Hey......Guess who,
You are typical of those who only want and think for themselves. Obama was your choice on Nov. 6th. Why should yours and other undamaged dwellings feel the need to have your taxes lowered? Are you not receiving the proper services that you got before SANDY? Be thankful that you survived. Others, many too numerous to name, wish that they had a dwelling they could pay taxes on. Why you............you make me sick.

Well said Art. My 80 year old father lost his home and a lifetime of irreplaceable items in this storm. I'm sickened to think that there are those who sustained little to no damage/loss and still have a roof over their heads are actually worried about a minor tax increase!

@Art..where did Guess who say he wanted his taxes lowered?

Please understand something. Those in damaged homes are already in financial trouble. FEMA no longer fixes a thing. If you qualify and apparently even if you didn't pay the premiums due, you can apply for loans NTE $200K for an entire new home. Now while paying off that loan, the property owners will be paying taxes on what we are not sure yet and mortgage payments will still have to be paid. There are some people who needed housing and food but my neighbors are all living with friends and relatives and not costing anyone else a dime.

I have asked our Township to provide our community with a line by line listing of every penny spent on our behalf by town workers. And then I am going to move on up because the work done here is being done by the homeowners and a few volunteers. We have leased our own dumpsters and pay for help.

This is shaping up to be a ruse to raise taxes because the people in need are permitted to apply for loans from Fema (no gifts) while they pay property taxes and mortgages.

The government from where we sit has done nothing. We who didn't lose our garbage cans do get our regular once a week pick up and a policeman we don't need because we cleaned our own and others houses of all things of value.

I don't want to pay for helicopter visits or anything else we as a community did not request or receive. And rumor has it someone has a camera filming the work in process to identify who should get paid. Smart idea.

No you aren't but do write to our triple-dipping no show Mayor!

When Tom's River annexed Ortley, they jacked up the taxes and assessments! They liked the revenue and hide from the liabilities. Probably helped to padded the political machine's pockets! 84 year old sheriff pensions (3 of them)...... Toms River will get what they deserve in the end, unfortunately....

@jbt - Do you have any evidence that TR annexed Ortley? Most references that I've seen in the past say that Dover Township was created in the 1700's under charter from the King of England (and later by the state of NJ in the 1850's) was formerly part of Shrewsbury Township and Monmouth County and included all of the shore sections of what is now Brick, SSH, SSP, and Berkeley. Berkeley later split off from Dover township, and later SSP, SSH, STR, Beachwood and Pine Beach broke off from Berkeley. Lavallete seceeded from Dover Township around 1887.

In other words, the section of ground now known as Ortley Beach was always a part of Dover Township since its creation, and that is the same municipality as Toms River township since the Dover Twp's name was change a few years ago. Before that Toms River was not a municipality, but the village of Toms River always was part of Dover Township and had no legal standing except as a post office address and as the name of a large Regional School system that is comprised of several municipalities (TR, PB, BW, STR).

During the dialog over the last re-evaluation when the Island valuation and taxes doubled and tripled, the common cry from "mainlanders" was now the islanders can pay their fair share. So I guess $33 Billion is fair for garbage pickup, which is all we get from TR.

Joe,

Some of those people in fact quite a few are elderly, on small fixed incomes, and have owned their homes for half a century or more. FAR from snobs and FAR from folks with straw houses! What if this had happened to your family? Would you be saying the same things?

Where exactly are they to go when they've made this place their home for so many years? Again, what if it were your family. These are human beings you're talking about!

I am not one of those snobs either, i lived on SSH full time and I rent. I loved it there. My husband and I are hardworking. We have a 5 yr old that asks everyday when are we going home. Doesn't understand that we can't go home. If it were your family you would be singing a completely different tune.

If the greedy SOB's in Toms River let us seceed when we wanted to, you wouldnt be paying us a dime. Now because of the greed of Toms River, you need to pay....you should have let us go when you had the chance.

