An existing gravel rail trail for bicycles and pedestrians in Corson's Inlet State Park comes to a dead end about 100 yards shy of streets at the south end of Ocean City, NJ.
A petition against
this project, signed by 136 Ocean City part- and full-time residents was presented to City Council when a plan to give away Ocean City south-end wetlands for an additional entrance to Corson's Inlet State Park was introduced a couple years ago.
This was even before Hurricane Sandy devastated the south end of Ocean City. Apparently there is a need in Trenton to meet some bureaucratic requirement for paths in Corson's Inlet State Park. That shouldn't concern our town, but this plan originated back in 2007 when the former mayor and his followers wanted to take many acres of south end wetlands for a three-part bike path.
The Park Service cannot do this construction without our mayor signing off on the permit application. Some of the same bike path advocates have not given up on the idea of taking south end wetlands and this Corson's connector is just another attempt to achieve the 2007 goal.
We thought this plan was dead after Sandy, considering forward-minded shore towns are now planning for ways to deal with climate change and rising sea levels and wouldn't dream of touching protective wetlands after witnessing what Sandy did to neighborhoods along the shore.
But who signed the Petition and who in Ocean City pushed for this path? That's what matters here — not numbers or the environment or common sense. This is not a democracy in Ocean City. One of the city council representatives told Pete Guinosso, the Fourth Ward representative, in essence, that it was only second homeowners who signed, so who cares about the petition. When confronted, he later said he "misspoke."
Sure, he misspoke the truth. The fix was in on this anyway. In spite of the fact that the neighbors do not want this, the environmental community doesn't want it, it is just a redundant path and is not needed and wetlands and endangered and threatened wildlife should be protected, the resolution passed and this superfluous path will be constructed with more wetland destruction. The Ocean City Council has listened to the very few north-end Perillo holdovers and disregarded everything and everyone else.
We had no time to rally a group to go to the meeting as, once again, our Fourth Ward representative, in a manipulative process, was kept in the dark until two days before the resolution was presented. But even if all 136 of us showed up at the meeting, it would not have mattered. The fix was in.
For second homeowners in Ocean City, the fix is always in. They will never give us the vote because they can get away with anything and do it easily without a larger and more diverse voting base. We should, however, vote with our wallets. Since we don't count, when we sign a petition, we should count when we buy services in Ocean City. When we go to the boardwalk, call an electrician, a plumber, need a realtor, a landscaper, we should find out who has walked all over our rights before we make that call and spend our money.
One person from each family should try and register in Ocean City. Something drastic needs to be done, because speaking up as a second homeowner is not just worthless, it has consequences. When I have spoken up before, one prominent Ocean City citizen wrote letters to my neighbors telling them to stay away from me and that I was a liar. This same person wrote to a women who disagreed with him and told her what she was doing was "not Christian." This is a woman who devotes many hours a week on charitable causes, by the way. Others got insulting letters in the mail. Yes, speaking up in Ocean City against the good-old-boy network can be rough and not for the faint of heart. But when people have no facts, they resort to intimidation. Manipulation and intimidation, it only works some of the time and can only work when people stay passive.
For second homeowners, the fix is in in City Hall. So let's take a stand using economics. Our petition said nothing to this City Council, but money sure talks in this town.
Irene Lorenzon
