There’s a funny battle going on in Colts Neck between the local zoning board and Donald Trump, he of the hair that looks like he’s wearing a weasel pelt on his noggin, dyed orange. Trump, who owns the Trump National Golf Club in that community, really, really wants to put in a helipad at the place so he won’t have to waste time driving down from New York, or wherever, so that he can get some exercise on the links.
His first step was to apply for the monstrosity with the ColtsNeck Zoning Board of Adjustment, which turned him down. Nobody out there wants helicopters buzzing in and out of that affluent and bucolic community, creating safety problems and degrading the quality of life for the other people who own expensive properties — like Bruce Springsteen, who has a home there — and seemto be able to access them quite well without choppers.
So Trump, who isn’t used to taking no for an answer, went around the local zoning board.
According to a story in Greater Media’s newspaper, the News Transcript, he filed a lawsuit to overturn the decision and it’s in Superior Court.
He also applied for permission to build his helipad to the state Department of Transportation, which apparently caved in totally. On March 1, the DOT told Colts Neck officials that it had given conditional approval to Trump’s helipad at the course.
Included in those conditions are that there won’t be more than 48 non-emergency landings and take-offs a year, all that coming and going will take place during daylight hours — except emergency landings, which can be made at night — and my absolute favorite, that the helipad can be used only by Trump, his family, or a “designee.”
In other words, DOT dumped all over the zoning board’s decision so that one, badhaired, big shot (plus family and designees) can land his helicopter in a community where everyone else — including the Springsteens — have to drive, be driven, or hitchhike. Is this a great state, or what?
To their everlasting credit, the folks on the Colts Neck Zoning Board of Adjustment and the Township Committee aren’t giving up without a fight. They directed their special counsel, Michael Steib, to “vigorously defend” their denial of the helipad in Superior Court, and to appeal the DOT’s ridiculous decision with that agency.
“In this case, the committee feels that the state did not act responsibly and failed to properly consider the township’s ordinances, land use regulations and the local interests of the township or its residents,” Mayor Jarrett Engel said at the March 28 meeting of the committee. “In short, this application should never have been approved, and it must be appealed and reversed.”
No kidding! I say that if Donald Trump wants to come to Monmouth County and get in a quick 18 holes at his golf course, he ought to have to run the speed trap gauntlets in and around Colts Neck like everyone else.
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While we’re on the subject of golf (sort of) did anyone hear the story last week about the guy who scored four hard-to-get tickets to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga., only to come home and find that the only bits of the tickets left after his dog, Sierra, ate them were a few chewed pieces and the strings that the tickets had been attached to? I would have given up at that point, but not Russ Berkman of Seattle, who owned the quickly digesting tickets. On the advice of a veterinarian, he gave the pooch a dose of hydrogen peroxide as an emetic, and 10 minutes later, the dog ralphed ’em back up.
Needless to say, the tickets were a little worse for wear, but Berkman pieced what was left of them back together — about 70 percent — took pictures, and then called the folks at Augusta to explain his little problem. His tickets were reprinted, and all’s well. No word on how Sierra feels about the whole thing, but KJR Sports Radio posted a number of photos of the reconstituted tickets on its website. I suggest you wait until after breakfast to call them up.
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My old friend Dave Simpson — a conservative with whom I used to co-write the Red State/Blue State column — and I don’t agree on much when it comes to politics, but we’ve always shared a love of the outdoors and a semi-twisted sense of humor. So when I got a message from him telling me that he “had to insist” that I watch a program called “Duck Dynasty” that airs Wednesday nights on A&E (now in its second season), and called it “the best thing on television,” I told him that I would.
The premise of the program is a little strange. This extended family in Louisiana named the Robertsons — the men all have long hair and beards that make them look like members of ZZ Top — made millions of dollars in the duck call business. The show follows the day-to-day business and puts them in situations that give them a chance to do weird stuff— like blowing up duck blinds, sneaking into the country club at night to catch frogs for fried frogs legs, their favorite food, and speaking at fourth-grade career day (they demonstrated how to clean a duck).
But it also gives them ample opportunity to pass on the backwoods humor and wisdom that mademe laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe, like this gem: After his wife sells his favorite, stinky recliner at a yard sale, Phil, the paterfamilias, explains why he isn’t angry at his bride. “Women are like Labrador retrievers; they all have quirks,” he says. “After being married to the same one 45, 50 years, you learn to go with the quirks.” Or Uncle Si, bemoaning the impersonality of high-tech communication: “Today with computers, if you’re dating some little old girl, you can’t even smell her,” he says. “Girls smell nice.”
Howcould I have missed this? It is the best thing on television, bar none — and the perfect antidote to Donald Trump. If you haven’t seen it already, give it a look. You’ll thank me (unless you’re my wife).
Gregory Bean is the former executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at [email protected].