Moorestown Patch Letter To The Editor: Resident Responds To Councilwoman Stacey Jordan

To the Editor:

I read the letter from Mooretown Councilwoman Stacey Jordan and feel compelled to respond.

Mrs. Jordan says our water is and has always been safe and has met every single state and federal standard.

Yet when Council first learned that there was a contaminant that the EPA has called “likely carcinogenic” they did not shut down our wells for a full year and a half and then, only when outside agencies stepped in and insisted.

Our water is safe today because we are forced to purchase it from an outside source. Mrs. Jordan hints that the entire situation was spearheaded by a few people who had political ambitions. My understanding is that one of those concerned citizens decided to run for Council seats because she saw a lack of action on the part of the current Council to address this issue.

I’m grateful for those “couple of residents” because without them, the rest of us wouldn’t have any idea what has been going on. Councilwoman Jordan says that the current Council “took the initiative” on this problem from the start. I beg to differ.

Council was forced to close wells after the EPA and DEP told them to do it. There are now fines associated with Councils’ inaction. This contaminant was first discovered in 2013 and only now is Council moving to install a filtration system, which is going to cost us $1.3 million and it’s only a Band Aid until a more permanent solution can be found.

In the meantime, that water we are purchasing from an outside source is expensive. In 2015, it cost $2.37 million dollars. No one knows what the permanent fix will cost.

Mrs. Jordan says she welcomes challenges to the work Council has done. She asserts that Council has taken care of town assets and uses the Town Hall complex and Strawbridge Lake as examples of their good works. She says the Complex came in under budget and with a tax cut to the citizens, and cites Strawbridge Lake as one of our best assets. I will challenge her on both of those statements.

That Town Hall complex did not come in under budget if you look at the history. More money was thrown away over the years on that project than can be counted. Strawbridge Lake has been left to weeds and lily pads for so long that the estimate to put it right is apparently so high, that Council has only thus far approved a fraction of the money to do the job. I would not be touting the management of that particular asset as a success.

As for the tax cut Mrs. Jordan is so proud of, I have not noticed a decrease in my tax bill, but perhaps that’s because it was only $8. If I were sitting on Council, I’m not sure I’d be putting that in my accomplishment column. Especially in light of the need to purchase water until ours is clean enough to stop worrying about.

Mrs. Jordan ends her letter thanking the people of Moorestown for their trust and confidence. I’m sorry, Stacey. I have no confidence in you or your team. I wish I did. But you and your colleagues could have gone a long way in gaining our trust had you agreed to debate your opponents.

The League of Women Voters had agreed to moderate and you didn’t trust them to do the job. You preferred the Ethics Committee, members of which were appointed by Council, moderate any debate. That is a clear conflict of interest. The LOWV has never sided with one party over another. This is what they do and they are good at it, so the only reason for not agreeing to a debate is that there is something to hide.

Please don’t insult us by telling us your opponents made this water issue a political issue. You and your colleagues did that all by yourselves, right from the start.

Marty Hagerty

Moorestown