Recent posts
-
The High Cost of Addressing Coastal Road Flooding
In coastal New Jersey, road flooding is more than an inconvenience—it’s an economic threat. The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) recently spent $27.5 million to raise just a one-mile section of U.S. Route 40 in Atlantic County by 2.5 feet to mitigate recurrent flooding impacts on a key evacuation and freight route (NJDOT, Coastal…
-
A first time media campaign
In planning for the next step in moving Money Island forward, I met with members of state legislature and local government. We have a plan to work together. The top legal strategist in the group suggested that I crate a media campaign in parallel to the legal efforts. That sounds great, but I have never…
-
My Lesson In Political Violence
I know a little about political violence. I was targeted but survived a political assassination attempt in 2006 and slowly turned the incident into a positive force for personal and community transformation. First came anonymous death threats by phone over a series of months. I did not take them seriously at first because I knew…
-
Local adaptation to human caused climate change
When the first scientific data published in linked rising temperatures across the world to the burning of fossil fuels and increased atmospheric CO₂ it was met with skepticism. That’s a good thing. We should always be highly critical of and test all scientific theories. Since then, 99.9% of 88,125 climate-related studies from 2012 to 2020…
-
A Love of Electric Boating
(The Long Road to New Jersey’s First Electric Boating Center)by Tony Novak My earliest memories include boating with my dad, his father, and my brother. We were a working-class, single-income family, so we didn’t get out on the water often. By age 21, I had my first small aluminum electric-powered boat with a friend, and…
-
Nothing Down
“Nothing Down” is a book written by Robert G. Allen in 1984. The theme of the book is how to get involved in real estate investment, specifically focusing on how to buy real estate with little or none of your own money. The book came out just as I was beginning to get involved in…
-
I did not believe that it was possible; now I know better
A decade ago when I talked with local government officials and compared their comments to those of state officials, I concluded that Downe Township would not raise the funding that it needs to sustain the coming surge in water level rise. Costs were forecast at over $100 million for Fortescue and over $40 million for…
-
Zen and the art of marina maintenance
I try to spend a couple of hours every afternoon doing maintenance and repair work at rural Money Island Marina. This is in rural southwest New Jersey, on the Delaware Bay, midway between Cape May at 40 miles to the south and the C&D Canal at 40 miles to the north. Money Island is an…
-
2nd trailer for After the Drowning podcast
The first attempt at a recording was a disaster. We don’t have a n internet signal strong enough to record a live presentation. So I had to regroup and plan a different strategy. Episodes will be taped offline using Windows Sound Recorder program or an alternate program for iOS. I will purchase a better microphone.…
-
Try that in a small town
I already know what happens when you “try that in a small town”. I faced the bigotry, the rumors, the accusations that I was a drug dealer because I didn’t leave the house to drive to work in the morning, the assumption what I won the lottery because I had money, the legal accusations where…