Late last year the NJ state government shut down the boardwalks at Money Island. This came as a shock to the local residents and commercial fishermen who relied on the boardwalk. Ours aren’t anything elaborate, just about 600 feet of elevated walkways between roadway and water. We already had financial support from private and nonprofit organizations to make the necessary repairs. The problem was that we did not have the money for permits that cost more than the repairs. The permits should have been issued decades earlier. The state admits that it knew the boardwalk lacked permits but permitted its use since the early 1970s. Baysave, a New Jersey charity that owns the local boardwalk, raised donations for repairs but did not know about the additional hidden costs of government permit fees.
Ironically, this past year the state spent more in legal costs fighting the boardwalk than it would have cost to pay for the permits. It was clear that the people in Trenton have no willingness to work with our local community for common sense solutions.
Now the boardwalk repair problem comes up again. The governor denied funding for necessary boardwalk repairs in Wildwood. It reminds me of the struggles we faced with the state in Ocean City when I was a member of the Chamber of Commerce there. The same battles persist.
Boardwalks are critical to our communities and a “one size fits all” budgeting and regulatory process is clearly failing us here in South Jersey.
Several people in local government joined Baysave in attempted communications with the Governor’s office. We tried multiple times by phone, email, online form and certified letter with no response to any of them. We met with State Senator Andrzejczak last fall and he said that he had little power to fight these bad actors within the NJDEP and Attorney General’s Office in Trenton.