Belmar Voters!
Do Not Be Misled! The Special Election on August 19, 2014 is to decide how much money to spend to build the pavilions. NOT WHETHER OR NOT TO BUILD THE PAVILIONS!!!!
VOTE NO! AND WE WILL BUILD THE PAVILIONS FOR 4.1 MILLION FROM FEMA AND INSURANCE THAT WE ALREADY HAVE AND THERE WILL BE NO ADDITIONAL TAXPAYER DEBT.
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Vote Yes, and the pavilions will be built for a minimum of 7 MILLION DOLLARS and we will incur additional debt that will be added to the 52 MILLION DOLLAR DEBT FROM 2013 ALREADY INCURRED. No town has this much debt after Sandy, our real estate taxes will rise beyond what many residents can afford to pay.
Do not allow the Belmar mayor or administration to deliberately mislead you. The vote is about how much money is necessary to build the pavilions. We can build the pavilions for millions of dollars less. Take a long hard look at the illustrations of the pavilions. These are two extravagant buildings to be constructed on the beach, that will be open year round and the costs to support and maintain these buildings will be prohibitive and put an additional annual tax burden on the residents above and beyond the debt for just the construction . Residents have no idea of the square footage or usage. Why? Because the mayor is hiding the real numbers.
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This is our town, do not be misled 7 MILLION DOLLARS IS TOO MUCH MONEY TO SPEND ON BUILDING THE PAVILIONS VOTE NO WE CAN BUILD THEM FOR MILLIONS LESS.
Below is a letter from Belmar Councilman Jim Bean accurately outlining what is really happening in Belmar regarding the pavilions.
A “NO” VOTE IS NOT A VOTE AGAINST BUILDING PAVILIONS. IT IS A VOTE AGAINST WASTING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
Dear friend and constituent,
As a sitting councilman and a Belmar resident who loves his home, nobody wants to see our town recover as much as I do. I have read the mayor’s letters urging in a deeply emotional way for you to vote yes in next month’s referendum. If what he said in those letters were true, I would vote yes too.
But it’s not true and I’m asking you today to base your vote August 19th not on emotions, but on critical thinking and a clear evaluation of the facts.
Since Sandy, Belmar’s debt has ballooned from $19 million to $46 million even after the latest payment from FEMA. Tens of millions of debt, much of it created recklessly in my opinion, will never be covered by FEMA and the cost of the payments will be borne by Belmar’s property tax payers. Although taxes have been stable so far, remember that all spending is taxes someday and while borrowing can delay the pain, it can’t prevent it. It only makes it worse when the day of reckoning arrives.
No responsible mayor would add to our already considerable debt and borrow millions more to build pavilions when we can build the pavilions we need without adding anything to our debt. With FEMA’s commitment to pay $3.5 million of the cost and the $600 thousand our insurance paid for damage to one of the old pavilions, we can spend $4.1 million on construction and not have to put our taxpayers one more dime in debt! Do any of you believe that we can not build two very nice buildings for $4.1 million? And if the mayor tells you that he can’t build these pavilions with over 4 million dollars to spend, then the problem wouldn’t be that we’re not giving him enough of our money. The problem would be that this mayor isn’t being sufficiently careful with our money and needs to be replaced by someone who can get the job done at a price that works for the taxpayers.
In America today many municipalities and some states (including New Jersey) are facing insolvency because their leaders made themselves popular by carelessly spending borrowed money knowing they would no longer be around when the bills came due. Please don’t allow that to happen here. Belmar doesn’t need any more debt. We just need to spend the money we do have more wisely. I plan on voting NO on August 19th. We will still have pavilions and you can keep more of your money to spend on more important things like yourself and your family.