Listen to the mainlanders complain about paying for the barrier island folks. Well guess what ?...we pay 30% of your taxes and we get garbage collection and send a handful of kids to your schools. You raised our assessments and tripled our taxes. That was fine while you got the revenue (30% of your tax burden paid by us islanders).
Years ago we wanted to secede from Toms River but they wouldn’t let us. They wanted the tax revenue and they wanted to continue to suck us dry and have us pay 30% of the taxes. Now you complain about helping us. Do us all a favor…mainlanders and barrier island folks. LET US SECEDE FROM TOMS RIVER LIKE WE WANTED TO YEARS AGO. If you won’t do that , then shut up and pay up.

My neighbors and I are not selfish snobs and after reading the history above, I think we on Good Luck Point ought to part ways from Berkeley Township. We have no kids in the public schools systems and could do very well by having to pay for our garbage to be picked up and our roads plowed. We would probably hire one or two of our own to do the work and then seek a nearby fire company that would cover us when we have a once in every fifty years fire. We again could do our own street repairs and have volunteer cops and a town council made up of every homeowner. It's going to come to that if our triple dipping mayor and his pals don't wake up and smell the roses. We just cannot afford these taxes for which we get nothing in return. And again, we are not snobs at all. Not a house here with three bathrooms but a mix of blue collar folks, some elderly people and a few white collars. And we don't look at each other that way, thank God.

An unpopular but realistic solution. Houses should NEVER have built so close to the ocean, it doesn't make sense. And BTW, barrier islands should revert back to being actual barriers.

Listen to the mainlanders complain about paying for the barrier island folks. Well guess what ?...we pay 30% of your taxes and we get garbage collection and send a handful of kids to your schools. You raised our assessments and tripled our taxes. That was fine while you got the revenue (30% of your tax burden paid by us islanders).
Years ago we wanted to secede from Toms River but they wouldn’t let us. They wanted the tax revenue and they wanted to continue to suck us dry and have us pay 30% of the taxes. Now you complain about helping us. Do us all a favor…mainlanders and barrier island folks. LET US SECEDE FROM TOMS RIVER LIKE WE WANTED TO YEARS AGO. If you won’t do that , then shut up and pay up.

Just who do you think is paying for this? We sent premium money to FEMA but it came out before the election that the President transferred FEMA's bucks to Homeland Security (See Woodward's latest book or read NYTimes interview with federal head of FEMA. The President & all those other lawyers who rarely study science decided this would be a year of no disasters.

So for the premium, we get the opportunity to BORROW money from them and we can add that payment to our existing mortgage and ever increasing tax payments. I would agree the Bay probably changed shape but Good Luck Point gained sand.

What was wrong was that building codes in NJ are a travesty and are kept that way by politicians. When we built our house in 1998, I substituted North Carolina and Florida coast building regulations for those from Berkeley Township. Our house is still standing and had a breakaway wall that performed exactly as expected. There is no excuse for those codes not being Xeroxed tomorrow but watch what doesn't happen because big builders have political clout.

Hurricanes are kind. You know they are coming and can do things to mitigate damage. A tornado doesn't give you that break. But the houses themselves have to be built to the worst case scenario and that just has not been done. People laughed at our lightening rods but they've saved us twice.

Demand better building codes from the politicians who receive contributions from builders & this won't reoccur.

Donna! Absolutely those on the wagon outnumber those pulling the wagon... Obama got those getting a free ride to vote for him to ensure the gravy train keeps rolling!
We are walking into the light.

