My Last Campaign Letter To The Ocean Star

Editor, The Ocean Star:

When this election began and I submitted my first statement to The Ocean Star. I wrote that there is one factor above all that should matter most for our community in these difficult times when they choose who they want to make the decisions that will affect their families-Values.

Whenever we prepare to vote, for any election, but especially this one that affects us so directly, we must consider the criteria each of the candidates will use to make those decisions. There is no debate over controlling taxes, making difficult cuts, and finding the most effective ways to share services and responsibilities; these things must be done, but when representatives are weighing the pros and cons of the toughest choices, one wants to know that the person making those decisions values the same things they value.

If the budget demands a choice between closing the borough offices and eliminating services, or cutting attorneys and consultants fees, which would you choose? If the choice was between officers and detectives or security cameras in some neighborhoods, which would you rather have after your car or home is broken into? If it was the residents’ decision, would they freeze capital expenditures or continue to bond the town further into debt? Well, it is their decision. Residents should take the next few days to consider the issue that’s most important to them and call or e-mail the candidates, ask them what they would do and tell them what they themselves would do. That’s the difference between private and public administration, in business you work for the boss, but in public service we work for the people.

I ask the residents to go to the polls Nov. 2 and vote for Bill Schroeder, Bob Rusk, and myself and help elect a team that will put all Point Pleasant residents first, a team that shares their family’s concerns, aspirations, and values.

Thank you very much to everyone who has offered their support, their thoughts and suggestions, everyone who’s stopped us on the street or invited us into their homes, and everyone who’s taken the time to talk to their neighbors, make a phone call, or put up a sign. I look forward to giving back to this wonderful community.

CHRISTOPHER GOSS, DEMOCRATIC COUNCIL CANDIDATE
Kilkare Parkway, Point Pleasant

Barbara Marino's Letter To The Ocean Star

Editor, The Ocean Star:

Oh my gosh! On the morning of Oct. 21, the top headline on page one of a large, local daily newspaper was absurd and conspicuously wrong in its placement.

The very headline is inaccurate, perpetrating a falsehood spread by Susan Rogers, a candidate running for mayor. While the headline reads “Point Pleasant, NJ, candidate charges board member attacked her son, 12, on Facebook,” the reporter states that the board member said she did not condone what was said! The board member, according to article, did not attack, cyber-bully or anything even remotely similar. Yet, the article continues its obvious mistakes with the first sentence, stating “politics in this town have become so nasty…” There is much wrong with that sentence, but two things for starters: one, it is Rogers who has engaged in salt-the-earth character assassination politics since the day she first appeared on the scene, but also it makes it seem that her adversaries are doing the same thing, when all that has come out from the campaign of Schroeder, Goss and Rusk has been on the issues.

I cannot believe that there were no other newsworthy stories for the front page. Let’s see if I can help. Page Ten, “Garden State lost 20,200 jobs in September”. That story relates to the whole state, not just a town and a town of people who know the truth about how dirty Ms. Rogers runs her campaigns. If the newspaper wanted to stay with the “harassing” issue, the article at the bottom of B1, “Brick man pleads guilty to threatening Latino groups” was much more newsworthy and definitely a true case of cyber-bullying. Why was it relegated to the bottom of B1? Was it because it did not involve Ms. Rogers and her attempt to arouse sensationalism making her a victim just before the election?

If Ms. Rogers was truly concerned with her son’s well-being, she would have quietly had the post removed and quietly addressed the issue with the person involved — who was neither the board member or Mr. Goss. Instead, she e-mailed the press — publicizing the issue for her own personal political ambition rather than considering the well-being of her son, and how so much press on this issue would affect the poor boy.

Mr. Goss’s comments are right on target — too bad his comments were tucked at the end of the article. Ms. Rogers’ using police power to harass her political opponent is unethical and an abuse of power. That is the real story here. Too bad we don’t have a newspaper to report it.

The above letter is my opinion and does not reflect any other’s views or the views of any other newspaper.

BARBARA MARINO
Howe Street, Point Pleasant

Pat Gottschalk's Endorsement Letter

Dear Point Pleasant residents,

 It is with great pleasure as the former Republican Municipal Chairperson for 12 years, charter member of the Point Pleasant Republican Club, and County Committeewoman, to have the honor of endorsing Bill Schroeder for mayor of Point Pleasant.

