Twp. Attorney: 'Arbitrarily' Reworded Open Space Petition No Good

Following an opinion by the township attorney, Moorestown officials again have rejected a petition calling for a ballot question about how the town may spend open space funds.

The petition sought voters’ approval to restrict spending from the Moorestown Open Space, Recreation, Farmland and Historic Preservation Trust Fund to passive projects. The drive was prompted by disagreement with Town Council’s decisions to use open space funding for engineering, design and bidding expenses to improve athletic fields and facilities.

Township Clerk Patricia Hunt said the petition was found "defective" again. She previously had  following an opinion from the township attorney, Thomas Coleman III.

Organizers reworded the question and . Hunt rejected the petition Wednesday following another opinion from Coleman.

In the latest rejection, Coleman said the petition gatherers did not overcome the original problems he cited. Specifically, Coleman opined, state law allows such open space ballot questions to address just two issues: changing the amount of the open space levy, and adding or removing categories of appropriate spending for the open space fund.

Coleman said the reworded petition only seeks to “redefine and restrict one of the authorized purposes” rather than adding or removing a permitted category of spending.

The township attorney also found fault with rewording the petition without gathering new signatures.

“… Although the petitioners may feel that they have rehabilitated the deficiencies in the previous petition through substantial editorial changes they have made, I would assert that this is not the same question in support of which the signers of the original petition affixed their signatures,” Coleman’s opinion reads (click the PDF, right, to view). “The petitioners have no authority arbitrarily to change the question without seeking new signatures in support.”

In a letter to five petition organizers—Bruce Carskadon, Linda Carskadon, Betsy Schnorr, Barbara Rich and Bruce Shaw—Hunt wrote that Coleman’s opinion forced her to rejected the petition.

Bruce Carskadon, who has been speaking on behalf of the group, was not immediately available for comment Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the  in town are neither approved nor rejected thus far. Hunt said the township attorney submitted a legal opinion to her stating that the petition questions—one to allow liquor sales in town and one to restrict sales to specific zones—are permissible to appear on the November ballot.

Hunt still has to verify the signatures on the petition, something she anticipates will happen within a week.

This story was updated at 4:44 p.m., Aug. 10.