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Our Lady Star of the Sea No More in Long Branch

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For those of you who read this morning’s Asbury Park Press, I’m sure you noticed the story about Our Lady Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church in Long Branch, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Apparently, yesterday was the first time that the Church ceased to be known as Our Lady Star of the Sea and began a new life as Christ the King Church. Actually, I’m not entirely sure about whether or not this is the first time that the Church has been called Christ the King since this story sort of fell off of my radar, but here is some more information from the Asbury Park Press:

Dozens of parishioners walked out of a Mass at the former Our Lady, Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church on Sunday at the moment their former priest was introduced as pastor of the newly formed Christ the King church.

The parishioners, who attended St. John the Baptist church until they were locked out of the building in May because of a consolidation plan, then marched back to their former place of worship and organized a service on the sidewalk.

“They have ignored us for far too long,” said Victoria Collett, alluding to the Diocese of Trenton. She was among dozens of people who wore white T-shirts that read, “Save Our Church.”

The Diocese merged St. John the Baptist, Holy Trinity and Our Lady, Star of the Sea into Christ the King in part because of a scarcity of priests, lack of financial resources and dwindling attendance, said the Rev. Sam Sirianni, who headed a committee that studied the consolidation.

Many of the hundreds of people who attended St. John the Baptist were of Latino and Brazilian descent, Sirianni said. Many of those among the dwindling population at Our Lady, Star of the Sea were descendants of Irish immigrants from decades ago, he said.

The major gripe talked about in the story is that the parishioners of St. John the Baptist Church do not want to be a part of the newly formed Christ the King Church. As it suggests in the story, some parishioners feel as though they were not told the entire truth in terms of how the diocesan consolidation would affect their Church.

Personally, I’m sad for another reason – I’m sad to see the Our Lady Star of the Sea parish consolidated with the others. No, not for reasons of mixing cultures (which I’m in favor of here), but because my family has history at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church. My Grandmother used to go to Church there and my Great Grandfather had his funeral at that Church. Plus, I think it was a fitting name for a seaside parish – Our Lady Star of the Sea.

I’m unsure of how this particular situation will work itself out, but I do hope that – in the end – everyone remembers that they should be attending Church (whichever Church that winds up being) for the right reasons.

Nonprofits – More Efficient, More Cost Effective

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Long Branch has a few weekly newspapers, one of which is the Atlanticville. Generally, the Atlanticville doesn’t have many interesting guest opinion editorials (unless, of course, I’m writing one). This week, though, they printed one written by James Abruzzo of DHR International’s Newark office. Some snooping over at DHR International’s website shows that Mr. Abruzzo heads up the firm’s nonprofit searches. Sounds like an interesting job.

Anyway, in his op-ed, Mr. Abruzzo makes a statement that I think bears repeating on this blog:

Contrary to its name and to what many believe, the nonprofit sector is not non businesslike; in fact, compared to government and the commercial sector, nonprofits are better managed and more efficient. Yet, by providing services that would otherwise be unaffordable in the marketplace, the sector relies on contributions and grants and it is this that makes the sector vulnerable during the financial crisis.

Bravo, Mr. Abruzzo! This is the truth, people. Nonprofts are created to fill a gap. That gap can range from a social services gap to a gap in opportunity to access certain resources or even a personal gap left in one’s family after a person passes away from a specific cause. The point is that nonprofits fill a gap that otherwise would not be filled by the government or private sector. As Mr. Abruzzo suggests, many of the services provided by nonprofits are unaffordable in the marketplace and thus the sector must rely on generosity to succeed.

Which brings me to my first point of this entry – please try to continue to send your weekly, monthly, or annual donations to your favorite charities! I’m not asking you to go out and find a new charity and start making donations to it (though if you’re in the business of donating money to new charities, let me know and I can hook you up with some good ones in Morris, Monmouth, and Mercer Counties). What I am saying, though, is that if you can afford to continue your existing donations to your favorite nonprofit organizations, please do so.