I think you will agree that one of the hardest decisions to deal with in any political race is for someone who is a member of one party to endorse a candidate who is a member of another party. But that is not a hard decision when it is the right thing to do.

I know there are many good Republicans in Point Pleasant who will vote for the best candidate, regardless of party affiliation.

They will vote for the best candidate to unite and lead the town in a rational manner. They will vote for the person who is most qualified and will do the best job for ALL residents, regardless of party affiliation.

They will vote for someone who respects the residents who live in Point Pleasant and the employees who work for Point Pleasant while being fiscally responsible and making sure everyone can afford to live in Point Pleasant.

 I have worked on many political campaigns at the national, state, county and local level in New Jersey and have served as a campaign manager for 26 successful campaigns, without a loss; in Point Pleasant before retiring in 2006 and am saddened to see how the negative tone of this year's Republican campaign has divided Point Pleasant.

We need strong leadership that can build bridges - not burn bridges. We need Bill Schroeder and his team to bring Point Pleasant back to a community people are proud to call home.
    

 Sincerely,

 Pat Gottschalk

"My Home Town" From Tom Davis' Fantastic "Coping With Life" Blog

From Tom Davis, Jersey Shore regional of Patch.com and publisher of Coping-with-Life.com

Please take a look at this wonderful Blog

http://www.coping-with-life.com/

"Where I'm from, the small forests are still dense and filled with entangled trees. The ocean, the rivers and creeks are still blue and clear, and still far removed from the smokestacks and the Snookis that have long defined what's "Jersey."

It's always a good time to take a 5-mile run around Twilight Lake, because the view is serene and timeless. The sun rays lay like sparkling rods of orange across the water, and behind it, a slow-moving train occasionally pulls in and out of the Bay Head station, a well-preserved reminder of the area's past and present.

Whenever I see it all, I'm always reminded: Point Pleasant is a great place to live; not just to visit.

In some ways, Point Pleasant, like its surrounding towns of the Jersey Shore, has more beauty than it had 17 years ago, when I last lived there. There are more parks for kids to play in. The run-down stores, and the beaten-down woods at the end of my old block, now have life.

My house is gone, leveled by a wrecking ball in 2003, soon after my mother died. But the block is better, and the houses that once looked like they were falling down are now solid and stately.

If only we had a Dairy Queen just a few houses away while I was growing up in the 1970s ad 1980s; now, the people of Barton Avenue do. Now, sitting on what was a vacant lot, where the kids once threw rocks and broke windows at the vacant stores at the corner, there's something else for the kids and their families to do.

With every community, however, there's always some attempt to taint it, and change what's there for what they say is better, but it's actually worse. Even Point Pleasant isn't immune to having a Mr. Potter-like political boss whose obsessive control ultimately threatens to drain the community of its spirit.

Even Point Pleasant has been threatened time and again by developers who want to come to town, build a big box store and pull away the small businesses that have kept the downtowns of Bridge and Arnold avenues afloat, and unique.

But even amid the name-calling and the potential lies of a political campaign, an ugly partisan battle that has dominated the local dialogue lately, Point Pleasant remains rich in splendor, and not so much because of its natural charm. It's the people, and they remain the glue that keeps everything together.

Now, in an ugly election year, they are fighting back against deception and fear. They are showing the strength that's helped keep the town the way it is, even as corruptive forces have, for years, tried to turn it into something else.

They have been tainted by the campaign signs, slogans and sayings of a campaign that's been marred by a candidate who serves as council president and, according to many learned observers, has taken control of the town.
Susan Rogers now wants to be mayor, and she's claiming to have roots in the community that likely never existed. She says she graduated from Point Pleasant Borough High School in 1985, though many of us from that class don't recall anyone named Susan Rogers - let alone Rogers - walking up to get her diploma on that hot day in June 1985.

Complaints have been filed against Rogers, the Republican mayoral candidate, that she misused her power as an elected official to launch a police investigation after two supporters posted comments about her son on a Facebook campaign page.

