"I believe we live in a great country. A country that's great enough to help a man financially when he's in trouble..." - Jim Braddock, Cinderella Man
What is this country coming to...
http://news.yahoo.com/slammed-using-food-stamps-ga-woman-seeks-apology-121005811--abc-news-savings-and-investment.html
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Not my "American Dream" for the Meadowlands
By Steve Janoski
Every time I see the heaping monstrosity rising from the flank of Route 3, I can’t help but shake my head.
That massive, gaudy orange-and-blue ulcer of a mall has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with the Garden State, from the officials who allowed the hugely inappropriate project to be recklessly built on environmentally sensitive land to the budget woes and overruns in time and money that have subsequently occurred.
It will look hideous once it’s done, just another manmade eyesore climbing out of the swampy Meadowlands, desperately being dragged to "completion" by its newest developer, the Triple Five Group.
Always having been much more of a naturalist than a shopper, I’ve had nothing but disdain for the project since it was announced back in 2003. I do realize what state I live in, though, and I knew there was little hope of trying to stop such a thing from being built.
But it just keeps getting worse and more bizarre, as the The Record reported on June 14 that the developer has asked for permission to strip yet another five acres of wetlands to construct a new indoor amusement and (ironically) water park on the site.
As that request is processed and reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the article states, Triple Five is trying to finalize the $2 billion in financing necessary to complete the $3.7 billion mall.
With so much of Xanadu — or, as it’s called for the time being, the "American Dream Meadowlands Project" — already built, another five acres might not seem like much. And truthfully, it isn’t.
But by now, it’s just out of spite that I’m hoping that the environmental permits are rejected and that maybe the developer will be told to try and open the mall for a day or two before planning an expansion on a project that should have never been allowed in the first place.
As a reporter, I’m acutely aware of the constant battle between environmentalists and developers and the need for both open space and ratables. And, even though I tend to lean toward the green side (as in trees, not money), I understand that a balance must be struck.
But the Meadowlands has seen enough damage on our account.
It took us centuries to realize that the swamp was a little bit more than an expendable wasteland, a brackish tidal estuary where garbage and bodies and toxic waste could be dumped with little effect on the ecosystem.
And everything has been dumped there over the years. Even pieces of London rubble ended up in our marshy plain when, after the Battle of Britain reduced much of that city, sections of concrete were used as ballast in ships coming back to America and then thrown into the meadows by the military.
But even with the apocalyptic assault leveled at it by humans, decades of more stringent regulation, combined with the rise of conservation groups and a general change of attitude in regards to the wetlands, has started the entire region crawling towards recuperation.
Many species of animals not regularly seen in years, such as grey seals, fluke, and striped bass, have made their way back into the streams winding their way through the golden plain. Even the HackensackRiver, which was once so polluted that it could only support the hardiest of fish, has staged a modest comeback.
And that five acres, while it’s but a small sliver of the Meadowlands’ 8,500, should be preserved as well. The area’s wildlife has hung on with a white-knuckle grip, and the state should be trying to nurse it back, not allowing developers to further ravage it, even in the smallest amount.
I know that this argument has been made many times over in New Jersey, and I don’t expect anything other than more development to occur. And, being as the rusty-walled fool’s paradise has already been built, there’s nothing more that can really be done except hope that it somehow works out.
But in the future, I can also hope that the state pays attention to the cascade of mistakes that have left both the Meadowlands and the mall in such dire straits – and the next time developers promise the world a mall the size of Rhode Island, New Jersey tells them to find somewhere else.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/159828175_Not_my__American_Dream__for_the_Meadowlands.html?page=all
That massive, gaudy orange-and-blue ulcer of a mall has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with the Garden State, from the officials who allowed the hugely inappropriate project to be recklessly built on environmentally sensitive land to the budget woes and overruns in time and money that have subsequently occurred.
It will look hideous once it’s done, just another manmade eyesore climbing out of the swampy Meadowlands, desperately being dragged to "completion" by its newest developer, the Triple Five Group.
Always having been much more of a naturalist than a shopper, I’ve had nothing but disdain for the project since it was announced back in 2003. I do realize what state I live in, though, and I knew there was little hope of trying to stop such a thing from being built.
But it just keeps getting worse and more bizarre, as the The Record reported on June 14 that the developer has asked for permission to strip yet another five acres of wetlands to construct a new indoor amusement and (ironically) water park on the site.
As that request is processed and reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the article states, Triple Five is trying to finalize the $2 billion in financing necessary to complete the $3.7 billion mall.
