Photos taken mid- to late-morning Sunday by Philipp Schmidt for the Riverside Signal.

All images are (C) Riverside Signal, LLC and may not be used without explicit permission.

Photos taken mid-day Saturday by Erik Weber for the Riverside Signal.

All images are (C) Riverside Signal, LLC and may not be used without explicit permission.

SOUTH TOMS RIVER – Last night, members of the South Toms River Office of Emergency Management convened to discuss preparations of the impending hurricane. Below is a summation of that meeting, as provided via e-mail by Councilman Sandford A. “Sandy” Ross, Jr.

Recap of OEM Special Meeting August 25, 2011 19:00 hours
Regarding preparation status for impending Hurricane Irene

Meeting called to order by South Toms River Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Kevin McCormack.

Current forecast & time line: storm is tracking to pass north through central New Jersey with sustained winds near 100 MPH and heavy rains causing substantial flooding. The main impact of the storm is expected in our area starting Saturday morning and lasting until late Sunday evening. Expect high winds, heavy rain & flooding with probable power outages possibly for extended periods of time. Tides expected at 4 feet above normal.

Reports on preparedness status as follows:

Ocean County OEM expects to activate local OEM Friday morning. Evacuation is not called at this time but may be implemented based upon actual conditions.

STR Police Department: two patrolmen on scheduled duty each shift with minimum of two additional on call.

STR First Aid Squad: Both ambulances and first responder vehicle all in service with all squad members scheduled at the squad building or on call.

Manitou Park Volunteer Fire Department: All equipment & vehicles including dive team & boat in service with minimum of twenty members on standby for entire event.

STR Public Works: equipment to be fueled and available if needed.

STR administration and finance: Mayor, most council members & CFO will be available for the duration of the event to assist as needed.

Animal evacuation plans are in place with contact information distributed to all involved.

Reminder for all involved organizations to track status of employees & volunteers and times on duty for each.

What follows is a general archive of the Riverside Signal, January through December 2010, when it existed solely as an internet newssite. We are currently working on combining our archive with the contemporary printed material in a way that will benefit our readers, and expect results to begin appearing this Spring.

In the meantime, the Riverside Signal can be picked up at the locations listed on the home page, and subscriptions are available to ensure our readers don’t miss a single issue, whether they live in our coverage area or far beyond it.

Please feel free to send any and all questions to RiversideSignal@gmail.com

by Philipp Schmidt

SOUTH TOMS RIVER – Children across this borough will soon have reason to celebrate, with the imminent arrival and installation of new playground equipment at three existing recreation sites, here, and the creation of a new fourth play area.

The new equipment will arrive and be installed at the three existing play areas, located at Brookforest Beach, the Recreation Center/ballfields, and Center Street near the Wells Chapel Church. The fourth new play area, to become a “tot lot”, will be installed in the residential Center Homes area.

William Gleason, chairman of the South Toms River Recreation Commission, praised the borough council for recently approving the utilization of approximately $99,000 from the capital expense budget to go toward a matching grant with Game Time, a playground equipment manufacturing and installation company owned by Tennessee-based PlayCore, Inc.

One of the reasons for researching new equipment, he said, was because the current equipment in the borough was due to expire its compliance under the American Disabilities Act (ADA) in 2013, which would have rendered the play areas closed to the public.

“That got the fire under the council to allow me to go further to look for playground equipment,” the chairman said, who added that in the process a cache of previously-ordered playground equipment was discovered within borough storage at the old marina gas station in Mathis Plaza. Though well beyond its ADA compliance, he made note of the supply company, which turned out to be Game Time.

Upon contacting representatives for that company, Mr. Gleason was told that “it was cheaper and easier to buy a new piece [of playground equipment] than rehabilitate the existing pieces because of insurance.”

“We could fix the old equipment so it could be compliant, but as soon as we touched the equipment, their insurance stops, and they have millions and millions of dollars of insurance for that, and we can’t take responsibility of it,” he continued. “You can sell it [to a private individual or firm], you just can’t use it as a public playground.”

As he researched further and held discussions with the company representative, Mr. Gleason stated that “a grant came available just coincidentally [covering 50 percent of the cost of new equipment], so we’re getting $200,000 worth of equipment for $100,000.”

“It’s their own grant – Game Time is huge,” he continued. “He offered it to us, and our ADA compliance was actually going to say, ‘in two years, close the parks.’”

