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MICROMEDIA PUBLICATIONS, INC.
Vol. 4 - No. 19
Inside This Week’s Edition
THE SOUTHERN OCEAN
MES
Business Directory...................22 Classifieds................................21 Community News.................9-13 Dear Joel..................................19 Dr. Izzy’s Sound News...............16 Fun Page..................................23 Inside The Law .........................18 Letters to the Editor.....................7 Wolfgang.................................27 WWW.MICROMEDIAPUBS.COM
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Tax Rolls Underline Struggle, Growth In Sandy Rebuilding By Chris Lundy and Judy Smestad-Nunn OCEAN COUNTY – A great deal of rebuilding has gone on in the four years since Super Storm Sandy. Individually, it is about people getting back into a home. For the towns, it’s about getting those homes back on the tax rolls. Once homes are determined to be unlivable, they fall off the tax rolls. The property itself is still taxable, but the structure is not. This leaves a hole in the tax ratable base. The money still needs to be raised, and so it is raised from neighbors who weren’t affected. “We lost about $200 million of our ratable base,” Stafford Mayor Richard Spodofora said. That means that about $200 million worth of homes were wiped out by the storm. The hardest hit sections of town were, unsurprisingly, those near the Barnegat Bay, such as Beach Haven West, Mallard Island or Cedar Run. By cutting some positions through attrition, the township was in good economic shape going into Sandy, he said. The biggest challenge was to address the base flood elevations that the Federal Emergency Management Agency set, he said. FEMA set height limits that every home had to be raised to, or else pay higher flood insurance premiums. The most dreaded designation was the V zone, which represented homes likely to be hit by high
4 YEARS
LATER
–Photos by Chris Lundy Homes on Riverview and Island View Drives in Lacey are among the neighborhoods still showing Sandy damage.
velocity wind and water. These areas had the highest base flood elevations. Stafford officials were able to argue that Beach Haven West did not need to be in the V zone, which saved the residents a lot of money and headaches in raising their homes, he said. The town also changed ordinances to streamline the rebuilding process. “I think we’re rebuilding quicker than other towns I’ve seen” as a result, he said. In Lacey, the damage really depended on the area, Mayor Steven Kennis said. “We’re fortunate we didn’t have as much damage as the barrier island towns,” he said. A spot such as the Forked River Beach area was hit pretty hard because they are older houses, on slabs, that are not too far above the water line.
There are still houses there that are in the midst of reconstruction. There are some empty plots of land with only a mailbox standing. Construction vehicles are parked on islands in the middle of roads. In Barnegat, the shore areas were hit harder than other areas, but the damage was not as widespread as other shore towns, Barnegat Mayor John Novak said. There are a few houses left that need rebuilding but most of the waterfront areas have recovered. Some people raised their houses by choice, but there was not the widespread rebuilding that a lot of shore homes had, he said. “We really weren’t hurt that horribly in this town,” he said. “We only had one house (Sandy - See Page 5)
Four Vie For Three Lacey School Board Seats
By Chris Lundy LACEY – Finances, health insurance, and the future students face after graduation are topics on the minds of candidates running for seats on the Lacey Township Board of Education. There are four candidates running for three, three-year seats.
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The candidates are incumbents Linda Downing and Shawn Giordano, as well as Thomas Crowell and Nicholas Mirandi. Crowell has been a benefits consultant for 22 years. He owns Atlantic Coast Benefits Consultants, where he works with small and mid-sized businesses to develop benefits plans and manage premiums. He is the
October 29, 2016
past president of the Jersey Shore Association of Human Resources. He has 10 years of experience on the board of the Lacey Little League, including three years as president. He said he hopes to bring his experience
By Chris Lundy LACEY – Wherever there are large fields in a town, geese are a problem. One resident brought up a solution at recent Lacey Township Committee meeting: use dog walkers. Resident Douglas Baron complained about the geese that were often found on the athletic fields at Clune Park, “feces-ing up the place.” Usually, the geese just get shooed from one end of the park to the other. They continue to foul the fields. If there was more of a constant community effort, they would learn to stay away because there is no safe time. “Everyone walks their dogs. Get it organized so that there’s always someone there,” he said at the October 13 meeting. Some kind of central organization would have people walk their dogs during different time slots. The Committee entertained the idea, but were concerned about having the dogs also making a mess on the fields. “Not every dog owner is good about cleaning up. Some people make more of a mess,” Township Business Administrator Veronica Laureigh said. (Geese - See Page 8)
Four-Way Race For Barnegat School Board
By Chris Lundy BARNEGAT – There are four people running for three, three-year seats on the Barnegat Board of Education. Christine Harashinski is running against the team of Christya Quelch, Peter Toth and Francis Sarno. Tosh and Sarno are currently on the school
2016
(Lacey - See Page 6)
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