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	Long Branch hits brick wall with Reverend Kevin Brown and his lighthouse mission at 162 Broadway!  Court papers to be filed to stay off any attempts to possess before the matter is fully adjudicated!!! THE RICE SENATE HEARINGS OF 11/29 ACR 138 A RESOLUTION TO PUT THE EMINENT DOMAIN QUESTION ON BALLOT TABLED! SLIDE TO 7 HOURS:28 MIN ON TIME SLIDE CLICK HERE FOR ASSEMBLY VIDEO click here for the actual vote on ACR 138 THE BROWN REPORT SPECIAL ACR 138 ACR 138 MAY 11, 2006 HEARING MP3 ACR 138 INTRODUCED & TABLED JUNE 21, '07 A3257 FULL VERSION  |  STATEMENTS | SESSION TO WATCH ASSEMBLY AT THE EXACT MOMENT OF THE DEBATE ON A 3257 SLIDE TO 45MIN 40SEC No EDA was used in the creation of this web site BILL NORDAHL 69 YEAR OLD TENANT OF MTOTSA FORCED TO SIGN AGREEMENT WITH LONG BRANCH BY JUDGE THE PUBLIC ADVOCATE REPORT CLICK HERE VENTNOR ENDS THE ABUSE ®     Ruling heartens redevelopment foes Eminent-domain decision analyzed in Long Branch Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/14/07 BY CAROL GORGA WILLIAMS COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU LONG BRANCH — It was a very good day for those fighting the use of eminent domain in the city, if you ask advocates who oppose the local government's plan to remake neighborhoods along the oceanfront. Reacting to a state Supreme Court decision that invalidated an "area in need of redevelopment" for waterfront property in Paulsboro, Gloucester County, Lori Ann Vendetti, one of the founders of the MTOTSA group and an active meber of the StopEDA Coalition said, "It is a victory, and we don't get a lot of victories. . . . It felt wonderful." "I think we've got a whole new ball game," added Harold Bobrow, who with his wife, Michelle, owns a seasonal home in the proposed Beachfront South redevelopment zone. MTOTSA — which stands for Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace, Seaview Avenue Alliance — is a group of about 20 property owners who are fighting the city's attempt to take their homes for the second phase of Beachfront North. Their case is in the Appellate Division of Superior Court. "It took a long time but it was well worth it," Vendetti said. "People are listening." However, City Attorney James G. Aaron said the decision is actually a good one for the city because it upheld the legality of the state Local Redevelopment and Housing Law. State Public Advocate Ronald K. Chen, who filed a friend of the court brief for MTOTSA, did the same for George Gallenthin and his wife, Cindy, who owned a waterfront tract that Paulsboro wanted to acquire for a redevelopment project. The town determined the vacant land was "underutilized," or not fully productive, but the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ruled that if that were the sole criterion, virtually any property in New Jersey could be taken. "This decision binds the appellate division, which right now is considering the Long Branch case," said Chen, who noted that part of the city's rationale for redeveloping the MTOTSA enclave was it too was not fully productive. The ability to go ahead on that basis "was significantly limited in today's decision so the court will take that into account," Chen said. City attorney's view Aaron, though, noted that the justices maintained that when redevelopment is contemplated, it must be done so more thoroughly than was was done in Paulsboro. "When you apply that rationale to the Long Branch case, the Long Branch analysis the Planning Board did was so far superior to what Paulsboro did that it puts the city of Long Branch in the position of arguing in its appeal that the Supreme Court's decision in Paulsboro can be used to actually support the Long Branch factual scenario," the attorney said. Long Branch used several categories to declare the MTOTSA neighborhood "an area in need of redevelopment," he said. "One of the other things the court did in fact say: If you are just saying that I have a Motel 6 on the property and it should be a Hilton Hotel, you can't do that in New Jersey . . . which is far from what Long Branch faced with the condition of the waterfront redevelopment area," Aaron said. R. William Potter, whose law firm argued on behalf of the Gallenthins, said of the decision: "It pulls the rug out from anybody who believes property can simply be taken so it can be transferred to somebody else. I think this is the death knell for the anything-goes redevelopment we've seen in the last few years." Potter contended the ruling could help the MTOTSA residents. "If the standards set forth in this case are applied to Long Branch, MTOTSA and Beachfront South, then their property