The whole thing would be puzzling, damning and even laughable if it weren't for the fact that Rogers is the product of a political machine that, in my hometown area, has become the dominant controlling force for decades.

Yes, that machine is Republican, but party-affiliation has little to do with it. It has to do with a one-party machine that's controlled the county I'm from for most of my life. This is a machine that has become unstoppable, and has even taken pride in flaunting it, as Rogers' political backers have wrestled control of nearly 90 percent of the towns in Ocean County, N.J.

In the neighboring towns, this machine has allowed growth and development to turn wide-open spaces into suburban sprawl, with filthy roads that are filled with traffic. The dirt paths of my youth are now four-lane highways littered with Home Depots and IHOPs.

There are a few exceptions to that rule, of course, and one of them is Point Pleasant. The people fought back against those who once wanted to tear down a swath of forest known as "Red Desert," a place where I picked leaves for my Biology project in the 12th grade, and played war games with sticks and cap guns when I was 8.

The developers that feed the coffers of those in power tried, and tried hard, to get their way. But it was the people who stopped it, and they banded to together to halt the bulldozers that would have flattened a thick patch of oak, cedar and maple trees that stretch for more than a mile.

In the end, the developers caved, as did the politicians, and the only thing they did build was a park.

Those same people tried to do it again, along Bridge Avenue, down by the road's intersection with Beaver Dam, where I used to get my hair butchered by Sam the barber, and where I bought records and cassette tapes at Boro Stereo. Across the street from the stores, another thick patch of woods was doomed by a developer who wanted to put up a supermarket, among other things, that threatened to finally extend the sprawl to Point Pleasant.

Yet again, the people fought it. Again, they won. Some trees were chopped down, but not to make way for another boxed store. This time, it was for another park.

Now, with Rogers seemingly trying to strengthen her grip on the town, they're fighting again. And it's not just the things she says that has them worried. It's not just the incredible resume that she's put forward.

Rogers has sided herself with the same people who are siphoning money away from these towns, the same money that could keep property taxes low and educational programs functional.

My friend Bill, who just recently moved back to the town, has banded together with many others on Facebook, asking people to say whether they remember Rogers not just as a politician, but as their classmate. They hope to present a survey that will prove that Rogers didn't walk the aisle in June 1985, even as she continues to insist that she did.

Others have passed notes, emails and anything else around, saying Rogers must be stopped. They've enlisted the help of the local paper, which has probed into Rogers background and has revealed even more about her that's inconsistent and troubling.

Rogers has had it good, and given the political history of the town, one could easily say she'll survive. But I've gotten to know the people lately, reacquainting with them on Facebook. I recently became theJersey Shore regional editor for AOL's Patch division, and I'm looking forward to delivering Jersey Shore news to Point Pleasant, as well the neighboring communities of Brick Township, Howell Township, Wall Township, Long Branch, Berkeley Township and Toms River, that's been sorely missed.

Now I look at the people, and I'm reminded about who they are. This is a town that once promoted the slogan "Only the Tough Survive" for its high-school wrestlers, when they could have been saying it about anybody with a Point Pleasant address.

For once, I think it's safe to bet against the machine."

My Hometown/Bruce Springsteen

I was eight years old and running with a dime in my hand
Into the bus stop to pick up a paper for my old man
I'd sit on his lap in that big old Buick and steer as we drove through town
He'd tousle my hair and say son take a good look around this is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown

In '65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
My hometown
My hometown
My hometown

Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown

Last night me and Kate we laid in bed
talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
I'm thirty-five we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said son take a good look around
This is your hometown

Jen Enright's Dead On Letter To The Ocean Star

Editor, The Ocean Star:

The voters of Point Pleasant have an important decision to make on Nov. 2. They will decide whether the town retains its inherent character, or if it becomes an annex to other nearby municipalities. While consolidation and shared services are areas to consider, not every merger is the right solution. The Democratic ticket for mayor and council wants to thoroughly and thoughtfully investigate combining services to save money, selectively deciding what is best for our town and its residents. The possibility exists that we could contract with other towns for capital expenditures, and yet retain our own departments and/or employees. In that way, we would still have some decision-making control — and not give it all away to other governing bodies with which we have no representation.

