Common Sense For New Hampshire

19 Comments

1. Eugene Creamer wrote:

   Our elected officials turned our beautiful beach into a attorney sandbox …. no wonder the sharks are attracted.

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 7:38 am | Permalink
2. Katrina wrote:

   We have a shark all right! Why is this app article out one week after this meeting. So filled with propaganda as to be called matt park press! No mention of the letter he sent lying to the residents that petitioners are against the outflow pipe. No investigation into bogus bundling. No mention that the tom burke commitee was means absolutely nothing, holds no merit and was a compromise with himself!!

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 7:44 am | Permalink
3. admin wrote:

   Well Brian certainly had it right.

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 7:57 am | Permalink
4. Concerned Citizen wrote:

   Its absolutely embarrassing the we are the only municipality in over 300 in nj that has to continually keep the council in line. How can the council members remain silent and sleep at night. It says a lot about their character.

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 8:45 am | Permalink
5. Cathi wrote:

   Brian was said something like “I vote yes, even though I think they could stand on their own” Why not then? Why not?
   This article (I mean advertisement) appears to be a delivered statement (one sided).
   Shame on the Asbury Park Press. Where is the real journalism anymore???

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 8:51 am | Permalink
6. Anonymous wrote:

   This so called compromise looks like it was hand molded just like clay by the Mayor. It was then given to Tomcoat who carries water for the Mayor. Why would the Mayor do it ? becaus he knows hs’s in trouble with his bait and switch.

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 9:16 am | Permalink
7. elemental wrote:

   So, bombard the press with carefully crafted letters. The pro-Doherty crew certainly writes to them.

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 9:23 am | Permalink
8. Anonymous wrote:

   #7 Elemental you are right. OK where is the opposition???? Where is there carefully factually crafted letter???? Are they running a silent campaign??? Look what happened to Romney.Don’t let them get away with it.

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 10:02 am | Permalink
9. admin wrote:

   Letters in the Star are from two councilmen, the wife of the Democratic party vice-chair, and the woman whose late husband the pavilion will be named after.

   Not exactly grass roots.

   Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 10:12 am | Permalink
10. Fed Up wrote:

    None of the exact numbers are known, ever documented or verified by the mayor for his pavilion funding. His new mantra is it’s FREE, FREE take the money. However for the Taylor Community Center he is USING the “buy a board donations” which shall be determined in court AND using the insurance reimbursement for the 10th Ave building and the combined reimbursement for all five pavilions from FEMA to claim it is FREE.

    So again, the mayor’s 5th plan for funding to build even the 10th Ave is not what he is claiming. According to the mayor we are not using any FEMA funds. He bonded 2 million for the 3,000 square foot building stating it will all come from the Beach Utility Fund. But the insurance reimbursement for the 10th Ave the only pavilion of the five lost having any insurance coverage (another reckless decision by the mayor) is $484,000. However, he claims he is using those funds for the Taylor to make it FREE. Guess what if he can’t, it leaves a deficit of the same amount for the building of the 10 Ave. The beach utility fund is not lawfully allowed to pay back insurance funds reimbursed for the 10th Ave when those funds are used for non-related beach services such as building the Taylor Community Center. We start with a ridiculously overpriced 10th Ave, still $938.00 per sq. foot for construction. Now costing 2 million to build although the Epic bid for this building was $1.7 million and the lowest bid that came in was $1.6 million by another contractor.

    The math starting with the 2 million bonding minus the $484,000 it leaves $1,516,000 million for the building with the remaining amount from the $2 million bond on taxpayers.

    Moving onto to the Taylor Community Center, which was bid at $3.2 million by Epic. We are now thrilled and excited the mayor is going to swear to God stick a needle in his eye that he will keep the costs to $4.1 million, well duh. The math, the buy a board donations and insurance is subject to litigation and might be gone, so that is $720,000 (his number missing 15 to 30 thousand dollars of interest that should be earned and available) and $484,000 totaling $1,204,000 million that will be MISSING from the costs to construct the overpriced, overbuilt Taylor Community Center. Not that anyone can ever see the actual interior plans (costing big bucks) they are not listed on the Belmar website nor are any annual operational costs moving forward which are also significant.

    The money we will definitely have left from the $4.1 million bond is approximately $2,896,000, which looks very similar to a number recently posted on this blog of funds obligated by FEMA of $2,887,000 million, that is accurate, BUT it leaves a $1,204,000 deficiency for funding the Taylor. How is that FREE.