With so much of Xanadu — or, as it’s called for the time being, the "American Dream Meadowlands Project" — already built, another five acres might not seem like much. And truthfully, it isn’t.
But by now, it’s just out of spite that I’m hoping that the environmental permits are rejected and that maybe the developer will be told to try and open the mall for a day or two before planning an expansion on a project that should have never been allowed in the first place.
As a reporter, I’m acutely aware of the constant battle between environmentalists and developers and the need for both open space and ratables. And, even though I tend to lean toward the green side (as in trees, not money), I understand that a balance must be struck.
But the Meadowlands has seen enough damage on our account.
It took us centuries to realize that the swamp was a little bit more than an expendable wasteland, a brackish tidal estuary where garbage and bodies and toxic waste could be dumped with little effect on the ecosystem.
And everything has been dumped there over the years. Even pieces of London rubble ended up in our marshy plain when, after the Battle of Britain reduced much of that city, sections of concrete were used as ballast in ships coming back to America and then thrown into the meadows by the military.
But even with the apocalyptic assault leveled at it by humans, decades of more stringent regulation, combined with the rise of conservation groups and a general change of attitude in regards to the wetlands, has started the entire region crawling towards recuperation.
Many species of animals not regularly seen in years, such as grey seals, fluke, and striped bass, have made their way back into the streams winding their way through the golden plain. Even the HackensackRiver, which was once so polluted that it could only support the hardiest of fish, has staged a modest comeback.
And that five acres, while it’s but a small sliver of the Meadowlands’ 8,500, should be preserved as well. The area’s wildlife has hung on with a white-knuckle grip, and the state should be trying to nurse it back, not allowing developers to further ravage it, even in the smallest amount.
I know that this argument has been made many times over in New Jersey, and I don’t expect anything other than more development to occur. And, being as the rusty-walled fool’s paradise has already been built, there’s nothing more that can really be done except hope that it somehow works out.
But in the future, I can also hope that the state pays attention to the cascade of mistakes that have left both the Meadowlands and the mall in such dire straits – and the next time developers promise the world a mall the size of Rhode Island, New Jersey tells them to find somewhere else.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/159828175_Not_my__American_Dream__for_the_Meadowlands.html?page=all
Friday, September 2, 2011
Pequannock hit with record flooding as Pompton rises to unprecedentedheights
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER
SUBURBAN TRENDS
Some areas of the East Coast managed to slip Hurricane Irene's knockout blows, but Pequannock, as always, took it right on the chin, with 9 inches of rain overwhelming every brook and river in the township and causing a degree of flooding that hasn't been seen since 1903.
At Town Hall on Monday, exhausted Pequannockofficials were unable to tell what day it was because they'd been awake so long while firefighters mounted huge deuce-and-a-half trucks and took to the waters to take people and animals out of homes.
All the while, residents and emergency personnel alike were awed at the unprecedented amount of damage that had been done to a town that had been transformed into a small island and left to fend for itself.
Preparations had been taken and flood plans were implemented. Governor Christie ordered the Pompton Lake Dam opened up on Saturday to drain the lake of about 3 feet of water, and toldPequannock Mayor Rich Phelan that he would be "taking a leap of faith" with local mayors to try to avert a 100-year flood.
In the end, after Hurricane Irene rumbled through the area this weekend and dropped over 9 inches of rain in the course of less than 24 hours, public officials would realize that Pompton Lake could have been drained down to the bed and it still wouldn't have mattered.
By the time the Pompton River was done with its tantrum at about 5 a.m. Sunday, it had crested at 25.24 feet, shattering the records for flooding from the past century and finally eclipsing the legendary 1984 flood by almost a foot.
A tired Phelan was shocked by the devastation that the waters brought.
"I couldn't believe how bad it was," he said on Monday afternoon. "The benchmark flood was 1984, everybody has always talked about the 1984 flood, that this was the big one — and this was beyond where we were at in 1984."
Phelan had promised during last year's election campaign to raise hackles about Pequannock's flooding problems with the state, but even he had to admit that this year's event, which was the seventh overall and the fifth major flood in the past two years, was unavoidable.
"We could probably stop the 10-year-flood," Phelan said. "But you can't stop the 100-year floods. It's impossible…you will never stop the 100-year flood unless you build 40-foot concrete walls out there…this is the one you have to grin and bear."
Township Manager Dave Hollberg had been awake for days as well, and met with Suburban Trends in his office on Monday during a break in the maelstrom of activity that characterized Pequannock's Office of Emergency Management command center, which was situated in a small conference room at Town Hall.
