Curley will be Deputy Freeholder Director

By Art Gallagher

Freeholder John Curley will be named Deputy Director of the Freeholder Board when Monmouth County’s government reorganizes on Thursday afternoon at the Monmouth County Biotech High School, 5000 Kozloski Rd, Freehold.  As previously reported, Rob Clifton will be elected Director by his colleagues.

Neptune City Mayor Tom Arnone will be sworn in as Freeholder.  Shaun Golden, who has been Acting Sheriff since Kim Guadagno became Lt. Governor will be sworn in to his own term as Sheriff.  Arnone is expected to resign the mayoralty in Neptune City effective tomorrow.

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Christie Coming to Monmouth To Sign FEMA Letter

By Art Gallagher

Governor Chris Christie will be at the Monmouth County Hall of Records this morning for the purpose of signing a letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency requesting disaster aid for storm releated expenses resulting from the blizzard this week.

He will be available to the press at 11:30am in the Freeholders Meeting Room.

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With county roads clear, crews assist state

County, Manasquan OEM rescue dozens stranded on Route 18

FREEHOLD, NJ (December 28)– With Monmouth County roads showing blacktop one day after the snow stopped falling, county road crews have been deployed to assist the state. This afternoon, four county tandem trucks with snowplows and heavy equipment began clearing beleaguered Route 18.

Meanwhile, the county Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and Manasquan OEM rescued about two dozen motorists who had become stranded on Route 18. A convoy of Army trucks Manasquan normally uses for tidal flooding was dispatched Sunday night and rescued 12 to 18 people. The same convoy was deployed last night and picked up another 11. Route 18 had not been plowed.

On Sunday and Monday nights, county snowplow operators also cleared roads assisting Jersey Central Power & Light Co. personnel who were responding to power outages.

“County roads such as Routes 524, 537, 547 and many others are showing blacktop today as a result of the work county road crews have been doing since 10 a.m. Sunday morning,” said Freeholder John P. Curley, liaison to the county Department of Public Works and Engineering. “The county’s public works and engineering crews do an excellent job keeping county roads safe and drivable.”          

Monmouth County’s Public Works crews have been working since 10 a.m. Sunday morning when they began applying salt brine to county roads in advance of the predicted snowfall. The salt brine helps prevents snow and ice from bonding to the road surface, making plowing that much easier after the snowfall. As a result, most county roads showed blacktop today.

Monmouth County is responsible for about 1,000 lane miles of roads in the county. The county has 115 trucks outfitted with spreading and plowing capabilities. About 200 personnel were working to clear the snow from roadways as a result of this storm.

“One of the challenges with this storm has been the wind,” said John W. Tobia, director of the county’s Department of Public Works and Engineering. “The one-two punch of the steady 10 to 15 mph winds and gusts of more than 40 mph have been undoing some of the road work, but we have been diligent and have cleared the county roads – most of them are down to blacktop.”

“We began gearing up for this storm on Saturday,” Tobia added. “We opened up our snow room to monitor the storm’s progress and we began dispatching crews from the county’s nine highway districts on Sunday morning.

At that time crews began applying the liquid salt brine. Then, before the snow actually started falling, the crews began applying rock salt treated with magnesium chloride.

“The key was to keep the ice and snow from bonding to the road surface,” Tobia said. “Some lanes were slushy instead of iced over. That’s generally the first step before the plows come by and push it all aside.”

According to the National Weather Service, snow and windy conditions began in Monmouth County late Sunday morning and produced a higher than average snowfall overnight Sunday into Monday morning. Acting Gov. Steve Sweeney declared a state of emergency in New Jersey due to the blizzard that moved through the state during that time.

Monmouth County concentrates its efforts on county roads first and then works to assist municipalities with their plowing needs. Through shared service agreements, county road crews helped clear roads in Howell, Wall and Upper Freehold townships. They also helped plow the National Guard Armory in Red Bank. The towns reimburse the county for any resources used.

A number of towns also purchase magnesium-treated salt from the county at a lower cost.

This is the third year the county has been using the salt brine combined with magnesium chloride-treated rock salt. The salt brine and a pre-application of treated rock salt prevent the snow and ice from bonding to the roads, and the treated rock salt is environmentally friendly. It does not burn the grass or other roadside vegetation nor does it corrode the trucks or the steel bridge spans.

The new rock salt is much more efficient than the old rock salt, which was very corrosive to bridge structures, roadside vegetation, the roadway itself and trucks and equipment, Tobia said.

