Members of Neptune United busting chops on Sunday morning after calling the cops. Blogfinger action photo 8/27/23
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net. 9/07/23. Ocean Grove, NJ.
They call it “An Ocean Grove Story” but it is as stale as yesterday’s dead whale. The Coaster must be desperate.
It is about a woman who has been swimming in the Ocean on some Sundays mornings since 2020. She clashed with the CMA and eventually was offered a deal by Michael Badger who would personally escort her onto the beach each Sunday as long as she kept quiet about the deal.
In April, 2023 Ms. Pamela Valentine confessed her secret during an HOA meeting where the Groaners wanted to talk about Sunday closures. We reported on it then.
Blogfinger June report on this subject.
Meanwhile others were also crashing the beach on Sunday mornings, and we all heard about it lately when a new radical group, Neptune United, took up the cause and started making a public fuss and an unruly stink.
Recently a number of local news sources have reported on the situation including NJ.com, Patch, and Asbury Park Press. Each of them did a careless job and printed inaccurate facts about the Grove. This is part of a journalistic tradition of covering our history and workings going back to when the National Geographic painted us as a hangout for religious zealots.
The Sunday beach situation got some more attention when NU complained to the DEP about the chain/lock impediment to Sunday beach access, but actually anyone, including Ms. Valentine, could have gone on the beach in a variety of ways with or without the chain/locks.
The Neptune Police refused to intervene, and the DEP warned the CMA to remove the chains and locks. That matter is still under discussion with the Trenton busybodies.
There was an opportunity for major civil disobedience, but that never happened, and the NU flash-in-the -pan concerns are going nowhere, and now summer is over and full Sunday access has returned, thanks to Mother Nature: the passing of the seasons.
Why is Ms. Valentine’s story so fascinating now to the Coaster or to anyone else? So what if Michael Badger made a friendly agreement with Ms. Valentine? Who cares and why do they care?
The Coaster should get a Pulitzer for this article, aka “Much Ado About Nothing.”
But the real news is that this sequence confirms the relationship between the Home Groaners and Neptune United. Because the Neptune United agitators foresee attacking the CMA from all fronts. (see their web site and their recent public obnoxious behavior) the HOA should divorce itself from this dangerous group or risk losing much of its membership who want no part of the NU tactics and slippery public relations.
Ocean Grove citizens need to get focused on what’s really important. Paul Goldfinger photo. Blogfinger.net. 2023.
DAVID LEONHARDT