At a Tuesday evening meeting, the Cherry Hill Township Council decided to let voters determine the fate of a new Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program for the town. 

A CCA would authorize the town to bulk purchase electricity from clean renewable sources and offer it to residents at discounted rates. The environmental group Food & Water Watch is working with residents of municipalities across the state to create these programs, which will help reduce air pollution and our reliance on fossil fuels.  

A state law called the Faulkner Act gives residents the right to initiative and referendum, meaning that any ordinance can be introduced by a petition with signatures from 10 percent of the number of residents who voted in the most recent state assembly election. At the meeting, the Council decided not to vote to pass the ordinance directly, which means the question will appear on the ballot in the November 2022 election. 

“As we face extreme flooding, tornadoes and fires from a warming planet, the Cherry Hill town council made an utterly tone-deaf decision to sit on their hands and do nothing to move Cherry Hill to sustainable, responsible wind and solar energy choices,” said Cherry Hill resident Susan Druckenbrød. “I am, however, extremely confident that the voters of Cherry Hill, who are worried about the future of our planet and the future facing our children, will vote yes at the ballot box in November 2022. Let the campaign begin.” 

Cherry Hill resident David Stahl added: “I am confident the voters of Cherry Hill will have the gumption to do what their elected councilmembers could not: say yes to renewable energy and lower energy costs for residents.”

Food & Water Watch has worked with residents to win similar 100% clean energy programs in Edison, New Brunswick, Collingswood, Asbury Park, Piscataway, East Brunswick, South Brunswick and Red Bank, and has a goal of putting more than one million New Jersey residents on a path to achieve 100 percent clean renewable energy by 2030.
“Community choice energy programs not only lower harmful climate emissions and air pollution, they also serve to invigorate local democracy,” said Food & Water Watch organizer Jocelyn Sawyer. “The residents of Cherry Hill have enthusiastically supported this clean energy campaign throughout, and we expect to see them continue to build this movement for a cleaner, safer future.”