City Names Friday Jan 8 for Blue Bishops & Pop Warner, Council Targets Scattered Sites, Metropolitan's Owner Wants Another Shot

Asbury Radio's Reporter's Notebook
Jan. 6, 2010 - First meeting of yr. – All present except Council member James Bruno
City's Ball Teams Honored - Mayor Declares Friday, Jan. 8th, Pop Warner-Blue Bishops Day!!
Council Fed Up with Scattered Sites
CORRECTION: Former Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello wants to Build on former site of the Metropolitan Hotel, which he owned.

James Famularo, asst city mgr, reporting on scattered sites/ currently 11 properties, 1 developer selected for x property/ refers to tables/ 10 remaining not been redeveloped, 4 vacant /6 have structures on them.
Mayor Johnson - Q do they pay taxes or not or combination?
Out of 10, liens on 7 properties, 2 have open permits (for construction),
Council member John Loffredo – some of these have the same buildings on them, getting sick of this, different owners’ names with the same mailing address.
JF – some of these are from the same scam on properties. Have to sit down w/ them one more time.
JL- see here we go ago again, how many more times are we going to hear this?
City Manager Terry Reidy – excellent question/ essence of scattered site program, governing body has same rights as if they were in redev area/ and owners aren’t doing anything, some won’t even come in for talks with the city.

JF – Mr. Gray had his idea on which need, we can only goad, can’t go much further than that. Establish some kind of agreements w/ them, establish timelines
EJ – is this the end of the road here?
JF – yes
Council member Sue Henderson – what bothers me… these are properties people could be living in. People have the right to have a nice place to live.
TR- to deputy mayor’s pt, they’ve been on the list for years now. City’s going to take these properties or take down the structures. Next step is to find a willing developer to come in, property owner has right to get fair market value, chance to rehabilitate structure if it can be. Can’t just sit with them anymore that’s unacceptable.
As James mentioned earlier if other prop come to our attention, if code enforcement’s gone as far as they can with these…
EJ – so what is the drop dead date?
Former mayor Kevin Sanders – these aren’t even individual people they just get these parcels in a big lot, several have liens on them and fines.
SH – people from NY, Philly, Camden NJ are listed as owners…don’t even live here.
TR – owner of Metropolitan is anxious to move forward… [Cresitello, former Mayor of Morristown, bought Metropolitan Hotel with plans to restore, but it sat deteriorating for years until had to be demolished last year. Conflicting stories as to why. No significant fines collected on this property. Code official Gray says department doesn’t have as much control over vacant, commercial buildings as it does individually owned occupied buildings. Motel portion came down this fall.]
JL- with what?
TR - Think he’s submitted a design. Yes I gave you those months ago. They look similar to the Metropolitan, what he wants to do.
EJ – Is he going to clear the site? Plant grass seed or make it useful? Just wdn’t want to see this empty dirt lot sitting there for yrs.
TR – I’ll tell him, want me to set up something. [Reidy was Morristown’s city manager under Cresitello.]
JL – Sure.
Cars – JF – he’s supplied a list with name of car and person it’s been designated to.
TR – people who live in apt kg cars home wd be considered an asset from safety standpt.
Sayreville, Toms River – 3 of vehicles that go outside 5 miles from police dept, 3 are police, X are emergency mgmt,
EJ – wd like to discuss w/ mr bruno reaching pt where every nickel counts.

Gilmour – application from Mary’s Place to use one of open dates for Convention Hall/ group aids homeless
App from Rotary Jan. 20th, for a polar bear plunge.
Another app Mary’s Place for a Polar Bear plunge, which is different than one took place this weekend. Asked City to waive the beach fee. This will be smaller event than New Year’s Day. Fundraiser, 501 ©)3, a private family they raise money for. City does incur costs for cleanup, CPR standby. Other orgs doing plunges have to pay fees.
Council – can’t waive for one and not another.
SH – this council supported marriage equality, going to Senate vote t’w.
EJ – transportation center, entrance by police dept very bad leak. Like to announce city’s rec’d grant for $86,000 for Springwood Avenue park.


Pop Warner and the Blue Bishops to be honored. Board of Education present –
Coach Wm Young introduced by james famularo, coach has had zero losses in jersey shore in last 4 yrs.
[Following is from JF’s speech wherein he gave audience a play by play report of the game. Unfortunately, Reporter’s Notebook was not able to keep up and JF didn’t have time to fill in the missing pieces or review last night. But it captures the drama of the game.]
Miami game was tense, says Famularo, they play football there yr round. ESPN did whole showcase on football in Fla., how most graduate from univ. of Miami.
Score was up 8 nothing. Ball goes straight up, we back up, Miami recovered it, we eventually stop them on the sixth yrd line and drive them back to the 50 yrd line, 3rd and 4th qtr, there were two or three kids lying down on Miami side, too tired.
We retrive the ball, drive 65 yards to go, 8 miunuts of running on the clock. We tie them up kick the ball off to them we score, 4th qtr x mins. Left to go now it gets exciting, myer recovers the ball they drive us down to the… yd line, min and 30 left, ball was stripped , we recover it in the end zone. We thought it was over but they had 3 timeouts left on their side/ 59 sec left to go in the game, down to 19 seconds, clock running down everyone scrambling. The Qtrback, we thought that the clock was going to run out, but the center snapped the ball. The quarterback received the ball and tossed it from the ten (10) yard line. The Miami player caught it and pulled the ball in/down. The Ref said it was a TD, but the Miami player dropped it. He did a good job selling the play as a caught ball. The replay showed that he never had it. But the Ref said it was a TD, so it was a TD. Get clarification from Famularo.
Second game dominated almost all the teams we did play, overall an excellent season.
Young – lot of parental support in midget ball this year, wants to congratulate parents. Lot of work, teaching, disciplining. Left as champions and returned as champions. Kids did good job raising money, thank you to all that helped raise money.
From Blue Bishops – Tyler Blackmore – historic moment for Asbury park, Thanked students parents and pop warner parents. Thanked athletic director, coach hill, footballers are 3 and 3; you are all leaders with that comes responsibilitiy, lk forward to pop warner coming here to high school.
EJ – they keep saying our kids have no ambition, parents aren’t involved, you have united this city and made all our citizens proud, you’ve made us a City of Champions, thank you on behalf of council and the board president, you’ve made us all very proud.
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Last 59 seconds of play midgets lost 16 – 14 depriving them of the championship…but defeated E.Bruns, etc.
Blue Bishops had 11 wins for season/ defeated hpk 44- 6/ blue bishops established force to be reckoned w/ 6 state titles
EJ – ask council and board to declare Friday jan 8th 2010 to be for Pop Warner and Blue Bishops //Presents framed proclamation to the coaches and their staffs. “Winning three yrs the only word for that is champions.”

