Pallone, Lautenberg and Menendez should put up. The Asbury Park Press should shut up
By Art Gallagher
In their editorial today, Sad chapter ends at fort, the Asbury Park Press editorial board demonstrates that their grasp of reality is insufficient for a newspaper of record for the Monmouth-Ocean region.
The press rehashes the sorry history of Sandy Hook Partners’ failed plans to redevelop Fort Hancock. They fault the National Park Service for granting the developer nine years of extensions to obtain financing for the redevelopment plans. They fail to mention that SHP’s ability to finance the project was thwarted by litigation and grassroots opposition to the commercialization of the park. The litigation and opposition was supported by the APP and by Congressman Frank Pallone.
Now the APP says,
Fort Hancock must be preserved for future generations. In order for that to happen, a developer or developers with both the money and sound plans need to be found. The park service would do well to heed the suggestion by Reps. Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, both D-N.J., that the historic buildings be leased to entities one by one, rather than as a package.
Clearly, neither the Neptune Nudniks nor the Congressmen have even an elementary understanding of how development works.
Where does Pallone, Holt and the APP think the Park Service will find a developer, or developers, with an extra $60-$100 million sitting in the bank who would be willing to commit it to Fort Hancock after what Sandy Hook Partners went through? James Wassel, the head of SHP is no slouch. His experience and personal committment to our community made him the right developer, if a public-private partnership was the best method to redevelop the fort.
Private partners were, and apparently still are, sought because federal dollars are not available to rehabilitate the park. Said another way, Frank Pallone, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez (and Jon Corzine, as U.S. Senator before Menedez) either did not have the clout or commiment to secure federal funding to rehabilitate Fort Hancock.
The Pallone/Holt/APP idea of leasing the 36 buildings of the fort one by one, to non-profits, rather than as a package, is crazy. Even if 36 organizations “with both money and sound plans” on hand could be found, managing 36 separate projects with 36 separate project managers is not feasible.
Wassel’s plan to “commercialise” Sandy Hook would not have turned the park into Times Square or the Monmouth Mall. He would have developed the fort into an educational and cultural campus.
As a neighbor of and frequent visitor to Sandy Hook, I never understood how Wassel’s plans would have been commercially viable or returned the investment required for the rehabilitation, given the location and climate of the site. Yet, I supported the plan because the proposed usage would have been an enhancement of the park. If private investors or lenders were willing to risk their capital on a project that enhanced the park while giving the National Park Service control of what could be done with the site in the event of failure, there was no downside for the public. Yes, I read the master lease. The public was protected from turning Fort Hancock into an amusement park or shopping mall.
Now that Wassel’s is out of the picture, it is incumbent upon our federal representitives to secure funding to preserve the fort. Failing that, the Park Service should fence it off and install Keep Out-Hazardous signs like there has been for most of the fort’s ruins for decades.
Alternatively, the Park Service should either level the buildings and convert the land to a recreational use like a marina and camp ground.
Middletown did not miss a loan payment. It didn’t even miss a deadline as the headline states. The township’s leadership chose not to apply for a loan now for a project, the dredging of Shadow Lake, that they don’t anticipate happening until 2012. Why would they?
If your bank was having a special on home mortgages that expires on on Friday, but you’re not in the market to buy a new home, did you miss the deadline for the mortgage special?
The Asbury Park Press article does present interesting and useful information about the Shadow Lake situation. It reveals that township officials are on top of the situation and are examining their alternatives. It is unfortunate that the Nudniks chose to spin the information as if there was crisis.
In the Broken News: Pastor Had a 3 Way story posted yesterday I said that the Asbury Park Press did not make the ReGen/FDA/Pallone, et al campaign cash story front page news. It has come to my attention that the APP story was printed on the front page of their print edition on Saturday October 16.
Additionally, in the Asbury Park Press Is Unfair And Biased, Dishonest And Incompetent story posted on November 10th I reported that APP reported Kevin Penton had not responded to my inquiry about the story I critiqued. Penton did indeed respond via email. I missed it. In his November 8 email Penton said he stood by his reporting.
