The township has combined the work of the former Environmental Advisory and Open Space Advisory committees into one coordinated group that will advise council and other township agencies.
The organization held its first meeting on April 16.
The purpose of the Open Space Conservation and Environmental Stewardship Committee (OSCES) is to advise and assist township officials; planning and zoning boards; and any other municipal department, committee or officials on environmental and conservation issues, as well as open-space preservation and acquisition.
Members include Henry Balikov, who’s previously served on both the township’s environmental advisory committee and planning board; Victoria Britton, member of the township’s Low and Moderate Income Housing Oversight Committee; Mark Pensiero, president of Saving the Environment of Moorestown (STEM); Chris Salvatico, vice president of STEM; Debbie Browning Hess, former member of the Open Space Advisory committee and co-owner of the historic Browning Hess Farm; Damian Gil, municipal staff liaison; and Harry Mayer, former chair of the Open Space Advisory Committee.
Tom Bader, who’s lived in Moorestown for 30 years, will serve as the organization’s council liaison. Members at the first meeting elected Mayer chair and Britton vice-chair.
“The most important thing is getting things off the ground, and they did that brilliantly,” Bader said of the collaboration. “There are so many different areas that this committee could tackle, because there’s also some open-space issues. There’s a lot of recreation issues …
“Mark (Pensiero) made an excellent point about the fact that we have wonderful assets today, but we haven’t done a great job of caring for them,” Bader noted. “One of the things that I would like to see us do with the additional revenue associated with the change in the tax (levy) from 1 cent to 2 cents is to devote some of that additional revenue to better maintenance and even improvement of our current properties.”
To assist in the protection, development and use of natural resources, the OSCES committee will maintain an up-to-date inventory of the township’s natural resources, including all relevant mapping and documentation; promote the conservation and careful management of the natural resources of the township and develop and maintain a list of parcels within the township that may be appropriate for open-space acquisition, recreation farmland and historic preservation, among other resources.
“You can’t beat the township’s beautiful and pastoral open spaces, Bader emphasized. “The really striking thing for me – as somebody who’s lived in suburban New York and suburban New Jersey for my entire life – is how much raw nature we have in Moorestown, and that kind of surprised me.
“We’re used to the beauty of an open park or the beauty of nice trees,” he added, “but you can see native grasses, wetlands … There’s really an incredible wealth of both plants and wildlife in these large tracts of open space that the township has preserved and that STEM has done a fantastic job of both maintaining and improving.”
For updates on Moorestown’s OSCES committee, visit www.moorestown.nj.us.
