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More Insanity In Ocean Township…

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As if having a police force that entered renters’ homes at all hours of the night without a warrant or probable cause wasn’t enough, my roommate picked up on this news story yesterday: Pregnant Policewoman’s Request for Light Duty Denied by New Jersey Township Officials. Granted, due to the increased scrutiny from a national media, this story has come to a somewhat amicable resolution, but how much more bullshit needs to happen in Ocean Township before there is real change in this town?!

Stories abound at Monmouth University about the way that the Ocean Township Police Department violates the civil rights of those students who live off-campus (yes, including the vast majority of student renters who are NOT blights on the local community). The local papers run near-weekly stories about major drug busts in Ocean Township. A few years ago the Mayor of Ocean Township was federally indicted for bribing local business owners (and, oddly enough, shortly after the Mayor was indicted the top Code Enforcement official and Chief of Police both retired…shady anyone?). Local high school kids are rounded up by the dozen and arrested for underage drinking (which I’m not opposed to – but arresting? Come on…).

Just search Ocean Township on this blog and you’ll find years and years worth of ridiculous stories coming out of this town. And now we can add this to the bunch – not immediately accommodating a decorated, pregnant police officer. Shameful. Downright shameful.

In the mean time, check out New Jersey Carpet Cleaning for the best carpet cleaning in the Garden State!

Mike Huckabee vs. Ocean Township, NJ

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After listening to Governor Mike Huckabee make a great comment during the ABC News Presidential debates tonight, I had to quote him here. When asked about illegal immigration and what he would do, Governor Huckabee said a bunch of things, but one quote caught my mind:

“When people live in the United States, they ought to have their head up – they ought not to live in fear. Everytime they see a police car, they shouldn’t run and hide. Nobody ought to live like that in this country.”

Ha ha ha ha!!! Governor Huckabee!

I like Governor Huckabee – I really don’t have any major gripe against him, but at this point in the campaign I really don’t have a desire to learn much more about where he stands on each issue (remember, as an independent I can’t vote in New Jersey’s primaries without declaring a party – which I won’t do). But let me make this comment about Governor Huckabee’s quote up there…

As a person with a larger-than-normal degree of empathy, I can appreciate the fact that illegal immigrants are forced to live in a manner that many of us find abhorrent. Yet while I find the Governor’s statement to be a great political quote and one worthy of repeating, I wonder when a candidate will step up and make the same, truthful comparison about the good old boy system that has ravaged New Jersey and many other areas of this country.

In other words, I lived through some of the worst abuses of civil liberties that I’ve ever seen when I was a college student renting a home in Ocean Township, New Jersey. Police officers sat outside of our house, they routinely followed my roommates into the driveway of our home and questioned them at all hours of the day (and night), they would open up the front door of our house at 2am and walk through and tell us they were “just checking” even when only 2 people were home. It was a disgusting abuse of power that took place 6 – 8 years ago and to this day my roommates and I have a great disgust for the Ocean Township law enforcement and a much greater disgust for the anti-college student feeling in Ocean Township.

We ARE the people who see police cars with “Ocean Township” on the side of them and we attempt to run and hide because we know that in this town you can be arrested (or at least given a big money ticket) for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s happened to my former roommates, it’s happened to our friends, and it’s happened to me damn it. And I don’t buy the crap that we were “rowdy college students living in family neighborhoods.” Bullshit on that! We weren’t nearly as rowdy as the “family” that lived two doors down from us with the high school-aged daughter who was selling drugs to half of the town. Our rent (our very HIGH rent, I might add) paid the same taxes the rest of the town paid. And, we added a great deal to the local economy.

So I love Governor Huckabee’s comment that no one in America should live in fear of the police. But what happens when the local police (or an entire state’s police system) has turned into nothing more than a civil liberties abusing fundraising arm of the politicians? It’s disgusting and if America really wants “change” then we all need to start by no longer permitting the vast abuses of power that we see at the local level.

Corruption in Ocean Township!

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Many years ago, when I was an undergraduate at Monmouth University, a group of students and I led a public relations battle against Ocean Township and their excessive abuse of our civil rights as residents of the town. Police officers routinely opened our front door at all hours of the day and night and walked through our house “just to see what’s going on.”

