A sampling of some of their great ideas:
> A “Special Improvement District” that forces our businesses and commercial property owners to pay extra taxes for “improvements” during a time when many of them are struggling already.
> Joining the New Jersey “Live Where You Work ” program that uses state-backed mortgages to manipulate what town people live in and encourage lower income people to buy houses in Belmar that they might not be able to afford.
> Joining “Transit Village”, a state program designed to manipulate people to live near train stations. Your state tax money is used to pay Belmar to build it’s downtown the way Trenton wants it built in order to prop up their money-losing railroad.
> “Seaport Village”, a government forced-redevelopment boondoggle that embroiled Belmar in a nasty (and costly) eminent domain battle. Thousands of dollars spent on planning and on legal fees were lost when the real estate bubble burst and our “partners” pulled out. Our center of town has been scarred for years now with two vacant lots where an active Chevrolet dealer once stood.
> Joining “Sustainable Jersey”, a state program that cedes local control to environmental absolutists in Trenton who use state power to force on us their ideas of “environmental justice” and “social equity and fairness”.
> An ordinance waiving permit fees for the installation of solar panels, forcing the taxpayers to provide this service for free. (While the mayor and council voted for this unanimously, none have announced any plans to install solar panels on their own houses.)
> A smoking ban on the beach that turns thousands of honest and productive citizens into lawbreakers. If smokers wish to avoid the cost and embarrassment of receiving a summons, they must walk the width of the beach in the hot sun (a tremendous burden for older or handicapped smokers) and bear the indignity of standing in a cage near the boardwalk every time they wish to smoke. This is one of the most mean-spirited ideas they’ve had, in my opinion.
> A pie in the sky plan to have the state’s first geothermal school building.
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I’m not so smart, so my ideas are much simpler:
> Personal freedom
> Economic freedom
> Property rights
> Privacy rights
> Limited government
> Local control
> Individual sovereignty, responsibility and dignity
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