My second point in writing this entry is to reiterate a point that Mr. Abruzzo makes in his op-ed, namely that the nonprofit sector is not non businesslike. In other words, nonprofit does not mean “no profit!” In fact, nonprofit organizations have begun using the term not-for-profit instead of nonprofit to describe their business activities. The basic difference between a for-profit organization and a not-for-profit organization is that for-profit generate profits which can be distributed back to its shareholders, not-for-profits are not allowed to do this as per IRS regulations. That’s the difference in a nutshell.

Do not expect a not-for-profit company to expect not to make money on its activities. In fact, you should expect the opposite. The best not-for-profit organizations are financially healthy despite the current economy since they are built on a fiscally responsible framework made for success. I’m glad that Mr. Abruzzo kept that point in his op-ed. The world needs to know that a good not-for-profit organization should generate profits and even bank some of those profits. A good not-for-profit organization will not, however, break the law and redistribute those profits to their shareholders.

Remember this if you ever deal with a not-for-profit company!

More on Long Branch’s Redevelopment Process

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Finally, Kevin Brown has been removed as a squatter at 162 Broadway in Long Branch! The Asbury Park Press ran a story today talking about how the City of Long Branch has taken over the property. My favorite part of the story is below:

Jones said that after touring 162 Broadway, he came to a certain conclusion: If there was no redevelopment there, the city still would have condemned the building and demolished it, as an unsafe structure.

A portion of the ground floor, which had been home to a commercial tenant until late in 2007, was in the best shape, but the rest of the building was suffering from a lack of maintenance, he said. There were holes in the walls, ceiling, roof and windows, which had allowed rain to enter, deteriorating the structure further, and the items and materials that had been stored there were literally moldering where they sat.

Yeah…that’s not “blight” at all! Ha! What was most disturbing about this situation was the way that Brown tried to piggyback on the the MTOTSA folks – people who had a real gripe with eminent domain abuse. But (dare I say this), the legal system actually worked in this process! The MTOTSA organization won their battle against Long Branch (as they should have) and Brown lost his battle (as he should have). There is justice in this system!

For more background on this situation and some interesting comments from guests to this blog, feel free to visit a previous post on the subject.

A Major Ruling in the Eminent Domain Arena

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Do you know what eminent domain is? I will refer to our friends at Wikipedia to provide a simple definition, though if you want a more detailed one feel free to click on the link. From Wikipedia:

Eminent domain…is the inherent power of the state to seize a citizen’s private property…with due monetary compensation, but without the owner’s consent.

In simpler terms, the process of eminent domain allows the government to take private property so long as they pay you a decent sum for the property. If you dig a little deeper, the property is supposed to taken only to be used for the public good. For example, if you are familiar with Deal Road in Ocean Township, you’ll know that the museum sits towards the end of the road closest to Route 35. You’ll also know that there was some road work performed to widen Deal Road near the entrance and exit areas of the museum. In order to widen the road, the township had to acquire some two or three feet of a homeowner’s lawn. The homeowner cried eminent domain abuse, but no one listened because this is exactly what the law is in place to do!

However, you may have heard the cry of eminent domain abuse in connection with some other developments along the Jersey Shore (or whatever neck of the woods you’re in). In the City of Long Branch, for example, the MTOTSA (Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace, and Seaview Avenue residents’ association) fought against Long Branch’s designation of their properties as “blighted.” And you know what? They won.

Due to my current and immediately former employment situations, I’ve worked with many organizations that work both for and against the use of eminent domain. The biggest common denominator that I’ve found in every discussion is the lack of understanding of what eminent domain is all about. In fact, I HAVE uncovered many cases of eminent domain abuse…but in the opposite direction – where homeowners have literally extorted development companies who wanted to acquire small parcels of land for developments. It’s gross, really.

Anyway, the people of MTOTSA fought a valiant fight and I’m glad that they won. Their property was NOT blighted and for Long Branch to call it blighted – so it could building another multi-million dollar development on the beachfront – is a bastardization of the eminent domain laws. Some people argue that taking these properties was in the “public’s best interests” because it could generate tax revenues many multiples in excess of what it currently generates. Yet there is no discussion of the increased costs associated with high-density development. The idea is that with higher tax revenues from this one part of town, the rest of the town’s property taxes would be lowered.

