Silver

The Borough has recently been notified it is one of only 69 municipalities across the state that has received the Silver Level with Sustainable Jersey, after having achieved the bronze level for three years.

Green Team Captain Ellen O’Dwyer will attend the awards ceremony November 14th where the Silver achievement will be recognized at the Sustainable Jersey Annual Luncheon in Atlantic City in connection with the New Jersey League of Municipalities conference.

Municipalities that achieve certification are considered by their peers, state government and experts and civic organizations in New Jersey, to be among the leaders in the state.  Few achieve a Silver designation

Out of 564 municipalities in New Jersey, 467 are participating; of these, there are 130 Bronze certified and just the 69 Silver certified.

O’Dwyer led the municipality to earn the Bronze recertification last year, explaining, “we could have rested on our laurels for three years until the next certification cycle…but we didn’t.  Atlantic Highlands deserves the credit for all the work that it is already doing, and with a community whose heart is in it,” O’Dwyer continued.

The Green Team Captain continued that it is necessary “to preserve this unique ecosystem of mountains to bayside beaches to forested lands as our home today, and for future generations.”

Just as she declined to rest on the laurels of the bronze certification, O’Dwyer is now aiming for “Gold Star”, the highest award, which will set a new precedent for small, historic communities with classic infrastructure.

“It will involve a lot of research and a real thesis to be written, but I have a plan to earn the certification for Atlantic Highlands within the next 2 years,” she said.   Only Readington, Woodbridge, and Princeton have earned any Gold Stars.

“I will be proud to earn that for Atlantic Highlands, but even prouder that by so doing, will have improved and protected an important resource for the borough,” O’Dwyer continued.

Admittedly, O’Dwyer recognized that earning a Silver certificate with Sustainable Jersey “ is no small feat. It puts the borough on the map as one of the most sustainable communities in the state.

The borough has been at the Bronze level for a few years with each certification lasting three years. Before she was appointed Captain, O’Dwyer said the Green Team had focused on cyclic recertification, earning the minimum certification.  As Captain, O’Dwyer said she realized “we were doing a lot more than we were asking credit for.  I knew I could earn us enough points to recertify at Bronze which occurred last year.”

But, she said, she set her sights higher to achieve the Silver level while she continued to be Green Team Captain.  O’Dwyer had previously served on the Environmental  and Shade Tree commissions but was not reappointed to either when her terms expired last year.

A candidate for borough council in the November election, O’Dwyer said as an elected official she would continue to work to keep the borough on the map for overall conservation measures, “It is my vision for the town, and I would work  hard and have a plan to continue preserving what is great about it.”

Sustainable Jersey’s certified municipalities are national leaders in implementing solutions to key sustainability challenges. From efforts to reduce waste, cut greenhouse gas emissions, improve public health, stimulate local economies, increase resiliency and progress toward an equitable society, the actions completed by Sustainable Jersey communities have made a significant contribution.

The mission of Sustainable Jersey is to empower New Jersey communities to build a better world for future generations.

O’Dwyer expressed thanks to Mayor Loretta Gluckstein for her confidence in appointing her Captain of the Atlantic Highlands Green Team three years ago in order to lead the borough’s efforts to recertify the expiring Bronze certification.

“Earning a Sustainable Jersey Certification involves a lot of effort to not only implement, but to document and archive supporting data, detail our municipal story, create innovative solutions, and also meet a set of very rigorous standards,” O’Dwyer said.   “This year’s submission involved hundreds of hours and more than a thousand pages of documentation, as well as reaching out cross-functionally, and getting groups to work together for the first time.  Key collaborations involved DPW, Police, Fire and EMS along with municipal teams and statutory commissions including the Environmental and Shade Tree Commissions.”

O’Dwyer continued that “the Green Team accomplished some new and innovative ways to make Atlantic Highlands more sustainably and resiliently green , including its first “EnviroScience Faire”, collaborations with the Chamber of Commerce, and local groups like the Atlantic Highlands Garden Club and Wild About Atlantic Highlands,” she said.

“These were all wonderful things to make our town aesthetically beautiful, and symbiotic with its environment.” As Team Captain, O’Dwyer applied for and was awarded two grants, one for the borough’s first Pollinator Garden, and another for the “Olfactory Challenge” garden on 1^st Avenue which she said will be breaking ground soon.

For more information on Sustainable Jersey, visit to www.sustainablejersey.com

Former Atlantic Highlands Councilman Steve Borrichia has launched a new blog, Magnum Veritas and promises to tell All the Truth in his dedication to local issues and a variety of local topics of interest in the Bayshore area.

The former Councilman, often an outspoken critic at council meetings when he served the borough, said he is designing his blog to focus on current events, as well as to expand on other topics.  He promises to be in even more depth in his commentaries after election season, when he will focus on the inside dealings of council, some or which he said he has been exposed to himself while in elected positions.