Hollberg said that with rain predictions ranging from 6 to 10 inches, it was difficult to know what to prepare for, but with the reservoirs to the north of the township already nearly full, he knew it would be only a matter of time before the waters of the Pequannock, Pompton, and Wanaque rivers combined to make Pequannock a reservoir itself.
Evacuations by way of reverse-911 calls began in the lowest-lying areas — neighborhoods by Harrison Road and businesses along Route 23 — late Saturday night and into early Sunday as the storm commenced, but things remained calm, the manager said.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, however, troubles began to mount. Water began coursing over the spillway at the Pompton Lake Dam, Hollberg said, and within a few hours, 6,600 cubic feet of water per second was charging through and heading downstream.
At 3 a.m., the water levels started rising; between 4 and 5 a.m., the river jumped up 2 feet. By 6 a.m., it had risen another 2 feet, and evacuations began on Oakwood and Pequannock avenues. The river had reached 16.5 feet — flood stage.
The Village was evacuated in preparation, and to nearly everyone's shock, Greenview Park and West Parkway began to flood for the first time in memory.
Some flooded-out residents on the west side of town blamed the new turf field construction atPequannock Township High School, although Hollberg said it's a bit more likely that it was rain combined with water blitzing down off the mountains that inundated the Beaver Brook by the Lincoln Park Airport and caused the water to back up into the streets.
"When you get that much rain, it rushes down the mountain, and then it hits this flat spot and it's got no place to go," Hollberg said.
On Sunday morning, standing puddles of nearly a foot of water had made West Parkway impassable, and Jacksonville Road soon followed.
At the same time, Route 23 closed; Hollberg said that within an hour of the jughandle closing, the rest of Route 23 was shut off and only local traffic has been allowed in since.
The Newark-Pompton Turnpike would be shut down late Sunday afternoon as waters began to lap over the thoroughfare at several points and the Pompton swelled up to meet the bridge at the south end of town running into Wayne.
Calls rolled in constantly Sunday for evacuations, and they got more numerous and more panicked as the Pompton River began to seep under front doors in the darkness as it crested late Sunday night into Monday morning.
About two dozen calls came in after 8:30 on Sunday night, but Hollberg said that evacuations became exponentially more dangerous in the dark, and with all the notice given to residents to evacuate, the township refused to put its emergency workers at risk by performing midnight runs.
"I think that people who haven't been flooded before because it didn't quite make it into their homes didn't heed the (evacuation) warning as closely," Hollberg said.
At dawn on Monday, the rescues resumed, and altogether about 600 homes were ordered evacuated. How many individuals were rescued is still unknown.
The damage was savage. Homes in the Village Area off Jackson Avenue, which floods only during the worst storms, had 4 to 6 feet of water their first levels; their front doors showed dirty high water marks at stomach height on Monday afternoon.
Cars and trucks left overnight featured fogging windows and radiators with sticks and brush jammed into them, and front lawns swayed like seaweed below the waterline as the current ebbed and flowed through the neighborhood.
The south end of town saw similar totals, and even National Guard deuce-and-a-half trucks floundered in the Alexander Avenue area.
PV Park's diving board now rests in the middle of the one giant lake that has absorbed both PV and Woodland Lake, and Hollberg said that the lake is "officially closed for the season."
About 30 residents crowded into the shelter set up at Pequannock Valley Middle School, which functioned throughout the storm. On Monday, however, PV, along with a wide swath of the southern end of town, lost power because a malfunctioning power substation off of Irving Street was surrounded by water, precluding JCP&L from reaching it.
However, the manager said, the township dodged the predicted high winds, and few power outages were reported during the storm.
For once, it will be hard blame the Pompton Lake Dam's floodgates for the township's troubles, even though it has become a favorite target of residents and officials alike since its completion in 2007.
Although Hollberg said that he would have rather had the dam opened and left open in order to avoid the sudden increases in river height that occurred Sunday morning, he said that the overall volume of Pompton Lake is so small that it had "no impact" on the amount of water the township received.
"You get a hurricane that produced 9 inches of rain in 18 hours, we can be ready to react to the effects of the storm, but I don't think there's anything that can be done…that much rain is gonna cause flooding," he said.
Phelan said that he thought the draining of the lake "couldn't have hurt," and that more importantly, it will open the door for future draining ahead of smaller storms.
Had Irene dropped 4 inches of rain instead of nearly 10, the draining might have averted the typical flooding that occurs, he said.
