Letters
Soldier’s mom denounces rationing of meals

My son is serving in Iraq as a member of the Connecticut National Guard. Recently, he e-mailed me to say that many of the troops’ schedules allow them to make only one of their dining facility’s scheduled mealtimes. Even worse, KBR (the branch of Halliburton that runs the dining facility) rationed food up until recently, only allowing the troops at his unit one meat item per meal. For example, he once went to chow and was told he could only have six pieces of shrimp for dinner. A piece of pizza was actually considered meat, so he couldn’t have it in addition to his shrimp. The chow hall is his only local source for food. If the troops are still hungry, they must take a 1 1/2-hour round trip to a Burger King trailer.

My son wrote that the food rationing seriously hurt his unit’s morale, and that he lost over 25 pounds while rationing was in effect. Eventually, the dining facility reversed the policy — but this never should have been allowed to happen in the first place.

President George W. Bush and the Republicans may say all is going well in Iraq, but how can that be the case if our soldiers are losing weight due to rationing of food? Civilian contractors should not be allowed to limit the amount of food our soldiers eat.

Kathryn Logoyda

Perth Amboy

Resident questions remarks by synagogue president

In the Aug. 11 edition of the Examiner, an article was published that discussed the issue of the current controversy in Roosevelt concerning a new yeshiva becoming part of the current synagogue. This article was primarily an interview with Elly Shapiro, president of the synagogue. The article states that the synagogue is considering between a one-year lease and a four-year lease with the yeshiva. The community has constantly been told that if the yeshiva joins the synagogue, it would be only on a one-year trial basis with a limited number of students. At what point did this limited trial run turn into a four-year commitment?

A more troubling point was Shapiro’s comment that the synagogue is being careful to create a contract that would not allow a takeover of the town or synagogue. If the people aiding the synagogue are coming to Roosevelt with the intention of being good neighbors, then why is there a need to put anything like this into the lease or contract with the yeshiva? I don’t think anyone should have to put into writing that he/she does not plan to take over the town or any institution in the town. Does this mean that Shapiro has concerns and is not fully trusting in what the yeshiva leaders are telling her? She also states that the contract will insure that other properties remain on the tax rolls. Why is this a concern if the yeshiva never intended to remove properties from the tax rolls?

In addition to this article, a letter supporting the yeshiva plan was also published. Contrary to what she believes, Deborah Metzger’s letter to the editor is clearly in support of the yeshiva plan. In addition to this, Metzger states that the Shapiros, along with Mayor Neil Marko and his wife, Joy, have been maligned by comments of various townspeople. Need I remind Metzger that it was Arthur Shapiro and Neil Marko who accused anyone who did not agree with the yeshiva plan of being anti-Semites? If anyone mentioned taxes or any other issue, Marko and Shapiro would automatically accuse those in opposition of being anti-Semitic. In addition, Metzger writes that Marko serves on the rescue squad. That is very admirable, but very inconsequential in this issue. Because Marko volunteers his time does this mean that he knows better than the other citizens of Roosevelt? Should we simply hand over the keys to the town for him to do with it as he sees fit?

One other point about Metzger’s letter: She mentions that she is the child of Holocaust survivors. I am sure there are many people in the town that can claim that, myself included. However, in this debate, that fact is irrelevant. The only reason for Metzger to trot it out is in an attempt to gain a moral high ground. However, the scurrilous accusations made against many Roosevelt citizens by Marko, his wife Joy and the Shapiros, lost them the moral high ground a long time ago.

Lawrence Wallis

Roosevelt

Large-scale development is not the way to go

It was with utter disgust that I read the article in the Aug. 4 edition of the Examiner titled “Board continues to mull changes in master plan.” I was incensed by those people in Upper Freehold who continue to attempt to shove development down the throats of residents. This development is being proposed without thinking about what the future ramifications will be.