“We would have absolutely no playgrounds,” the chairman added. “The ADA compliance doesn’t mean that it’s dangerous; it just means that it’s not good enough for a disabled person.”

One item he knew from memory that would need to be completely removed was a large, metal slide at the Brookforest Beach playground.

“It’s not even close – we can’t feasibly do anything with it,” he said. “It’s made of metal, for one thing, which means it can get boiling hot. You need to put signs in there saying this equipment may be hot – that was the easy part. The hard part is that it’s too high, and there’s no railing to keep somebody from falling [down] the 15-foot drop.”

Another piece, also at Brookforest, was a domed jungle gym.

“That dome has two rails running down the top center of it, and you could put your head in and turn it and it’d be a choking hazard,” Mr. Gleason said. “If you’re a four-foot person, you would hang there, you would die.”

“We can cut that bar, but as soon as we cut [it], it’s the borough’s insurance, not Game Time,” he continued. “When we buy the Game Time equipment – if anything happens, the borough is not going to take the fall for it.”

“We’re spending $99,000 now, which, I know, is a lot of money, but unfortunately gone are the days when we could just have wood donated and have guys build it – it just doesn’t work,” said Council President George Greitz, Jr. “The fact that we’re getting the installation included, so we’re going to get four major areas covered for $99,000 – that’s phenomenal, and this is probably the only instance where the bad economy is working in our favor, because they need to get the work, they’re willing to do the labor as a part of the cost for buying the equipment, and there’s no extra fee.”

“It’s very important that professional people install it correctly and properly, so that kids aren’t hurt and nobody’s hurt and the equipment lasts,” he continued. “The money was there and the plans were there for a lot of things, whether to work on this building or buy that ambulance, [but] having it on paper is nice but you actually have to go out and get some of this stuff.”

“That’s what a capital expense budget is for,” agreed Councilman Sanford Ross.

The next meeting of the borough council will be held on Saturday, January 1st, 2011 at noon in borough hall on Mill Street.

SOUTH TOMS RIVER – This Saturday, kick back and enjoy a holiday season blast of The King at Elvis Christmas Spectacular, taking place from 11 am to 4 pm in the South Toms River Recreation Center. Besides having fun getting down to a mix of the favorites, all proceeds will benefit the South Toms River Municipal Alliance, which provides educational tools and awareness to children, adolescents and teens in the fight against drug and alcohol use.

The Recreation Center is located at 1 Drake Lane. Tickets are $15 at the door; memorabilia and light refreshments will be available. Call (732)818-3330 for more information.

Haitian-American Mayor-Elect: “It is a new day.”

by Erik Weber

SOUTH TOMS RIVER – Records were set and old legacies broken this past election when voters here handed Democratic Councilman Joseph M. Champagne, a Haitian-born American citizen, a mayoral race election win, making him the first black American to be elected to the office by voters in Ocean County.

The late Republican Berkeley Township Committeeman Ed Tolbert, formerly of Manitou Park, earned the distinction of first African-American mayor in the county when he was elected to the position by fellow committee members of that municipality in the early 1970s under the old committee form of government.

Mr. Champagne defeated Councilman George J. Greitz, Jr. in the tight South Toms River Borough mayoral race to earn the title and distinction by a final vote count of 419 to 378. Mr. Greitz has served the borough alternately as councilman and mayor for much of the past 30 years, and his current term is set to expire on December 31st. The borough’s current mayor, Michael Keene, chose not to run for re-election, and his single term in the position will also expire at the end of the year.

Mr. Champagne’s status as the first voter-elected black mayor of the county was confirmed yesterday by Ocean County Clerk Scott M. Colabella.

Borough voters also elected both sides of the Democratic Party ticket, narrowly bringing Marvin Sykes and Donald J. Williams onto the council while blocking C. Bertram Plante, a former borough councilman, and William Gleason, the chair of the recreation commission, from the two spots that opened up when Mr. Greitz chose to run for the office of mayor and Councilman Oscar Cradle chose not to run for re-election. Mr. Sykes earned 397 votes, or 25.5 percent of the overall vote, and Mr. Williams took home 400 votes, or 25.69 percent of the overall vote. Mr. Gleason came in at 372 votes, or 23.89 percent of the overall vote, while Mr. Plante received 386 votes, or 24.79 percent of the overall vote. Two write-in ballots were received for 0.13 percent of the overall vote total.

When contacted via telephone shortly after receiving the final vote count, the mayor-elect was exuberant.