Donna
your beloved party and its leader BuSh started 2 unfunded wars cut ,taxes promising job growth that didnt happen , added cost of Medicare part d plus interest but didnt put the debt on the books tell us Donna who and how is it going to get paid?
Also Sarah Palin lives in AK where just for living in that welfare state she and EVERYONE else receives a check from oil profits does this make her a socialist?
you betcha

Hey Donna

Hope you are enjoying the tax increases brought to you from the Ocean County Republicons every yr

Donna could you send back your "entitlement" check from SS and please do not file any more claims with Medicare

Donna honey you and mittens didnt say just how the debt would be paid could you enlighten us

Msn headline

"Top Republicans say Romney didn't offer specifics"

because they didnt have any plans

Wait, are you saying 1/3 of the county property is along the coast or are you saying you have over rated the value of living near the ocean to the point that you have that slim strip of properties paying 1/3 of the tab? Wow, guess that means everyone inland will have to start paying the fair share......... Ouch..

the money from all these fundraisers SHOULD be used to rebuilding the shores. screw the tax increases. But the amount they raise may not be enough. Then who is left to foot the bill?

Good Luck Point was hit very badly and all I received from the Red Cross was an email asking for a contribution. We still haven't seen the Red Cross out here so I wrote them and ask them to remove my name from their mailing list.

I woud LOVE to know where all those donated monies and articles have gone because other than a few small donations from the Lacey Methodist Church we have received exactly zero from the do-gooders.

The taxpayers are not paying for our reconstruction. If we apply we can get a LOAN from FEMA which we must pay back with interest along with our ever escalating property taxes and our mortgage payments which will stay level unless we have APR's.

What the fund raising is about is a total mystery to me because people with good hearts want to help but the only effective ones have been the folks who came here from out of State churches and have actually gotten their hands dirty.

And our new houses will of course bring raised taxes so VoiceofReason, you are barking up the wrong tree.

Seaside is apparently private enterprise and based on the rest of our experiences, they will rebuild with insurance money and their own money. And if the State puts a dime into those new buildings and boardwalk, there will be a lawsuit by the homeowners who haven't received so much as a box of Hefty bags though we, too, have been threatened with higher taxes in return for nothing.

Where have all the flowers gone ......

We may just have to adjust instead to life with fewer civil "servants" and expensive Commission members. I for one would like to see double and triple dipping made illegal. Do that and watch the balanced budget come into view. Eliminate nonsensical jobs and we will get even closer.

Be happy you dont live there yourself

Lakewood has building codes and permits? Hey, if it's OK for the rest of the town, why not "tent city"?

Have a heart. That is one big embarrassment to us all. Those folks need decent housing and this county provides absolutely none of it for those who are truly poor and indigent. How much would you think charging them for a permit to put up a tarp over their tin or plywood roofs would lessen your load?

your not paying anything you are the 47%

Listen to the mainlanders complain about paying for the barrier island folks. Well guess what ?...we pay 30% of your taxes and we get garbage collection and send a handful of kids to your schools. You raised our assessments and tripled our taxes. That was fine while you got the revenue (30% of your tax burden paid by us islanders).
Years ago we wanted to secede from Toms River but they wouldn’t let us. They wanted the tax revenue and they wanted to continue to suck us dry and have us pay 30% of the taxes. Now you complain about helping us. Do us all a favor…mainlanders and barrier island folks. LET US SECEDE FROM TOMS RIVER LIKE WE WANTED TO YEARS AGO. If you won’t do that , then shut up and pay up.

And you will also get to pay for all sorts of folks if we have an earthquake or a tornado or Oyster Creek has a bad day.

How about saying out loud, "There but for the grace of God, go I."

Mittens I've read enough of your comment.
I can now say for certain you are a moron
Shut- up,now

Excellent and accurate

Well put.

Listen to the mainlanders complain about paying for the barrier island folks. Well guess what ?...we pay 30% of your taxes and we get garbage collection and send a handful of kids to your schools. You raised our assessments and tripled our taxes. That was fine while you got the revenue (30% of your tax burden paid by us islanders).
Years ago we wanted to secede from Toms River but they wouldn’t let us. They wanted the tax revenue and they wanted to continue to suck us dry and have us pay 30% of the taxes. Now you complain about helping us. Do us all a favor…mainlanders and barrier island folks. LET US SECEDE FROM TOMS RIVER LIKE WE WANTED TO YEARS AGO. If you won’t do that , then shut up and pay up.

