Asbury zombies are ruining the Grove according to Pres. Badger. “Nonsense” drools the zombies. Paul Goldfinger photo ©

In a bizarre and disorganized email last night regarding Ocean Grove, the Asbury Park Press sent around a worthless  piece consisting of a cut and paste mishmash with articles about OG’s worsening parking situation, past and present. A few video clips were included showing interviews with CMA Pres. Michael Badger where he mumbled and fumbled his way around the subject of parking.

Today’s paper edition made the OG story front page news, but today they emphasized a supposed improved parking situation due to the virus. Why is this news?  Sure there are more parking spaces for obvious reasons.

But looking at that on-line rendition raises some other issues.  The most obvious is why the APP repeatedly makes Badger their star source of information.   Why should he be the go-to guy for town news coverage?

He doesn’t even explain his conflict of interest as he pontificates about the Grove’s parking problems.  He doesn’t disclose that he has an ax to grind on the subject.  Who appointed him to be the spokesman for Ocean Grove?  He gives the appearance of an elected official.

The APP should should have sought out an elected Neptune official to consider the complicated topic of parking in the Grove.  The reporter lacks insight into all that has gone on in the past with parking including the fact that no professional parking study has ever been reported in Neptune. Nor does he have any insight into the pending study being bought by the CMA.  The reporter, supposedly an OG expert,  doesn’t know what questions to ask.

Badger blames Asbury Park for our parking mess.  He says, “The problem was created by Asbury.”  But he doesn’t explain that OG has a demographic of homeowners which has been wrestling with parking long before Asbury climbed out of the Stone Age a few years ago.

Badger thinks that pay-to-park policies in AP are the source of our troubles which he refers to as “the Neptune-Asbury problem.”   But he  fails to admit that the Township’s situation is also the Camp Meeting’s problem.  The CMA is having a big headache worrying where religious tourists, by the thousands, will park in the Grove.

He is off-base in blaming Asbury for anything.  Asbury is a circumstance, not a cause of trouble.   That town is making multi-millions with paid parking, and that is a success story for them.   They are right in not getting sucked into OG’s parking problems and Badger’s finger pointing.

Then he throws a big stink bomb into the mix when he digresses to lecture all of us as to why  Neptuners should be encouraged to come into the Grove, as if we are excluding anyone.  He says that if we exclude the “tax paying Neptune citizens” then we will be “elitists.” He says that we are not “fair” if only Grover opinions are heard.

This is a blatant and obnoxious smokescreen designed to divert attention from any plan that would help residents, such as permits.

Then he reveals his real motive for this topic when he says that he wants to encourage more Neptuners to come to the “programs of Ocean Grove.”  But he doesn’t explain that most of the ” Ocean Grove programs” are religious based, sponsored by the CMA.

Later, to muddy the waters even more, he tells the APP that the CMA has hired a “nationally recognized” consultant to solve OG’s parking problems.  But who asked him to do that?  He is not an elected official.  The CMA is no longer  in charge of OG, although he seems to think that it is.

The truth is that Neptune has never concluded  a professional parking study.   Such a factually and legally based result  is needed for this conversation to proceed, but a legitimate study  would make mince-meat of any idea that we can provide parking for all interested parties including residents, business interests, hotel/B and B’s, beach goers, and the voracious CMA.

It may be impossible to resolve Badger’s private study which will be biased regardless of his phony efforts to speak for all factions. And a private CMA study will not have to be revealed to the public or even to the Township.  But if it is revealed, then no one, including the CMA, will be happy because official parking regulations must be addressed within, and there are simply not enough spaces in town to make everyone enthused and to obey the law also.

There have been some prior efforts in OG to come up with parking solutions, but Badger doesn’t care about that because he thinks that solutions such as “permits will just make things worse.”   He means that it will make things worse for the CMA’s daunting  parking challenges.

Where is the mayor when the “press” comes calling?   Mr. Mayor:  How about calling the Press and ask for fair coverage of Ocean Grove.  Or maybe you and your Committee are too busy hiding under your beds.

Here are a few related BF links on this topic:

OG parking issues #1

parking mess

Other parking posts on BF can be found with a search–use our search box at the top.   Type in “parking problems.

Paul Goldfinger,  Editor @Blogfinger.net

STEPHEN DEROSA   From Boardwalk Empire.