By Paul Goldfinger, Editor@ Blogfinger.
It seems that those who are investing in the current North End Redevelopment Plan, including the CMA, finally got fed up with 11 years of dithering. Recall that in 2008 they persuaded the Township to declare the North End to be “an area in need of redevelopment.”
But such areas are supposed to help (public welfare) down-and-out properties to recover, usually in down-and-out towns or cities. This has never described Ocean Grove.
No objective observer could consider this OG North End Redevelopment Plan to be anything but private welfare for a group of people and groups. (WAVE and CMA; now known as OGNED and CMA.)
The Township inappropriately agreed to this charade and they recently recognized, due to the delays, that this was in fact “an area in need of attorneys.”
So fast forward through years of no-go. In 2018 the Township used public money to pay for a private redevelopment lawyer who would guaranty an agreement that would legally be unassailable, would plug all holes, and would make the investors rich.
Whether it would be good for the town was an irrelevant after-thought.
The lawyer saw to it that the Township would promise that OGNED would become the only Redeveloper, and that process is currently underway. Heading this process is William Gannon, III, Esq. He is a private citizen but somehow he controls the controls at the Committee.
Why the Township went on with this subterfuge for 11 years is unknown since the NERP is, despite OGNED’s assertion, not good for the town of Ocean Grove. It will produce more congestion, ugliness, and parking problems. Grovers like to take a deep breath and see the Ocean.
This brings us to the Trojan horse. On the November 26, 2018 Township Committee Consent Agenda was Res 18-395.
“A consent agenda is a board meeting practice that groups routine business and reports into one agenda item.” It is used to streamline items like ordering toilet paper for the Mother Ship. Its purpose is to approve items quickly and with little notice. The list on November 26. 2018, consisted of 10 mundane items including awarding an animal control contract among other dopey orders of business.
However, Resolution #18 -395 is also listed, and that item is not mundane at all—it is of major importance related to the North End Redevelopment Plan. It “authorized the execution of a Conditional Designation and Interim Cost Agreement with OG North End Development, LLC” including provisions for OGNED to pay money to Neptune to defray costs incurred in negotiating a Redevelopment Agreement.
But there were also exhibits and attachments which were not shared with the citizens in attendance, and those papers are complex legal documents.
Those documents, prepared by the special lawyer, covered a huge buffet of topics ranging from the details of the new plan, to lease arrangements, to flexibility in turning the hotel into condos, dropping the CMA from its role as redeveloper, opening a swimming pool and health club, and even doing the project in stages. And there were many other topics listed and not mentioned or discussed.
The lawyer created documents (exhibits and attachments) that closed every possible loophole and offered assurances and variations for many items including how many residential units might be built. Clearly, this was the heart and soul of the NERP, and it was being slipped under the door for approval by our elected officials without any public discussion and debate.
The Committee did not explain that this consent agenda item was really a Trojan Horse designed to hide and contain all sorts of project details, allowing it to sneak inside the people’s house past the public’s filter. Everyone on the Committee signed off on this blank check.
We suspect that Mr. Gannon’s appearance at the HOA is to use the meeting to let him charm the crowd and then claim that the people approved. But the HOA by far does not represent the citizens of Ocean Grove. They themselves are complicit in this terrible North End Plan which, since 2008, is the only official plan, but somehow now is being exchanged for another plan without appropriate procedures.
Unfortunately, the Trojan horse enabled the Greeks to defeat Troy, and now, here, these modern day tricksters will get their way. Just ask Joey, owner of Odyssey on Main, how that story worked out.
BAN THE PLAN: the only result that will keep our historic residential town from becoming Asbury Park South. Demand that the Neptune Committee cancel these agreements.
LEON REDBONE:
