According to City Solicitor John Kearney Lourdes will provide a two person crew 24/7 to operate out of a City building using City emergency vehicles.

Kearney said the only cost to the taxpayer for this service will be for the gas that will be used to run the vehicle.

\”Lourdes will use the same billing company that the City has used over the past few years. Bills for services will go to patients and their insurance company. If there is no insurance and and no ability to pay Lourdes and its billing service will not pursue persons for payment. Lourdes has a philosophical commitment to help and the City expects to see that commitment shine forward in the ambulance service. Lourdes will pay its costs out of the funds it receives from the billing service. If there is income above operation expenses that will be split. If a new ambulance is needed Lourdes will buy it,\” said Kearney.

Asked if any City EMT\’s/firemen will be laid off, Kearney said, \”It is unknown whether or not this will have any impact on staffing at the fire department. At the very least it should relieve what pressure there may be at the Fire Department concerning staffing.\”

Asked why the resolution did not appear on the agenda for Thursday\’s meeting, \”The review of the submitted proposals was completed a few hours prior to the meeting and in light of the fire department concerns over staffing the decision was made to move forward in as speedy a process as is allowed by the law,\” he said.

The City laid off 8 of the 31 member fire department in December because, according to the statement released by mayor and council at the time, \”Refusal of union leaders to revise their position on onerous, expensive work rules have left Gloucester City with no choice but to issue layoff notices to eight fire-fighters, effective December 23.\”

A firefighter, who didn\’t want to be identified, said that moral is very low among the remaining firefighters. \”Because of the recent layoffs and the uncertainty of the future everyone is moping around. We knew the City was seeking bids for the ambulance service but many of us were shocked to learn a contract had been awarded. You would have thought the City would have given us a heads up. Along with some explanation of what the future holds. But nothing. Not a peep. Instead we have to read about it on the Internet.\” 

\”Despite the losses of Rasulo, Andrews, and Finora, I think we have a really good group coming back. We have the rest of our rotation back in the fold and we have six of eight position players back, so I certainly think we’ll have guys ready to step in to fill their shoes. The biggest change I think I see this year is the confidence in our team. I feel like we’ve had the ability and talent to capture the league championship over the last couple of years and that is our goal every season, but there’s a different attitude with the guys, who really believe they can take the next step this year,\” said Crane. \”I think a lot of that confidence just comes from experience. We have guys that have been through it and have seen top-flight programs both in conference and out over the years and having that experience to fall back on can be a big difference for us this season.\”

A day or two after this happened ClearysNoteBook (CNB) received two comments about this detestable crime from individuals who thought it was funny that the mayor’s car had been damaged. 

I had originally edited the remarks from those two comments that were received about the vandalism. After giving the incident further thought I feel the public should know what mayor and council have to deal with on occasion as they go about their every day life. 

The sentence that didn’t appear in the comment received from a person who signed their name Unreal reads, Theres money for what Dictator James wants it for. I\’m glad his truck got keyed!!! Hahahahahahhahaha.

Missing from the comment received from a person who signed their name Brooklawn reisdent reads, I do hope Terri can do somthing and shove it in Mayor James face. For our sake and for the Gloucester\’s sake this man needs to go. I heard someone keyed his car which I find funny. See mayor what goes aroound does start to come around. It was signed Brooklawn reisdent (misspelled words by author). 

I have been writing about local politics for sometime. Over the course of 40 plus years there have been times that members of an opposing political party have torn down their opponents signs. But I can’t recall any incident that caused property damage to a candidate or an elected official’s property. It is one thing to disagree with someone’s political beliefs but this is going too far.

What is really astonishing is the fact that some people like those who wrote these rotten comments feel the mayor deserves to have his car \”keyed\”. The fact that they find it funny is even more abhorrent. Since there was no publicity about this crime for over a week it makes one wonder whether the people who wrote these comments committed the vandalism. I know the police are investigating the matter. 

UPDATE ON TRASH/COMPOST PLANT-Resident Mike Stanton at a recent council meeting asked Mayor James a question about the plant. Stanton said the answers he received were contrary to what was written by this reporter in December. Stanton said, \”According to Mayor James, Councilman Brophy, and Jack Lipsett, the city does not own the land and that all Organic Diversion (OD) did was express an interest in locating here. Per Brophy we are as likely to get a car port service next month as we are the garbage facility.\”

 CNB asked City Solicitor John Kearney for further explanation. 

Question-Was our December article on this topic wrong?

Kearney-Your story is accurate. The deal is at its preliminary stage and the City does have a letter of intent signed with OD which is where the numbers in your story came from. As this is the beginning the comments by elected officials are also correct. In the present setting either party could walk away from the deal and that very well might happen as we move along. 

QUESTION-Someone suggested the City would receive more money in tax revenue for a building on 9 acres instead of the proposed deal mentioned in the article. I would assume the City looked into this suggestion?

Kearney- For the City to realize $200,000 in tax revenue the property would have to have an assessment of around $8 million. I expect the value of the land and improvements at the OD site when completed to be in the $1.5m range. At least I hope so. So whoever made the suggestion to you is obviously ignorant of how the world works.

QUESTION-Why did we go public if we didn\’t want ARCO to know about the plans?

Kearney-We went as public as we had to and no more. In order to have the end user we needed to have a Letter of Intent signed and for the City to do this we needed public action by the Governing Body. At this point I think BP ARCO is still just interested in getting out and we have constructed a great method for them to pay for the cleanup and give us the land. I am sure that BP ARCO daily searches the web for mentions of it and I just have no idea what would happen if somebody in public relations at BP got this. It might help but its an unknown and you avoid unknowns in negotiating a deal.

QUESTION-Why didn\’t someone correct me after reading in the December article that the City owned the property? 

Kearney-I read that as the future arrangement and as such its accurate. The City getting ownership of the property is the least critical issue and the easiest to solve. The problem here, as in all of Southport, is the condition of the property, the cost of cleanup, the timetable and the economics of the proposed deal.

QUESTION-Why is the City going to help clean up the ground if we don\’t own it?

Kearney-Any commitment of resources would be dependent on the entire deal. The City frankly has no resources for any cleanup. With this property what is envisioned is that the City sponsors the cleanup using State and BP money because BP has agreed to transfer ownership to the City.

\”Look it would be a lot easier and there would be a greater chance of success if we could proceed with this matter in a private way, putting the deal together and announcing it when we have the deal. The self-anointed activists were not elected to anything and are pursuing their own political agenda. The citizens elected this administration and we are trying to bring about the revitalization the City desperately needs,\” Kearney said.