At Blogfinger, we have been trying to keep up with the press coverage of our FEMA situation. That coverage has been spotty and often contains errors of fact, especially where the FEMA regulations are concerned and about the roll of the Camp Meeting Association in Ocean Grove. In addition, some sources have tried to muddy the waters by introducing the 2007 Pavilion controversy into the discussion.
But today I discovered a Yahoo! Voices piece from March 3 which got it right. It is by Bailey Hinson, and I am reproducing it below. It is old news, but it is worth reading due to its precise assessment of the situation.
Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger
YAHOO! VOICES Contributor Network:
March 4, 2013
By Bailey Hinson
Ocean Grove, New Jersey—the Town that FEMA Forgot
This Jersey Shore Town Gets Dissed by FEMA
Ocean Grove, New Jersey, is one of the most picturesque of small towns that dot the Jersey Shore. Its boardwalk and oceanfront area were decimated by Superstorm Sandy, and due to a technicality, FEMA is offering no assistance to this town.
Unlike other local beaches which are owned by municipalities, the beachfront in Ocean Grove is owned by the non-profit Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. The OGCMA was denied the financial assistance that other towns are receiving due to this difference. The beach in Ocean Grove operates like every other municipal beach in the area. It is open to the public. There are no restrictions on purchasing beach badges, and no special membership is required. But the town is now in a position where massive fundraising efforts must be planned in order to repair the boardwalk, lighting and other beachfront structures.
FEMA has made the case that the Ocean Grove boardwalk is purely recreational, and therefore not eligible for non-profit financial assistance. But the wooden walkway is much more than a means of recreation. It is a structure that enhances the safety of visitors by giving first responders a platform from which to launch emergency efforts. It also affords local bicycle policemen a view of the water’s edge, where accidents most often occur. And, it is the support structure for the streetlights which keep the area safer in the evening hours.
The boardwalk in Ocean Grove also provides access to the neighboring towns of Bradley Beach and Asbury Park. Commerce is impeded when tourists cannot walk or bike from one small town to the next. Visitors often walk from the Grove into Asbury Park to shop in the boardwalk boutiques. Restricting access to this area of Asbury Park will hurt the economic future of this town which has struggled to regain its footing as a destination at the Jersey Shore.
It is a shame that Ocean Grove has been denied the monetary help that every other town in the area will receive. The fact that it is because the beach is owned by a non-profit entity makes it even sadder.
I love the idea of making the beach private if the CMA’s deal with Neptune allows it. Who wants these tourists clogging up town if our government won’t recognize the beach and boardwalk as public? I would even be willing to pay something for the privilege, like a beach club.
We have had Blogfinger commenters claim that there is no point in appealing to FEMA because FEMA bureaucrats will just blindly follow their regs and that they have no flexibility to be influenced by appeals from the CMA or from local or state politicians.
But the truth is that the officials at FEMA do have discretion to interpret their regulations, as DEVO points out. The CMA and its supporters in government (local, state and federal) will continue to appeal and to ask FEMA to do the right thing for Ocean Grove.
Devo argues that FEMA will be biased against the CMA based on ideology, and that possibility has also been raised on Blogfinger, but there is no evidence that such bias exists at FEMA, although we know that such bias can exist at the Federal level—-witness the IRS scandal.
The folks who run FEMA will turn us down a third time. FEMA has wide latitude to interpret situations and dole out benefits — they could easily justify giving us the aid we deserve. But they won’t.
If FEMA denies us the third and final time, maybe we should just close the boardwalk and the beach to the public. As we get no benefit from having it open, we can just make it a private beach for the benefit of those who own property in OG. The only losers will be the businesses in town, I suppose. If legalities make it hard to close the beach, we can just make a daily pass cost $50 to non-residents.
Radical thought, but why not? If this town had a private beach only for homeowners, that would likely make OG much more desirable to live in. Also would cut down on the parking problems, the noise, the rude people who do not say hi when you pass them, etc.
Based in Reality – FEMA’s position has nothing to do with OGCMA religious or political views. Your claim seems like just another way of stating that our government is anti religious, which is far from true. It’s really just the bureaucracy at work. The important question here is why our representatives in Congress and Christie can’t or won’t do anything about it.
Very well written. The article mentions how Asbury Park’s commerce will be affected because people would not be able to walk from Ocean Grove into Asbury Park and shop there. That has been rectified, but foot traffic to downtown Ocean Grove’s businesses from neighboring towns has been greatly affected. It has been witnessed by Paul that people walking north from Bradley or Avon, or south from Asbury, when they reach the grassy strip area, with no boardwalk, they are turning around and heading back the way they came.
As a business owner I can confirm that unless we have an event or a show to draw people in,foot traffic has been unusually light, especially in the evenings when people typically stroll the boardwalks. I am not hearing, “We’re staying in Avon, and we were walking along and saw your Main Ave. and all the lights, and we just had to come and see the shops!” It would be interesting to hear from other businesses to see if they, too, feel that they have been adversely affected by the lack of a continuous boardwalk.
While I agree that FEMA’s declination is wrong, I also wonder if there isn’t a better temporary solution to “the grassy strip” while all this is being sorted out…. Asbury was able to pave a short section of the boardwalk just adjacent to O.G. and it works really well…
Hope you are right, but I doubt it.
Based in Reality:
In the end, you will be wrong.
FEMA is an intensely political organization run by political appointees. The OGMA is not aligned with the “correct” orthodoxies and thus must be denied.
Right on! Best sum-up ever.