“We have found that magnesium chloride-treated rock salt is much more effective and, therefore, there is a savings in man hours and material,” he said. “We use approximately 30 to 50 percent less material and reduction in spreading trips, depending on the snow event, for the same result. By reducing the number of trips, we are reducing costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

As a result, there have been far fewer telephone calls from local police departments about trouble spots, Tobia said. Typically, when police dispatchers call to report icy conditions – usually on bridges or curved roadways – the county dispatches additional trucks to perform some spot treatments.

“County highway personnel set the standard and example on snow and ice control operations,” Curley said.      

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Clifton To Be Named Monmouth Freeholder Director

By Art Gallagher

Freeholder Deputy Director Rob Clifton will be chosen by his colleagues to serve as Freeholder Director when the board reorganizes in January.

Freeholder John Curley and Freeholder-elect Tom Arnone told MMM that they support Clifton for the position.  Curley said that it is his understanding that current Director Lillian Burry also is supportive of Clifton filling the position.  Clifton confirmed that he has the unanimous support of his fellow Republican Freeholders. Burry has yet to respond to MMM’s calls on the matter.

There is not yet a consensus as to who will be Deputy Director.  Curley said he he would like the position but speculated that Burry might also want it.  Arone, who will be sworn in for his first term in January, will defer to his senior colleagues to work it out.  Clifton said, “we’re still meeting on that.”

Freeholder Amy Mallet, will be the lone Democrat serving on the board next year.  As a minority party member, she would not be expected to be selected for a leadership position.

The Freeholder Director presides over meetings of the board and signs legal documents for the county.

The county budget is Clifton’s top priority. “Smaller and less expensive government is our objective, while providing residents with the services they have come to expect and that they pay for,” said Clifton, “The expansion of shared services with Monmouth County municipalities and school boards, as well as with other counties will enable us to reduce costs and improve the quality of services.”

The terms of Burry and Mallet both expire this year.  Burry is expected to seek a third term. There has been speculation that Mallet will run for Assembly, depending upon how the legislative districts are redrawn.  She a candidate for Assembly in the 12th legislative district in 2007 and sought the nomination in 2005.

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Freeholders Meeting Today

The Monmouth County Board of Freeholders is meeting today at 1PM for their workshop session and at 4PM for their regular meeting.

The workshop agenda can be found here.  The regular meeting agenda is here.

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Does the Freeholder Board need a clerk?

By Art Gallagher

The Asbury Park Press reported yesterday that the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders balked at appointing Freeholder Director Lillian Burry’s choice to replace Jim Gray as Clerk of the Board.

Gray retired at the end of October.  His salary was $109,748.  Burry wants to replace Gray with James Stuart of Colts Neck, a semi-retired real estate appraiser, who would start the job at $60,000 if appointed.

Stuart served on the Colts Neck Township Committee with Burry. He served the township for nine years through 2008.  He also had a real estate sales license that hung in Burry’s Colts Neck Realty brokerage office.

Freeholder Amy Mallet (D) slammed Burry for political patronage in proposing Stuart.  That is ironic coming from Mallet, whose unsuccessful running mate, Glenn Mason, was appointed the county Emergency Management Coordinator shortly after the Democrats took control of the Freeholder Board in 2009.

Freeholder John Curley (R) raised questions about Burry’s business relationship with Stuart which were echoed by Freeholder John D’Amico (D). Freeholder Rob Clifton (R) told the APP that we would wait and see what happens.

Sources tell MMM that Clifton and D’Amico are expected to join Burry in appointing Stuart at the next Freeholder meeting on November 23 over the bi-partisan objections of Mallet and Curley.

In these times of fiscal austerity, I think it is worth questioning this appointment and all appointments.  Let me emphasis that I am not taking a position, pro or con, on this appointment, at least not yet.  I’m simply raising questions and encouraging others to do the same.

The first question should be “Is the position necessary?”  Even if the position is required by legislation, and I don’t know if the clerk of the board position is required, the question should be asked, at all levels of government.

The Monmouth County website describes the Clerk of the Board function as follows:

The Office of the Clerk of the Board of Chosen Freeholders provides the Board with the necessary information and background material on those matters requiring its attention.

The principal activities of the Clerk of the Board are to keep a book of the minutes and a record of the orders and proceedings of the Board. The Clerk of the Board has custody of the official seal of the County and all records, documents and other official papers relating to the property and business of the County.

The functions performed by the Clerk of the Board include:

• recording the official minutes of the Board
• handling Board correspondence
• preparing meeting agendas
• processing, filing and advertising ordinances, resolutions and the county budget
• serving as a liaison between the public and the Board
• administering and recording oaths of office
• signing official documents
• attesting the signatures of officers and officials
• maintaining a receipt of service of legal documents;
• acting as custodian for several county departments with regard to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA)
• directing correspondence and inquiries for action to various county departments
• conducting business with other county departments as directed by the Board

Monmouth County’s Clerk of the Board’s office has a Deputy Clerk and three staffers.  When the new clerk is hired that will be five full time people working to fulfill the prescribed functions.  Record keeping and correspondence is important, but are all of those people necessary?  Would there be a savings by promoting the Deputy Clerk and freezing or reducing the staff?  Would the functions suffer?  Does technology make record keeping and correspondence more efficient?

Another question, and this is not meant to single out Stuart, but to address widespread abuses.  Is Stuart’s appointment a pension pad/grab?  Does he have pension credits from his service on the Colts Neck Township Committee that would count towards years of service should he be appointed to this job. I don’t know in Stuart’s case.  However such pension padding by part time elected officials has been so rampant over the years that the pension system, and abuse thereof, has obviously been a consideration when making such appointments in the past.  It should also be a consideration, on the other side of the equation, going forward.  If two people are equally qualified for a necessary position but one would add substantial pension costs if hired, those costs should be carefully considered in a hiring decision.

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Freeholders set to approve $96 million guarantees

On the agenda for the Monmouth County Board of Freeholders on Tuesday night are 24 resolutions to authorize a total of $96,395,000, plus interest, in guarantees for bonds scheduled to be issued by various Monmouth County municipalities and authorities.

The Freeholders meet tomorrow, Tuesday November 9 at 2 PM for their workshop meeting and again at 7 PM for their regular meeting.  Both meetings are scheduled to take place in the Freeholders’ Meeting Room, Hall of Records, 1 East Main Street, 2nd floor, Freehold.

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Election Recap

By Art Gallagher

From the top of the ticket to the bottom, the Monmouth GOP under the leadership of Chairman Joe Oxley, earned a resounding and undeniable endorsement from the voters of Monmouth County last Tuesday.

On the top of the ticket, the three Republican candidates for Congress crushed their competition. The combined Monmouth County results of Congressman Chris Smith (CD-4), Mayor Anna Little (CD-6) and Scott Sipprelle (CD-12) were 109,151 to 68,020 over their Democratic opponents, a margin on 62% to 38%.  Unfortunately, due to gerrymandering, Monmouth County is represented by only one Republican in Congress and two Democrats.

On the bottom of the ballot, in the 24 municipalities where there were contests, Republicans won in 15 towns, Democrats in 8 and one town split.  In the 19 towns where there were no contests 14 are controlled by Republicans, 2 by Democrats, 2 are non-partisan.  One town, Oceanport, had one Republican and one Democrat running uncontested.

The heart of the ticket, county candidates Sheriff Shaun Golden, Freeholder Rob Clifton and Freeholder-elect Tom Arnone worked as if they were behind from the beginning of the campaign until the end.  They ran on their records and made their case.  The voters chose them each with pluralities of over 35,000 votes.

Even with these results, there are some who continue to whine or snipe about Chairman Oxley.  Those people should look beyond their personal agendas to the big picture.  Congratulations to Chairman Oxley, to the team he has built and the teams he has empowered.

The losses in CD 6 & 12 were disappointing for many who worked hard on those campaigns.  This was the year to take down Frank Pallone and Rush Holt.  Coming closer than anyone has ever come before does not lessen the sting.

The optimism in 6 and 12 was predicated in the assumption that Independents would break for Republicans and that Democrats would not be motivated to turnout.  Governor Christie’s victories in the districts last year were the original basis of the optimism. Overall dissatisfaction with the Obama administration and  national polls showing a large enthusiasm gap favoring Republicans spurred the optimism that Democratic turnout would be suppressed.

Polls showing the congressional races close woke the Pallone and Holt camps up.  Particularly Adam Geller’s poll for the Little camp that showed Little within 1 point of defeating Pallone.   “You never should have released that poll,” one Democratic insider said in a friendly post-mortem, “half of our team scoffed at the poll, the other half said ‘so what if its not true, something is happening nationally, we can’t take any chances.”  It was then that both Pallone and Holt stepped up their negative ads and prepared their GOTV efforts. 

The ads worked. Both Little’s and Sipprelle’s unfavorable ratings increased in the Monmouth University polls released the week before the election.  The Democratic GOTV efforts, particularly in the cities of Plainfield and Trenton were the electoral equivalent of shock and awe.  

