After 7 months of fighting with a mayor who has a single idea on his mind to destroy the trust and it's president, said mayor has won out over the township council. On Wednesday, December 21st, he threatened to sue the council if they passed a resolution to give the trust a new lease that was supplied by the trust. Read about it at www.pembertonvoice.com.

The trust now has until January 1st to vacate the premises, rolling stock and all.

It is a sad commentary on todays lack of respect for history and the power one individual can wield by using storm trooper tactics and threats.

Later!
Mr. Ed

The level of incompetence in the writing of the web site pretty much renders any point the writers are trying to make hard to support by reason of loss of intellectual credibility.

Don't stay where you're not wanted - fighting with the landlord will invariably lead to one conclusion in the long run, and they have much deeper pockets than you do to pay for the war. The People might care for a few seconds until something else shiny distracts them from your plight, so you won't win this one by popular acclaim either. Pack up your stuff and find a home where you will be valued.

Later or maybe not.

dave

As soon as this started you should have been looking for a new home. Land is sold every day. I would have picked the equipment in the collection worth saving, scrap the rest and use the proceeds to get out of town. Now you are going to lose it all.

File an injunction before the local judge and try to buy some time to save some items? ... then see suggestion above - scrap some, save good stuff. Sorry for the bad news. Not what anyone here wants to see.

Mike Stillwell
Buena Vista, VA.

Thanks Dave. When I read it I felt embarrassed for whoever wrote it. Obviously proving a point is (was) more important than trying to save the stuff to say nothing about the smaller objects in the station which may be lost as well.

Yeah, this whole thing is like watching a puppy with 2 broken back legs from being run over by a car trying to drag itself out of traffic with its 2 front legs in very slow motion. Painful........but in this case, the driver and the puppy are the same people.

dave

So, what will happen seven days from now if the equipment is not gone by then?

Get a few hundred dollars in cash and a heavy rollback, and go to the auction. Or deal directly with the scrapper, whichever.

dave

This seems like an interesting story, and maybe most people on this forum have followed these developments and understand the entire issue like the back of their hand. But I don’t. Can someone write a short paragraph of explanation starting with the big picture and then wrap it up with a few of the most important details?

if the mayor wants it out, let him find a new home, let him pay for ALL the moving costs and the cost for the new land.

if thats what...HE ...wants..

So, what is the Pemberton Township Historic Trust's back up plan?

I'm sorry Dave and SO. Are you referring to the pembertonvoice website?

Later!
Mr. Ed

Mr. Ed,

It sounds like you are trying to get the public on your side. I read everything that your above posted link takes me to, and I am unable to understand what is at the center of the disupte. There are several questions describing the behaviour of the mayor and asking whether he is abusing his power. Then it concludes by saying "you decide." How about you explaining it so we can decide?

The article does give lots of details, but they are not in any understandable context. The only information that I can gather is that there is a big dispute and a deadline has been given as the end of this year. What the dispute is about, how the deadline will be enforced, the legal authority, whether there is any way to come to a last minute agreement-- these are some of the most obvious questions that anybody listening to your plight would have.

Public opinion can be a powerful tool in this type of dispute, but you have got to communicate the issue to the public to start with.

A step further:

I heard back when I wrote in to the council/commissioners that they generally agreed with the preservationists and disagreed with the mayor's actions. If this is indeed the case, what is the viewpoint of the commissioners and those who agree with them, and why is the mayor pursuing this apparent "lone wolf" action?

My heart is heavy this evening, the night of our Savior’s birth, as I look upon this conflict of good people. It saddens me to no end, as I can say “been there, done that and got the tee shirt.”

As I see it, there are three players in the mix: The County, the Town and the Trust. At the root is money, land, a steam locomotive and ultimately, “Control.”

The Mayor, Dave, serving since 2007, is struggling with the local economy and working very hard to maintain his Town’s budget and taxes in these hard times. Every dollar counts. The Town spends on the order of $35,000.00 each year to support the buildings and property they own, licensed for use to the Trust.

In 2010, the Mayor and Town entered into an agreement to transfer to the County the Town’s buildings and property in question in exchange for eleven acres of unimproved County land adjacent to their Municipal Building. The advantage to the Town will be a savings of $35,000.00 each year and in the future, when the economy improves, the eleven acres will be close to Town Hall and available for development of a Town Park or municipal expansion.

In the course of these negotiations, the Trust was directed not to bring any more railcars onto the Town’s property they were licensed to use. Furthermore, the Mayor and others in town were/are critical of the condition of the existing collection of railcars on Town property. They are rusting, considered an eyesore, and could jeopardize the impending swap of buildings and property with the County.

The Trust, who’s President is/was Mike, ignored the Town and brought onto the property a steam locomotive.

BANG! You can see where this has gone.




MY SOAPBOX . . . . . . . . for what it’s worth:

I hope for everyone’s sake a positive resolution can be found by December 31. If not, I think there will be harsh outcomes for both sides involved. These are issues that can divide a community and cause very hard feelings for years to come. No one will win this one.

Like many small community Museums and Historical Societies around our Country, this one is made up of hard working volunteers who are plank owners and proud of their Railroad Museum. They are passionate about every piece of history and every artifact that can be saved and placed in/at their Museum. They do not want to lose something that they consider important to their mission and local lore. To them, that steam locomotive and every piece of rusting railcar in the yard tells a story about Pemberton Township and its railroading history.

The Mayor is a forward thinking individual. He is a Leader and he is on a mission to cut costs in his Town and bring it through these economic storms upright. In March, one of the four fire companies in the Township was closed to save money due to a lack of volunteers in the company. Now, there are fears in the community that another fire company may be singled out for closure. In a review of his first three plus years in service to the Town, the Mayor makes an impressive list of accomplishments. He is a hard worker and determined to succeed with whatever he sets his mind to. He and his administration have been extremely successful in obtaining grants for the communities they oversee.

To paraphrase the Mayor in his report, “government is not always fast moving, and that can be frustrating.” (Boy do I know it! It takes patience, perseverance and TOLORANCE to be successful and well thought of in these times.) I may be so bold as to suggest to the Mayor that he take a play from that playbook, take a deep breath on this one, count to ten and think out of the box, be a Leader.

The Mayor, (and the Trust), has a tremendous resource to his north, the Joint U.S. Base that made up Fort Dix and McGuire Airbase. Since gaining familiarity with Base Commanders flying around on refueling missions in a C-130, could the Mayor possibly enlist the volunteer or outright help of the Base in the use of heavy equipment to sandblast/power wash those old railcars, and buy or have donated some paint to spray on those cars to make them presentable? It would stabilize them for a time and make them more presentable to the community and the County. Is there a vocational school or college that could be enlisted to volunteer or use the cars as a work-study program to do whatever is necessary to make the cars presentable?

On the other side of this is the Trust. I am truly sorry for your position, you do not own the buildings or property you inhabit. (Remember: “been there, done that.”) Mike, if the landlord says you can’t do something – you can’t do it. Relationships have been broken here, there are allot of broken fences that need mending. I wish I could be there to help you because I know how you and your members feel – my members feel the same way about our collections and we too have our Naysayers of the Century to deal with. Good luck my friend.

de Don n2qhvRMLI

aka, Don Fisher, President
Railroad Museum of Long island