Kiley  Fegler Approximately 50 residents were present at the recent meeting of the Atlantic Highlands Republican Club to hear both County Commissioner Sue Kiley and GOP Congressional candidate Scott Fegler talk abut their plans after election to their respective posts in the November election.

Kiley, the current county commissioner seeking her second term, is well known by local residents, not only for her work on the Monmouth County board but also previously when she served as mayor of nearby Hazlet Township and all her volunteerism with the Raine Foundation, a family foundation non-profit organization that helps in multiple local areas. The commissioner was also employed as the business administrator at St. Agnes Church.

The commissioner outlined the continuing work of the Monmouth County Commissioners as well as her own efforts in the specific departments she oversees including the Division of Aging and Disabilities, Veterans Services and the Sheriff’s Office. She explained the far-reaching assistance the county’s ACTS program, which she leads, and which is the first of a kind in New Jersey public-private partnerships. She explained how ACTs, (Assisting Communities through Services) has improved communication and delivery of care for residents while continuing to work on future programs.

Fegler, who is a resident of neighboring Highlands, is seeking his first term in Congress, hoping to unseat incumbent long time Congressman Frank Pallone. Fegler, who was born the year Pallone first won a seat in Congress in 1988, is committed to crafting legislation as a Congressman to establish term limits in the House and Senate, citing pitfalls of prolonged political tenure. He is also strongly opposed to Wind Turbines installed off the Atlantic coast and cited the cost to taxpayers for these energy projects as well as their impact on Bayshore residents in particular and the danger they present for marine wildlife.

A native of Matawan, Fegler maintains a successful family business as a wholesale cheese, charcuterie, deli meat, grocery and seafood products importer.

Among the crowd which included former mayors, council members and local residents from three towns at the GOP meeting hosted by Atlantic Highlands GOP Chair Brian Boms, Art Gallagher, GOP chair in Highlands also spoke on the community spirit between the two neighboring towns and his assurance in the November election for GOP candidates. Highlands operates under a non-partisan form of government and will also be electing two members to its borough council without any party affiliation.

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Ghosts on the Coast, a New Jersey based paranormal team, suggested interested people should visit the St. Agnes Thrift Shop for Wednesday and Saturday bargains and perhaps even learn more about the historic actor Robert Mantell who once lived there.

The team, including Greg Gaggiano, recently videotaped inside the two-story thrift Shop, owned by St. Agnes Church and operated to support maintenance and other activities of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help St Agnes Parish, as part of their series on historic persons and places.

Ghosts on the Coast works towards keeping legacy alive and searches out myths and legends either to debunk them or to find further proof of their authenticity.

The visit to the St. Agnes Thrift Shop came as part of the team’s investigation into facts surrounding Mantell, once the most famous Shakespearean actors of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Mantell lived in the Victorian style house at 34 South Ave. and is buried at Bayview Cemetery in Leonardo. He has long been appreciated by the Atlantic Highlands Fire Department, who named the Robert Mantell department company in his honor in recognition of his generosity.

Mantell is buried at Bayview Cemetery in Leonardo, and the Ghosts on the Coast team also visited and videotaped scenes at his burial site.

In the video at the South avenue former residence, the Ghost on the Coast team suggest a visit to shop in the Thrift Shop and visit the house.

The St. Agnes Thrift Shop features furniture, china, books, jewelry, clothing,, seasonal decorations, costumes and kitchen ware in each of the rooms of the former Mantell mansion. It is open every Wednesday from 10am. to 3 p.m. and the second and fourth Saturdays of every month from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The next Saturday the shop is open is tomorrow, July 26.

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Olympian Bayshore residents will be at their TVs early Friday morning, August 2 to see Atlantic Highlands resident Camilla Lopes Gomes Gluckstein compete for the gold in the Summer Olympics in France.

The wife of Steven Gluckstein, also an Olympic athlete who competed in both the London and Rio games, Camilla is competing on the Trampoline and representing her native Brazil under her maiden name, Camilla Lopes Gomes.

The 30-year-old champion Trampoline gymnast, the first Brazilian to win gold at a World Cup event, also won double gold at the FIG World Cup 2023 AGF Trophy event in both the individual and synchronized trampoline events. She also scored her highest individual finish at the 2023 Trampoline Gymnastics World Championships, an achievement that earned her the position as Brazil’s representative in the 2024 Paris Olympics this week.

Camilla has competed at multiple Trampoline World Championships with her partner Alice Gomes. In 2022, the duo finished 7th at the  World Championships in synchronized trampoline. She has been named “Trampoline Gymnast of the Year” in Brazil four times beginning in 2014.

Camilla’s family from Brazil will be in Paris for her competition next week, marking the first time her father has ever been out of Brazil.

Camilla and Steven Gluckstein first met in Denmark but began a relationship after working together when she began training in the United States. She continues to train at Elite Training Academy, also Gluckstein’s academy. The couple have been married eight years.

Camilla is now a United States citizen, having been sworn in in January.

Her husband holds a variety of titles in athletics as well as being a former Olympian and six-time National Men’s US Trampoline champion and five times National US Men’s Synchronized Trampolinist and six-time World Team member. He and his partner Logan Dooley were the first gymnastic trampolinists in TEAM USA history to win a gold at a World Cup Series event. Retired from gymnastics, Gluckstein is a trainer at Elite Academy and head coach of the junior US National Trampoline team.

Steven and his brother, Jeffrey, also an internationally competitive trampolinist representing the USA, created a dynasty in competitive US trampoline by winning every National Men’s Trampoline Championship for at least ten consecutive years. They’re the sons of Steven and Loretta Gluckstein, she the former mayor of Atlantic Highlands. Both are graduates of Henry Hudson Regional School in Highlands.

Camilla’s competition on August. 2 will be available at 6 am on NBC/ Peacock. 

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Local historian and journalist Muriel J. Smith will narrate some stories on the Bayshore and its residents during the Prohibition era Sunday, August 11, on the Navesink Queen cruise to benefit the Atlantic Highlands Historical Society.

Smith, who has been a journalist for 65 years and is the former editor of The Courier in Middletown, is also author of five books, primarily on history. A resident of Atlantic Highlands, for five years, she and her late husband, James E. Smith, Jr., lived in Highlands with their four children for 40 years.

In 1996, after Mr. Smith survived death after a series of heart attacks, the couple lived ten years in an RV and traveled to all 50 states visiting the birth or burial places of Presidents of the United States, while also volunteering at national wildlife refuges. She returned to Monmouth County after his death in 2006 and worked at NWS Earle in Colts Neck where she did public relations and wrote the base newspaper.

The Navesink Queen will leave from Pier 1 (behind Sissy’s Luncheonette) at the Atlantic Highlands Yacht Harbor and lunch will be served with a cash bar. For ticket reservations and further information, go to www.ahhistory.org/events.

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