cannot be condemned and the long nightmare may be over," Potter said. "I emphasize the word "may' because the reviewing court still may have to apply this decision to a case that has been ongoing for a long time. . . . If these principles are used, then their nightmare is over. I just hope and pray it is not too late." More interpretations Peter H. Wegener, the Lakewood lawyer representing the majority of MTOTSA property owners, who submitted a brief in support of the Paulsboro property owners, said there is no way to read the decision that doesn't help his clients. "The court has made it clear that they are not going to let condemnors get away with a very cursory net opinion, and an analysis and surveys of the kind that were carried out in Long Branch," Wegener said. "They are going to make sure the real spirit of the law is carried out and not let municipalities rely on the idea they can do everything they want and there'll be no judicial review unless it is arbitrary and capricious." Robert S. Goldsmith, who submitted a brief in the Gallenthin case for the state League of Municipalities, Downtown New Jersey Inc. and the New Jersey Chapter of the American Planning Association, said the decision is not a defeat for those advocating redevelopment. Goldsmith said issues such as the right of government to assemble properties for redevelopment and the right to use eminent domain, remain intact. "The court said redevelopment applies to blight," Goldsmith said. "From any reasonable point of view, Beachfront North was blighted." Goldsmith said the decision basically affirmed the state's position that taking land purely for economic development was not constitutional while it also said taking land for redevelopment was constitutional. "It sounds to me that you cannot do redevelopment for economic development reasons, and that is not what we are doing," said Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider. "You've got to show a blighted area. You've got to show an area in distress. We've always contended we've done that. . . . It seems to me we're in pretty good shape." ON THE WEB: Visit our Web site and look under Special Reports for a link to Private Property/Public Gain: The Battle Over Eminent Domain for interactive content, maps, video and more. Also, click on this story to join the online conversation about this topic in Story Chat.   Mayor is not so popular now Long Branch leader tries to defend what makes most folks cringe: eminent domain Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/16/06 The other night, a woman got up at the Long Branch City Council meeting and began talking about the beaches along the shoreline, wondering which ones were still public and which ones were now private. She knew the answer, but she wanted to be heard nonetheless; she wanted her outrage on record. They were taking their land and their homes, she said, keeping her voice down as best she could. Now the beaches too? "Where does it stop?" she asked as she backed away from the microphone. The council had no answer for her, not that she was expecting one. Others followed. They, too, were angry. Only now their anger was on simmer, probably because of the empty chair at the front of the room. The mayor was not there. He was on vacation. The anger in the room seemed unfocused. The residents of Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace and Seaview Avenue seemed somewhat lost without their lightning rod. There would be no impassioned speeches on this night, no wild scenes, nothing that might remind you, say, of the last days of the French Revolution. Adam Schneider was on vacation. For the people who are about to lose their homes in the name of progress, the mayor represents the abuse of power, specifically the power of eminent domain. For these people, his is the face of governmental tyranny. The power of eminent domain has been broadened over the years, to the point where it has become a hot-button issue that is quickly spreading across the land. Taking someone's home to build a road or a hospital or a school is one thing. Taking someone's home to hand it over to a developer is quite another. That's the way most people feel about it. Along with large top-heavy corporations reneging on promises and denying longtime employees their rightful pensions, the government's perceived abuse of the power of eminent domain enrages Americans more than anything. It's as if someone came along and told you to forget everything you ever learned as a child. That moral code was no longer operative. The distinction between right and wrong was suddenly too blurry to make out. This is what infuriates people so. This is what