Moore will be advocate for quality of life on the island
OCEAN CITY — First Ward City Council candidate Donna Moore has been taking part in local government since the late 1980s and has appeared regularly before City Council over the past six years, advocating for various issues, many of them involving the environment and open space.
A resident of Ocean Avenue who has lived in the resort for 41 years and raised two sons here, Moore said she always has been concerned about the preservation of land on this barrier island.
In recent years, she said one of the important issues in which she supported the administration and City Council is buying the land adjacent to the Ocean City Community Center between Haven and Simpson avenues that was the site of the former Chevrolet dealership. The resort first moved to buy the land but was blocked by a public referendum, then in the past year acquired it through eminent domain.
“The designation of the Klause car lot properties as open space was a very beneficial improvement to that area for all of the residents who live there to have the open space as an intended park,” Moore said. “The community center also needed more parking. Preserving that land as open space was a very smart move for our town as we become so heavily developed.”
She has supported open land areas and stands of indigenous trees, native shrubs, and flowering plants, all benefiting the avian and terrestrial wildlife within the coastal ecosystem.
“Fast forward to our 2021 neighborhoods in perpetual denser redevelopment, with ever-larger structures fronted by small patches of monoculture sod and hybridized nursery stock. Not only are we losing permeable land, but redevelopment further contributes to land subsidence (sinking), while our sea levels are rising,” Moore said..
“Our administration is wisely preserving open spaces which provide visual relief from urban density and permeable land for rain water absorption. As walls and high curbs around elevated open lands serve as channeling devices for rain runoff, potentially further exacerbating street flooding issues, I see a need for designing our open spaces to maximize the use of these land parcels for more efficient flood water mitigation, while selecting, aesthetic optimal choices of greater water- absorptive native vegetation,” she said.
Moore, who has a degree in fine arts, has worked in graphic arts and been involved in the community in different ways the entire time she has lived here. She said she has worked at the Ocean City Free Public Library, taught classes at the Ocean City Arts Center and has worked at the Ocean City Fine Arts League.
She said she also has “been a part of city government in some way since the late 1980s, when I was on the Shade Tree Committee.”
After raising her family, she has served on the Ocean City Environmental Commission and has been involved with the Ocean City Flooding Committee, Fairness in Taxes and advocacy at the Zoning Board for the Flooding Committee.
“I bring very much experience to the table for being an experienced council contributor and I have experience of almost six years attendance at council meetings, learning about the operations of our city administration and council member functioning,” she said.
Those who watch or attend City Council meetings will know her through her regular contributions during the public comment portions, especially her advocacy for reducing harmful pesticides on public properties.
“I first spoke out about pesticides in 2016,” Moore said. “I had science backing my statements, but in order to convince council and the administration of the validity of my statements about the detriment of the pesticides, I wrote a research paper which took years. During that time period I still advocated at City Council with the scientific factual support I was accumulating during my research.
“Presenting council with the actual research paper was the most effective way to communicate a culmination of my statements and produce results within a year with the public lands first and this year eco-friendly public lands,” she said.
The administration, supported by council, accepted her advocacy about eliminating the use of pesticides with chemicals harmful to humans from the city’s public lands, especially those used for youth sports.
Moore said she has qualities that would serve her well as the First Ward council representative.
“I always try to be diplomatic and work to resolve differences peacefully and am willing to compromise in order to arrive at acceptable decisions among all members of the council, but I will persevere in my advocacy for my constituency,” she said. “I bring diplomacy and a willingness to work and listen to the constituents and listen to the council people.”
“Already as I walk the First Ward door to door, I am talking notes of our citizens’ concerns,” Moore said. “They are varied because the five districts in the ward as so varied. I am listening to the people’s concerns and I will advocate for the needs of the First Ward people while continuing my advocacy for quality of life, protecting our quality of life and our neighborhoods and preserving our neighborhoods from excessive overdevelopment.”
Moore also said she would “hold the line on spending and property taxes to the best of my ability and monitor our municipal spending to ascertain that our administration is spending our tax dollars wisely.” Moore said she would hold ward meetings to hear the residents’ concerns and advocate for them on council.
Crowley wants to continue the positive momentum
OCEAN CITY — First Ward City Council candidate Terry Crowley wants to continue the positive momentum he believes his predecessor created in the ward and use his professional experience to advocate for fiscal responsibility and more infrastructure improvements.
Crowley, a Bay Avenue resident who has lived off and on in the resort for 25 years, including full time for the past six, was appointed to the First Ward seat this fall after longtime councilman Michael DeVlieger resigned a year into his fourth term. DeVlieger recommended Crowley for the job.
He has worked for more than 20 years for Johnson & Johnson, supporting its oncology business in the southern New Jersey marketplace. He and his wife, Jennifer, have been married for 25 years and they have two sons: Tripp, 18, a freshman at Penn State University, and Ian, 15, a sophomore at Ocean City High School.
Crowley grew up vacationing here and before moving back six years ago had relocated for work.
“Our goal always was to be in Ocean City and to raise our kids here,” he said.
He served on the Planning Board for five years, resigning from that position when he was appointed to council.
“I really enjoyed that. I was able to learn a lot and see how decisions are made and how projects are planned out from the beginning though completion,” he said.
Crowley points out this is his first foray into politics. He said he believes DeVlieger “did a great job for the ward. He was elected the last three times. With him stepping away, I thought it was an opportunity for me to kind of step in, to continue the positive momentum he had started in the First Ward and just make sure we stay on a really positive trajectory for the First Ward and also for the city.”
He said his work experience and civic involvement make him a good fit for City Council.