The Asbury Park Press has made Neptune Township’s Reverend Cedric Miller famous.
First there was Wednesday’s story that Miller, the Pastor of Living Word Christian Fellowship Church, banned church leaders from having facebook pages because he determined the social networking site is a “portal to infidelity.” That made national news.
Today the APP’s lead story is that Miller and his wife Kim, who is also a pastor at the church had a sexual relationship with a church assistant and sometimes the assistant’s wife. The three way/four way arrangement, which happened some 10 years ago, came to a halt when word started spreading that the assistant was playing the field with other women in the congregation. Miller testified under oath about the affair during the assistant’s trial for charges that got dismissed.
Titillating, but front page news? The rest of the media is no better. The Associated Press picked up the story of the affair and now it’s national news.
How did the original story become news in the first place? Did Miller call the APP? Have a press conference? Issue a press release?
Miller could have chosen lots of websites to condemn as “portals of infidelity,” including the Asbury Park Press’s site.
Who has an ax to grind with Miller and why is the APP cooperating with that person? Why is the couple that the Millers fooled around with not named? The APP quoted Miller from the transcript of the former church assistant’s trial. Why are they protecting him and his wife?
Most importantly, why is the news of an affair that happened 10 years ago front page news and the news that four New Jersey federal legislators, Frank Pallone, Steve Rothman, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg applied inappropriate political pressure on the FDA to approve an unsafe medical device in exchange for campaign contributions wasn’t on the front page?
The United States government is now requiring people who wish to travel via airplane to submit to radioactive photography that exposes their nude body, or alternatively submit to a full body pat down.
Here for their first reading, I offer the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution to the editorial board of the Neptune Nudniks:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What is the probable cause that justifies every airline traveler to be compelled to submit to these searches?
If you are selected for secondary screening after you go through the metal detector and it does not go off, and “sss” is not written on your boarding pass, ask the TSA officer if the reason you are being selected is because of your head scarf.
In this situation, you may be asked to submit to a pat-down or to go through a full body scanner. If you are selected for the scanner, you may ask to go through a pat-down instead.
Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.
You may ask to be taken to a private room for the pat-down procedure.
Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.
If you encounter any issues, ask to speak to a supervisor immediately. They are there to assist you.
I don’t have a daughter, but I will be adding hijab to my Christmas shopping list for my wife, mother, sister and nieces. You can buy them online here.
I wish it wasn’t necessary to keep bashing the Asbury Park Press. The Neptune Nudniks are just that bad lately. I wish Gannett would put some competent people over there. We need a good newspaper in the region. In the meantime I’ll just take my chances that Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini won’t accuse me of cyberbullying.
I’ll give the nudniks this much. Today’s paper must have been printed on recycled material. Recycled birdcage liner to be more precise. The editorial pages are full of bird bleep.
The two items I take issue with are the editorial board’s grossly inaccurate editorial, Constitutional? Not a prayer and Angelini’s OpEd touting her anti-bullying legislation.
The nudniks first. Apparently they fancy themselves experts on the Constitution and prayer. In their nudniktorial today the APP editorial board argues that prayer at public meetings violates the U.S and New Jersey Constitutions and that the ACLU should pursue their suit against the Borough of Point Pleasant Beach “vigorously” because the borough’s council has been opening meetings with a prayer with the blessing of the borough attorney.
I know I’m not an expert on the Constitution or on prayer (the APP even has the gall to say what “most religions” consider appropriate prayer). I was taught constitutional law at a Jesuit university. This much I do know. If the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the NJ Senate and the NJ Assembly all start their sessions with a prayer, which they all do, then prayer at public meetings is either not unconstitutional or the ACLU lawyers are bullies that don’t have the balls to take on the U.S. Justice Department and/or the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. They would rather take on tiny Point Pleasant Beach and other small governmental agencies who’s leaders are more likely to cave to the ACLU’s litigious bullybleep than to inflict the pain of legal fees on their already overburdened property taxpayers.