One only needs to look at Pier Village (right down the street from the MTOTSA area) to see that you can have all of the tourists in the world coming to your area, but it does not guarantee that the increased revenues will lead to lower taxes. Long Branch’s property taxes went UP this year! And that’s including all of the excess revenue coming from Pier Village. Talk about being sold a bill of goods…

Congratulations to the MTOTSA organization for scoring a well-deserved victory in a very tough fight!

Travel Nightmares Thanks to Continental

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Just a few minutes ago I posted a brief review of my trip to Long Beach, California. In that post you’ll see that I had a crazy time with our landing in Long Beach because an earthquake hit. Well, that doesn’t compare to the craziness I had to deal with when we landed back in Newark at the Continental terminal. Yes folks, Continental was worse to deal with than an earthquake…

The plane landed at Newark right on time at 12 midnight. From that point, I had to catch a train at 1:00am back to the Long Branch area where I live. My buddy and I grab out baggage from the carousel at about 12:30am I notice that the entire left wheel of my bag is missing PLUS the casing for the wheel is cracked and missing, too. Welcome back to New Jersey!

I dragged my bag over to the Continental Baggage Assistance area and told the woman behind the counter that my wheel was broken and it needed to be replaced or repaired. She said, “I don’t think we cover wheels.” To which I responded, “You’re covering something because I’m exhausted, tired, and I don’t want to get loud because you guys broke my bag.” The woman then waited for the manager to come out and after the manager affirmed that I was correct and Continental would repair the wheel, the woman began filling out my voucher.

Seeing that she was taking her time, I told the woman that we had a plane to catch in 15 minutes and she suggested that this process was going to take more than 15 minutes. Not too big of a problem – another train was supposedly coming at 2am. Of course this woman didn’t realize the complexity (or lack thereof) involved in her job because she was finished in 10 minutes. So my buddy and I go through the airport (me dragging my 50 pound bag) and we get to the place where you have to buy tickets for the train. After dropping $14.25 each for train tickets, we had to wait an unGodly amount of time for the AirTran system to take us from the airport to the RailLink where we could catch the 2:00am train.

At around 1:30am we finally make it to the RailLink station and before we can use our tickets to go through the little turnstyles, the woman asked us which train we were going on. I responded that we were headed for Long Branch to which she said the train already left. I told her that I knew, but we were hoping to catch the 2:00am train. At this point, the woman showed us on the train schedule that the 2:00am train only runs on Fridays and that the next train was coming at 4:45am.

For those of you that know me, you know that something clicked in my head after the woman told me this…

My buddy and I went back to the Continental counter (near 2:00am at this point) and a different woman behind the counter was complaining to no one about how tired she was. Really? She was tired? REALLY? Because I just got off a fucking plane from California where I was wedged in a seat next to some pompous prick who decided that about 15% of my seat belonged to him, found out that my bag was broken (and now it falls on ME to get it fixed), and that I missed my fucking train home because Continental broke my bag. YOU’RE FUCKING TIRED? You know what? Blow me, asshole. I’m fucking tired, not you.

The woman then says to me, “You’re still here complaining?” Being exhausted, I said to her that I now missed my train and Continental needs to find a way to get me home. She said that she didn’t have the authority to do anything about that so she told me to wait for the Manager to get back. Which I did… When the Manager came back I tried to wave him down and he walked by me. He came back a few minutes later and I tried to suggest to him that we need to talk and he didn’t even regard my presence. After about 10 minutes of him being the back room, he came out a third time at which point I said, “Hey! I was told to talk with you!” His response was nonexistent as he walked right by me without even flinching an eye.

Not wanting to act like a lunatic in the airport (those fuckers are lucky that there are extra security regulations now or I would have tackled that son of a bitch and screamed in his fucking face), my buddy and I went outside and caught a cab. After a $120 trip, we arrived at our cars at 3:00am. Fucking fantabulous.

I am in the midst of drafting a really biting e-mail to Continental asking why I should ever fly their airline again. They didn’t do a fucking thing for me and they even cost us an extra $120 to get home. How dare they!? Folks, for what it’s worth I advise you to stay away from Continental. Rude service, poor customer support representatives, and Manager who don’t give a crap about their clients.