Sunday, February 3, 2013
Red Cross certification to be sought by five municipalities.
The list of differences between Washington Township, the Chesters and Mendhams is just as long as their individual country roads. But one thing that all five towns share are the battle scars, stories and disruptions that Hurricane Sandy brought to the area in the fall of 2012. Residents from each town were out of power for up to 15 days, with schools closed anywhere between seven and 10 days. The time is now, according to each of the town’s leaders, to work together and help each other in preparing for the next time a devastating natural disaster winds its way through the region. At a recent meeting of the mayors, Office of Emergency Management members from each of the towns spoke about the needs of the municipality he served if another …
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Town leaders continue to work together on various other shared interests.
Maybe it was naivete, maybe it was overconfidence. Either way, mayors from the five towns that make up the West Morris Regional High School district were excited about making a historical change in the way education–and its funding–operated. That was nearly two years ago, and dozens of meetings–both open and behind closed doors–led the leaders to realize why it had never been done, and why, once again, would not be changed. In June 2011, the first education summit was held at Mendham High School. The event included elected officials from mayors to board of education members that would come up with the groundwork to make a change in the district’s structure. “When we had that summit, there was a binder with reports in it about all the times…
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Despite impasse on regional schools feasibility study, town leaders to discuss other forms of working together.
While the town’s leaders in the region are getting the band back together, the set list is going to have a different tune in 2013. Mayors from Washington Township, the Chesters and Mendhams will reconvene—their first gathering since August 2012—Thursday at the Chester Borough Municipal Building to discuss, well, anything they want. The group first began meeting publicly in the spring of 2012 as an advisory committee alongside members of the area’s school boards to potentially come to terms on a regional feasibility study. The purpose of the study was to find financial and educational gains in a potential restructuring of the area’s schools. An impasse was the outcome, as Mendham Township and Chester Borough couldn’t agree with the other …
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Mendham, Chester and Washington Township officials will meet next month to discuss other issues.
The fat lady is singing for the feasibility study on the regional school district. In a joint letter released this week, Chester Township Mayor Bill Cogger, Chester Borough Mayor Bob Davis, Mendham Township Mayor Sam Tolley, Mendham Borough Mayor Neil Henry and Washington Township Mayor Ken Short said that since they have been unable to come to a consensus on the feasibility study topics and therefore will not be moving forward as a group. The group, which calls itself the West Morris Regional Education Advisory Committee, has been at an impasse since its July meeting, when Mendham Township said it would not fund a portion of a potential study if it included grouping the five towns into one school district. “We are going to move on from …
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Mayors from all five municipalities and their board of education representatives to meet at the Chester Township Municipal building.
One day after the five mayors connected to the West Morris Regional School District to participate in the Teacher for a Day program with a pair of Patch editors, they will be assembling for the next mayor's meeting on the options for change available to the district. The meeting is open to the public and begins at 7 p.m. at the municipal building in Chester Township. For anyone who has been living under a rock for the last 18-months, a very large sound-proof rock with no internet access, the meetings are the latest in a series being held to discuss topics that include feasibility studies, funding formulas and follow up on some of the presentation material provided by the state Department of Education. The topic has been a hotly contested …
40.77907
-74.72343
Chester Township Municipal Offices
1 Parker Rd, Chester, NJ
/articles/open-meeting-on-regional-school-thursday
1762620
/locations/6970922
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Mayors' Meeting results in assembling group to take next steps on structure, funding in the district.
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Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The decision has been made to create a committee that will engage communities and take next steps on the issue of a possible change to the structure or funding formula of the West Morris Regional School District. Government and school board elected officials came to the conclusion on Wednesday, April 18 at a closed meeting in Long Valley. Representatives from Washington Township, the Chesters and Mendhams were present and decided on the action. The following information is from a press release provided by the mayors of the five towns, which hosted the meeting. On April 18th the Mayors of the WMRHS District met with representatives from the Board of Education of each of the sending districts and the Regional High School to discuss the …
Friday, April 20, 2012
Specific details being withheld until official statement is released.
Mayors from Washington Township, the Chesters and Mendhams, along with school board representatives from those towns spent more than two hours discussing the future of the West Morris Regional High School District Wednesday night in Long Valley. The meeting, hosted by the mayors–Ken Short (Washington Township), Bill Cogger (Chester Township), Bob Davis (Chester Borough), Neil Henry (Mendham Borough), and Sam Tolley (Mendham Township)–and moderated by Mendham Township resident Christine Meyers-Gorski, was closed to the public, was meant to involve the various school boards to help the governement officials better understand the education process, according to Washington Township Mayor Ken Short prior to the meeting. "I don't think any of …
40.78862
-74.781679
Washington Township Municipal Building
43 Schooleys Mountain Rd, Long Valley, NJ
/articles/mayors-boards-lay-groundwork-to-move-ahead
1489341
/locations/6834759
Monday, April 16, 2012
April 18 gathering will be closed to the public.
What began as a team of four looking for a fifth player has now evolved into a starting lineup with a full bench. On Feb. 23, at a presentation by the New Jersey Department of Education to address the West Morris Regional High School district’s funding formula, area mayors Ken Short (Washington Township), Bob Davis (Chester), Bill Cogger (Chester Township), and Neil Henry (Mendham) requested Mendham Township mayor Sam Tolley jump in and join the effort to fund a feasibility study. “We’re a team,” Short said at that meeting in February. “A basketball team has five players, if you play with four it doesn’t work.” The DOE presentation, requested by the four mayors to shed light on the facts behind the district’s funding as well as its …
Friday, February 24, 2012
Four towns can't move forward with regional school district study.
To take the next steps on deciding if the West Morris Regional High School district should further regionalize, dissolve, or stay as is, a feasibility study is necessary to assimilate all the educational and monetary consequences. The mayors of four of the municipalities that make up the regional district have agreed to kick in $10,000 each from their 2012 budgets to fund that study, which leaves them approximately $10,000 short. Mayors Ken Short of Washington Township, Bill Cogger of Chester Township, Bob Davis of Chester Borough, and Neil Henry of Mendham Borough have been working together for eight months to find an equitable solution to disproportionate spending problem in the regional district based on property values. They are …
Mike
9:23 am on Monday, February 4, 2013
Mendham Boro and Mendham Townships CERT teams are a joint crew with members from both towns. more ›