The arrogance of the editorial board is appalling. Not only do they presume to be more expert on the First Amendment than Point Pleasant Beach’s attorney, they have the audacity to judge the sincerity of the Point officials’ prayers and to use the name of the Lord to condemn the prayer. I won’t even get into their questioning whether or not the Lord really authored the Lord’s Prayer. This from the nudniks who know so much about Jesus and prayer that they invoked the Sacred Heart to praise Asbury Park’s Upstage Club, Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny.
As a service to the nudniks, I publish the text of the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for what I suspect will be their first reading:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I hope they can find someone other than ACLU bullies to explain it to them.
Regarding the nudniks’ infuriating habit of writing about religion as if they know what they are talking about, the reprobates on the editorial board should leave such writing, if they must write about it at all, to Pastor Michael Riley who is on their staff. At least Riley has a relationship with the Big Guy. If they can’t do that, they should start using Islamic rather than Christian references in their editorials. That could solve the problem permanently.
Now, about Mary Pat Angelini’s Anti-Bullying Bill; Angelini is not a nudnik nor is she a reprobate. However, her bill, as well intended as it may be, is a bad idea. Its not that bullying is not a problem, it is. It is a problem that all of us have had to deal with as part of growing up and that all children will have to learn to deal with in the future. Legislation will not change human nature and government can not solve all of our problems. Nor should it.
I’m not an expert on child development. However the lessons my father taught me about dealing with bullies, both physical and psychological lessons, prepared me for the rough and tumble of the business world and Monmouth County politics. The lesson I taught to the bully who was picking on my sister endures to this day. His nose was never the same. Growing up in the 70’s that made me a hero and gave my sister a confident sense of security throughout her adolescent years. No one ever picked on her again. Today, it would probably land an older brother a stay in the Middlesex County Youth Detention Center.
Schools administrators and faculty should not tolerate bullying. We need legislation for that? The red tape and additional personnel Angelini’s bill calls will be a waste and a burden on property taxpayers. The kids who have been victimized should be trained to be “anti-bully specialists”, like my father trained me. If parents won’t teach kids how to defend themselves, or brothers how to defend their sisters, the schools can teach the kids the art of a kick in the cogliones and how to break a nose right after the class where they learn to put a condom on a cucumber.
Another problem with the bill…how long will it take for the evil manipulative adolescents to figure out that they can cause a whole lot a grief to both their school administration and to an unfriendly teen rival by falsely claiming they’re being bullied. Ever know or hear of a kid threatening their parents with a call to DYFS?
Legislation is never going to control adolescents’ uncontrollable and natural behavior. Making school personnel responsible for managing that behavior is ludicrous. Outlawing teen suicide would be just as effective. Cheaper to enforce too.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that I don’t believe bullying causes teen suicide. I was bullied and I didn’t kill myself.
I don’t mean to minimize the problem of teen suicide. I’m not an expert and I don’t know the answer. I do know that legislation that is a knee jerk reaction to a tragic and highly publicized suicide is not the answer. The answer lies in things that can’t be legislated. In families, churches, with health care professionals and even in schools. I don’t have any statistics to back this up, but I bet there was less teen suicide when there was prayer in schools. But that’s not likely to happen because no one has the cogliones to stand up to the ACLU.
The Neptune Nudniks’ coverage of Middletown Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger’s job as Director of the Office for Planning Advocacy, and the fact that he did not announce the job with great fanfare during the Middletown campaign for Township Committee demonstrates just how unfair and biased the Asbury Park Press is when you compare their coverage, or lack there of, to other stories of far more consequence.
All media outlets are biased. It is impossible not to be. We’re all human and have our point of view. MMM proudly declares that we are fair and biased in our logo welcoming readers to the site. Newspapers like the Asbury Park Press are disingenuous when they claim to be unbiased. The APP even claimed that they and other “real journalists” work hard to be unbiased in a editorial bashing the owners of FoxNews for donating $1 million dollars to conservative causes last summer. I say FoxNews is more trustworthy. At least they disclosed their owner’s bias. The APP, and many many others persist with their facade that they are unbiased when their behavior clearly demonstrates otherwise.
