Report: Shooting Mars 4th of July Celebration in Asbury Park

UPDATED

A 16-year-old juvenile is in custody following a shots fired incident on the boardwalk in Asbury Park last night leaving two people injured. The shooting occurred about 9:58 p.m. on the Asbury Park boardwalk in the area of 1st and Ocean avenues.https://t.co/anGYNbUWdF

— Monmouth Prosecutor (@MonCoProsecutor) July 5, 2019

A shooting that resulted in at least one injury occurred after the fireworks in Asbury Park on Thursday night, according to a report at AsburyParkSun.com

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Shooting Epidemic In Asbury Park, Community Resignation Setting In

Monmouth County Needs Regional Law Enforcement

There were three shootings in Asbury Park this afternoon, according to a report at NJ.com.

The shooting happened around noon on Mattison Avenue, near Langford Street, Detective Lt. David DeSane said. As of around 2 p.m., DeSane said he did not know the extent of the injuries.

Two people in the area, who asked not to be identified, said they heard four or five shots, but did not know what happened.

AsburyParkSun photo

In the triCityNews last week, publisher Dan Jacobson said there have been four fatal shootings in the city, population 16,132, so far this year.

In their award winning series, Gripped by violence, published last October, four days before Superstorm Sandy, the Asbury Park Press said there had been an average of one shooting per week in Asbury Park through October 25, 2012 and that the city was second only to Camden in terms of violent crimes in New Jersey.  That’s right, Asbury Park is more dangerous than Newark, Trenton and Jersey City, where there were also three shootings today.

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Sources: Monmouth County Prosecutor Raids ‘A-Team’ Campaign Office in Asbury Park

UPDATE: Asbury Park Sun is reporting that the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office executed a search warrant on the campaign office of ‘The A Team” this afternoon.  The report said that the investigators appeared to be looking for ballots.  Read the APS report here.

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MoreMonmouthMusings has confirmed that the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the “A-Team” ticket of Council candidates in upcoming Asbury Park municipal election.  That investigation included a visit to the campaign’s Main Street office today.

No arrests have been made.

The ‘A-Team’ consists of five candidates running together for the five council seats, the entire governing body, being contested in the May 14 election.  The candidates are former Councilman James Keady,  former board of education member Redmond Palmer, Duanne Small, Nora Hyland and Daniel Harris.  There are a total of 22 candidates running for the five seats.

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Open Letter to Monmouth Freeholders: You don’t need a park in Asbury

By Tommy De Seno, Asbury Park Historian, proud Blue Bishop and contributor to More Monmouth Musings

[PRELIMINARY NOTE TO FREEHOLDERS:  I KNOW YOU ARE BUSY.  IF YOU CAN’T READ ALL OF THIS ABOUT WHY YOU SHOULDN’T BUY A PARK IN ASBURY, SKIP TO REASON #6 BELOW.  BUT I HOPE YOU WILL TAKE THE TIME TO READ THE WHOLE LETTER]

Asbury Park is everyone’s business.  Why?  The rest of the taxpayers in the State of New Jersey spend $60 million annually on the schools.   Even though the High School graduates only about 95 students, they just installed an $800,000.00 turf football field.  Go Blue Bishops.

The City turns to the State of New Jersey annually for $10-12 million to close their budget gap.

So yes –  the business of Asbury Park is everyone’s business.  We should all closely monitor their elections, but since they hold non-partisan elections in May they get ignored.  

Now I’m not here to beat up the City by the Sea, the Urban Sand, my beloved childhood home of Asbury Park.   If anyone cares to know I’ll gladly regale you with lectures on how Asbury Park got to be where it is (it isn’t just their fault) and how they should get to where they need to go.

But blog space compels me to limit my words to one issue at a time, and that issue right now has to do with the Monmouth County Parks Commission possibly purchasing a piece of land on Asbury Park’s beachfront.

Whatever you do, my dear Freeholders, don’t buy it.

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Can Republicans Have A Role In Asbury Park?

When last we heard of Republicans in Asbury Park, Municipal GOP Chairwoman Louis Murray was making national news by calling for a ban of beachwear on the boardwalk.  That didn’t go the way Murray planned.

By some numbers, Asbury Park looks like a waste of time for Republicans. Only 464 of the city’s registered 7,404 voters are Republicans.  2,723 are Democrats and 4,209 are Unaffiliated, according to Wikipedia.

By other numbers, no one in New Jersey should ignore Asbury Park.  New Jersey taxpayers fund the city’s schools and municipal government.  Trenton sent $57.6 million to Asbury Park for its schools in 2011-2012 and $9.5 million for its current municipal budget.

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Asbury Park Mayor Ed Johnson will not seek a new term

Asbury Park Mayor Ed Johnson announced that he will not seek a second four year term next May, according to the Asbury Park Sun.

In a letter posted on his website, Johnson thanked Asbury Park residents for the opportunity of serving for the last 13 years as city’s Urban Enterprise Zone, councilman and mayor.

Asbury Park elects all five members of its governing body every four years in non-partisan elections that take place in May.  The city has a referendum to study a change in its form of government on the ballot this November.

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Thanks for a great month

June was by far the most active month in MMM’s history.  There have been 32,000 visits and 57,000 page views so far month.  71% of those visitors were repeats.  Google analytics says that all of that traffic came from 8700 computers.  Unbelievably to me, the average visit is for 11 minutes, which is longer than it takes to read an entire issue of the Asbury Park Press.

According to alexa.com, only 15,850 websites in the New York area and 125,439 in the United States get more traffic than MMM.

