If connections are the job, do the job–
Avi Schnall asked this town for a job.
He did not run as a spectator. He ran as the guy we would send to Trenton. Busing. Fair share for Lakewood etc. He lives it, so he knows it. Local officials’ hands were tied, he said, and someone had to go back every year and get the money. The job, he told voters in 2023, was far from over.
The masses showed up. They voted. They made him Assemblyman. They sent him back. Deputy Whip. Budget Committee. That was the deal: you be our man in Trenton.
When extra money landed, that was the deal working. Nobody was shy about it. Connections. Relationships. This is why you vote.
This year the extra money did not land the same way. And the story flipped and we have a new storyline. The governor hates Lakewood. Locals are powerless. Elections have consequences, so stop asking the people we actually voted for.
That is not an explanation. That is a walk-off.
If all of it failed, you do not run from the job you campaigned for and park it on the governor. You do not spend election season telling this town you are the connection, then spend August telling this town only Trenton has power. Then what were the votes for?
Look at the holes. There is more than one.
Formula aid to Lakewood Township barely moved. For years it sat around $5 million. Then $6 million. What changed was the extra grant on top of that: nothing, then $7 million, then $8 million, then $1 million. The extra grant went from $8 million to $1 million. Formula aid stayed put.
Washington opened a second hole. The February blizzard cost this town real money. Mayor Coles said Lakewood spent about $8 million on snow cleanup and recovery and expected FEMA to reimburse it, the way a town usually would after a storm like that. The Trump administration refused to declare it a major disaster for New Jersey. The state had documented more than $84 million in costs, mostly snow removal, well over the federal threshold. The denial still came. Other states got yeses. New Jersey got a NO and Lakewood ate the bill.
And if the story is that the governor hates Lakewood, then the Trump administration hates Lakewood too because Avi is Agudah and Agudah is AVI and they do all these quiet meetings in Washington so they couldnt get some money to cover the snow shortfall or a lousy 2.7 million for a bussing shortfall ? He is OUR guy in Trenton and he is OUR GUY in Agudah and he swung and missed both times
The state did not cut the bus line and mail the bill to my house. The state sent the township less money. The township decided what to do with what it had, after the snow money did not come either. It raised the municipal tax by a crazy amount . The TOWNSHIP is the one that dropped the subsidy that kept courtesy busing at $385. LSTA then told parents the seat is $945, with a Monday-night opt-in after boys had already started.
Then Ray Coles drops ridiculous article in this weeksVOICE ( which was printed and delivered before the LSTA dropped the busing bomb) and tried to get ahead of what they knew was coming for months and talks about the budget constraints and how he might even have to fire good friends etc, like we are complete idiots🤬. AND talks about how Township tried to tax us again through the roof and state stepped in and saved us. You think we are morons? Like we didn’t realize as soon as we saw the article that it was a set up ? We learn Gemara, remember ?
The budget was signed in June. Parents got the letter August 20. For two months the Meir and his buddies and AVI had almost nothing to say and hid this from us.The n they used the LSTA as proxy and tried make him the scapegoat. They must have forgot about CBN!! These same people who know how to find a camera when a grant lands or write articles in the VOICE OF LAKEWOOD somehow could not find one when the grant shrank and the snow reimbursement never showed.!
And “the governor hates Lakewood” is too neat. The new budget squeezed legislative add-ons statewide, not one town. Beth Medrash Govoha’s $2 million security grant was zeroed out of the proposal and put back in the final deal. If this were a simple punishment of Lakewood, that $2 million would not have come back. BMG was force behind Jack so if the governor hated us then BMG would be ground zero for retribution AND Meir and Avi were telling everyone to vote Jack as well so dont try to use the loss as an excuse as to why we are where we are!
Schnall asked to be our guy in Trenton. The town showed up and gave him that. When it works, that is his. When it fails, that is still his. He does not get to take the credit in the good years and blame the governor in the bad ones. The same with Meir and his Township “connections” position.
Do not tell us in October that the relationships will deliver. Do not take the win in January. Do not tell us in August that your hands were tied and the governor hates this town.
If the connections work, use them. If they do not, say so before the kids are already in school. And do not ask us to clap for access we only hear about when it is time to vote.
And this is just the TIP OF THE ICEBERG.What we are seeing is a failure of the very “connections” Meir, Avi and Agudah have been selling us.
I’M NOT AN IDIOT. THE PEOPLE OF LAKEWOOD ARE NOT IDIOTS.
Agudah wants $10 million from Lakewood right now — according to the two-page ad I saw this week.FOR WHAT?!
To pay salaries?
How about using those famous Washington CONNECTIONS to FIX THE FORMULA?!
Get us some snow money.
Get us the funding we actually need and at the very least, get us a lousy $2.7 million to help with the busing shortfall.🤯
@MEIR @AVI — did you fix the power issues in Lakewood? Did you fix the Verizon mess? What about Route 9? Did you fix the formula?
And when you couldn’t get enough money to run the town, the answer was apparently to keep trying to TAX US THROUGH THE ROOF.
The state stopped you from raising taxes again, so what happened next?
You found another way to directly tax families with children by dumping the busing bill on our front porch. $385 → $945 PER CHILD.
THE GOVERNOR DOESN’T HATE US.
YOU GUYS JUST STINK AT YOUR JOBS.
You can keep trying to tax your way out of every problem.Maybe eventually it will work.
But the Yidden of Lakewood now have something you clearly weren’t expecting:
A MEGAPHONE and you better believe we are going to use it.
We waited for a legitimate defense from the Township, Avi or Agudah, wegot nothing.
Nothing except what looks like a carefully timed PR piece from Ray Coles in the Voice of Lakewood.
So until someone comes forward with actual facts and answers, this is #REALSTORY.
If you want to drink the Kool-Aid, that’s your choice.
But don’t expect the rest of us to sit quietly.
#CBNOUT
I think we have to start charging a fee to every commercial building in this town to cover the 2.7 million dollar bussing shortfall. The owners got huge tax abatement for many years so I don’t feel bad hitting them up now when we need the cash. They need their employees or their tenants employees to be able to arrive at work in a timely fashion so this issue affects them as well. In addition a lot of these buildings and business are not retailing to the Lakewood community so even if they have to raise prices on the services it is not necessarily coming back to bite us. Lastly, the building owners and businesses will just claim it as a business expense and deduct it from their taxes so we end up sending less money back to the state and federal governments. Boo hoo.