Long Island to Host Major Surfing Event

The Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour has never had a stop on the East Coast. That is going to change with the latest announcement from Quiksilver and ASP.

The Quiksilver Pro New York will be the sixth stop on the 2011 ASP World Tour, with the event taking place on Long Island's Long Beach from Sept. 4-15.  Other ASP World Tour stops include French Polynesia, Australia, South Africa, California, France, Hawaii and Portugal.

The event in New York will be the first of its kind. Not only will it be the first time this event has stopped on the East Coast, but it will also be the first time that professional surfing will have a $1 million dollar prize purse for competitors.

Long Beach wasn't arbitrarily chosen. A 15-year independent wave study of western Long Island was conducted by Surfline.com, a leading forecaster of wave and surf conditions. The results of the study showed that early September is one of the best times for sizable surf and swells.

The surf climate in Western Long Island is greatly affected by the underwater Hudson Canyon offshore, which can turn average surf into very high quality surf comparable to many of the best surf spots in the world on the right day," Sean Collins, chief forecaster and president of Surfline.com, said in the announcement.

Finally, a major surfing event north of the Mason-Dixon Line, with the first million dollar payday! One thing though, the average water temperature on Long Island in September is in the low 70's.  Not exactly Oahu, so I'd recommend a shorty!

Karl Hess, Jersey Shore Real Estate

 

Ocean County Bald Eagles

The Jersey Shore becomes a haven for the American Bald Eagle

Bald eagles were once plentiful in New Jersey and Ocean County. But by 1982, there was only one known nest and that nest had failed for 8 successive years. A group of scientists in the Endangered and Non-Game Species Program (ENSP) of the New Jersey Fish, Game and Wildlife department decided to do something about it. Through dedication, the ENSP re-introduced bald eagles into New Jersey.

New Jersey's eagles, which reached a record population of 333 birds and 82 eagle pairs actively laying eggs last year, according to an annual report released by the state earlier this month is evidence of a comeback.

That's a dramatic increase from 30 years ago, when only one nest remained in the state - with New Jersey's population of eagles nearly wiped out by habitat loss, human disturbance and the widespread use of the pesticide DDT.

Since 1982, the state has monitored the bald eagle population. The data that they have collected has provided important information about the health of the eagles and the health of the environment. Also, the data has been used to protect critical habitat for bald eagles.

The Trust for Public Lands (TPL), a preservation group, has purchased 243 acres which is surrounded by 588 acres of previously protected land on The Jersey Shore. The Trust used a combination of donations and loans amounting to $550,500, and will be reimbursed by the Fish and Wildlife Service through a $35.7 million federal appropriation earmarked for refuge acquisitions and wetlands grants to benefit migrating birds throughout the nation.

Peregrine falcons, bald eagles, northern harriers, osprey, and red-shouldered hawks are among the birds that roost in the tidal marsh and forest that make up what is commonly called the Murray Grove property.

The land is located between Barnegat Bay and the famous Unitarian Universalist retreat in the Lanoka Harbor section of Lacey Township. Naturalists and fishermen know the area best as a complex mix of pools, mud flats and waterways that include Hancy's Pond, Stumpy Pond Creek, Bony Creek, Wire Creek Pond and Stouts Creek.

Because of the critical importance of this property to the health of Barnegat Bay and the the refuge, TPL assembled funding to purchase and hold the property until federal funds are available for adding it to the refuge.

Karl Hess, The Jersey Shore and Ocean County Real Estate

 

 

Ocean County Bluegrass Festival

34th Ocean County Bluegrass Festival: Sunday, Feb. 6 , 2011

 

      Noon:  High Strung

 

      12:30pm:  Heidi Olsen & The Night

        1:00pm:  Jim Murphy & The Pine Barons

        1:30pm:  Terminal Five

        2:00pm:  Jeff Propert

        2:30pm:  Intermission

        3:00pm:  Past Times

        3:30pm:  Borderline

        4:00pm:  Cindy Giejda & Friends

        4:30pm:  South Jersey Bluegrass Band

Albert Music Hall is:

"The No. 1 Thing to Do at the Jersey Shore" - Asbury Park Press

One of "52 Things Every New Jerseyan Must Do" - NJ Monthly

Albert Music Hall has been inducted in the American Folklore Center, Local Legacies Collection Archive at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

The Pinelands Cultural & Historical Preservation Society and Albert Music Hall are registered in the Moving Image Collections Directory, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Albert Music Hall is located at 131 Wells Mills Road (Rt. 532) Waretown, NJ

Karl Hess, Ocean County Real Estate

 

Adult Admission: $8.00/Children: $1.00. Doors open at 11:00am for this event!

Featuring...

Stafford Twp Education Foundation Fundraiser

On Saturday, February 26, 2011, the Stafford Township Education Foundation will be holding is fourth annual Celebrity Waiter Dinner and Dance to support its Innovative Educator Award Program and the Foundation's ongoing efforts to establish an endowment. Local "celebrities" are needed to volunteer to be the servers at this fun event.

This year, the event planning committee has elected to make a few changes to further elevate the party atmosphere and respond to the interests of past attendees - nearly 270 each year. As part of the planning, the event this year will be adopting A Greco-Roman Holiday theme allowing every attending adult to truly "let her or his hair down" while helping to raise much needed funding.

Delicious theme-inspired professionally catered food, a cash bar, dancing, and simple fundraising games led by the volunteer "Celebrity Waiters" from the area are just a few of the details that make this the annual event not to miss.