With their article and editorial today, combined with Friday’s article and Bob Ingle’s blog post on Sunday, APP.com has published 2547 words in four pieces on three separate days to the story of a volunteer Mayor who was appointed to a State job over the summer and did not make it an issue in his reelection campaign.
Contrast this to the news that Congressman Frank Pallone and three of his colleagues used their political influence to get the FDA to approve an unsafe medical device in exchange for campaign contributions. The FDA reversed itself after an internal investigation. The issue was national news for a few days. But not for the Asbury Park Press and their sister papers that cover the 6th congressional district. Three days after the Kansas City Star published the story of Pallone and his crooked cronies putting Americans’ health at risk in exchange for campaign cash, the APP published one articleof 619 words with a pro-Pallone spin. Ingle added 194 words with the appropriate slant two days later.
The APP is unfair and biased in what they cover and it how they cover it.
The same reporter, Kevin Penton, wrote the Pallone/FDA story and the Scharfenberger stories.
Referring to the report that exposed the Pallone/FDA scandal, Penton wrote “The report — the result of an investigation requested in May 2009 by three congressmen, including Pallone — does not specify who in Congress made the persistent inquiries.” There was no further follow up published by Penton or anyone else from the APP.
Yet, Penton spent all day yesterday on the phone and on his computer keeping the Scharfenberger story alive. All those people Penton quoted in his article today…do you think they called him? Do you think they were even aware that Scharfenberger is the Director of the Office for Planning Advocacy? Of course not. Penton made thestory. At least we know he has it in him to do some follow up. It is too bad that he, and his bosses, are unfair and biased about the stories that they actually decide to put work into, as opposed to what they often do, which is regurgitate what the subjects of their “news” tell them.
Penton’s article and the editorial state that Scharfenberger was asked about his employment in October and did not mention the State job. Neither Penton nor the editorial name the reporter. Scharfenberger denies this. He told MMM that he had not spoken to Penton about his job since July, before he was hired by the Christie administration. Penton has not responded to a phone call and an email from MMM to either verify or dispute Scharfenberger’s account. Scharfenberger said he was very careful to be truthful during the campaign in how he answered inquiries about his employment with reporters and members of the public in general.
Scharfenberger knew his state job was common knowledge in certain circles but he did not want it to become a campaign issue. “What was I going to do, go around town saying ‘vote for me, the Governor thinks I’m so great he hired me’?” “I did not want to use the job in my favor and I did not want the Democrats to use it against me. I wanted the campaign to be about Middletown issues, not who I work for.”
Scharfenberger’s account is consistent with my experience. I knew about Scharfenberger’s job in late August or early September. I chose not to report it. I did not find out about the job from Scharfenberger. He was not happy when I asked him to confirm it. He assumed I would report on it.
I’m not a full time journalist. I haven’t taken a journalism course since I was in high school writing for Bear Facts, the Bergenfield High School newspaper. Why did I know about Gerry’s job and full time journalists didn’t? Google has this neat service called “Google Alert.” Penton and the folks over in Neptune should check it out. I received anecdotal confirmation of Gerry’s job before I asked him about it.
I chose not to report about Scharfenberger’s job until after the election because, after observing the Middletown Democrats over the last 13 years I suspected they would distort it and make the campaign about it, rather than the issues facing Middletown. Feel free to criticise me for not reporting it. I told you I was fair and biased the moment you got here. If you’re going to criticise me, please also credit me for my competence. The APP and the Middletown Democrats, and maybe even you, still wouldn’t know about Gerry’s job if I hadn’t reported it.