"We got Christie to actually do something, so we can probably go back the next time we know there's going to be a heavy rainstorm…and say, 'You did it one time, now do it again for us,'" he said. "It was a great thing (Christie) did even though it didn't help, but it may help on our 10-year floods going forward."
In the end, however, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported in the township, and attention will turn to helping the recovery, whenever it begins.
It is still too early for damage estimates, but it does not look promising.
Early reports indicated on Tuesday that part of the highway by Woodland Lake was undermined, and a reopening date is yet unclear.
The Newark-Pompton Turnpike bridge into Wayne was still closed Tuesday, and will be until the bridge can be inspected. Few access routes into the town are open, and police are checking licenses before letting people in.
Phelan said the big concern now will be to organize volunteers and get out and help the residents who are enduring once again.
"We're going to do whatever we can to help them…but it's going to be a huge cleanup," he said.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/128859683_Irene_sinks_low-lying_areas.html?c=y&page=3
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER
SUBURBAN TRENDS
Some areas of the East Coast managed to slip Hurricane Irene's knockout blows, but Pequannock, as always, took it right on the chin, with 9 inches of rain overwhelming every brook and river in the township and causing a degree of flooding that hasn't been seen since 1903.
At Town Hall on Monday, exhausted Pequannockofficials were unable to tell what day it was because they'd been awake so long while firefighters mounted huge deuce-and-a-half trucks and took to the waters to take people and animals out of homes.
All the while, residents and emergency personnel alike were awed at the unprecedented amount of damage that had been done to a town that had been transformed into a small island and left to fend for itself.
Preparations had been taken and flood plans were implemented. Governor Christie ordered the Pompton Lake Dam opened up on Saturday to drain the lake of about 3 feet of water, and toldPequannock Mayor Rich Phelan that he would be "taking a leap of faith" with local mayors to try to avert a 100-year flood.
In the end, after Hurricane Irene rumbled through the area this weekend and dropped over 9 inches of rain in the course of less than 24 hours, public officials would realize that Pompton Lake could have been drained down to the bed and it still wouldn't have mattered.
By the time the Pompton River was done with its tantrum at about 5 a.m. Sunday, it had crested at 25.24 feet, shattering the records for flooding from the past century and finally eclipsing the legendary 1984 flood by almost a foot.
A tired Phelan was shocked by the devastation that the waters brought.
"I couldn't believe how bad it was," he said on Monday afternoon. "The benchmark flood was 1984, everybody has always talked about the 1984 flood, that this was the big one — and this was beyond where we were at in 1984."
Phelan had promised during last year's election campaign to raise hackles about Pequannock's flooding problems with the state, but even he had to admit that this year's event, which was the seventh overall and the fifth major flood in the past two years, was unavoidable.
"We could probably stop the 10-year-flood," Phelan said. "But you can't stop the 100-year floods. It's impossible…you will never stop the 100-year flood unless you build 40-foot concrete walls out there…this is the one you have to grin and bear."
Township Manager Dave Hollberg had been awake for days as well, and met with Suburban Trends in his office on Monday during a break in the maelstrom of activity that characterized Pequannock's Office of Emergency Management command center, which was situated in a small conference room at Town Hall.
Hollberg said that with rain predictions ranging from 6 to 10 inches, it was difficult to know what to prepare for, but with the reservoirs to the north of the township already nearly full, he knew it would be only a matter of time before the waters of the Pequannock, Pompton, and Wanaque rivers combined to make Pequannock a reservoir itself.
Evacuations by way of reverse-911 calls began in the lowest-lying areas — neighborhoods by Harrison Road and businesses along Route 23 — late Saturday night and into early Sunday as the storm commenced, but things remained calm, the manager said.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, however, troubles began to mount. Water began coursing over the spillway at the Pompton Lake Dam, Hollberg said, and within a few hours, 6,600 cubic feet of water per second was charging through and heading downstream.
At 3 a.m., the water levels started rising; between 4 and 5 a.m., the river jumped up 2 feet. By 6 a.m., it had risen another 2 feet, and evacuations began on Oakwood and Pequannock avenues. The river had reached 16.5 feet — flood stage.
The Village was evacuated in preparation, and to nearly everyone's shock, Greenview Park and West Parkway began to flood for the first time in memory.
Some flooded-out residents on the west side of town blamed the new turf field construction atPequannock Township High School, although Hollberg said it's a bit more likely that it was rain combined with water blitzing down off the mountains that inundated the Beaver Brook by the Lincoln Park Airport and caused the water to back up into the streets.