Monmouth County has yet to release town by town numbers, making an accounting for Little’s under performance in the Monmouth portion of the district difficult.  Long Branch and Asbury Park did not have local races.  Thus none of the results in those cities are posted on the county website .   In Neptune Township there was 3150 under votes in the Township Committee race for the Democratic strong hold.  That means there were 3150 voters who cast a ballot but did not vote in the local race. It is a safe bet that Long Branch, Asbury Park and Neptune Township account for Little winning Monmouth by only 4%, while Smith won his portion of the county by over 50 % and Sipprelle by 24%.

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D’Amico Exposed As Pay To Play Hack

Freeholder John D’Amico has spent his three years in office trying to get his fellow members of the board to go along with creating a new level of bureaucracy, a County Inspector Generals office, and a county Ethics Board.

D’Amico attempted to revive a five year old scandal for his own political gain.  He’s consistently held himself up as a paragon of virtue and implied, or charged,that Republicans are corrupt and doing favors for their friends and campaign contributors.

Turns out that John D’Amico is a hypocritical poltical hack.

MoreMonmouthMusings has obtained an email that D’Amico sent to then Freeholder Director Barbara McMorrow on December 16, 2009 requesting her support in appointing one of his 2007 campaign contributors with a lucrative legal contract for the Monmouth County Reclamation Center.

Here’s the email:

From:                          John D’Amico [jdamic juno.com]
> Sent:                           Wednesday, December 16, 2009 4:26 PM
> To:                               Barbara McMorrow [Gmail]
> Subject:                      Reclamation Center Attorney
>  
>  
> Barbara:          Charles Fallon called today to advise that it would be very helpful to him (and to me, from a campaign standpoint) if we were to designate the Wilentz firm as the exclusive attorney for the Reclamation Center legal matters. Right now there are two firms: Haskins Delafield (an out of state firm that does the bulk of the work) and Wilentz (which only got $6,000 worth of work this year). The Wilentz firm gave Steve Schueler and me a very good fund raiser in 2007, and indications are that they will repeat the favor. Can you support a request to Jim Gray that the appointment go to Wilentz only on the agenda for the 12/22 meeting? Thanks. John

McMorrow did not support the request.

Nor did McMorrow cooperate with MMM for this story.

MoreMonmouthMusings wishes John D’Amico a happy retirement at the taxpayers expense and a  bit part in The Soprano State, Part 2

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How Will People Get To The Long Branch Pier?

By Art Gallagher

Long Branch is spending $3.7 million in federal taxpayers’ dollars, courtesy of Porky Pallone, for designs of a possible 900 foot pier to extend into the Atlantic Ocean.

The pier would be a transportation hub with a ferry terminal for commuters going to New York and an entertainment center with restaurants, retail, a theater, etc.  The costs are estimated to be anywhere between $46 million and $92 million before overruns which would be financed with federal and state taxpayers dollars and pie in the sky leases on the entertainment center.  Let’s call the project Xanadu South.

The Asbury Park Press reported that Long Branch officials have been lobbying adjacent governments and other agencies to support the proposal. Asbury Park officials were enthusiastic and Woolley has made presentations to the Monmouth County freeholders, NJ Transit, the Monmouth County Planning Board and the economic development committee of the Monmouth/Ocean Development Council.

The APP quotes Long Branch administrator as saying “Everybody has said “This is a great idea, we see value in it.”

I can understand why Asbury Park officials would be enthused.  I’m not so sure that Deal residents would be enthused by all the new traffic along Ocean Ave between Long Branch and Asbury Park.

I’ll let others debate the merits and financing of the actual project, for the moment.  What concerns me is how will people get there?  Traffic on Route 36 from Highlands to Eatontown is already a nightmare.  NJ DOT is finishing up a $140 million + Route 36 bridge project over the Shrewsbury now.  The eight lane bridge connects 4 lanes of Route 36 in Highlands to two lanes of Route 36 in Sea Bright.

When is the Route 36 expansion project going to be announced? 

How much land will be taken via eminent domain in Highlands, Sea Bright, Monmouth Beach, Long Branch (both Ocean Ave and Joline Ave), Oceanport and Eatontown?  Will the expansion extend along to Bayshore through Atlantic Highlands, Middletown, Union Beach, Keansburg and Keyport to the Garden State Parkway on the north?  Will it extend through Tinton Falls to the Garden State Parkway and Route 18 in the south?

Will there also be a Route 18 expansion project to connect Long Branch to New Brunswick and all the towns in between?

Is the Long Branch pier project the next step to turning Monmouth County into Bergen County with beaches?

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