lol Bush didnt put the debt on the books,
Bush and Cheney are war criminals!
guess you missed the republicons block any and all of President Obama s agenda
Funny how ocean county is home of the republicons who are supposed to be against big govt but now want a hand out still want their SS check and medicare
ah yeah hypocrites
let ppl buy into medicare if Horizon can make money so can the govt
drill a few wells and the debt would be paid
Govt subsidy for solar panels for all and think about how much extra money ppl would have
cut all foreign aid
tax breaks for anti outsourcing
Mittens had a plan all right not tell the ppl which tax loop holes hes close lol
ppl are too stupid to see cut taxes with one hand and raise them even more by eliminating tax deductions
tax a look at a map educated parts of the country Dem uneducated repukes
legitimate rape lol what a tool bag

Mittens - Can you repost in English please? What the heck did you just say in that rant?!?!

I'm an Independent but in this situation the blame in good part lies at the feet of the current President who according to Bob Woodward's recent book and verified by the current federal Director of FEMA, when given a list of moves of money that he believed he legally could make (?), the President who is not a scientist declared we wouldn't have a disaster this year.

So he took the premium monies and other funds in FEMA and moved them over to Homeland Security. The FEMA well is dry folks so we who paid into the fund now will be given the wonderful opportunity to BORROW money from them which we must repay with interest. Katrina this is not. Nor is it Florida or the Gulf Oil spill.

In my devastated area, this is truly a do-it-yourself-and-with-your-neighbors project which some of us are funding by donating dumpsters and renting equipment and picking up heaven knows what with our very own hands.

We do get our once a week garbage can pick up but most of us found our cans had blown away - after the storm.

At the moment, nothing much is actually funded in this entire nation: they are juggling balls in the air which we all know can't last forever.

Those new houses if the legislators ever get around to it will be similar to those used for coastal building in North Carolina and Florida. And their taxes will zoom up.

New Jersey has the worst building standards for on-the-water building of any state in the Union. Why? Well there are big builders that make big contributions to those at all levels of government to insure the cost of building a four bathroom mansion is kept to it very lowest. They receive big bucks for those mansions but will never voluntarily build them to hurricane codes.

Why are towns around here at this very moment issuing permits for people to patch things up to the old, sloppy standards? The reason is our leaders haven't buckled down and just Xeroxed the North Carolina building codes for starters and make them effective immediately. They could be adjusted later if necessary but it would be one hell of a start.

To rebuild to fishing shack standards is to ask for yet another mess. That's why people laugh when we say we are from NJ. We are thought of as stupid folks with an unusually corrupt method of government.

Listen to the mainlanders complain about paying for the barrier island folks. Well guess what ?...we pay 30% of your taxes and we get garbage collection and send a handful of kids to your schools. You raised our assessments and tripled our taxes. That was fine while you got the revenue (30% of your tax burden paid by us islanders).
Years ago we wanted to secede from Toms River but they wouldn’t let us. They wanted the tax revenue and they wanted to continue to suck us dry and have us pay 30% of the taxes. Now you complain about helping us. Do us all a favor…mainlanders and barrier island folks. LET US SECEDE FROM TOMS RIVER LIKE WE WANTED TO YEARS AGO. If you won’t do that , then shut up and pay up.

now lets see
bush started 2 unfunded wars and its obama fault?
Bush spent the money and its congress fault?
Sorry but I dont thinking paying into SS is an "entitlement"
Bush policies didnt work its a fact tax cuts for the job creators ring a bell?
Its realiy you know the ones that republicons have a hard time with
let me guess you support the republicons of OC but complain about taxes
you receive SS and Medicare then cry about entitlements
you run to church then tell the poor to starve is that correct
Question for ya pro life i bet
just how would Bristol speadem drunk Palin at 16 supported herself and the kid if not for Nailin palin? welfare and incase you missed it ak is a welfare state and a socialist state because they all receive a check from oil profits for NOTHING

lol "wars of defense " too bad it was based on LIES
ask Colin Powell

I thought you said Presidents didnt spend money
Bush didnt but Obama did?