'No place to go'
"When you get that much rain, it rushes down the mountain, and then it hits this flat spot and it's got no place to go," Hollberg said.
On Sunday morning, standing puddles of nearly a foot of water had made West Parkway impassable, and Jacksonville Road soon followed.
At the same time, Route 23 closed; Hollberg said that within an hour of the jughandle closing, the rest of Route 23 was shut off and only local traffic has been allowed in since.
The Newark-Pompton Turnpike would be shut down late Sunday afternoon as waters began to lap over the thoroughfare at several points and the Pompton swelled up to meet the bridge at the south end of town running into Wayne.
Calls rolled in constantly Sunday for evacuations, and they got more numerous and more panicked as the Pompton River began to seep under front doors in the darkness as it crested late Sunday night into Monday morning.
About two dozen calls came in after 8:30 on Sunday night, but Hollberg said that evacuations became exponentially more dangerous in the dark, and with all the notice given to residents to evacuate, the township refused to put its emergency workers at risk by performing midnight runs.
"I think that people who haven't been flooded before because it didn't quite make it into their homes didn't heed the (evacuation) warning as closely," Hollberg said.
At dawn on Monday, the rescues resumed, and altogether about 600 homes were ordered evacuated. How many individuals were rescued is still unknown.
The damage was savage. Homes in the Village Area off Jackson Avenue, which floods only during the worst storms, had 4 to 6 feet of water their first levels; their front doors showed dirty high water marks at stomach height on Monday afternoon.
Cars and trucks left overnight featured fogging windows and radiators with sticks and brush jammed into them, and front lawns swayed like seaweed below the waterline as the current ebbed and flowed through the neighborhood.
The south end of town saw similar totals, and even National Guard deuce-and-a-half trucks floundered in the Alexander Avenue area.
'Closed for the season'
PV Park's diving board now rests in the middle of the one giant lake that has absorbed both PV and Woodland Lake, and Hollberg said that the lake is "officially closed for the season."
About 30 residents crowded into the shelter set up at Pequannock Valley Middle School, which functioned throughout the storm. On Monday, however, PV, along with a wide swath of the southern end of town, lost power because a malfunctioning power substation off of Irving Street was surrounded by water, precluding JCP&L from reaching it.
However, the manager said, the township dodged the predicted high winds, and few power outages were reported during the storm.
For once, it will be hard blame the Pompton Lake Dam's floodgates for the township's troubles, even though it has become a favorite target of residents and officials alike since its completion in 2007.
Although Hollberg said that he would have rather had the dam opened and left open in order to avoid the sudden increases in river height that occurred Sunday morning, he said that the overall volume of Pompton Lake is so small that it had "no impact" on the amount of water the township received.
"You get a hurricane that produced 9 inches of rain in 18 hours, we can be ready to react to the effects of the storm, but I don't think there's anything that can be done…that much rain is gonna cause flooding," he said.
Phelan said that he thought the draining of the lake "couldn't have hurt," and that more importantly, it will open the door for future draining ahead of smaller storms.
Had Irene dropped 4 inches of rain instead of nearly 10, the draining might have averted the typical flooding that occurs, he said.
"We got Christie to actually do something, so we can probably go back the next time we know there's going to be a heavy rainstorm…and say, 'You did it one time, now do it again for us,'" he said. "It was a great thing (Christie) did even though it didn't help, but it may help on our 10-year floods going forward."
In the end, however, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported in the township, and attention will turn to helping the recovery, whenever it begins.
It is still too early for damage estimates, but it does not look promising.
Early reports indicated on Tuesday that part of the highway by Woodland Lake was undermined, and a reopening date is yet unclear.
The Newark-Pompton Turnpike bridge into Wayne was still closed Tuesday, and will be until the bridge can be inspected. Few access routes into the town are open, and police are checking licenses before letting people in.
Phelan said the big concern now will be to organize volunteers and get out and help the residents who are enduring once again.
"We're going to do whatever we can to help them…but it's going to be a huge cleanup," he said.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/128859683_Irene_sinks_low-lying_areas.html?c=y&page=3
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Butler waiting to hear of grant program's fate
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
BUTLER- Budget cuts in Washington might be trickling down to Butler's streets a little sooner than anticipated as the federally funded Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is on the congressional chopping block — and what's become a regular source of grant money to improve the borough's infrastructure may soon be eliminated.
The program has been very kind to Butler over the past decade. Since 2000, the borough has received 10 grants totaling $985,000.
These grants have gone to provide funding for a variety of infrastructure projects such as the 2002 installation of the Main Street water main and 2007's $80,000 replacement of the Carey Avenue firehouse roof.