Borrichia also said his Magnum Veritas will highlight how the inside dealings of council have affected taxpayers and residents on a regular basis.

As part of his plan for the overall blog, the former councilman, also a former Marine Corps officer and a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, said he will invite guest bloggers who have something to say to have pieces on his blog and would also cross post with other bogs on related subjects as it seems apropos.

See Mr. Borachia’s new blog, Magnum Veritas and his first series of articles concerning the school regionalization issue to be decided in a special election Tuesday, September 26,  at  Regionalization: the good, the bad, the ugly — Magnum Veritas

Look to VeniVidiScripto for some possible future inter exchanges between the two blogs in the future.

Helen

There will be a viewing from4 to 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 25 at Posten-McGinley’s Funeral Home, E. Lincoln Avenue for Helen M Marchetti, former Mayor of Atlantic Highlands, who died Tuesday at Care One at Middletown.

But already stories of Helen’s dedication and love for her Atlantic Highlands birthplace and the people who have made it so happy for the 98-year-old native are pouring in. Many express grief at the passing of such a matriarch, others wanting to share stories of how she impacted their lives.

Helen was born in the house at 99 Center Avenue where she lived almost all of her life. “Yep, right upstairs, in the bedroom,” she would tell everyone who asked how long she lived there.

Then she would launch into stories about how wonderful her parents were, her father, the milkman for Atlantic Highlands who had to go to Long Branch every morning to get the milk and deliver it around town, and her mother, sweet, prayerful and perfect. She would tell stories of her brother John and her two nieces and nephew and their families, and photos in her front porch room at Center Avenue reflected their love for her, as she was always surrounded by photos of each generation of their families.

There are those recalling this week how they would drive past the Center Avenue front porch of Helen’s home, see her sitting in her favorite chair watching TV, and wave to her. Or the dog walkers, who knew how she loved seeing the animals go by or running to get around the corner and get a dog biscuit from the jar kept for them next to the garage.’

There will be many stories to hear about Helen’s years on the Borough Council, her years as Mayor, and all the other positions she has held through the years.

It was always a job she took on simply to keep Atlantic Highlands the perfect place she always felt it was. Helen loved working with anyone and everyone who would assure her they loved the town as much as she did. There are those who remember, with laughter and glee, the times she would tell anyone who complained about her town….”You don’t like it? See that highway up there? You can take it in either direction.”

She was a hard worker in whatever post she held. And she held many., She was on the Board of Education for many years, then was its president. She was active in the Lions Club.   She was in the Atlantic Highlands Historical Society, and then its president.

She loved the history of her town and was so happy she had lived through so many years of it. She was active in the Lions Club, she served on the Harbor Commission. She was in the Fire Department auxiliary. If it did something to help Atlantic Highlands, Helen Marchetti was always ready to do it.

Helen loved her membership in the Atlantic Highlands Yacht Club. She loved her Friday night dinners there for so many years, and being surrounded by friends in the club, not only from Atlantic Highlands but from every town from where the members came. She loved showing newcomers the beauty of the harbor and how all the good things the Yacht Club contributed to making the borough such a welcoming place for sailors from all over the world.

Helen loved children, and Halloween was guaranteed to bring crowds to her front door, to be greeted by a happy lady who wanted to shower the costumed visitors with dozens of candy bars and her own thanks for making her night so happy by their visit.

She loved her church, and the choir at St. Agnes, and their Christmas concert after parties she hosted at her home, so happy to hear the spiritual hymns of the holy day blend with the spirits of the holiday.

She loved all her neighbors, but if she had to admit it, those three youngsters next door were the delight of her life. Whenever they were away, they sent her cards and rushed home to tell her of their excitement. When they got a new puppy, it was Miss Helen they wanted to share their happiness with. When they had guests for a barbecue, it was Miss Helen they wanted to share in the company, fun and festivities. And in her last days at King James, it was their visits, their drawings on the wall, their special talks with her, that she treasured so much. They shed tearful goodbyes with her at her passing.

There were the close friends, the wonderful people who knew Helen through her work on any of a dozen or more things in which she was always involved. There were the Sunday morning church people who waved as they parked their cars across from her house, There were the mail people, the delivery people, the sanitation workers, everybody who spent a minute, an hour, a day or a passing with Helen. They all brought her happiness and she bragged about it to others.

During her months at Care One, Helen endeared herself as much to the other residents, staff and every employee as she always had to everyone in Atlantic Highlands. At her passing, these dedicated workers, some of whom had only known her since she lived there, stopped back her room to say their final goodbyes, share their favorite memories, and share reflect on how their own lives were impacted by the woman who gave her life to others.

Then there were the police. No one dare say anything against a police officer, a volunteer fire fighter or a first aid volunteer in front of Helen. Clearly, they were the best, and if they could do no wrong, “well, that wouldn’t be possible. They wouldn’t be part of Atlantic Highlands.”