“I would refer back to my profession experience of 25 years of running a business. That really entails business planning, budget formulation and implementation, managing capital projects and most importantly, just achieving results,” Crowley said. “From a personal perspective, I’ve had the chance to be involved with a lot of the local children’s youth sports organizations, the football organization in town, the hockey organization in Egg Harbor Township.
“I was always in a leadership position because I always thought that some of this experience could parlay into some of these organizations as well,” he said.
Crowley supports the capital plan that City Council, including him, just approved.
“It’s a five-year plan that allocates $140 million over the course of those five years and I agree with it from the perspective of it addresses a lot of concerns when you look at roads, drainage, the lagoon dredging, the building projects that we’re going to have to undertake in town,” he said.
Crowley added it includes “some of the ancillary issues such as the turf fields that are going in at Tennessee Avenue, and some of the improvements that have been made at the Sixth Street sports locations, and some of the things that will need to be done from an upgrade standpoint at the Music Pier and the Community Center.”
Crowley said one of the other areas in which he believes council has made a lot of good recommendations is on the Ocean Wind wind turbine farm off the coast. He said he was upset that the state “came in and took away home rule. I was particularly upset by that because I think it was purely a political decision and really took away the ability of Ocean City to have a say in its future and what that’s going to look like.”
(The Legislature approved a bill, signed by the governor earlier this year, that prevented local governments from preventing the use of public rights of way through their municipalities for certain projects, such as the wind farm. Ocean Wind plans to connect its massive wind farm 15 miles off the coast to the electrical grid at the former B.L. England generating plant in Beesleys Point, Upper Township. It plans to run those lines through Ocean City. DeVlieger had led the charge on council in opposing the wind farm.)
Crowley said his priorities if elected to council would include advocating for fiscal responsibility, “really looking at how and why we spend money. I would want to work to continue the infrastructure improvements such as the roads and flood-mitigation efforts.
“I think Ocean City is in a positive economic state right now, but we need to keep that trajectory as positive as we can,” he said. “What I bring to the table is a person who is an independent voter. I vote based on the facts and the research and listening to what the community wants, and most importantly, I want to respect and maintain the family values that are consistent with Ocean City and the First Ward.”
DeRocher: Get nice bike path, improve the city’s aesthetics
OCEAN CITY — First Ward City Council candidate Donna Swan DeRocher, a third-generation resident of Ocean City, wants to improve the resort aesthetically and add a bike path to get riders into the center of town. And now, she said, she has the time to dedicate herself to serving on City Council.
DeRocher was born in the resort and is living in the home in which she was raised after inheriting it from her parents. After she turned 23, she lived in other parts of the United States and abroad, but returned permanently in 1993. Her grandfather started French Real Estate in 1930; her mother’s maiden name was French. She is using her full name, Donna Swan DeRocher (complete with swans on her campaign information) to distinguish herself from the other Donna running for the seat (Donna Moore.)
She has a degree in elementary education and in interior design, which has been the focus of most of her career. She had her own firm, Interiors by Coastline, with a showroom in Stone Harbor for about 10 years, and then worked out of her home.
“For the first time in my life I have the time to devote to the residents of the First Ward. I can be accessible to them, not just the people voting,” DeRocher said. “There are a lot of people who own properties in the First Ward who aren’t registered voters because they have properties elsewhere. I have told them I would be a spokesperson for them. They will have a voice with the council and the city and have representation.”
She made a point to provide her cell phone number and email address in her campaign literature “so I am readily accessible and for the first time in my life have the time to devote to the community. I don’t have to work the 12-hour days that I used to.”
In addition to representing the people in the First Ward, there are a few specific things she wants to accomplish.
“I do a lot of biking and I would like to try to get a good, safe bike route going from the north part of the island through the south part going through the center of town, making the center of town more accessible to biking,” she said.
She notes that bicycle riding is allowed on Asbury Avenue but noted the center of town is congested with cars.
“I’ve gone before City Council with ideas of doing away with the diagonal parking on West Avenue … and creating a definite bike lane north to south since West is the widest street, and then adding quite a few bike racks in the center of town for people to get to the downtown stores safely and to get to the boardwalk safely,” she said.
DeRocher also is concerned about development on the island.
“I don’t want to see a lot of oversized construction on lots,” she said.
She is handing out a postcard to people in the ward that says she would “encourage building of new structures to be well-planned spaces with consideration of neighbors. The environment is priority.”
DeRocher said when looking at the decisions of City Council, “I know they have to approve what the Planning Board has approved. I feel they have allowed way too much development on the island as far as home proximity. There is supposed to be a 3-foot setback. If a home was there that had a footprint closer than 3 feet, new construction can be closer to the property line. I just feel there is overcrowding” on lots.
She said she wants the city to dedicate more money to the aesthetics of Ocean City. She took those concerns to City Council in September, advocating for improvements to Moorlyn Terrace and the entrance to the boardwalk there and for the Music Pier. She noted that area in particular needs help because it is where dignitaries and entertainers come to the boardwalk.
Among the qualities she would bring to City Council, she said, is her diplomacy.
“I had professional training in the diplomatic area,” she said. “My husband and I were on a diplomatic tour to New Zealand so I had six months of training to do that before going over to New Zealand. He was a career officer in the Navy and I was included in that training. I also worked with quite a few people in the south Jersey community as far as helping them with their homes.”
DeRocher said her priorities if elected are the two main items she discussed — “to try to get a safe access route for bikes to get to the center of town and also aesthetically improve the looks of Ocean City from the time the people come over the Ninth Street bridge until the time they get to the Music Pier.”
The beautification matters because that is how the city presents itself, she said.