It was a busy week at Money Island but that doesn’t mean that an outcome is any more clear. I see competing and conflicting interests that will eventually clash. Meanwhile, I head two independent confirmations of ongoing investment here.
The state is planning more oyster aquaculture training in Trenton in early 2020. I was asked to help prepare an invitation list.
One local business wants to expand crabbing and processing here again. I agreed to help with the marketing, but had a conversation with Division of Fish and Wildlife to avoid being caught in our antiquated laws again. Current law says that a marketing consultant can be prosecuted for not having fisheries industry catch records, even if the marketer did not sell any product.
Meanwhile, roadway erosion control work continues, but apparently not in coordination with the oyster industry. This just seems odd and inefficient.
In this first week of December I am settling into a regular pattern again after a month of chaos from the move. Not that the chaos is ended, it just that I can clear a half day now to focus on strategic goals.
The immediate plan is to meet and interview people in my new hometown. I’m focused on identifying people who are aware that they can make a difference in the future of their community. What I’m finding, so far, is that I need a more effective approach to convince them to break their routine and talk with me.
Also, Sebastian, my business coach, alerted me this week that my interview technique is pretty much terrible. I figure it will improve with learning and experience; mostly the latter.
Overall, I’m not happy with the pace of this project and today thinking about how I can ‘pick up the pace’. That phrase immediately triggers thoughts of college coaching when that same phrase was used again and again to propel our wrestlers to higher levels of performance. It was clearly a Pavlovian response and appears to still be powerful with me today. It worked once to raise our performance to record setting national championships. Can I harness that power again?
At this point the four step objective of this project is clear:
1. Meet the influentials.
2. Ask about their priorities and goals.
3. Learn about their recent successes and make note of the techniques.
4. Ask about their ongoing struggles, unmet needs and look for patterns that might indicate opportunities for new economic solutions.
Once I’ve collected feedback from at least a dozen people then I will be in a better position to take the next steps to develop a new business plan for myself.
“Sometimes you just gotta do what’s right inside and hope that maybe the rest of the world will come around to it. And maybe they will and maybe they won’t, but the truth is, you gotta take care of yourself first,“ – Elizabeth Warren, talking about her own life at a campaign rally, December 1, 2019. Perhaps the strongest statement made in this campaign to date.
Today I finished paying off my legal costs resulting from environmental justice activism in rural southwest New Jersey over this past year. It’s been financially devastating; the lawyers’ costs, court costs, fines. Some, including a judge, have admonished me to keep quiet and stay offline with my social media projects. We are aware that government trolls this web site and presumably all of my activism. The prosecutor for the New Jersey Attorney General said “stop breaking the law” as if I had personally created any of the disasters we face today. The past president of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants wrote today in reply to my latest editorial “Come on man!”, apparently ignorant of the real life challenges we face as a result of systematic discrimination under the status quo. A New Jersey elected official threatened me at a public meeting in response to a published editorial critical of government a few months ago.
These comments from prominent community members tell me that they have no clue that this is only the beginning of a movement of peaceful lawbreaking protests against environmental injustice against so many in the lower echelon of the economy. No matter what the cost, backing down, keeping quiet and following the law is not an option. State governments will continue to increase prosecutions against environmental activists, whether they are marching in the street like these protestorsor trying to develop sustainable rural communities like me.
To add insult to injury, there is no indication that any of my attention-getting efforts have resulted in any form of economic development or new opportunities for our community. Nobody I know, from our local Cumberland County elected leaders (Derella and other freeholders) all the way up to the governor’s office, has a viable plan to address continued environmental injustice issues here at the bayshore1, 2. It’s just outside of their scope. Local mayors and business leaders do have viable ideas but lack the financial clout to get it done. My support of a proposed New Jersey State bank drew much criticism lately; many (mostly Republicans) are opposed to the wealth treasure mechanism that moves investment capital to riskier but socially supported projects.
In the end, I just have to do what I know is right, and hope that the rest of the world comes around to it. At this time, it’s the only ethical option.
Tony Novak, environmental activist with Baysave, the target of multiple New Jersey prosecutions in 2019
Footnotes:
1Governor Murphy launched an environmental justice exploratory project by executive order in early 2019 I’ve entered written and oral public testimony as part of that project (covered in my other blogs) and I made multiple requests for follow-up conversation but have had no response to my communications.
2People often suggest approaching federal government with environmental justice concerns. I do maintain good working relationships with our current (VanDrew) and former (LoBiondo) Congressman and both US Senators (Booker and Menendez), both individually and through grassroots PACs. But I find that the federal government has relatively little role in the environmental justice issues that affect us locally. These are primarily state government controlled issues.
