LIBERTYandPROSPERITY.org Update
- We had a very productive breakfast last Saturday.?? Keith Davis, the Republican Party chairman for Atlantic County was our scheduled speaker.?? He explained how Republican ?State Senator Joseph Kyrillos planned to campaign against incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Bob Menendez for the election this November.?? He also spoke about the county freeholder races.?? Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo was not scheduled to speak, but he also came and explained the Republican strategy to repeal ObamaCare.??? Nearly 60 people attended and every seat in the back room of the Shore Diner was taken.
2. ?During the meeting, several of our members expressed disappointment that Republicans were not effectively presenting their position on what should replace ObamaCare.?? Frank LoBiondo agreed with our proposals for more liberty and choice to make health care affordable again.?? They include allowing NJ residents to buy low cost health insurance in other states, letting people buy cheap ?major medical? insurance that only covered serious operatons and diseases, and not expensive frills like sex-change operations, drug rehab, etc., expanding tax free savings accounts to let people save for expensive medical care later in life, etc.
3. ?During the meeting, Seth Grossman told both? Keith Davis and Frank LoBiondo that while Democratic Party leaders recognize and respect the left-wing base of their party, ACORN community groups, unions, environmental groups, the NAACP, etc., Republican leaders do give their base??Tea Party? conservatives?the same recognition and respect.?? Both Davis and LoBiondo said they disagreed, and explained that is why they were at our meeting.
4. ?This year, it doesn?t matter what Republican leaders think of us.?? It is now in our best interest for Romney to defeat Obama, and for Republicans to take over the U.S. Senate.??? However, what it is our best interest next year for the New Jersey elections for Governor, State Senate, and Assembly may be something else?if we are strong enough, and can recruit and prepare Tea Party conservatives to run!
5. ?August 15, 2012?Atlantic City Salutes Our Armed Forces Parade.??? We have been so successful in making people aware of our symbols of liberty?the wooden pike draped with the red liberty cap?that we have decided to march in the Atlantic City parade on August 15.?? This is a two mile march.?? We need at least two drummers and 24 marchers to be effective.??? Will you march with us??? Do you need a tricolor sash, pike and liberty cap???? Please contact Seth Grossman at sethgrossman49@gmail.com.
6. ?We adopted a new official slogan at last Saturday’s business meeting.?? ?Do more than vote!??? This new slogan will appear on all out banners, signs, and literature.??? We also will be experimenting with a new logo designed by Linda Seivert.??? That will also be appearing on all our banners, signs, and literature. ? We also elected Eileen Wood and Doug Stroz of Egg Harbor Township, and Marissa Mahon as new trustees. ? ? We regretfully accepted the resignation of Linda Biamonte as treasurer because of other business commitments. ? The Board nominated ?Doug Stroz ?to replace her. ? The full membership will vote on his nomination at the next meeting. ? Roger Stabile of Galloway was finally approved as a full voting member.
7. ?Trevor Loudon of New Zealand will be our guest speaker at the Shore Diner on Wednesday, August 29 at 6 PM instead of our August movie.?? Loudon wrote ?Barack Obama and the Enemies Within?, a book often discussed by Glenn Beck.?? Because of the importance of this speaker and limited seating, we request a minimum donation of $10 above the cost of dinner (ordered off menu) to defray expenses for us and Mr. Loudon.?? We thank Brenda Roams of the Greenwich Tea Party Patriots for making this event possible.? To learn more about Mr. Loudon, please go to http://www.trevorloudon.com/.
8. ?We need your help for our annual Richard Somers Day ceremony and fundraising event.?? We need your help for our annual Richard Somers Day ceremony and fundraising event.?? Those radio ads are very effective, but we need your support in selling and buying tickets for this important event.?? Tickets this year will be $25 per person, $35 per couple, and includes dinner and cash bar at Gregory?s Bar and Restaurant in Somers Point. ?For details, go to http://www.