The money's not free — the borough often puts up a percentage of the projects' final price tags — but it has been consistent.
At the Borough Council's March 15 meeting, however, Administrator Jim Lampmann told the governing body that the federal faucet might be dry and that funding for the program might disappear entirely in 2011.
'These are not superfluous projects'
Sabine Von Aulock, the director of the Morris County Division of Community Development, said that in 2010, Morris County received $2,453,876 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the CDBG program.
What the 2011 number will be will vary drastically depending on what budget Congress passes, and several proposals are currently being batted around the Capitol.
The grants are awarded in four categories: improvements (for municipal infrastructure), services (which fund adult daycares, battered women's programs, etc.), facilities (such as public health facilities), and housing (which funds the county's Homeowner Rehab Program, among other things).
Von Aulock said that the 2010 monies ended up funding 31 projects: 12 were for municipalities, while 19 were for nonprofits.
However, the House of Representatives has, in its zeal to cut the budget, taken aim at the CDBG, which is required to serve low- and moderate-income areas, and proposed a 66-percent funding cut.
It's likely that in this scenario, Morris County would receive just under $835,000. Of last year's projects, only 11 would have been able to be funded with that money.
Ironically, N.J. Congressman Scott Garrett (R-5) has proposed eliminating the funding outright, which is the doomsday scenario for Von Aulock.
The U.S. Senate has made its own proposal, however, that would only cut funding 12 percent and would likely leave the county with close to $2.15 million to dole out.
"There's all kinds of speculation, and I cannot pin my hopes anywhere. But these are not superfluous projects," Von Aulock said. "It's water mains and roads, and towns are relying on these."
"(The funding cut) may be a deal-breaker for them," she said.
'The work needs to be done'
Lampmann said that he, along with Borough Engineer Paul Darmofalski, made a presentation on March 7 at the Morris County Division of Community Development in the hopes of securing nearly $80,000 in grants, but that this was before he knew the funding might vanish.
"We don't know where that stands," he told the council, "(but) the hope is that our presentation wasn't wasted for a program that's going to go away."
The grants, if the borough receives them, would go toward relining the very old (and now leaking) brick manholes in the neighborhood of Arch and Main streets; the project is important, he told Suburban Trends, because sealing off the manholes stops fresh water from infiltrating into the sewer system.
"Any groundwater that leaks into the system is fresh water, and you're paying to treat that," he said. "If you can stop that (leakage), that's money down the road you're saving."
That is, of course, if the borough can afford to fix it.
Although the council has long talked about the project, other issues have been more pressing. Last year, $80,000 in CDBG money went toward replacing the water main on Bartholdi Avenue, a project that took precedence because Butler's century-old water lines continually cause water pressure issues.
Lampmann said that the federal cuts will directly impact Butler taxpayers. Officials over recent years have rued the decisions of prior councils to not keep up on infrastructure improvements, and they don't plan to follow suit.
"This (money) will have to be raised through a bond, and that's the route that we'll go. The work needs to be done, and it will have an impact on taxes," he said. "You don't want to continue going along without making (infrastructure) improvements."
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
BY STEVE JANOSKI
BUTLER- Budget cuts in Washington might be trickling down to Butler's streets a little sooner than anticipated as the federally funded Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is on the congressional chopping block — and what's become a regular source of grant money to improve the borough's infrastructure may soon be eliminated.
The program has been very kind to Butler over the past decade. Since 2000, the borough has received 10 grants totaling $985,000.
These grants have gone to provide funding for a variety of infrastructure projects such as the 2002 installation of the Main Street water main and 2007's $80,000 replacement of the Carey Avenue firehouse roof.
The money's not free — the borough often puts up a percentage of the projects' final price tags — but it has been consistent.
At the Borough Council's March 15 meeting, however, Administrator Jim Lampmann told the governing body that the federal faucet might be dry and that funding for the program might disappear entirely in 2011.
'These are not superfluous projects'
Sabine Von Aulock, the director of the Morris County Division of Community Development, said that in 2010, Morris County received $2,453,876 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the CDBG program.
What the 2011 number will be will vary drastically depending on what budget Congress passes, and several proposals are currently being batted around the Capitol.
The grants are awarded in four categories: improvements (for municipal infrastructure), services (which fund adult daycares, battered women's programs, etc.), facilities (such as public health facilities), and housing (which funds the county's Homeowner Rehab Program, among other things).