We had police officers come to our house with two or three cars during the prime party hours on the weekend and tell us to keep the noise down. When we invited them into our house to see the 3 guys who were hanging out playing Tiger Woods Golf on PlayStation 2, the cops would put their tails between their legs and tell us that they had better not have to come back. Yeah right. And we had better not have to get the FBI to investigate that police station (again). Oh yeah – we had the FBI investigating Ocean Township well before the township’s corrupt Mayor, Terrance Weldon, was indicted.

I am only bringing all of this up because of the recent corruption talk in New Jersey…and because the story hit recently that Ocean Township is considering suing their corrupt former Mayor:

The township is weighing the option of suing former Mayor Terrance D. Weldon for violating his oath of office in accepting $64,000 in bribes from developers.

“We actually have a firm that has approached us about litigation and we are considering that,” Mayor William F. Larkin said at a Township Council meeting Wednesday night. “There is actually a firm that wants to represent us without cost.”

That was from the Asbury Park Press. I feel compelled to bring this stuff up because seven and eight years ago a bunch of college students and I SAW the corruption, we lived through the corruption, and (most importantly) we publicly called these administrators out on their corrupt ways. And what did we get in return? A group of local residents and activist-for-the-sake-of-being-activist students who condemned us for using the word “corrupt.”

Bullshit on them. We were right. The Mayor of the town has been indicted and in his wake the Police Chief left his post and the housing inspector left, too (among other officials). All of these folks were in on the crap going on in Ocean Township and we saw it all before anyone else would believe it. Now we’ve been proven correct.

I want my apology!

Another Reason to Love Ocean Township…

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Some of you may remember last summer when I was repeatedly posting all of the bad things that happen in Ocean Township, New Jersey. My purpose was to constantly spin these “bad” news stories against the completely horrific manner in which Ocean Township singles out and goes after college students. Monmouth University students are – by and large – a credit to the community. They engage in mandatory community service for many of their on-campus organizations as well as bolster the economy by living in what would other be vacant housing. I’ve got news for all of the pompous homeowners that hate these rental houses…vacant housing doesn’t pay the property tax bill and the less property taxes that are collected, the more YOU have to pay to make up for it.

In any event, I digress. Another story popped up in my favorite local paper the other day, The Coaster. Seems that TWENTY-TWO underage kids were arrested at a “drinking party” during the last week or so of August. Now, I don’t condemn the kids as much as I condemn the parents in these situations. I do, however, think that there is an alarming situation in Ocean Township.

That is, I think it is absolutely crazy that these types of stories are looked at with wonder and amazement by the local adults. What? You guys were never kids? You never gathered at a friend’s house and got drunk when you were in high school? Okay, I submit that kids today are much stupider and generally more likely to drink and do experimental drugs than ten, twenty, and maybe even 30 years ago. I’ll give anyone that in the argument.

What I won’t give is that these kids are doing what kids do. Again, I’m no genius, but there has got to be a level of comfort between parents and their kids where the kids can hang out and begin to feel a degree of freedom, but are still safe in the process. I don’t have kids so I have little room to talk about what that level of comfort might entail.

I have, however, suffered through going to college while renting a house in Ocean Township and I have to make this point…

Maybe if the police and township officials and nosy neighbors didn’t spend September through May going after generally harmless (and of age) college students, they wouldn’t have a huge underage drinking problem with their “locals.” Just something to consider…

How Ridiculous is Ocean Township?

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You probably remember my post from the other day about Ocean Township and their anti-fraternity and anti-sorority bullshit starting up again. I just thought that I would provide you with links to two more stories about Ocean Township this week:

That’s right, folks. Not only are those damn college students putting harmless letters in their windows, but there’s a guy who wants to hump your leg in front of the Costco! And if that’s not enough for you, Ocean Township might as well have a new slogan: “Come to Ocean Township – We’ll shoot your animals!”

If someone can honestly say that this town isn’t the most messed up place in all of New Jersey (and that’s saying something), then they’re crazy.