The Foundation's Annual Celebrity Waiter fundraising event is no simple dinner party, but an opportunity to be entertained and waited on by the most respected people from the community. Consider it this way, how would it feel to be waited on by your doctor or your child's principal or a local politician...Great fun!

The net proceeds from the event (admission fees, waiter tips, raffles and super prizes) allow the Foundation to encourage innovative teaching while also planning for a tomorrow, which could easily make realizing new educational concepts a thing of the past. So, you might say, the real theme of the event is doing good while having fun.

To further promote the inclusive community focus of the event, the 2011 event will be held at the Stafford Township Firehouse. With that said, the Board, staff and volunteers of the Stafford Township Education Foundation invite you to play a role in making our 2011 Celebrity Waiter Dinner and Dance the most successful to date!

Call (609) 489-8600, (609) 978-5700, extension 2000. The Stafford Township Education Foundation is a 501c3 not-for-profit arts and education community service organization dedicated to improving the overall quality of life in Stafford Township and southern Ocean County through opportunities in life-long learning, education, the arts and humanities for children and adults. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Saturday, February 26, 2011
Stafford Township Firehouse
Dinner, Dancing, Friend & Fund-raising

Karl Hess, Stafford Township Real Estate

 

LBI, Consolidate or Lose Funding

New Jersey Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney says he is working on legislation that would pull state funding from municipalities that do not share services with neighboring towns.

Long Beach Island is 18 miles long, with six separate municipalities and local governments and five police departments and police chiefs. Long Beach Township is the largest police department and patrols 12 of the island's 18 miles.

As an example, if you eliminate four of those chiefs and you could see a savings of $170,000 per chief between salaries and benefits. You don't need five police chiefs. Just add some more officers and have one department cover the whole island.

On Long Beach Island, steps have already been made to share some police services. The Long Beach Township Police Department currently provides police dispatching services to the Ship Bottom, Beach Haven and Harvey Cedars departments, although Ship Bottom is considering moving its dispatching services to the mainland municipality of Stafford Township.

But according to Sweeney's plan, this is not enough - and he's calling on local mayors to step up and accept savings through shared services.

Long Beach Township Mayor Joseph Mancini said he thinks taxpayers are afraid they will lose their town identity and the personal touch of police departments through consolidation.

"I'm a firm believer that the island municipalities should share as many of the services that we possibly can. It just makes good sense. I really feel that the island is moving that way. I really don't think Trenton is looking at making it one town, I think they're looking at making one police department, one DPW, one court system, and that's where it has to go," Mancini said.

Surf City Mayor Leonard T. Connors said a lot of services already have been consolidated on Long Beach Island, including police dispatching and water services. As far as consolidating police departments across Long Beach Island, Connors said if the other towns agree to it, he might also agree.

In Ocean County alone there are 33 different municipalities, so conslidation only makes sense, right?

Karl Hess, Jersey Shore Real Estate

This article orginally appeared in the Asbury Park Press

 

 

The Big Read

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.

According the NEA website; The Big Read answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. The concerned citizen in search of good news about American literary culture would study the pages of this report in vain.

The Big Read aims to address this crisis squarely and effectively. It provides citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. The initiative includes innovative reading programs in selected cities and towns, comprehensive resources for discussing classic literature and an extensive Web site providing comprehensive information on authors and their works.

Each community event lasts approximately one month and includes a kick-off event to launch the program locally, ideally attended by the mayor and other local luminaries; major events devoted specifically to the book (panel discussions, author reading, and the like); events using the book as a point of departure (film screenings, theatrical readings, and so forth); and book discussions in diverse locations and aimed at a wide range of audiences.

For Ocean County residents, go to The Ocean County Library web-site to sigh-up.

Karl Hess, Ocean County Real Estate

 

New Housing Development Discussed by Lacey Twp Planning Board

The topic of the township's land holdings, the need to update its master plan and the future of proposed developments has taken over township committee meetings.

An 84 unit townhouse development, Lacey Town Village, was approved as an age-restricted community in 2005 but has yet to be constructed. Now the project applicant, Lacey Township Builders Associates, is seeking to build the project without the age restriction. The proposed project would be located in the vicinity of Railroad Avenue and Laurel Boulevard

Lacey Township Mayor Gary Quinn is quoted as saying, "The town has always tried to stay away from non-age-restricted. We would prefer to have age-restricted because they are good ‘ratables', most of those developments take care of their own services, like Sea Breeze. It's a gated community so there is less of a burden on the township itself when it comes to the services and they generate very good tax dollars, senior citizens certainly spend a lot of money in town,"

The reason the builders are coming back to the Planning Board goes back to when Gov. Jon Corzine signed a bill in July 2009 to allow developers to challenge towns over the age-restricted status of pending developments. This law applied to developments that were approved but had yet to begin construction or sales. Corzine issued this legislation with hopes of stimulating the building market and economic growth.

Under this legislation, if a builder came back to the municipality seeking to change to non-age-restrictive condominiums, construction plans would have to remain the same. The problems arise due to different infrastructure requirements (parking, schools, etc) for a non-age restrictive development which are more expensive for the city, than age restrictive homes.

The Lacey Township Planning Board will continue to hear arguments on the proposal, but some fear that the issue may have to be settled in court.

Click here for a complete list of all homes for sale in Lacey Township with photos and maps and search-able data base with the most up-to-date information.

Karl Hess, Lacey Township and Ocean County Real Estate