Von Aulock said that the 2010 monies ended up funding 31 projects: 12 were for municipalities, while 19 were for nonprofits.
However, the House of Representatives has, in its zeal to cut the budget, taken aim at the CDBG, which is required to serve low- and moderate-income areas, and proposed a 66-percent funding cut.
It's likely that in this scenario, Morris County would receive just under $835,000. Of last year's projects, only 11 would have been able to be funded with that money.
Ironically, N.J. Congressman Scott Garrett (R-5) has proposed eliminating the funding outright, which is the doomsday scenario for Von Aulock.
The U.S. Senate has made its own proposal, however, that would only cut funding 12 percent and would likely leave the county with close to $2.15 million to dole out.
"There's all kinds of speculation, and I cannot pin my hopes anywhere. But these are not superfluous projects," Von Aulock said. "It's water mains and roads, and towns are relying on these."
"(The funding cut) may be a deal-breaker for them," she said.
'The work needs to be done'
Lampmann said that he, along with Borough Engineer Paul Darmofalski, made a presentation on March 7 at the Morris County Division of Community Development in the hopes of securing nearly $80,000 in grants, but that this was before he knew the funding might vanish.
"We don't know where that stands," he told the council, "(but) the hope is that our presentation wasn't wasted for a program that's going to go away."
The grants, if the borough receives them, would go toward relining the very old (and now leaking) brick manholes in the neighborhood of Arch and Main streets; the project is important, he told Suburban Trends, because sealing off the manholes stops fresh water from infiltrating into the sewer system.
"Any groundwater that leaks into the system is fresh water, and you're paying to treat that," he said. "If you can stop that (leakage), that's money down the road you're saving."
That is, of course, if the borough can afford to fix it.
Although the council has long talked about the project, other issues have been more pressing. Last year, $80,000 in CDBG money went toward replacing the water main on Bartholdi Avenue, a project that took precedence because Butler's century-old water lines continually cause water pressure issues.
Lampmann said that the federal cuts will directly impact Butler taxpayers. Officials over recent years have rued the decisions of prior councils to not keep up on infrastructure improvements, and they don't plan to follow suit.
"This (money) will have to be raised through a bond, and that's the route that we'll go. The work needs to be done, and it will have an impact on taxes," he said. "You don't want to continue going along without making (infrastructure) improvements."
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Americans need to fan Bouazizi's flames
BY STEVE JANOSKI
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
- Thomas Paine
Many times when you ask your typical apathetic American about politics, they'll offer one of two answers: "I don't really pay attention…it doesn't affect me" is the first, and "I'm only one person, what does it really matter what I do?" is the second.
But, as the flames of revolution tear across the Middle East's desert sands, we must remember that the firestorm that engulfs the region was lit by the sparks that blew off of one lone man's scorched body.
Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor who made his living selling vegetables. Everything changed for him one day in mid-December when, according to a recent TIME magazine article, a policewoman confiscated his unlicensed produce cart, slapped him, spat in his face, and insulted his dead father.
Bouazizi went to the provincial headquarters to seek help from the local municipal officials- they ignored him.An hour later, he returned to the headquarters, doused himself in gasoline, and set himself ablaze in the ultimate form of protest. He died days later.
What even Bouazizi didn't know, however, was that his one strike of the match would ignite the rage of all of the oppressed who have long suffered under the harsh rule of their autocratic Middle Eastern dictators.
Tunisia fell first. Then, the protests began in Egypt - weeks later, their dictator of three decades, Hosni Mubarak, fled from Cairo.
Even more remarkably, the fervor has spread: protests have erupted in Libya and Yemen, Algeria and Bahrain, Syria and Iran, as the citizens take to the streets clamoring for the collapse of their governments.
Those governments, in response, have acted accordingly; as Jack London once wrote, "The Iron Heel is getting bold."The Black Hundreds have formed, and there are pitched battles on the boulevards as pro-government forces try to crush the rebellious with truncheon and tear gas, batons and bullets.
The New York Times reported on Friday that dozens have been killed in streetfights in Libya; in Bahrain, security forces launched an attack on sleeping protestors, on women and children, that left four dead and scores wounded.Still, the people chant, "You cannot keep us down!"
In Iran, the opposition figure who led the protests against the results of the 2009 "election", Mir Hussein Moussavi, has disappeared as protests reach a fevered pitch. Some fear he's been "detained," and there are hints that the nation may be on the eve of civil war.
For years I have scoffed at the idea that America could push democracy on another country. I've repeatedly quoted the old saying that if the idea of democracy is so good, you won't have to push it on people- they'll steal it.