To prove that I am fair as well as biased, I now disclose that I am aware of two elected officials in Monmouth County, one Democrat and one Republican, who have full time state jobs and are still collecting their stipends from the municipalities that they serve. The Democrat I found about last week. The Republican this morning. I’m not going to tell you who they are, at least not right now. Now that they know that I know, they have a few days to do the right thing and heed the spirit of Governor Christie’s call for reform and only collect one government salary. I also want to see if the Neptune Nudniks have what it takes to find out what I already know, or if they care.
There’s a video on YouTube which is a good analogy for how Scharfenberger handled his job during the campaign. You may have seen it already as it has over 6 million views. Here it is:
In the video, consider Scharfenberger the quarterback and the Middletown Democrats and the Neptune Nudniks the yellow shirted defense. Did the quarterback do anything illegal? No. Did he do anything unethical? No. Was he clever? Yes. Is clever bad? If you laughed at the video, you don’t think so.
Had the yellow shirted defense been rigorous and paying attention, the quarterback would have looked like a fool. As it was, and as it is in the case of Middletown and the APP, the nudniks are foolish.
An international crime syndicate raided Middletown’s bank accounts of $379,000. The Asbury Park Press did not judge that to be newsworthy, even after arrests were made and law enforcement officials were willing to talk about it.
A Freeholder who made ethics and transparency the theme of his tenure in office and the theme of his reelection campaign was exposed asking another Freeholder to make a political appointment in exchange for campaign contributions. The Asbury Park Press did not find that to be newsworthy.
New Jersey’s two U.S. Senators and two Congressman, one of whom represents the APP’s coverage area, pressured the FDA to approve an unsafe medical device in exchange for campaign contributions. The FDA reversed itself and issued a mea culpa two years later. The scandal make national news. The Neptune Nudniks reluctantly covered the story in obscure locations on their website and in their print editions days after the issue was national news.
Basically what the Middletown Dems are saying is that had they known about Gerry Scharfenberger’s new job as the Director of the Office for Planning Advocacy that they would have made it a campaign issue. Gerry would have had to respond by making the case that his job is a positive for Middletown.
As it was, the Middletown campaign was about the township’s recent tax increase. An issue much more relevant to the majority of Middletown residents. The Democrats charged that the Republicans recklessly raised taxes and manage the township poorly. The Republicans explained the tax increase and defended their record. The voters chose the Republicans. A relevant campaign. The voters chose. Case closed. Now the Democrats protest because they would have made the campaign about something irrelevant to the voters if they had the information.
Why was Gerry’s job irrelevant to the campaign? Quick, off the top of your head with no research, name Gerry Scharfenberger’s predecessor at the Office of Smart Growth. That’s why.
What the Democrats’ protest and the APP reporter’s complaint included in the article demonstrates, in addition to their pettiness, is their ineptitude. The Democrats and the reporter should have known about Gerry’s new job without him telling them about it. In this information age, there is no justification for politicians not knowing all information on the public record about their opponents and there is no justification for reporters not knowing all public information about the subjects they cover. There is no justification but there are two explanations: ineptitude and laziness.
The Neptune Nudniks are promoting an anti-Anna Little video in their Sunday edition, with a link on their website, that refers to Little with a sexual slur. The five minute video has so many copyright violations that YouTube wouldn’t host it. You would think Hollis Towns, the head nudnik, would know better. Apparently not.
I’d embed the video if not for the blatant copyright violations. Like Frank Pallone’s negative ads, I think this video would win Little more votes that it would cost her.
The video was made by Hazlet resident Yetta Weissen who says she’s a film maker. A real film maker would not steal other artists property with impunity as Weissen does with this vulgar and amateurish production. She told the Nudniks that she has been too busy with her day job and her film making to be engaged in the NJ-6 campaign. She made the video, she says, as a reaction to a friend saying, “I don’t know, I’m just going to vote Republican.”
Weissen’s day job was with Focus World International, a Holmdel based marketing research firm in 2008 when she donated $276 to the Obama campaign.
As an proof of how lame and irrelevant the Nudniks have become, as of 1:20 this afternoon only 53 people have viewed the video today, including me.
If you must view the video, I’ve given you enough information to find it yourself.
