James Woods Enters Borough Commission Race

Collingswood resident James Woods is one of three challengers to the incumbent slate of candidates in the Borough Commission race.

For the past six years, James Woods and his family have lived in the Collingswood house where his wife grew up. He took a job delivering for a subcontractor of FedEx so that he could spend more evenings with his 19-year-old stepson, 17-year-old daughter, and 4-year-old son.

Although Woods, a Pennsylvania native, hasn’t lived in town for very long, he loves that he can walk around his neighborhood “and everybody you come across is friendly, is nice [and] most will strike up a conversation with you.

“I love taking my son for walks and showing him what a nice small community it is and how friendly it can be,” Woods said.

He speaks with pride about community spirit of the block in which he resides; about how residents checked on one another during Hurricane Sandy, making sure that everyone had the phone numbers of the senior citizens on the block. 

But when Woods walks around his neighborhood these days, he doesn’t like everything he sees. 

“I live on East Collings Ave., so I take my walks down Lincoln and Woodlawn and New Jersey, back in that area where people who don’t live in town don’t get to see,” he said. “I’ve seen piles of leaves, Christmas trees sitting—complete neglect of areas you don’t get to see.”

So Woods decided to enter the race for borough commissioner to “bring some pride back to the residents of the town.”

“Most of the town, they cruise Haddon Ave. on occasion but spend more time in front of their homes, and the things they see aren’t very pretty,” he said. “In the community, everybody just complained and complained and complained. I decided somebody has to stand up and do something.”

Woods sees tax increases as biggest complaint among borough residents; he thinks borough residents don’t believe that there’s enough of a return on their dollar. Although he feels the current borough leadership has “done a good job making Haddon Ave. look beautiful,” he believes “residents feel the focus [should] come back to them.”

“Every street I walk down, there’s multiple ‘For Sale’ signs, and any time I talk to the residents, they either can’t sell the houses because potential buyers don’t want to pay the taxes, or they can’t afford to pay the taxes,” Woods said. 

Woods thinks that with another look at the budget, some nonessential services could bring necessary tax relief to borough residents.

"I notice that we’re spending $120,000 just for tree services," he said. "It’s little things like that, but if you can find 10 of those things, there’s a million dollars you can cut in spending."