However, it takes a steel spine to stand face-to-face with the point of a bayonet and demand it, and even I, ever the idealist, am shocked by the strength and passion being shown by these brave souls.
I have heard some say that the United States must be wary of these protests and their results because some of the outgoing regimes are friendly to America, and we don't know who will take over in the power vacuum.
While that may be true, that line of thinking is also why the rest of the world hates us so much- the fact that a brutal dictator was friendly to the United States doesn't mean that the blood of his murdered citizens washes off his hands any easier.
For once, Americans, look past the confines of our borders, and be, just for the moment, citizens of the world! Realize that what these people are doing is the very thing that our Founding Fathers, so revered by both left and right, did all those centuries ago: seizing power from the cruel and unjust and declaring that they'd rather die on their feet than live any longer on their knees.
Every soul that leaves a corpse on the glowering streets of any Middle Eastern capitol is joining the ranks of the greatest of the world's patriots, from those Frenchmen that stormed the Bastille in 1789 to the Germans who took sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall.
And with the living, the spirit of every American patriot, from Thomas Paine and Sam Adams to Thomas Jefferson and Washington himself, stands defiantly, called back to action once more.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
- Thomas Paine
Many times when you ask your typical apathetic American about politics, they'll offer one of two answers: "I don't really pay attention…it doesn't affect me" is the first, and "I'm only one person, what does it really matter what I do?" is the second.
But, as the flames of revolution tear across the Middle East's desert sands, we must remember that the firestorm that engulfs the region was lit by the sparks that blew off of one lone man's scorched body.
Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor who made his living selling vegetables. Everything changed for him one day in mid-December when, according to a recent TIME magazine article, a policewoman confiscated his unlicensed produce cart, slapped him, spat in his face, and insulted his dead father.
Bouazizi went to the provincial headquarters to seek help from the local municipal officials- they ignored him.An hour later, he returned to the headquarters, doused himself in gasoline, and set himself ablaze in the ultimate form of protest. He died days later.
What even Bouazizi didn't know, however, was that his one strike of the match would ignite the rage of all of the oppressed who have long suffered under the harsh rule of their autocratic Middle Eastern dictators.
Tunisia fell first. Then, the protests began in Egypt - weeks later, their dictator of three decades, Hosni Mubarak, fled from Cairo.
Even more remarkably, the fervor has spread: protests have erupted in Libya and Yemen, Algeria and Bahrain, Syria and Iran, as the citizens take to the streets clamoring for the collapse of their governments.
Those governments, in response, have acted accordingly; as Jack London once wrote, "The Iron Heel is getting bold."The Black Hundreds have formed, and there are pitched battles on the boulevards as pro-government forces try to crush the rebellious with truncheon and tear gas, batons and bullets.
The New York Times reported on Friday that dozens have been killed in streetfights in Libya; in Bahrain, security forces launched an attack on sleeping protestors, on women and children, that left four dead and scores wounded.Still, the people chant, "You cannot keep us down!"
In Iran, the opposition figure who led the protests against the results of the 2009 "election", Mir Hussein Moussavi, has disappeared as protests reach a fevered pitch. Some fear he's been "detained," and there are hints that the nation may be on the eve of civil war.
For years I have scoffed at the idea that America could push democracy on another country. I've repeatedly quoted the old saying that if the idea of democracy is so good, you won't have to push it on people- they'll steal it.
However, it takes a steel spine to stand face-to-face with the point of a bayonet and demand it, and even I, ever the idealist, am shocked by the strength and passion being shown by these brave souls.
I have heard some say that the United States must be wary of these protests and their results because some of the outgoing regimes are friendly to America, and we don't know who will take over in the power vacuum.
While that may be true, that line of thinking is also why the rest of the world hates us so much- the fact that a brutal dictator was friendly to the United States doesn't mean that the blood of his murdered citizens washes off his hands any easier.
For once, Americans, look past the confines of our borders, and be, just for the moment, citizens of the world! Realize that what these people are doing is the very thing that our Founding Fathers, so revered by both left and right, did all those centuries ago: seizing power from the cruel and unjust and declaring that they'd rather die on their feet than live any longer on their knees.
Every soul that leaves a corpse on the glowering streets of any Middle Eastern capitol is joining the ranks of the greatest of the world's patriots, from those Frenchmen that stormed the Bastille in 1789 to the Germans who took sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall.
And with the living, the spirit of every American patriot, from Thomas Paine and Sam Adams to Thomas Jefferson and Washington himself, stands defiantly, called back to action once more.
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