makes the prospect of eminent domain abuse so very repugnant to us. And it is repugnant. The idea of someone taking away someone else's home so a third party might profit from the transaction is absolutely repugnant. "I don't disagree," says Schneider. Philosophically, that is. Pragmatically, he sees it another way. Based on his leadership in the matter of this small city's redevelopment, Schneider has become a symbol for what ails our entire society. He even made the cut on a Web site that lists the 300 worst so-and-so's in the world, all because of the redevelopment plan for Long Branch. "It was overwhelmingly popular for many years," he says now, "and rather suddenly and harshly it became unpopular." The change of heart came about in the fall of 2003, he says, during his fourth term. He had been re-elected in a landslide, but when the leaves began to turn a year later, he found himself on the fast track to infamy. "I have long since stopped worrying about what people think of me," he says. "We were elected to do what we think is right, not what's popular." Schneider was re-elected again this year. The margin of victory was slim. The 70 percent mandate was no longer there. But he feels most people in Long Branch still believe in the redevelopment plan, even though everyone cringes at the thought of little old ladies being thrown out in the street. In real life, it was never going to be like that. Even with the bulldozers at their doorstep, even with boarded-up houses all around them, even now, with the judge having upheld the city's right to exercise the power of eminent domain, the residents of the tiny battleground by the sea were going to get "more than market value" plus other considerations, according to the mayor. "We are more than willing to provide homeowners in the area with condos in the new project and to make it affordable for them," he insists. "We'll figure out a way. We know they can't afford those condos, but we'll make it affordable for them. We will make it work. We will make it work." Is he saying all these things now because of the potential for even more of a public relations disaster? "You know what?" Schneider says. "Public relations be damned." Up until a few days ago, I had never met the man. As both a politician and a lawyer, he already had two strikes on him before he even got the bat off his shoulder as far as I was concerned. But after a couple of hours, I was convinced he believed in what he was doing, not that I agreed with him. Of course, I don't live on Marine Terrace or Ocean Terrace or Seaview Avenue, and there's no bulldozer parked across the street from my house. That could color your thinking some. Schneider never wavers in his conviction, though. He and the council have been working on this plan since 1992, he says. They took their time and didn't sign on with a developer until 2000, he says. They did everything by the book and they had the people of the city behind them, and everything was going along smoothly as the new Long Branch oceanfront inched its way north. Then, in the fall of 2003, residents who had an opportunity to voice their concern as far back as 1996 were suddenly up in arms. That's the way the mayor saw it. And on top of that, they were unwilling to negotiate. Now there is trouble, and the whole world is watching. "If you don't do it this way, what's going to happen to the city?" Schneider wonders. "There's no money coming from the state. The federal government isn't going to step in. So what do you do? "It's an extremely complicated issue that has only gotten emotional coverage. . . . Emotionally we're done; we're dead. We lost this argument from day one." Yet he presses on, trying to defend a concept that's abhorrent to most of us, being vilified every step of the way. For what? "There comes a time when a town is so bad off that it justifies exactly what we've done," Schneider says, "when the greater good of the community outweighs the rights of the individual property owner. "If you look at a zone like this and you leave it alone," he adds, "then you are being immoral." Bill Handleman is an Asbury Park Press columnist. E-mail: handle@app.com   GOV REMARKS LITIGATION SUPPORTED Lower Broadway LONG BRANCH CHRISTIANS AGAINST EDA HELP FUND THIS IMPORTANT RESOURCE FOR FOLKS SUFFERING UNDER EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE.  WE STRIVE TO GIVE ALL PEOPLE UNDER THE STRESS OF DEVELOPMENT A VOICE ONLINE TO SPEAK OUT! PUBLISHED BY: KEVIN BROWN, LONG BRANCH, NJ 732.222.6224 PART OF THE LONG BRANCH NETWORK OF WEB SITES LONGBRANCH.TV | FREELONGBRANCH.COM |  LONGBRANCH.NET NJEMINENTDOMAINABUSE.COM | JERSEYKEV.COM | LIGHTHOUSE Jesus Is Lord