The Newsmagazine of Long Beach Island and Southern Ocean County

By Victoria Ford | on October 19, 2022

EYESORE NO MORE: Two years after residents alerted the town to the long-neglected boat slips, the council has awarded a contract to EZ Docks to install a new floating dock system. The slips are town-owned for municipal use. (Photo by Jack Reynolds)

Differences of opinion have become more the rule than the exception at Stafford Township Council meetings lately. On several votes the governing body has been divided, with Township Attorney Jean Cipriani weighing in as an impartial voice.

With respect to a resolution on the consent agenda opposing the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s new special conditions on limited brewery licenses, Councilman Paul Krier said he felt town officials are not qualified to opine because it’s a state matter, not a township matter. Given the number of bar, restaurant and liquor store owners with deep roots in the town, he said, “it’s not fair to put our finger on the scale.”

“I don’t think this is within our realm, and I don’t feel qualified to choose winners and losers here.”

Mayor Gregory Myhre said limited licenses have been in effect for seven years or more, allowing on-premises brewing (different from distillery licenses), and he’s recently read such breweries contribute up to $2 billion to the state’s economy and employ 11,000 people. Ocean County has at least a dozen, and Manahawkin has ManaFirkin, on East Bay Avenue. The new special conditions would limit the number of public and in-house events breweries can have, and prohibit them from having a food truck onsite and from selling coffee and soda.

Liquor licenses don’t come cheap, Myhre said, adding he supports small business and homegrown products and does not support ABC “bureaucrats” forcing said changes. Councilman Robert Henken agreed with Myhre. To him the state’s restrictions, in effect since July, seem one-sided, targeted too specifically at breweries, and “doesn’t make sense in the long run.”

The resolution passed 4 to 3, with Councilmen Krier, Thomas Bresnahan and Thomas Steadman voting “no.”

In other news, six publicly owned boat slips off Jennifer Lane in Beach Haven West will be made viable once again – although the site has no boat ramp, lighting, or parking spaces associated with it. The closest ramp is at the end of Cedar Run Dock Road.

Resurrecting an issue that got a lot of air time in the last couple of years, the governing body passed a resolution awarding the contract to Easy Docks Unlimited to install a floating dock and gangway system with handrails.

Krier was the lone “no” vote, saying, “I don’t know that the town needs to be in the marina business” and “I don’t see wasting any money on this, and I don’t see this as something Stafford needs to get involved in.”

Cipriani said to take the existing dock out, the private owner would lose his access and “we would have to condemn his (one-seventh) interest in that.”

Lagoon maintenance has been the rationale – “I do think that’s essential,” Myhre said – but in Krier’s view, taxpayers should not be paying to clean and maintain the lagoons anyway.

“Nobody from the township is coming over to clean the stuff out of my backyard,” he reasoned. But who else is going to do it? Myhre asked. Krier said the problem is funding it.

Walter Boulevard residents Gary and Diane Mazzacca first brought the matter to the town’s attention in December 2020. They reported the docks had fallen into disrepair and were a safety and environmental hazard and eyesore. They also felt they were entitled to have one, citing an old master deed as part of a dockominium association agreement for the seven landlocked lots where Walter and Jennifer come together. The dockominium association has recently been dissolved.

One of the docks was and still is privately owned by Tony DeMauro, who bought his home and the boat slip that came with it in 1991; ownership of the other six was transferred to Stafford Township in 2003, since which time the slips have been township property and for municipal use at officials’ discretion.

Once the town was notified of the boat slips’ derelict condition, Cipriani explained, officials were obligated to fix them. From a liability standpoint, Township Administrator Matt von der Hayden added the Joint Insurance Fund has also recommended the dock and slips be repaired or replaced. And, because the site is subject to a waterfront development permit, any reconfiguring would require circling back to the state Department of Environmental Protection – or what amounts to, as Krier surmised, an administrative matter of “filling out a sheet of paper and sending a check.”

Myhre said he feels the docks are an asset to the town, they can be fixed up at a relatively low cost to the town, and they provide a place for the town’s fleet of fire/rescue and public works boats. He conceded the location is not ideal, given the lack of access, but at present there is no other township-owned property where they could put such a dock.

To the question of whether the public would be allowed to use it, Cipriani said it depends how the town wants to structure it and set up a set of rational rules for use.

“The fact that we own a dock doesn’t dictate how it will be used,” she said.

In his council comments, Myhre reported the the resolution of the Walter Boulevard lagoon crossing snafu of Sept. 15, when a contractor damaged a sewer line, prompting a temporary sewer bypass, affecting 10 separate lagoons.

The lagoon crossing is a tunnel 24 feet down, manhole to manhole, Myhre said. The rupture required workers to siphon out sewage from the lagoon. Roads disturbed by the incident will be repaired and restored.

It was “a very big job,” he said, but “fortunately we had two specialized contractors already working in the neighborhood at the time, P&A Construction and Kmetz directional drilling, which allowed rapid mobilization of a solution.”

Meanwhile, a sinkhole that had formed in the Colony Lakes development near one of the lakes when an old pipe partially collapsed was identified by workers with Mathis Construction, who promptly addressed the problem and sealed the pipe in the field.

Phases III and IV of the massive Beach Haven West sewer replacement project will continue as weather permits, Myhre said.

Councilman Tom Steadman gave the building and zoning report. Fans and patrons of corporate franchises can look forward to the coming Panera Bread (adjacent to the new Chick-fil-A), Dunkin’ Donuts (former Burger King), Popeyes (in Stafford Square) and Rich’s Ice Cream (near South Union Street), all under construction on Route 72, and the Jiffy Lube at Stafford Park. Jersey Shore Elite Training, a new batting cage facility, is located at 817 Route 9. A dental office is going in at Route 9 and Manor Drive, across from the Lutheran church.

During his own council comments, Krier proposed a question be placed on the November 2023 ballot to elect a charter study commission to consider a new charter and make recommendations for change to Stafford’s form of government.

In his research, he explained, Krier learned that in 1985 the town was established as Small Municipality Plan A, which is intended for municipalities with populations of 12,000 or fewer. Today its population is closer to 28,000. He noted only 1% to 2% of towns in New Jersey still operate under that plan, of which Stafford is by far the largest.

In his opinion, he said, the plan “is no longer a good fit for Stafford, as it does not provide for appropriate representation for its residents.”

Myhre said it’s 10 or 15 towns. “It may be something worth considering,” he said.

“I do think it needs to be looked at,” Krier said.

After a moment of stunned silence and confusion in the meeting room, Cipriani said she would be happy to prepare a memo about the “big and significant” process involved in a charter study commission.

Krier made the motion and Councilman Tom Bresnahan seconded; the motion failed in a vote of 4-3, with a “yes” from Tom Steadman and “no”s from Lisa Mower, Amy Otte, Bob Henken and Myhre.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The SandPaper 1816 Long Beach Boulevard, Surf City, NJ 08008-5461 Phone Number: (609) 494-5900 • Fax Number: (609) 494-1437

Our Hometown DMCA Notices Newspaper web site content management software and services