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INSIDE THIS ISSUESnowfall struggles

Residents unhappy with townshipssnow cleanup. PAGE 4

SEAN LAJOIE/The SunShawnee High Schools No. 13 Megan Schwartz swings the ball into the post for an easy bucket. Shawnee handled their rival SenecaHigh School with a balanced offensive attack by a margin of 25 points after only winning by four in their first matchup of the season.The 56-31 victory over Seneca improves the Renegades record to 9-8. For another photo, please see page 15.

Shawnee beats Seneca, 56-31Chasinga dream

By SEAN LAJOIEThe Sun

It is always a challenge to learnsomething new and become goodat it. Luckily for Jon Barnes, when

it comes to something he is pas-sionate about, the work becomesfun. I definitely had some begin-

ners luck in composing images,and I think that is probably due toseeing so much art throughoutmy life from my family, Barnessaid.Growing up in Medford, the

Shawnee High School and TCNJgraduate was exposed to art fromthe get-go. His great grandmotherwas a successful artist who wouldoften paint the same piece severaltimes until she got it exactly howshe wanted it. She painted severalscenes in Medford.The towns natural landscapes

have provided motivation for sev-eral Barnes family members toget into art. By the time she wasin her 90s, she had filled most of

please see BARNES, page 16

Resident Jon Barnestravels 3,000 miles

to pursue photography

FEB. 1017, 2016 THE MEDFORD SUN 3

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By SEAN LAJOIEThe Sun

Nine Americans killed everyday from motor vehicle accidentsinvolving distracted driving, suchas using a cell phone, texting oreating. One in four motor vehiclecrashes in 2015 involved a cellphone.It has become clear the upcom-

ing generation is immersed in adigital age, fixated with theirmedia outlets.The Lenape Regional High

School District acknowledgedthese tendencies that itsteenagers display regularly byimplementing the Heads Up, EyesForward initiative during the2010-2011 school year. The idea

has taken off since then, provingto be one of the most successfulsafe driving campaigns in thestate.In fact, Heads Up, Eyes For-

ward has won the U Got Brainscompetition three straight timesand four times in the last fiveyears. U Got Brains is a statewidecontest in which every school pro-motes its respective safe drivingcampaign.John Donaldson, director of

television services for the schooldistrict, has taken the reins of theLRHSDs campaign and has madeit what its become today. The ultimate goal of the

Heads Up, Eyes Forward cam-

Heads Up, Eyes Forward campaign on right trackLRHSD continues to reward students

who practice safety on the roads

please see CAMPAIGN, page 12

4 THE MEDFORD SUN FEB. 1017, 2016

By SEAN LAJOIEThe Sun

When Medford Township start-ed hearing the alarming warn-ings about Winter Storm Jonas, ithandled its business like anyother township would.It began prepping by putting

plows on trucks, making sure thesalt bins were full and getting to-gether a timeline for how opera-tions were going to work.The fire and police chiefs, OEM

group, director of parks andtownship manager met severaltimes to go over how theyplanned to tackle the storm.Snow operations began at 2

a.m. on Saturday morning whenthe first plow was dispatched, andthey worked around the clockuntil Sunday evening.However, if you logged onto

Facebook or listened to the radiothe morning after the storm, you

were aware of how Medfords op-erations fell short of its residentsexpectations.People from all over Burlington

County were up in arms aboutthe terrible conditions of theroads in Medford days after thestorm.Medford resident Cheryle Hoj-

nacki has pictures of her streetbeing covered in about three inch-es of snow on Tuesday afternoonwhen it was nearly 50 degreesoutside while other neighboringtownships were clear and readyto go when the work week startedon Monday morning.My street looked horrifying,

Hojnacki said during public com-ment at the Feb. 2 council meet-ing. I drove around and I wasirate, paying top dollar for taxes.Councilman Chris Buoni ad-

vised Hojnacki that while Med-fords residents do pay a lot intaxes, only 12 percent of what

they pay goes to the towns servic-es and infrastructure. The other88 percent is going to the schoolsystems and the county.The problem Medford faces is

it is a very large township withvery few people compared to aneighboring town such as Eve-sham that had no problems clear-ing roads during Jonas. Eve-shams budget is around $40 mil-lion while Medfords is roughlyhalf of that because of the popu-lation difference.Eveshams commercial income

is significantly more than Med-fords each year, which plays alarge role in this issue.For residents such as Alberta

Wolf, the townships issues withsignificant snowfall have becomea noticeable pattern. Wolfreached out to the county onceagain this winter as she noticed

Township struggles with snowfallResidents displeased with Medfords handling of Winter Storm Jonas

please see BERGER, page 11

letter to the editor

6 THE MEDFORD SUN FEB. 1017, 2016

108 Kings Highway EastHaddonfield, NJ 08033

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The Sun is published weekly by ElauwitMedia LLC, 108 Kings Highway East, 3rdFloor, Haddonfield, NJ 08033. It is mailedweekly to select addresses in the 08055 ZIPcode. If you are not on the mailing list, six-month subscriptions are available for$39.99.

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SPEAK UPThe Sun welcomes letters from readers.Brief and to the point is best, so we look forletters that are 300 words or fewer. Includeyour name, address and phone number. Wedo not print anonymous letters. Send lettersto news@medfordsun.com, via fax at 856-427-0934, or via the mail. You can dropthem off at our office, too.

The Medford Sun reserves the right toreprint your letter in any medium includ-ing electronically.

Dan McDonough Jr. chairman of elauwit media

manaGinG editor Kristen Dowd

senior associate editor Mike Monostra

medford editor Sean Lajoie

art director Stephanie Lippincott

advertisinG director Arlene Reyes

elauwit media Group

publisher emeritus Steve Miller

editor emeritus Alan Bauer

Tim Ronaldsonexecutive editor

Joe Eiselepublisher

Writer: Control school budgets,get ratables to help policeI read the column in The Medford Sun

on the township's vision for 2016 and cameupon the police chief's plan to improve thepolice department. Police agencies around the county know

how this department has been devastatedover the last few years, and the chief wouldlike to increase the number of officers andmost likely improve the technology andequipment that his officers have. It maysave your life some day!I believe that to do this and for the chief

to accomplish his goals, two things musthappen: First, get these school budgets at the re-

gional level and local level under control.There are far too many administratorswith fluffed up salaries. They need to beable to manage and supervise more withwhat they have. I don't like saying this be-cause I spent a lot of time in the school dis-trict in Evesham Township. The schoolsare out of control and need to do more withless, just like the police. Stop the spendingand giving into the bleeding hearts. Educa-tion is first and foremost, everything else issecond.Secondly, this town needs to get busy get-

ting ratables into Medford. I know thateverything south of Route 70 is controlledby the Pinelands Commission but thereneeds to be a way to loosen its control ondevelopment. Without businesses andstores and tax-producing entities, MedfordTownship will continue to be in a rut.