Special thanks go out to Anna Little, Ernesto Cullari, John Bennett, Christine Hanlon, Vin Gopal, Frank LaRocca, Barbara Gonzalez, Bob Gordon, Linda Baum  Rachel Alintoff, Judge Paul Escandon, Louise Murray and everyone who wears bathing suits on the Asbury Park Boardwalk.  I can’t forget Bob Menendez’s opposition research team.

I doing my monthly review, I couldn’t help but notice the success of my friends in Asbury Park.

Congratulations to Dan Jacobson and Molly Mulshine at the AsburyParkSun.  In only three months they have made a significant impact in the local media market.  Alexa.com says that APS is in the top 200,000 of all websites nationally and in the top 35,000 in the New York area.   Mulshine was the first to report the Asbury Park Boardwalk beach attire controversy, a story that went national.

UPDATE: July 1

Wow!  I haven’t had such a busy last day of the month since I was in the car business.  The final numbers for June are 32,959 visitors fromm 9,194 unique IPs and 58,768 page views.  Ranked 120,646 in the U.S. on Alexa.

As Lois mentioned in the comments, thank you so much to all the commenters, especially the “congregation” as Lois called the regulars.  I won’t name them all because I’m sure to leave an important one out.

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Beachwear Ban On Asbury Park Boardwalk

Asbury Park GOP Chairwoman Louise Murray wants the city to start enforcing an old, but current, ordinance that prohibits citizens from wearing beach attire on the boardwalk, according to a story in the Asbury Park Sun that was picked up by the Star Ledger, NJ 101.5, but not the Asbury Park Press.

Murray made her appeal to the city council during their meeting on June 20:

“I don’t want to go back to 1940 or 1950 but the bottom line is you have on your books an ordinance — no person clad in bathing attire shall be on the boardwalk or public walks adjacent thereto,” Murray said. “Asbury Park was known for being the classiest boardwalk in the summertime. You never went down there unless you were dressed.”

In the past, beachgoers could not walk the boards barefoot without someone telling them to put their shoes on, recalled Murray, who is also a former city councilwoman.

“I’ll be darned if I want to be standing at a bar and have somebody slither up in a Speedo or bikini that shouldn’t be in a bathing suit,” Murray said. “It’s disgraceful … I implore you to enforce this, but do not amend it.”

Deputy Mayor John Loffredo responded, “I honestly don’t disagree with you.”

The ordinance specifically states, “No person clad in bathing attire shall be on the boardwalk or the public walks adjacent thereto.” It also prohibits holes deeper than 12 inches to be dug in the beachfront

Of the 5418 registered voters in Asbury Park, 390 are registered Republicans.  Murray must be trying to expand her base by appealing to the city’s social conservatives and law and order types.

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Such A Deal

Loch Arbour and Allenhurst Eyeing A Merger

The Asbury Park Sun reports that the Village of Loch Arbour is moving forward with its plan to seek a merger with its neighbor to the north, the Borough of Allenhurst.

Loch Arbour is .1 square mile and home to 196 people, according to the 2010 U.S. census.  The metropolis of Allenhurst in three times the size of of Loch Arbour by land mass, but has a much lower population density of 496 residents per the most recent census.   Should the towns merge, they would form a municipality just south of Deal, the 1.3 square mile borough that is home to 750 year round residents.

Loch Arbour has a municipal budget of $1,243,058.  That’s $6,342 per capita or $25,368 per family of four.  Allenhurst’s municipal budget in $4,344,268; $8,760 per capita.

Obviously, it is not municipal spending that is prompting the 196 Loch Arbourians to give up their sovereignty.  It is school spending. 

Loch Arbour sends its 20 school age children to the Ocean Township Schools. The Corzine administration invalidated a school funding agreement between Loch Arbour and Ocean Township that was worth about $300,000 per year.  The new formula required Loch Arbour to pay school taxes based upon their property values.  That $300K became $1.6 million.    Allenhurst sends it school kids to the Asbury Park school system, an Abbott District that the entire state subsidizes.  If the merger goes through, property taxes in Loch Arbour will fall from an average of about $24,000 per home to less than $9000.   Not bad, relative to property taxes throughout the rest of the state, for homes valued at over $1.4 million on average. 

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Bishops Feeling Blue Over Green

The Asbury Park Board of Education does not have enough green to get a blue football field, according to a report in the Asbury Park Sun.

700 members of the community presented the deadlocked Board of Education with a petition asking that the new field of the Blue Bishops be covered with blue astro turf.  Opposition wasn’t about the color, it was about money.  Blue turf will cost $45,000 more than green turf, according to business administrator Geoffrey Hastings.

The board has $825,000 of their $66 million Abbott funded budget allocated for the new football field….$700,000 for the turf and and $107,000 to cover change orders or unforeseen expenses.  Nobody said the BoE or the Asbury Park Sun…whoever came up with those numbers…is good at math.

The board was deadlocked 4-4 over the color of the field until one of the supporters of blue left the meeting.  Then the mean greenies passed the budget without the $45,000 for the blue turf.

State monitor Lester Richens said the board couldn’t afford the extra money that is coming from Trenton by way of New Jersey income taxes.

MMM is happy to offer the following suggestions to the Asbury Park Board of Eduction:

1) Go through the budget looking for additional math errors.  Maybe you already have the money.

2) Regardless of the math, put the turf out to bid again.  $45,000 is not much in a $700,000 order.  Competition is a wonderful thing.  That’s why we have bids.

3) Hire this blogger to find waste in your budget. I’ll find the $45,000 and a lot more.  Pay me 20% of every dollar over $45,000 I find in unnecessary and wasteful spending. 30% if anyone is indicted as a result of my findings. Pay me nothing if I don’t find anything.  Give me 30 days and complete access.

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