9. ?While we had our Saturday business meeting in Egg Harbor Township, several New Jersey tea party organizations were meeting in Bayside to plan statewide activities. ??Rich Brys of the Cape May County Tea Party organization was supposed to represent us, but he was could not attend when his car broke down.? We have requested copies? of the minutes so we can share their work with you.
10. ?We submitted these suggestions as ?the most effective strategy for Tea Party conservatives in New Jersey is as follows:
A. ? Recognize that the biggest problem with Tea Party conservatives is that they have no political power.? (Libertyand Prosperity is a non-political, education organization).
B. ?To get political power, Tea Party conservatives must recruit and train qualified candidates to run for state senate, state assembly, and county wide office.
C. Unqualified, disorganized, undisciplined, and ineffective candidates who lack leadership talent and skills do not advance the cause of Tea Party Conservatives when they ?run and lose. ? They are not entitled to automatic support just because ?are running.
D. ? The time for ?Tea Party conservatives to announce their intention to run next year and to organize their campaigns is now.?? Any candidate who waits until February of next year to announce will lose.
E. ? ? ? Tea Party candidates should not run as independents or as third (or fourth, or fifth ) party candidates, because those candidates almost always lose.
F. ?Tea Party candidates have the best chance of winning in Republican primaries in June.
G. ? Tea Party candidates who want to be effective candidates for the election next June, should get exposure and practice their skills by actively organizing and campaigning for Senator Joe Kyrillos in November election, and for the defeat of the $750 million proposed bond issue.
H. ? Steve Lonegan, Anna Little, Bill Eames, and Mike Doherty should have leadership positions in the Tea Party movement, since they were all successful in Republican primary elections.? (Although Lonegan did not win his primary, his 42% of statewide vote was significant).
(It is worth mentioning that it is much easier for the Republican and Democrat parties to find effective candidates who can win. ? ?First, their candidates have a much better chance to win, because they are given money, organization, and usually don’t have to fight for a place on th ballot. ? ?But even if they lose, they are still rewarded. ? ?Democrats rewarded their losing candidates for Assembly in Atlantic County last year, Alisa Cooper and Damion Tyner with a seat on the Casino Control Commisson and a judgeship. ? Nick Asselta was rewarded for losing his state senate race with appointment to a $150,000 job on the Board of Public Utilities. ? ?Frank McCall of Cape May County was appointed to a $90,000 job as Cape May County Emergency Management Director. ? Because he forced the unnecessary evacuation of Cape May County for not-quite-a-tropical-storm Irene last year, ?McCall was just replaced by Mayor Martin Pagliughi of Avalon. ? ? But McCall was given a new $90,000 job supervising road repair in Cape May County!
11. ?Regular Breakfast Discussion this? Saturday, July 21 from 9:30AM to 10:30AM at the Shore Diner.? Tilton and Fire Roads in Egg Harbor Township.?? Regular radio program on 92.1FM heard in most of South Jersey Saturday 8AM to 9AM.?? Seth Grossman will be guest on LarryTrulli and Dan Klein radio programs on 1020AM (Ocean City) Monday,July 16 from 8AM to 10AM.
12.?? Become a full voting member of LibertyAndProsperity.org!??? Dues are $60 per year, attend 3 business meetings each year, and work on at least one volunteer project each year.??? Or be a non-voting supporting member for just $30 per year, with no other commitment
13.?? Is Barbara ?Basia? Brown being ?SLAPPed? for freely exercising her ?unaliable? rights of speech and assembly to publicly speak out against scrapping the ?over-55? requirement for Absecon Gardens??? If so, this is as much a ?threat to your liberty as hers.
Please review the Seth Grossman?s draft column for the Current and Gazette weekly newspapers in Atlantic and Cape May Counties below .?? Please forward your corrections and suggestions for improvement to Seth at sethgrossman49@gmail.com. ??Thanks.
?Just because you do not take an interest in politics, does not? mean politics will not take an interest in you.??? Pericles, Ancient Greek leader of Athens, 430 B.C.