    Keep in mind we borrowed 20 million for the boardwalk. Epic’s initial bid was at $6.5 million with an additional $4.5 million for our much needed seawall protection that included 25-foot steel walls driven into the ground ($3.9 million) with an additional seawall protection cap ($573,000.) Personally I would have preferred the seawall first.

    Epic’s price to build the boardwalk increased significantly so the mayor quietly took away our seawall protection electing to not build it and pay millions more for the boardwalk

    The final price was $10.2 million, AND NO SEAWALL PROTECTION for our overpriced boardwalk !!! And FEMA paid only us $ 8.6 million. AND the boardwalk is built 5-feet under flood elevation that is either an engineering or a construction error, due to the speed in which we chose to rebuild. I would file a claim against the Errors & Omission policy for the engineering or construction firm (if it were their fault) here rather than just roll over and pay the additional cost for the boardwalk not meeting flood elevation.

    Currently some of the higher costs (well over $530,000) to rebuild the Taylor Community Center are specifically related to building a very long ramp to access to the building since it has to be raised 5 feet higher to meet floor elevation height. Also we, the town, ended up building our own seawall cap, that’s the decorative wood hanging down about 2 feet from one side of the boardwalk. The 25-foot steel wall really would have provided better protection.

    Finally Councilman Brennan, GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT educate yourself. FEMA pays everyone the additional costs to build to hurricane standards and to pay any additional new municipal building code costs currently in place. We only claimed about $450,000 to FEMA to replace the Taylor pavilion. They do this for all towns receiving reimbursements from Sandy including AVON that managed to build their great pavilion meeting hurricane standards, new municipal building codes and at the correct flood elevation without extensive ramping (they built their boardwalk at or above flood elevation height) for about $1.6 million.

    We have not even started to build the 10th Ave pavilion and have no idea what unknown issues will arise due to normal conditions typically that occur especially when building in sand!

    Please do not buy into it’s FREE. If it sounds too good to be true is usually isn’t true.

    More on the missing $800,000 we already paid for bathrooms later. I’m exhausted.

    Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 11:08 am | Permalink
11. Anonymous wrote:

    Sorry i cant type i meant their not there “if i did not make mistakes i would be perfect”.

    Yogi Berra

    Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 12:12 pm | Permalink
12. Eek! wrote:

    For such a tiny town, so much controversy.

    The Press needs to step up the coverage of the Belmar debacle.

    Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 1:05 pm | Permalink
13. Katrina wrote:

    #10. Thanks for a clear consice recap of events. This is what the residents need access to. The numbers don’t lie

    Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 1:07 pm | Permalink
14. Anonymous wrote:

    Let’s not forget the $100,000 bonus the mayor handed EPIC for finishing the boardwalk in a certain amount of time. I always thought that’s what contracts were for. The whole was, and still is a joke.

    Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 3:34 pm | Permalink
15. everyones for sale wrote:

    no 3 things

    Tom Burkes dream of being a republican councilman.

    If you think like a Dem, support ideas of Dems, and your friends are Dems, chances are…your are a Dem.

    Friday, June 12, 2015 at 11:06 am | Permalink
16. Eugene Creamer wrote:

    Pavilion plans remain unchanged.
    Last year, the good mayor showed (on glossy paper) that the pavilions would cost the average Belmar property taxpayer $1.31 per month …. and Maser Engineering confirmed in a letter that the pavilions couldn’t be built for less ….
    Fast forward to 2015 and now the regime says the pavilions would be FREE for Belmar property taxpayers.
    What’s the hurry? …. We all appreciate the downward cost trend and look forward to 2016 when taxpayers would be told a rebate for pavilions is coming ….

    Saturday, June 13, 2015 at 8:29 am | Permalink
17. Anonymous wrote:

    Maybe Maser is not the engineering company to use?? What is the square foot cost for the Avon Pavilion,even though they used dpw people there has be better cost.

    Saturday, June 13, 2015 at 9:13 am | Permalink
18. sweetiepieface wrote:

    Why not hire the avon DPW to construct the Belmar 5th ave pavilion at night. It doesn’t get dark until 8pm. Beach guards gone at 5pm. There is no parking in this town anyway so… hire them now.

    Sunday, June 14, 2015 at 8:14 pm | Permalink
19. Just Passing Through wrote:

    18 Sweetiepieface they won’t do that that using common sense!

    Sunday, June 14, 2015 at 8:34 pm | Permalink

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