First rally to Save Asbury Park’s North End Beach

Your help is needed to Save Asbury Park’s north end beach.

Please click here to send all 5 Monmouth County Freeholders an email requesting that they help Asbury Park in its effort to raise funds to buy the Bradley Cove tract development rights back from iStar.

The County can help in a number of ways:

1. Complete the appraisal promised by Lillian Burry before the 2011 election. Freeholder Burry and the Park’s department have not yet completed that appraisal.
2. Aid the City in finding matching funds for its Green Acres application.
3. Provide technical and legal advice to the City from the Monmouth County Park system with its expertise in acquiring land and creating world-class regional parks.

Emails can be sent to all 5 Freeholders at this link. You can download the Letter to Mo. Co. Freeholders – June 1 sent to the Freeholders by community activists Joe Woerner and Joyce Grant. Stay tuned for more action alerts later this month.

Background Information:

In 2011 when Freeholder Lilian Burry was up for re-election she was dead set against the County ordering an appraisal for the tract of land on Asbury’s north end beach.  Thanks to hundreds of requests from registered voters she changed her mind in early November, a week before the election. The appraisal that was promised prior to that election still stands incomplete in 2014.

Freeholder Burry and Park’s Secretary Truncer attended a meeting at Asbury Park’s request this winter. Although this meeting was intended to be the first step in a potential partnership between the City of Asbury Park and the County, iStar attended at the County’s request.  As a result of this, and the incomplete nature of the County’s appraisal of the Bradley Cove tract, the headline coming out of the meeting was “ISTAR CLAIMS LAND WORTH MORE THAN $3.5 MILLION, BURRY SAYS” according to the Asbury Park Sun.

Freeholder Burry’s failure of leadership on this issue is a great disappointment. As a result we have requested above that emails be sent to all five of the current Freeholders. Hopefully we can convince Freeholder Burry that Asbury Park’s north end beach is worth the County’s attention and resources.

Thank you for the continued support and keep an eye out for an action alert later this month.

A stretch of open space on Asbury Park’s north end beach that is slated to be developed into high end townhomes under the City’s current plan.

Monmouth County Parks director Jim Truncer and a team from the county will be meeting with Asbury Park Mayor Myra Campbell and Councilwoman Amy Quinn in the upcoming week. The meeting was unanimously requested by the Asbury Park City Council. [Read more…]

As our summer season winds down, here are a few updates on the campaign to save Asbury’s north end beach.

1. Asbury Council members take tour of Monmouth County Parks:

Left to Right: Mike Harmon, John Moor, Joe Woerner, and Amy Quinn.

Summer is here and the Jersey Shore Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation will be holding surf lessons for Asbury Park/Neptune youth every Tuesday and hosting its annual Asbury Park Family Day at the Beach on Saturday July 27th. Details are below.

[Read more…]