Maureen Cawley

By MAUREEN L. CAWLEY
Staff Writer
WILDWOOD – It’s report card time. And while students across the island are finding out how they are doing in school this year, the Wildwood school board is measuring the district’s progress since the new administration was hired last year.
“So much is going on,” Superintendent Dennis Anderson said, and the reports presented at last Wednesday’s meeting bear this out.
High School Principal Gladys Lauriello reported that the district’s Web site and the high school newspaper are up and running. And the new band is making strides.
“They will be performing in community events over the holidays,” Lauriello said, and they will be marching in the Christmas parade.
“I’ve been listening to Jingle Bells and Feliz Navidad already,” she said.
And if that didn’t put her in the holiday spirit, Lauriello received an early Christmas gift this year, as well. From now on, she will be Dr. Lauriello. She received her doctorate in education from Wilmington College this fall.
“I’m certainly very excited to be done,” she said.
Susan Rohrman, the school’s new supervisor of curriculum and instruction, was hired this summer, but she is already making strides toward streamlining the district’s curriculum and coordinating with neighboring schools, she told the board.
Regular meetings have been scheduled for the first Thursday of every month so that Rohrman can sit down with representatives from the Wildwood Crest and North Wildwood districts to work at getting all three district on the same page in regard to curriculum.
“We will be using the same format for our curriculum guides,” Rohrman said.
Anderson said that one of the first thing he talked about with the school board when he was hired in February was the need for the district to tighten it’s curriculum.
“I told them it was something we needed to get a firm grasp of,” he said. “(Rohrman) is really doing a wonderful job.”
Anderson says the district is working at greater “articulation” of the curriculum. That’s education lingo for “sharing expertise across the districts,” he said.
In December, Rohrman will hold a workshop for writing teachers from all three districts on curriculum mapping.
“It’s really important that we are all talking to each other because (Wildwood is) the receiving district,” she said. She said she is working at articulating curriculum “horizontially” between schools at each grade level and “vertically” smoothing the transition from grade to grade. That way ninth-grade students who enter Wildwood High from all three sending districts will be starting high school with the same basic educational background.
“It’s an ongoing process,” Anderson said.
School board members Sandra Richardson, Tony Totah and Gary DeMarzo toured the district’s schools earlier this month to see how things were running, and they reported they were pleased with what they saw.
“I was very impressed,” Richardson said. “The buildings were well maintained. The classrooms were orderly. (The district) is doing a great job. Every facet was well-done.”
Auditor Glenn Ortman made a presentation to the board regarding the audit of this year’s school budget, as well.
“The findings last year were all corrected,” Ortman said, and only two recommendations were made regarding the deposit of food service revenue.
“I want to thank (board secretary) Sandy Becker for her outstanding job on the accounting,” board member David McDonald said.
Three new board members — Carol Bannon, David Wertman and Todd Keininger –
were sworn in at the start of Wednesday’s meeting. They are replacing departing board President Kerry Higgs and board members Sandra Miller and Brian Evans. The new members joined the board just in time to begin the New Jersey School Board certification process.
The board voted to pursue certification in June, and as part of that process a field representative from the New Jersey School Board Association will come to the district on a regular basis to give the workshops on various topics including: relationships, policy, curriculum, finance, school law, labor relations and board operations. The first class was held after the regular school board session on Wednesday evening. The next class is scheduled for January.
“The new folks that have joined the (school) board have blended nicely,” Anderson said.
“The (faculty) is doing a great job jumping on board. I’m extremely pleased. Our students are great. Our teachers are outstanding. Every single day we are getting better and improving. That’s what I’m proud of.”

Maureen L. Cawley can be e-mailed at maureen.cawley@catamaranmedia.com or you can comment on this story by calling 624-8900, ext. 250.