Public Session –

Rita Marano – w/ we hear report about vehicles or wait for Bruno to come back.
Council – EJ – we want to wait for Jim to come back. Next meeting.
RM – can we find a btr way to remove the snow? Interlaken has big truck and smaller one to keep the driveways clean. Main St. shd get a notice no one can park when storm is expected. I don’t know how people cd do biz here.
EJ – 22 inches of snow is a challenge. I was out there shoveling just like everybody else. City mgr no one nagged him anymore than I did. Main St. is a state route so shdn’t be any parking on that. Don’t know how to enforce that.
TR – PWDept did great job keeping ahead of storm, starts and stops, like had a mind of its own. PW guys stayed ahead - out there all night -- of it keeping roads open. Day after and day after that…probably cd do better job. Interlaken must be paying an awful lot having people shoveling driveways.
No pkg piece is a fair comment. State came in, trcks came in front loaders and dumped on empty lots on waterfront.
RM – how did APartners get into such debt $70 million?
TR – very easy they borrowed it.
RM – after millions from Esperanza, Wesley Grove and North Beach, they spent it all.
TR – hope people in city hav learned from what happened here, agreement they entered into w/ APartners everyone criticized they gave away the city/ not really/ Asb Partners was responsible for all the infrastructure, so deal w/ partners made w/ city not that lucrative for them/ if it were wdn’t hv gotten into as much trouble. Countd on economy continuing/ sunk all that what Marano noted back into infrastructure. Everyone has opinions how they managed, but when economy went into recession hey fnd themselves into situation they did, but city gets to keep the infrastructure.
Any money Asbury Partners owes that’s all being paid back to City.
Danny Weiss – 5th Ave., not as a school board member but resident.
Curfew for juveniles, he wrote about to council, wants to wk w/ council on solutions might be. Wd form committee with chf of police. Find it to be a grave concern, hours so late compared to other towns. Merits a lot of analysis.
Teretha - maybe city needs emergency mgmt plan similar to ocean grove/ no parking during snow emergencies, maybe council can lk at that.
Jim Henry – bruno wd prob say we need a plan in place for emergency removel. When people don’t move cars off street, snow gets pushed against cars, owners shovel it back into street. Maybe Bruno’s plan should be lk’d at again.
Jerry Scarano – shd be heavier penalty for vandals breaking windows, many scattered site properties vandalized the most. Charms building, think it’s sad no one from historical society to mourn loss of building. Neglect is what destroyed it. Blames it on developers. Didn’t think anyone knew 7 yrs ago it wd make it to the wrecking ball.
Lou Parisi VFW – unity in family and unity in the nation. Celebrated Kwanzaa and before that Hanakah, joined in peaceful understanding and of peace good will to men. Thanks all for support of veterans overseas and those stateside. Mission of all veterans is to support our troops and serve our youth as well, if we can be of aid pls let us know.

Public closed.
Approve minutes 16th and 24th, all present approved.
Bills totaling $443,601.88
Raffle March 27 for little league, approved
Renew liquor license 516, LLC – approved
Mary’s place use of CH – yes
Polar Plunge – fee not being waived – all yes
Resolutions
Prof appts carried to jan 20th mtg
Fixing rate of interest and yr end penalties – all yes
Insufficient check fee
Petty cash fund
Designating PNC, Sovereign, Provident, Bank of NY, Fair Haven, BoAmer.
Temporary budget until reg budget introduced Temp budget $5, 187, 000.
Ordinance –
Amend #2916 – transferring property located at 413 prospect ave, block 62, lot 48 – all yeas //this involved a name change, parties remained same.
Onsite computer – yes $15k
Dumpster disposal – 2 bidders, lo bid is Tri-State, not to exceed $55,000.
Vehicle repair – 2 bidders, low is Seacoast, $75k cap
Transmission repair– tabled
Printing – clayton press $50k cap – council thinks cap sounds low, Christine CFO says that’s just for overall city, not separate jobs that come up. JL asked for $ amount last yer pd out. Held until CFO can furnish that.
Fire Uniforms – All hands fire equip wall, $50k
Fire truck repairs - $50k cap all yes
Auto collision repairs, maaco sole bidder $25k cap
Adjourned
EJ – how are these identified, or sent down in this process, how do we prod them to make the necessary repairs.