Lower Rescue Squad Is Example of Corporate Greed

To The Editor:
You don’t have to travel to New York, Philadelphia or Los Angeles to protest corporate greed, it’s right here in Lower Township.
The corporation that runs the rescue squad already has four properties that pay no taxes and they want three more.
The deed on the original building at Georgia Avenue in Villas stated that all first aid and care to the injured and sick would be free. If they ever charged for services the property was to be turned over to the people of Lower Township. Council did not want it.
Then in 1984, they changed it to render first aid to the injured and sick in cases of emergency and non-emergency situations.
To transport (at no more than cost) within a 15- mile radius of squad headquarters at the county airport (the injured and sick to or from hospitals and other places for medical treatment and care). Is $850 the cost of a ride to emergency services within 15 miles and receive only first aid?
About the tax-exempt properties: They have the original one on Georgia Avenue, Villas. They have another one on Scott Avenue in North Cape May for CPR training. They have two commercial properties on Townbank Road with a large steel building that can be used to park and store their vehicles; instead they want to put a parking lot on three more properties at 9, 11, and 13 Cardinal Avenue, Villas. This is a very nice residential neighborhood that corporate greed wants to turn into a commercial zone for parking used and junk cars. They already advertised Sept. 29 issue of the Shoppe — Lower Township Rescue Squad – All Used and Junk Cars wanted. Call the number listed. This will give them three more properties that will be tax exempt while council will be raising taxes on township residents’ properties son.
This is in no way discrediting the people who do the services that help our injured and sick. I admire all EMTs and first responders, but this hardship use variance has nothing to do with aiding the injured or sick. It’s about turning a very nice residential neighborhood into a moneymaking junk and scrap yard.
I have lived in the same house less than 200 feet from the squad building on Georgia Avenue for 37 years. The last 10 years they have show n no consideration for the neighbors, no respect for the neighborhood, speeding up and down the streets with no consideration to the residents walking the streets or children waiting for the school bus. We get no help from Tom Conrad, our councilman, because he is an officer in the rescue squad so he abstains whenever it involves that rescue squad, claiming conflict of interest. Taxation without representation.
We already give this corporation free housing of ambulances, and office space at our properties in the airport, $105,000 per year for operating costs and fuel, we pay their electric bill at the airport. Enough is enough.
W. G. MILLER JR.
Villas