“Winning the election itself meant so much not only to myself and my team but also to the people of the town,” he said. “I feel the people of the town had their voice heard for the first time in a long time – they came out in droves to make a statement that it is a new day, it is a new time, and it will be done in a new way.”

With the election aside, Mr. Champagne said he was looking forward to putting “party politics aside.”

“We’re not a Democratic town or a Republican town – we’re simply a small town with a big heart,” he stated, echoing part of what has become a well-known moniker to describe the borough by its residents. “That is what I actually saw in my 30 hours of canvassing, going door-to-door and speaking with folks and really feeling their vibes – I know I ran as a Democrat but at some point I did not really stick to the script of just knocking on the doors of Democratic residents.”

“I did knock on some doors [of Republican residents] because I was running for mayor of this town and all its residents, not just the Democrats, so I felt compelled to actually knock on every door, be it Democrat or Republican or undecided,” the mayor-elect continued. “I was very elated that the Democrats came out in droves, but I have a strong feeling that we did have some Republicans who actually came out to support our ticket.”

He noted that friends and associates that live as far away as Connecticut, a number of them Republican, aided in the canvassing, including local attorney Daniel Simmons, whom Mr. Champagne considers a mentor.

“He decided to put his legal practice aside for the day of the election and came out to walk with me and to support my local candidacy,” said Mr. Champagne. “He felt compelled to do so because he does not look at me as a Democrat; he looks at me as this young man with this heart that is open for those who are truly receptive to positive change and receptive to progress.”

The election win marks a positive end for a year that began with tragedy for Mr. Champagne and his family, when his sister was lost during the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in January. In the months following the disaster, the councilman rallied to organize groups of residents, local business and organizations to provide aid to the people of his ailing home country.

The Republican candidates were reportedly shocked by the election results, and the borough’s election results bucked the county, state and national trends that saw a wave of Republican wins over Democrats.

When reached by telephone for comment, Mr. Plante stated that he felt the Democrats had won all the borough races because the “[John] Adler campaign had a big effort in town that seemed to be successful to the extent that it got a lot of voters out in South Toms River.”

Mr. Adler was later defeated in his congressional race against Republican and former Eagles football player Jon Runyon.

Mr. Williams felt that last Tuesday’s election appeared to turn out more voters in South Toms River than the 2008 election that saw national record-high voter turnout for the hotly contested presidential race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. Mr. Obama later won that race to become the country’s first African-American president.

“A lot of people came out just for this election,” continued Mr. Williams. “They realized how important it was, and we were blessed, we really were.”

Mr. Greitz wished Mr. Champagne and the two councilmen-elect the best.

“Of course I was disappointed,” he said. “I wish the victors good luck and hope that everything proceeds well and that they do what’s best for the residents – I’m going to be there as a resident to make sure about that, and if I think something’s wrong, I’ll voice my opinion.”

As to whether he would run again in the future, the councilman said he did not know.

“I love this town and was asked [to run] this year, but I’m not sure if I will in the future because there are a lot of younger guys now looking to run, and I don’t want to be the old guy in everybody’s way,” he stated. “But I’d like to see how things progress and go from there – for now I’m a resident.”

“We’ll see how it goes next year,” Mr. Greitz repeated.

A large issue Mr. Williams said he had regarding the election was that the current local daily newspaper, the Asbury Park Press, ignored South Toms River and all other local municipal races and election results, continuing a trend that has included waves of layoffs and the closing of bureaus in both Ocean and Monmouth counties in the face of declining readership and a poor economy while installing a national news section copied entirely out of USA Today and increasing the amount of paid newswire reports. The Asbury Park Press and USA Today are owned by corporate newspaper conglomerate Gannett Company, Inc., based out of McLean, Virginia.

“There was nothing about it in the Asbury Park Press,” the councilman-elect stated, “yet another team that won mayor and council, in Point Pleasant Borough, got a half page write-up.”

In that borough, former mayor and Republican-turned-Democrat William Schroeder, commanded a landslide upset against Republican favorite Susan Rogers, a first-term councilwoman who in recent months had stirred up controversy among borough residents and employees by taking unpopular views on sharp cost-cutting measures, among other things. Voters there split the win for the two parties, with one candidate from each taking a spot on council.

“There was zero mention about us,” he said.

Mr. Sykes did not respond to messages left asking for comment for this article, and Mr. Gleason could not be reached at press time.

The next meeting of the South Toms River Borough Council will be on Monday, November 15th, at 7 pm in borough hall on Mill Street.