business as usual in Gloucester Township.]

Okay, it’s finally time to address the whole “You never say anything positive about Gloucester Township” and “You don’t like it here so why don’t you move” crowds. I will give justification for everything I’ve written. Additionally, I will expose just how much the “I love Gloucester Township” crowd actually loves Gloucester Township.

Personal Disclosure: I do not publish spurious comments. I don’t work from the rumor-mill and I will not mention anything that I can’t justify with facts. If any reader wants to accuse me of misstating the facts, dispense with the name-calling, please, for the benefit of those who want to read, and prove your point with verifiable data.

If you haven’t been reading me for long, you might not know that I’ve been called “fat, ugly, short, old, a racist, a hater, a dwarf…” The list goes on. In fact, one of the issues I will address here is that my critics don’t counter my posts by addressing and disproving my statements with facts of their own; rather they call me names, as if that disproves my statements. In fact, somebody just crossed the line on Sunday and made a threat against my family. Ahhhh, Gloucester Township, what a lovely place to live when you’re on the Friends and Family Plan. Not only do you get a job if you stroke the right people correctly but your husband, wife, uncle, brother, cousin, etc., can also get a job through their connection to you…if you play the game as you are supposed to, that is. It’s all a matter of having the right connections.

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I would first like to address those who accuse me of hating Gloucester Township and then juxtapose my, so-called, hatred to their love for GT.

I readily admit that I do not LOVE Gloucester Township. I love my wife, my children, my grandchildren, and some of my close friends...On the other hand, I LIKE Gloucester Township; enough so that after having lived here three separate times in the past, I moved back in 1994 and have lived in the same location for twenty years and raised six children in GT. For much of those twenty years, while paying relatively high school taxes, I home-schooled my children at my own expense with nothing coming back from the state or the township, nor did I expect anything. Some of my critics seem to have a problem with my home-schooling my children. Well, do you have a problem with 8 of GT’s 11 elementary schools failing state requirements? Do you have a problem with our regional high schools falling into the lower half of New Jersey’s high school performance chart?

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So, that brings me to my first question to the lovers of GT. Do you love GT because we have such great schools?

I lived in Blackwood Estates while attending high school with the exception of my senior year because we moved to Haddon Heights. As a high school student I had plenty to do in center-city Blackwood. I went to the movies in town; I went to Worrell’s Pharmacy where I could sit at the soda fountain bar and get a vanilla soda; I got ice-cream cones at Johnnie’s Twin-Kist; hung out on Friday and Saturday nights at the bowling alley and put plenty of quarters into the pinball machines; and there was a hobby shop, and a jewelry store, and a Chrysler/Dodge dealership where I remember seeing a ‘Cuda with a two-foot fin on the back; and a bank; and an Acme, and a post office; and there was Sloppy Joe’s sandwich shop in Blenheim, that was replaced by Clover; and a skating rink just down the road alongside of Route 42; and I got my haircut by Sam, who did a poor imitation of Maxwell Smart, in Art’s barbershop right off the pike in Blackwood.

It’s all gone now so I ask my critics, which of the establishments that I mentioned did you love to see leave the most? Which closing warmed your heart the most and gave you the fond memories you speak of and have increased your love for Gloucester Township? Don’t you just love to walk down through the center of Blackwood and see all the empty store-fronts? Which empty building do you love the most?

Maybe the Premium Outlet Malls will take the place of center-city Blackwood. Won’t you love it when all that traffic starts circulating around there and somebody comes to the conclusion that the roads won’t handle all that traffic? Maybe we’ll get to pay for new roads back there even though the condition of the roads throughout GT is one of the biggest complaints I hear from disgruntled resdients. Yes, all you lovers, they do exist in the panacea that we all know as Gloucester Township.

One reader questioned my use of the word “blighted” to describe the Blackwood-Clementon Road business district. Take a drive down B-C Road and count how many buildings are empty and closed up. Be careful though, you don’t want to get a red-light camera ticket.

That brings me to Question #2: Hey all you lovers, don’t you just love Red-Light Camera Mile? Ten ride-light cameras in just over one mile of Blackwood-Clementon Road so that the residents in the area get banged over the head 72 times a day at $85/per. Seriously, running a red light is one thing but the methodology of ticketing cars for crossing the white line or not waiting the prescribed time to turn right is a tax on locals, plain and simple. Yes, I have been assured in council meetings that white line crossings do not trigger a ticket…well, maybe somebody could explain that to the more than a few people who have told me otherwise. Yes, somebody is supposed to check each violation but I was issued a ticket that was thrown out when examined in the light of day in traffic court. So, if a ticket is issued for crossing the white line and you can’t afford to miss a half day of work, you pay the $85 dollars and the township goes on its merry way abusing its lifeblood, the residents. Don't you just LOVE running the gauntlet of Red-Light Camera Mile? Or do all you lovers just stay away?

And finally, because I’m running out of space, Mr. Mayer wants us to believe that the Red-Light Camera District helps business. Here’s what I would love…I would love for Mr. Mayer to stand up in front of the residents who live around the Red-Light Camera District and the businesses along that strip and tell us all how much those lights are helping business along B-C Road.

So, all you LOVERS, if you love GT now, wait until the Premium Outlets suck up all the oxygen in the area and Blackwood-Clementon Road becomes another Black Horse Pike as it looks in center city Blackwood...blighted.

My critics have stated that Mr. Mayer has a development plan for Blackwood. Assemblywoman Mosquera claims the plan is to turn center-city Blackwood into an Art District centered around the Main Stage. Mr. Mayer boasted transparency, so let’s get with it, let the residents of Blackwood see the plan so we can all be part of it.

Please, respond here and tell us what you LOVE about Gloucester Township. Don’t attack me or criticize me for being negative; convince me that I have reason to be encouraged because Blackwood is coming back. I’ll be waiting.

You have a clear choice on November 5th, 2013. You can vote the money party and get business as usual…or you can vote Gloucester Township FIRST, end one party rule and end the practice of no dissenting votes in council for over a year and a half because the votes have already been counted in the back room.

On November 5th, pull the lever for Brown, DiBartolo, Kline and Pauli.

Visit us at: http://www.gloucestertownshipfirst.com

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