Our new planner (Mark Remsa) is supposed to have experience in this field. Then why is he agreeing to rezone the Province Line Road/Route 537 area without looking at environmental aspects of the land first? Most of us who live in this area realize that it is a major drainage basin for the Crosswicks Creek and will not support large commercial or residential development. This is also an area deemed sensitive by the Monmouth County Parks Department (evident by its acquisitions in the area) and deemed sensitive by the township (shown in its commitment to the Crosswicks Creek/Doctors Creek (CC/DC) Greenway Plan). The township just budgeted $5,000 to continue to be a member of the regional CC/DC Greenway Group, which is in the process of developing a plan to preserve water quality, scenic vistas, and create a network of trails in the CC/DC watershed.

How many examples of bad planning and overdevelopment does our town have to look at before it understands that large-scale development (residential and commercial) is not the way to go? Look at our neighbors. Many towns have attempted to lower taxes with the “ratables chase”; however, they are fighting a losing battle. Hamilton, for example, has more ratables than you can imagine and still had an 18 percent local tax increase in 2004.

Bill Miscoski and his cronies claim that increasing our zoning will “scare” landowners into development. In Hamilton, the zoning has been 3 acres for at least five years and there have been four development proposals along Sawmill Road within the last two years.

The current Upper Freehold Township government has us on the road to looking like Manalapan. Manalapan recently increased their zoning to 10 acres, but this is too little, too late. Residents there are fighting large-scale commercial development planned for Route 33 and Millhurst Road.

Why are we talking about rezoning areas (or changing the master plan) when [Stephen] Fleischacker and [Salvatore] Diecidue said none of this could be done without the buildout analysis and natural resources inventory?

If folks were annoyed with the cost of the Middle School project, wait until all of this unchecked development takes place. We’ll have more schools than you can believe, because increasing commercial growth spurs residential growth (one COAH unit is required for every 25 jobs created, plus N.J. Smart Growth recommends building housing near commercial development to cut down on commuting).

In a recent article titled “Saving land lowers taxes,” Robert Levite (an environmental education specialist for U-Mass Extension and an environmental attorney working with the Quinebaug-Shetucket National Heritage Corridor on land use issues) states that residential development costs a town more money in terms of added services than the property provides in real estate taxes. He looked at two recent studies that analyzed the cost of community services in towns in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia. From the studies, seven Massachusetts towns were extracted and further analyzed. What was found with respect to residential housing is for every $1 in tax money that a residence brings into a town, it costs the town, on average, $1.10 to provide services to that residence. In Connecticut it costs $1.14, and in Rhode Island $1.20. In effect, residential property operates at a loss for the town. Once a piece of open space is developed into residential housing, the town is faced with increased costs that outpace the added taxes from new housing.

If preserved, land raises home values, increasing the tax base without increasing the taxes. Despite that the removal of the open space from the tax rolls causes a small amount of a town’s taxes to be proportionately shared by the remaining properties, over a short period the increase in valuation of nearby properties to the preserved land more than compensates for the loss of taxes when the property is removed from the tax rolls. Effectively, the preservation of open space slowly permits a community to stabilize its tax rate by lessening the new impacts and increasing the per-property value of existing properties.

Levite concludes by saying many towns look to commercial/industrial expansion as a panacea to reduce taxes. However, towns must beware that they do not create their own trap. New commercial/industrial expansion spurs residential growth, which requires greater services for the population increase. This, in turn, requires greater infrastructure capabilities, increases traffic, crime, pollution, noise, and contributes to the loss of community character and rural identity. All the ramifications point to additional tax problems.

Does this mean that I think we should have no commercial expansion? Absolutely not. I think it would be a bonus to have an area with some small shops, a deli, a bagel store, farm markets, a book store, a boutique, etc. — stores that fit into our rural character not only by the type of business but the size as well. We do not need a five-mile strip of roadway (especially one as environmentally sensitive as the western part of Route 537) zoned for commercial and residential (senior or other) growth.

I hope those of you who are as annoyed as I am about growth in Upper Freehold will join me at Township Committee and Planning Board meetings and let your voices be heard. More importantly, I hope you will let your voices be heard in November.

Marc E. Covitz

Democratic candidate for Upper Freehold Township Committee