Helen Marchetti was not only born in Atlantic Highlands. Not only served it so well in so many ways. Not only spoke of the generations before her, the joys of growing up here, her years at Red Bank Catholic taking the bus past her house, not only looked towards its future, but always knew, Atlantic Highlands was home, and nothing could be better.

The truth of the matter is…Helen Mount Marchetti truly was Atlantic Highlands.

A Thank You From Helen

Thank You

Mistake

Well the Planning Board attorney made it perfectly clear to resident Mark Fisher. It’s okay if a mistake is made…..as long as it’s the government who is making the mistakes.

Mr. Fisher is just an ordinary citizen; no political yearnings, no advocate for publicity,  just a very smart guy who reads everything, researches it even more, asks a lot of questions, and in the end, makes one heck of a lot of sense. His latest finding involves that second big apartment complex going up on First Avenue, specifically at 160 First, directly next to the first one at 158 First.

Of course, the builder…the same one who sought and got lots of variances for the first building, needs a lot of variances to build the second building the way he wants.  At one point it was 44 deviations from the law, but he’s cutting back on that.

So the public heard from a couple of experts at the first meeting way back in July. That meeting was continued, they didn’t know until exactly when, then they set the date for September 19, that’s Tuesday night at 7 at Borough Hall.

But Mark likes to be thorough about everything and whether it’s because others have told him some things or whether he just wanted to take a second look, he OPRA’d the list of property owners who were notified of the July meeting. By law every property owner within 200 feet of a property wanting a variance must be notified of the public hearing. Mark’s investigation showed that that did not happen. A mistake says the Borough.

This local resident, who doesn’t get paid a dime for all his research, questioning and setting things right, found not one, not two, but THREE property owners who were not notified of that first hearing in July.  That would seem to make that meeting illegal under the laws as everybody can read.

Not only that, he pointed out to the attorney, since the notice for this Tuesday’s meeting says it’s a continuation of the first meeting, that’s wrong as well. As Mark pointed out, there could not have been a first meeting to continue, since if THREE property owners were not notified, then the law was not followed, so Tuesday’s meeting cannot be a continued meeting.  A mistake says the Borough.

Well, said the attorney, in a two page memorandum to the Planning Board, that isn’t the case. You see, he pointed out, if it’s the Borough who made the mistake by not giving the applicant the full list of owners, that’s OK. You see, the attorney continued, there’s more to the law, which, of course, was written by lawyers. The Legislature included in the law

“The applicant shall be entitled to rely upon the information contained in such list, and failure to give notice to any owner, to any public utility, cable television company, or local utility or to any military facility commander not on the list shall not invalidate any hearing or proceeding. ”  A mistake says the Borough.

So there you have it. It’s OK for the borough to make mistakes, but not the citizen, in this case, the firm that wants dozens of pardons from the law to build what he wants that is contrary to the law.

Mr. Fisher is clear. He trusts the borough employees. He certainly does not feel they did anything INTENTIONALLY wrong. He knows they work hard and are accommodating.

But he does ask….supposing that wouldn’t be the case? Supposing we had a different set of employees in Atlantic Highlands, and supposing there was one who for reasons of his own did not want a particular property owner to know what was planned to be a heck of a big change in his neighborhood. Is that still OK?

YEP. Because the law says so. The law says the applicant is entitled to rely on whatever the borough tells him.  A mistake says the Borough.

The bottom line is…if you work for the government, it’s automatic….when it comes to the planning board notifications at least, you simply can’t make a mistake and if you do, itdoesn’t matter. You’re not to blame and we can all act like it did not happen.

The planning Board attorney is a smart lawyer, a likeable guy, a man interested in his work, proud of his reputation and does the best he can. And it’s for all of those reasons, he seems, he took Mr. Fisher’s letter apart and answered it paragraph by paragraph.

He admitted Mr. Fisher was correct in all his findings about folks not being notified, folks outside the 200 foot limited being notified, etc… but …A mistake says the Borough.

He even agreed with a lot Mr. Fisher wrote and said he was correct.  He agreed there were indeed property owners that should have been notified under the law and were not. He searched, he said, but could not find the owners of two of those lots. In the case of the third, the attorney said it was owned by the same person who owned another lot and was so notified because of the other lot.

Even conceding that Mr. Fisher is correct in his facts,  the attorney cites the laws once again that makes it clear that first hearing, whether or not everybody was notified, was valid.  A mistake says the Borough.

This brings up a couple of other questions though. Has the property owner who just wants to move his garage a little closer to the line ever had to cancel or re-advertise his planning board hearing because he got an incomplete list from the borough records?

And now that the attorney knows and admits some owners were not notified for the hearing on this apartment business complex, can the next meeting still go forward before the borough tells the applicant who they are?