..you move too fast
By MAUREEN L. CAWLEY
Staff Writer
WILDWOOD CREST – The newest change to the borough’s land use law is an ordinance designed to slow things down. The amendment is one in a series of changes made to zoning and land use policies and procedures in recent months.
The ordinance introduced on Nov.9 by Commissioner Don Cabrera and Mayor Carl Groon requires that site plans be submitted 45 days before they are considered by the borough’s planning board. Currently plans must be in the planning board office 25 days before the monthly planning board meeting.
“The idea is to slow down the process,” Groon said. “We want to give the engineer and the planning board time to review (the plans).”
A work session, where representatives of the planning board meet with developers to review submitted plans, is held every month prior to the planning board meeting. The new ordinance will give applicants more time to respond to the boards’ recommendations before presenting them for approval at the hearing later in the month.
“It gives the architects time to make changes,” Groon said.
The plan was first introduced as a resolution by the planning board at its meeting on Nov. 3. It passed unanimously on Monday, Nov. 21.
Borough clerk Kevin Yecco said that the change to the application process was needed to ensure that professional staff, engineers, lawyer and zoning officers have time to review plans before they are considered by the board as a whole.
“The mayor feels strongly that the engineer needs to be included in considering the plans,” Yecco said, “especially considering the volume of applications in recent months.”
Commissioners also introduced a new fee schedule that increases the cost of filing plans with the planning board. A 5 percent fee will be assessed to pay for the review of plans and applications by engineers and attorneys who are hired for that purpose.
This summer, Groon created an office on the second floor of borough hall to deal specifically with code enforcement and land use issues. Linda Adams, a full-time clerk was hired this fall to field calls and direct inquiries through the proper channels.
“We needed a presence in city hall,” Groon said.
Adams is expected to replace planning board secretary Darlene Devlin when she resigns in December.
“That is my recommendation,” Groon said, “but that is at the discretion of the (planning and zoning) boards.”
Devlin will continue to work full time in the finance department as the borough’s purchasing agent.
Elizabeth Terenick was hired as the borough’s new zoning official when Mike Preston retired earlier this year, and planning board member Bob Cashioli was hired as the assistant zoning official to do inspections of sites where work is ongoing to be sure that the construction occurs to land use laws and approved plans.
The borough also made land use laws and a zoning map available to its residents at www.wildwoodcrest.org, as well as a downloadable version. Visitors can download an application for a zoning permit there as well.
The next step in improving enforcement of the borough’s land use policies is in the discussion stages, Yecco said.
Commissioners are considering hiring attorneys who specialize in land use matters to organize and complete the borough’s land use document. The master plan which was completed and adopted this fall did not cover all zoning areas of the borough.
In addition, the complete land use document has not been indexed, Yecco said. And the governing body wants to make sure that there are no discrepancies between existing law and the provisions made in the new master plan, he said.
It needs to be cleaned up, Yecco said.
They would be brought in “to look at the document as a whole,” he said. “The idea is to take what has changed (in the document) with the adoption of the master plan and to make sure the document is consistent.”

Maureen L. Cawley can be e-mailed at maureen.cawley@catamaranmedia.com or you can comment on this story by calling 624-8900, ext. 250.

Van Drew pledges support for Marina Bay Towers
NORTH WILDWOOD — Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew is giving his full support to the residents of Marina Bay Towers, a senior citizen affordable housing building here, in their effort to obtain New Jersey Housing Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA) action to stave off potential eviction from their apartments.
“I am pleased the residents have persuaded the HMFA to sit down with them, their attorney and other parties in this situation, including several legal experts retained by the building developer, to resolve this matter as soon as possible,” said Van Drew, who visited the residents earlier in November. “I came away persuaded that we need to find a path to action that will assure these senior citizens that they will be able to stay in their apartments.
“This situation arises from a complicated series of business and legal decisions and transactions but it is really a simple human situation that comes down to this: These senior citizens have earned the right to be in their homes without fear that they may one day face eviction. I will be with them all the way to the day that fear is removed.”
Marina Bay Towers Tenant Association President Joseph Bakanowsky, a retired U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor and retired casino industry worker, said, “We appreciate the support of Assemblyman Van Drew. We need the support of all of our state and federal legislators to get this situation resolved so we can have peace of mind in our homes.”
Marina Bay Towers is a 143-unit affordable senior citizen bayside, waterfront building with 200 residents who must be at least 62 years of age to be tenants. There is a waiting list of 650 senior citizens for units in the building. Residents have annual incomes between $15,000 a year and $21,000 a year.
Originally financed with $14 million in HMFA low income housing tax credits – the HMFA is New Jersey program administrator for the federal Internal Revenue Service, which allocates the credits among the 50 states each year – the building had to be totally rehabilitated before occupancy because of unforeseen problems.
Problems included damage from a major northeastern storm in 1998, Hurricane Floyd in 1999, faulty construction of modular units, and delay caused by the damage and by a three-year environmental permitting process.
The rehabilitation added $11 million to the cost. The developer, Rubicon Companies of West Orange, has a new financing plan combining additional housing tax credits and tax-exempt bond financing that has the approval of the IRS.
But, despite the fact that the plan obtained IRS approval in 2003, the HMFA called in an outside law firm in 2005 that gave advice counter to the approval and to advice given by several leading national experts retained by Rubicon –- including the current chief counsel of the IRS, who Rubicon had engaged before he took on his public position.
Van Drew said, “The residents went to the HMFA last week and got a pledge from the agency that it will hold the meeting. I urge the HMFA to keep an open mind and to do everything in its power to resolve this matter in a timely fashion and in a manner that serves the interests of these senior citizens.”
Noting he will pay close attention to the results of the meeting, the assemblyman said, “The right thing to do is for that meeting to find a path that will satisfy the authority and at the same time remove the threats of foreclosure and potential eviction hanging over the building and the residents, who have my full support.”