In a rare occasion of one town requesting to be subsumed by another, Merchantville, all three-fifths of a square-mile of it, wants to merge with Cherry Hill, reports of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Petitions for the merger were gathered in Merchantville due to its untenable budgetary issues. Mayors for both towns have agreed to a $100,000 feasibility study.
“They’re attractive to us – to use a dating analogy – and we want to know them better before we get married,” a local educator told the Inky. The dating analogy was a popular one in the small Camden County borough. “This is something that has to be approved by both communities. It’s like going to the prom. If you want someone to go and the other person doesn’t want to go, it’s not going to happen,” Merchantville Mayor Frank North told the paper.
The last municipal merger in New Jersey was the creation of Vineland uniting Vineland Borough and Landis Township in 1952.
