People may be Jackson Township's real endangered species
As a resident of Jackson I can truly understand the necessity to preserve our natural habitat and prevent the cutting down of trees, saving the birds and snakes natural to our habitat as well as the wetlands and the waterways leading into and from Toms River, but I am also concerned about the upcoming growth of Jackson by all the developers who would like to build communities of four- and fivebedroom homes.

Jackson seems to be the new place to build based on all the available land, so now who is protecting the new "endangered species" known as the people of Jackson? Our taxes are almost unaffordable now for most Jackson residents. How much of a tax increase can we be expected to pay?

We will have to build new schools for all the additional students, hire more teachers, provide bus services, maintain new roads, supply water to these new homes, add additional police, firemen and supporting personnel.

I would like to see our developers, builders and elected officials aggressively seek out commercial industry such as office complexes, hotels and warehouses that we desperately need in Jackson to offset the cost of new homes. I believe we have enough strip malls that sit with empty sites for months or years.

Recognizing that we don't have a main thoroughfare like Route 9 as our neighboring towns have, commercial industry most times looks for properties with access roads as we have on I-195 that leads from the shore to the turnpike, into Trenton and with easy access to New York and Philadelphia.

For many years the landowners and politicians have kept Jackson protected from outsiders, commercial industry, preserved

the wetlands, the environment as well as their own properties, but now the tides have turned and we have become the fastest growing town in the state of New Jersey with many more homes to be constructed in

the next few years. So the

time has come to stop this growth until it can be supported by the town budget, not the residents having to pay more taxes.

In my short term as a resident involved in the workings of our town I have not seen any application of substance in the last three years from any commercial developers, only applications from builders or developers for new homes. This needs to change before all the "endangered species" have to move out.

Stan Goldman

Jackson