Wow the Obama cronies are so sure he is going to fail again they are already making excuses for him

The debt, all Bushes fault
911 Bushes fault
the storms Bushes fault

How long until Obama starts acting like a leader and taking responsibility?
5 years? 6..7.8??? never????

M Lost
Bush started 2 wars? Congress didn't approve? How did they get funded?
Bush signed the budgets so he is equally responsible but he didn't pass them
Are you sayin congress had nothing to do with it?
Then why did Clinton increase the debt 40% in his 8 years?
SS runs a deficit so it is being paid for by someone else = entitlement
Medicare runs $600 billion annual deficit
Tax cuts didn't work? How come 2007 was highest tax rev year ever and unemployment was 4.8%?
If tax cuts are no good an unpaid for, who is paying for Obama's SS tax cut?
Poor people in america starve? Hardly or why do we have a obesity problem?
Pro choice - if you want to have an abortion, pay for it if have the baby pay for it if want birth control pay for it, Your choice!
Rest of your stuff is immature and stupid. you must be an Abbott school kid

Lies told over and over don't make them facts. Keep trying though. This is like shooting fish in a barrel

Listen to the mainlanders complain about paying for the barrier island folks. Well guess what ?...we pay 30% of your taxes and we get garbage collection and send a handful of kids to your schools. You raised our assessments and tripled our taxes. That was fine while you got the revenue (30% of your tax burden paid by us islanders).
Years ago we wanted to secede from Toms River but they wouldn’t let us. They wanted the tax revenue and they wanted to continue to suck us dry and have us pay 30% of the taxes. Now you complain about helping us. Do us all a favor…mainlanders and barrier island folks. LET US SECEDE FROM TOMS RIVER LIKE WE WANTED TO YEARS AGO. If you won’t do that , then shut up and pay up.

Listen to the mainlanders complain about paying for the barrier island folks. Well guess what ?...we pay 30% of your taxes and we get garbage collection and send a handful of kids to your schools. You raised our assessments and tripled our taxes. That was fine while you got the revenue (30% of your tax burden paid by us islanders).
Years ago we wanted to secede from Toms River but they wouldn’t let us. They wanted the tax revenue and they wanted to continue to suck us dry and have us pay 30% of the taxes. Now you complain about helping us. Do us all a favor…mainlanders and barrier island folks. LET US SECEDE FROM TOMS RIVER LIKE WE WANTED TO YEARS AGO. If you won’t do that , then shut up and pay up.

Listen to the mainlanders complain about paying for the barrier island folks. Well guess what ?...we pay 30% of your taxes and we get garbage collection and send a handful of kids to your schools. You raised our assessments and tripled our taxes. That was fine while you got the revenue (30% of your tax burden paid by us islanders).
Years ago we wanted to secede from Toms River but they wouldn’t let us. They wanted the tax revenue and they wanted to continue to suck us dry and have us pay 30% of the taxes. Now you complain about helping us. Do us all a favor…mainlanders and barrier island folks. LET US SECEDE FROM TOMS RIVER LIKE WE WANTED TO YEARS AGO. If you won’t do that , then shut up and pay up.

Tina, I felt the way you do for a few weeks and then decided to use the internet to reach out and ask for help from any and all. My whole neighborhood is devastated and the people are, too. But after two weeks of absolutely no response from anywhere I started pushing. It's hard work but please try because there genuinely are people who want to help but don't know where we are.

So for starters, tell us where you are and what your area needs and when it would be best for people to show up to help.

And ignore those who are obviously much more interested in their own little worlds and still don't understand what John Donne said in the 1600's: No man is an island.

But you get busy and watch the help come at you. But none of the governmental or charitable big time groups are even worth contacting. Patch has a section where you can ask for volunteers of labor and goods. Write one a day until your area is filled with people of good will. They are here.

And thank you Patch for keeping the wires open for we who need so badly to just be heard.