Please scroll down for this morning’s update.

A reader-created post.

I’m going to try something new today.  I have a bunch of reasons why I think it’s a bad idea to take over the policing of Lake Como but I’m going to hold off on listing them.  I’m going to let the commenters write this post.  Send in your reasons through the comments and as they come in I will paste them up onto main post.  The submissions will be credited to whatever user name you send the comments in under.

Please try to keep them pretty short so I don’t have to edit them down.  (I will also publish the full comments in the comments section as usual.) I’m working in Newark today so at some times there may be some delay between when the comment is approved and when I get a chance to add it to the post.  Probably I’ll be able to do most of them right away.  BTW, you don’t have to send all your reasons together in one comment.  Send them one or two at a time as you think of them.

Sometime this afternoon I might start adding some of my own if they hadn’t been mentioned yet.  BTW, I can’t think of any good reasons to police Lake Como but if you can then by all means send them in.

So here we go.  Let’s see if this works.

1 – Lake Como gets the benefit of a tax decrease while Belmar residents get no tax decrease and all of their bar related policing problems.

Thank you, Joan Corallo

2 – We have good police officers. Why burden them with more crazy drinkers who make fools of themselves. Just wait until this summer. I think I may vacation in Bow NH this summer.

Thank you, OLD MAN.  I’ve been to Bow, btw.

3 – Look’s like a bailout without ANY benefit to the tax payers of Belmar. What’s in it for Belmar? If it’s time to merge the two towns, then do that. Don’t take the debt only.

Thank you, Hmm?

4 – Understaffed proposed total 25 Officers = NO/SLOWER response. Present 20 Belmar/10 L.C. Referendum proposes 20 Belmar/12 L.C.

Thank you, ALLTRUMPEDUP

5 – I thought the TARP benefit type program was Federal. Have all the Obama people come to the rescue of Lake Como or ask the CWA right out of Washington, not little old Belmar.

Thank you, Anonymous

6 – The residents of Lake Como will vote on a referendum on April 19 to accept or reject the takeover?

Why aren’t the residents of Belmar given the same opportunity to vote on this takeover? The takeover will raise taxes and Matty has taken away our voice in this matter.

Thank you, Fat Geezus

7 – I believe that because of the far reaching implications, it should go to a referendum in Belmar, no bail out without a ballot.

Thank you, Belmar Independent

8 – The laws are different in Belmar and Lake Como.  Belmar has regulations against all kinds of stuff that’s legal in Lake Como, like construction noise at certain hours or parking derelict cars in your driveway as examples. Will cause a lot of confusion.

Admin

9 – Will open up all sorts of new legal liabilities.

Admin

10 – We will have tremendous exposure with the liability this plan forces on Belmar residents.

Thanks, Resident

11 – This is so easy to see. 3 other towns walked away. Why? It does nothing to benefit their citizens. How does policing another town, with nine liquor licenses, benefit the citizens of Belmar? It doesn’t. It only benefits the public officials with more revenue going into the public coffers. Why would our Mayor and council approve something that doesn’t help, and may even hurt, their own citizens?
To pay off their bad debt ($49 Mil) with a bail out of fast cash.

Kind of reminds me of extending of season liquor licenses. Still trying to figure out how that benefited me as a taxpayers of Belmar.

Thanks, Jim Bean

12 – This absolutely has to go to the voters. This is too important for the mayor and council to rule on by themselves. Such a proposal as taking on the policing of another municipality is far beyond the abilities of one small group to decide.

Thanks, joe goofinoff

13 – I think Wall should take back Lake Como, Bigger tax base and more FT Police.

Thank you, Just Passing Through

Added this morning

Here’s a few more things that weren’t mentioned yesterday:

We would not establish the conditions for the renewal of liquor licenses in Lake Como.  That would still be left to Lake Como’s council.  Mark Walsifer pointed this problem out at the most recent Belmar Council meeting.  How can we be expected to police these establishments if we have no say about the rules under which they operate?

And then there’s this:

BTW, the summer crowds in Lake Como are there for the same reason as Belmar’s summer crowds.  They are all here for Belmar’s beach.  But Lake Como has had to pay its summer specials out of its municipal budget.  Under the agreement Lake Como would have to pay Belmar for any specials it wanted hired and sent over.  I presume Belmar would pay them out of the beach utility, have Lake Como pay us for them out of its own municipal budget and then deposit Lake Como’s payments into our own municipal budget.  That can hardly seem right.  And then if we under-police Lake Como they will be forced to ask us to hire even more specials!

If sometime in the future we are blocked by the state from using the beach utility to subsidize the Belmar PD this whole arrangement could blow up.  Also all kinds of other things could blow it up.

Ending a shared service like a CFO or housing inspector is very simple.  You just stop doing it and hire your own CFO or whatever.  But putting together a cohesive new police department is a huge job.  It could take years.  For that reason there would be a lot of pressure on both sides to continue the agreement even if it results in a lot more problems than we had anticipated.

If I lived in Lake Como I would vote for the tax increase as a way to buy some time.  Then, going forward, I would only vote for people for mayor and council who say they will rescind the tax increase, or at least most of it, AND keep the Lake Como PD intact.

**********

14 – Lake Como should adapt a citizen patrol during the offseason in conjunction with state and county patrols. During the summer, some sort of combined action can be arranged where County and state police bear the burden of policing along with the citizen patrols.

Thank you, joe goofinoff

15 – How does Matt consider himself a member of the Pro-Union Democratic Party yet participate with Lake Como in these union busting tactics? Laying off members at the top pay scale and replace them with rookies.

Thanks, ALLTRUMPEDUP