As I am sure you remember, last year Hammonton became the only town in Atlantic county to drop out of the Atlantic County Mayor's Association. This is a group of Mayor's who come together to discuss issues facing their towns, discuss common goals, discuss common solutions to problems, and come together as a lobbying group when needed to address issues that face the group as a whole. The reevaluation and repayment of taxes to the Trump properties is an issue that will have an effect on all of Atlantic County because the county residents will have to make up the difference by paying higher taxes. The ACMA has been working together and hired it's own attorney to monitor the situation and do all they can to keep this issue from affecting the residents of our County. Unfortunately, Hammonton is not part of this solution, because the Mayor decided he didn't want to belong to this group.
Now comes another issue the group will have much interest in and once again Hammonton will not have a voice within this group. And Hammonton is one of the Towns that can be hurt the most if changes are brought about to this issue. The issue is school funding. Gov. Corzine recently released his new school funding plan and Hammonton was a big winner under this proposal. It is a fair proposal that takes into account all of the issues and demographics that have been ignored by the State for the last 6 years. However, there are some towns who are not happy with this new plan. Even though they have been spending much more per student than Hammonton has been able to do, they want more and apprently may launch a fight to get more funding. We need to support the current proposal and we can do it with a much louder voice if we were part of the Atlantic County Mayor's Association. Atlantic County does very well under the new proposal, receiving an average 12% increase in funding. It is in our best interest to support this plan. Normally we try and keep politics and school board separate, but this is obviously going to be a very political issue and the Mayor should rethink his decision not to join the Atlantic County Mayor's Association. We need to know what the other towns in our county are saying and planning and we need to join together to make our voices heard in Trenton.
In today's post 9-11 world, you'd think towns should communicate better with each other. Why bother even having a mayor if he isn't going to represent Hammonton at the state or county level. Is he just a name on paper?