Many of the programs and services that Point Pleasant provides are vital to lower-income residents. The preschool program offered at the Recreation Department is one such example. Perhaps some residents can afford private preschool, but for many residents, the rec is the only choice. If our Recreation Department merges with another town’s, will quality, affordable preschool still be available to the children of Point Pleasant?

Under the Republican-controlled council, services have been reduced. Our town employees were furloughed for 11 days since June, with one more day scheduled in November. Because of this, some building inspections were delayed, and the storm sewers have not received the annual cleaning done in past years. With the 2-percent budget cap in place and having not covered all expenses [without borrowing from the school tax fund], further cuts will be necessary. Maintenance of land and structures may be compromised. Parts of the town you love could be lost.

If residents value the excellence in education the community is known for, value the programs offered by our Recreation Department, and who value the clean and safe community provided by our police department and department of Public Works, then they should vote for Schroeder, Goss and Rusk on Nov. 2. They will govern with a thoughtful intelligence and seek input from those with years of first-hand experience before making radical changes without forethought. Sometimes digging ditches enables foundations to be built; sometimes the only use for the hole is a grave.

JENNIFER ENRIGHT
Deborah Avenue, Point Pleasant

A Letter From Bob Haugh, Former Republican Committeeman

Editor, The Ocean Star:

I want to apologize to anyone who may have been influenced to vote for Sue Rogers, as the result of a letter I wrote a few years ago.

I wrote a letter comparing how Ms. Rogers, for the town, would be like a new set of tires for your car to insure our future. At that time, I thought Ms. Rogers was sincere about sharing expenses with neighboring towns for the sake of maintaining our quality of life and stabilizing our taxes. Does anyone know how that worked out?

In my opinion, the term “shared services” that is used by Ms. Rogers would be better described as “reduced services.” After waiting for almost three years, under Ms. Rogers’ leadership, to come up with a plausible shared service plan, I feel that those tires have gone flat.

At the same time, there seems to be a “magic show” going on, creating the illusions that somehow reducing our workforce, through furloughs and layoffs, will not affect our quality of life. I believe our leader on council is reproducing an illusion, as did the candy company when they claimed a “zero increase” in the price of the candy bar at the same time as they reduced the size of the candy bar.

We all know we have to pay for what we get, however feeling good about what we get for our money is significant. I felt a lot better when Bill Schroeder was the mayor. Anyone who is dissatisfied or skeptical about the current leadership cannot make any change unless they vote the full ticket of Schroeder for mayor, and Goss and Rusk for council. Please go out and vote on Election Day, Nov. 2!

I want to thank Bill Schroeder for reconsidering being our mayor again.

BOB HAUGH SR.
Brown Street, Point Pleasant

Chris Leitner's Letter To The Ocean Star

Editor, The Ocean Star:

Point Pleasant is seeking, intently, to take back our town from the way the “powers that be” are doing things. It is not just Democrats seeking this change, but also Republicans and Independents who’ve lost trust in their government, but want to believe again. The people of Point Pleasant, Democrat, Republican and Independent, want to take back our town from the politics of personal agendas and personal attacks. William Schroeder, Christopher Goss and Robert Rusk, will do this, not because it is the easy thing or benefits them personally, but because at their core they stand for doing the right thing because it is right.

We have a chance to take back Point Pleasant with a new majority — a majority concerned for its citizens, not politicians, a majority whose overriding goal is to make Point Pleasant a better place for everyone, where everyone has a voice.

William Schroeder, Christopher Goss and Robert Rusk will lead, not by polls, but by principle; not by calculation, but by conviction.

Their candidacy offers not just a difference in policies, but a difference in leadership. Refreshingly, they focus not on how to win, but why they should. The campaign they have run does not fear losing elections for saying the unpopular thing, but instead draws strength from doing what is right, simply because it is right. William Schroeder, Christopher Goss and Robert Rusk will lead for the good of everyone.

I am asking you to stop settling for what the cynics say we have to accept. I am asking you to join us in taking back our town. On Nov. 2, please vote for William Schroeder, Christopher Goss and Robert Rusk.

COUNCILMAN CHRISTOPHER LEITNER
Donna Drive, Point Pleasant