Hold onto your hats, folks. Yessiree, this one’s a whopper. Just when you think West Long Branch can’t make any more idiotic decisions, they surprise you again.
What are they doing now, you ask? They’re moving the police department up to the new borough hall on Broadway. Reason: mold in the department headquarters.
Now, I don’t doubt there is mold, but what have they been doing? Staring at it long enough to have it become an expensive cleanup project? What do you do if you have mold in your house? Cross your fingers and hope it goes away? Peter Cooper Village has had it for years. I don’t see anybody wanting to bulldoze that place and start again. Maybe we can move the village up to Broadway along with the police department. Their mold problem is just as important as the cops’, right?
Councilman Joseph DeLisa stated at a meeting that the old borough hall offices were too small to move the police department there. Really? The present police department quarters are tight, that’s true. But moving them upstairs would be like you and I going from an efficiency apartment to a five-bedroom center-hall colonial. They’d have more space than they would know what to do with. That’s not counting the old Borough Council meeting room that could be the new courtroom; therefore, the new court would be twice the size of the current one.
When asked what would happen to the old borough offices and police department, DeLisa responded that maybe it would be demolished and the land sold. Now, there’s a bright idea. No money needed to do that. After all, it’s only still attached to the community center and library. And just what would they squish in there? I know — how about a Burger King?
But variances would be required, you say. Ah … but the mayor and Planning Board grants anything and everything to businesses here. No problem with them.
This can add to all those new ratables Mayor Paul Zambrano likes to boast about. We should be dancing in the streets with our taxes going down (not). Oops, sorry. We can’t dance in the streets — we can’t move in the streets because of all the newly created traffic, thanks to the decisions of our Planning Board. However, Councilman Richard Cooper stated at a meeting that, "When we want to spend money, we have to raise taxes. We don’t have [new] ratables to offset the increase." That’s coming from the council’s representative to the Planning Board. What does he think he’s been approving all this time?
I almost forgot. When they move the police department, they’re going to build them a nice, new fitness center. It seems, I guess, that our cops have been chowing down on too many Twinkies and now they have to get in shape to catch all the criminals in town. I remember when they bought the Broadway property, they said the extra land was going to children’s recreational activities.
Being good-hearted, trusting residents, we bought that "dog and pony" show. Guess we’ll never see any balls kicked around on that grass.
But listen, folks, if our tax dollars pay for this fitness center, it’s only fair that we should all be able to use it too, right? Since our police department is now co-ed, ladies would be welcome also. We could all pump iron together. Why should they have all the fun on our nickel?
I have to say that council members Richard Cooper and Janet Tucci did vote no on the project. At least their brains haven’t turned to mush yet. Either that, or they were designated the token "no" votes. Appearances are important, you know. In the last couple of elections, everyone including the mayor has been running unopposed. Now I guess most of them think they can do whatever they want without fear of being run out of town. It sure isn’t like the old days. It must be that security makes one feel pretty powerful.
Speaking of the past, a while back, the old subject of changing the name of West Long Branch came up again. A lot of names were tossed around, but none hit the nail on the head. If the subject comes up again, I’ve got one that’s perfect: Stupidville.
Kathleen S. Elfner
West Long Branch