Absecon is a typical New Jersey suburb of 8,000 people located on Route 30 about seven miles northwest of Atlantic City.??? Like most New Jersey towns, Absecon?s zoning laws are so oppressive and unreasonable that it rarely pays for property owners to build anything new?unless they get some special ?redevelopment? deal or ?variance? to avoid them.
Thanks to the NJEA and NEA teachers unions, public education is now so expensive that Absecon spends $11,000 each year on each child–not counting the cost of the building.???? So if two kids live in one house that pays $5,000 in taxes, the town must pay $22,000 each year for just the kids.???? And so most NJ towns have zoning laws deliberately designed to keep out new homes that families with kids can afford.
Five years ago, a real estate developer got a special ?redevelopment? zoning deal to build Absecon Gardens–a 76 unit complex of condos squeezed into a small parcel of land previously used for an old elementary school.?? That was because the developer promised that only seniors over age 55?and no families with school age kids–would live there.
But why would retirees want to live in New Jersey these days??? They can rent a nice condo in states like Florida for about what they pay just for property taxes here?and avoid income tax on their pensions.??? And when they die, their kids don?t get stuck with our 35% estate tax on anything over $675,000.
And so Absecon Gardens failed?until two years later when it was bought by a company owned by Anthony Cappuccio.????? Cappuccio?s company applied for permission from the Absecon Planning? Board to get rid of the over-55 requirement so that anyone?including families with kids could live there.
This infuriated the neighbors.??? They think that this project is so overcrowded and poorly designed for young people, that mostly subsidized, low-income, high crime families would live there.??? They believe this would lower their property values and quality of life, and raise their taxes as dozens of new school age kids from the project flooded their public schools.
Suddenly, dozens of Absecon residents who never before took an interest in politics realized that politics had taken an interest in them.?? Several of them joined ?libertyandprosperity.org.
More than 100 organized and publicly opposed Cappuccio?s company before the Planning Board.? When Cappuccio won, they appealed to the Superior Court.
Meanwhile, Capuccio?s company expanded the project, and is now requesting even more ?variances?? from the Absecon zoning laws–and the relocation of a city street.
And Cappuccio did something else.??? He hired the political lawyer-lobbyists of ?Cooper Levenson (the firm that represented the Revel Casino in getting more than $400 million of state and local tax breaks) to sue Barbara ?Basia? Brown, one of the neighbors who publicly spoke out against the project for ?libel and slander?.?? Cooper-Levenson also sent letters to other opponents of the project warning them to ?cease and desist? from making any ?defamatory verbal and written statements?? against Cappuccio?s ?character and reputation?.
Both the lawsuit and the warning letters are unusual in that neither gives a clue as to what those ?defamatory? statements allegedly were or when they were allegedly said.
Did Basia Brown and other Absecon neighbors of this project really deliberately and maliciously make false statements about Cappuccio, knowing that those statements were false????? If so, shouldn?t Cappuccio specify what they are, so Basia Brown and the others can check their facts and apologize if they were wrong?
Or is Cappuccio?s legal action nothing but a? ?SLAPP? (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation).??? Was it done to discourage Basia Brown and other Absecon residents from freely exercising their ?unalienable? rights of free speech and assembly to oppose Cappuccio?s project?
I don?t live in Absecon, and don?t care one way or another about Cappuccio?s project or Absecon?s zoning laws.
But if Cappuccio?s lawsuit is baseless, yet succeeds in silencing Basia Brown? and the others because they cannot afford the expense, uncertainty, or hassle of? hiring lawyers and defending themselves, ?then my personal liberty?and yours?is also ?threatened.
Learn more.? Meet Barbara ?Basia? ?Brown at our libertyandprosperity.org Saturday morning breakfast.?? Or at 609-404-4444 or at britishconnection@msn.com.? ?And also call Anthony Cappuccio?s lawyer, Louis Niedelman, Esq. of the Cooper Levenson law firm at 609-344-3161.