Three Cape May County, NJ realtors decided to do something about it and formed a non-profit corporation called “The Free Meal Center”.  The goal is to serve lunch Monday through Saturday, plus breakfast on Saturdays.  The double meal on Saturdays is targeted at kids, who often don’t have a decent meal after school lunch on Friday until returning to school for free breakfast on Monday.

TFMC takes possession of a 4,000 square foot former restaurant on March 15th, just 12 short days away.  We’re still $4,000 short.  We hope to be open to the public by Memorial Day.

Check out our website at http://www.FreeMealCenter.com .  Perhaps you can see it in your heart to make a small donation.

Thank you for caring.

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

The township completed a full-blown revaluation in 2007, raising the total value of all properties from $1.5 billion to $4.73 billion.  While the new figure was more in line with reality, it came at the time when the real estate market was in a deadfall.  Property values were dropping about a half percent per month.

A petition signed by 1,500 property owners against the new valuations put the township on notice to expect plenty of costly tax appeals.  It would also cause an imbalance in values, since those folks out of a total of 15,930 property owners in the town that didn’t bother to appeal would unfairly be picking up the new burden.

Township Tax Assessor Art Amonette undertook an in-house reval in 2009, which cost just $25,000 instead of the $1 million price tag associated with a full reval.  Smart thinking, big savings!

The completed revaluation shows that the value of the township did indeed decline, from the previous $4.73 billion down to $4.1 billion, a drop of about 15%.  About 15,500 properties had their values reduced, while another 400 saw increases.

The range of change had some properties dropping 30%, as opposed to a high of a 10% increase.  Anyone who’s value dropped more than 15% will see a lower tax bill.  A reduction less than 15% will see the owner’s tax bill increase accordingly.

So once again, the playing field appears to be leveled for Lower Township property owners.  Town officials being proactive was a wise decision all around.

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

In a county that has hundreds of multi-million dollar vacation homes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay, there is a flip side to the coin.  Of 42,000 yearround families, nearly 4,000 households live under the poverty line ($22,050 for 4) and another 9,500 have social security as their sole source of income.  The unemployment rate is around 13%, and when you add in those who have basically given up ever finding gainful employment the jobless rate approaches 30%. 

As realtors, we get the opportunity to go into a lot of people’s homes every year.  In one home we had listed last year, we noticed that the five kids had different colored lips.  We soon discovered why.  The only food in the house was those frozen sugar-water ice pops that come in tear-away plastic tubes.  The refrigerator was empty except for condiments and the freezer was full of different flavored ice pops.  It’s sad.  In the homes of the elderly, we have seen them subsist on Saltine crackers the last days of the month.  They are proud and they don’t complain.

While so many have so much, these others have so little.

This month, we organized “The Free Meal Center” with a volunteer Board of Directors and incorporated as a New Jersey secular, non-profit, charitable organization.  By the way, the politically correct term nowadays is “meal center” and no longer is “soup kitchen”.  We found a 4,000 square foot former restaurant centrally located in the middle of the county on the main highway, Route 9, and negotiated a purchase price.  It has four dining rooms, four restrooms, a large kitchen area, and parking for 40 cars on the 2.2 acre property.  We will be able to seat 100 or more at a time.

We take possession of the building March 15 and hope to be up and running by Memorial Day.  We will serve lunch Monday through Saturday, plus breakfast on Saturday.  Meals will be free and open to anyone who walks through our doors.  We won’t even ask their names.  Our volunteers will treat everyone with respect and dignity.

The building does need a bit of work.  Part of the roof needs repairs, the interior needs painting, the bare kitchen needs equipment, and we need tables and chairs.  A few other repairs may become evident once we’re in the building, but its all no big deal.  We can do it.

We’ve undertaken becoming a 501(c)(3) tax deductible entity and expect to be approved in the spring.  Our website, http://www.TheFreeMealCenter.com should up on-line by next Tuesday, February 16, 2010.

If you’d like to help us help these less-fortunate folks, you can donate through our website next week, or mail a check to The Free Meal Center, PO Box 863, Cape May Court House, New Jersey  08210.  We’ll mail you back a tax deductible receipt.

Thanks for caring.

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ  08260    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

COAH came into existence in the late 1970’s as a result of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mt. Laurel Decision, which basically said that municipalities cannot zone against low and moderate-income housing and must supply affordable housing.  COAH set quotas for each of the state’s 567 (now 566) municipalities.

The quota system was unfair to many municipalities, setting unrealistically high numbers for some towns.  Here in Cape May County, Middle Township is still required to offer 932 more affordable units by 2018 and Upper Township still owes over 500.  It’s unrealistic and puts a heavy burden on taxpayers, who must fund new schools and services to meet the demand of so many new residences.

Senate Bill S1, sponsored by Raymond Lesniak and Christopher Bateman, and its companion State Assembly bill A2057, would abolish COAH.  It would also do away with State-imposed calculations of affordable housing needs.  Instead, it would permit municipalities to determine their own needs.  The State Planning Commission would assist towns in facilitating opportunities for affordable housing.

The bill would require municipalities to re-examine their master plan and adopt an ordinance that provides an opportunity for an appropriate variety and choice of housing.  They must show that they have complied with their obligations under the Fair Housing Act.  Any municipality not enacting ordinances by December 31, 2011, would be required to have any developers set aside 20% of their project for low or moderate or work force housing.

What does all this mean?  COAH and its assigned numbers of affordable housing units will be put to rest.  But municipalities aren’t off the hook.  They must still offer affordable housing, but on their own terms, not Trenton’s.

-Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

In 2005, there were 3,628 properties sold.  The asking price total was $2.01 billion and they got $1.92 billion, meaning sellers got 95.5% of asking price on average.  The average property was listed at $555,000 and it sold for $530,000.  (All prices are rounded off).

In 2006, there were 2,386 properties sold, a volume drop of 34% from 2005.  The total asking price was $1.43 billion and sellers received $1.34 billion, or about 94% of asking price.  The average asking price was $601,000 and the selling price averaged $563,000.  Did you just notice that the 2006 price average was up 6% over 2005?

In 2007, there were 2,279 properties sold, a slight drop of 4% from 2006.  The asking price total was $1.33 billion and sellers received $1.28 billion.  The average asking price was $583,000 and sellers averaged $539,000.  So even in 2007, prices were still higher than in the benchmark year of 2005.  Of course, sales were off 37% in volume in 2007 from 2005.

In 2008, there were 1,901 properties sold, a drop of 16.5% from the previous year.  The total asking price was $1.07 billion and they got $978 million, or about 91% of asking price.  The average property listed at $564,000 and sold for $514,000, which is still in the ballpark of 2005.

In 2009, there were 1,879 properties sold, a 48% drop from the gold rush era of 2005, but still close to 2008 totals.  But here’s where the numbers dive.  The total asking price was $889 million and sellers received $813 million.  The average listing price of $473,000 went for $432,000.  Selling prices dropped 16% from 2008.  That’s substantial.  Hopefully the market found the bottom and will now level off.  Short sales were a big part of 2009, driving down price averages.

Here at Jewell Real Estate Agency, our figures for sales and commissions from 2001 to 2009 tell our story.  Our most sales, in order, were 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2003.  Those four years had double – and sometimes triple – the sales volume of 2001, and 2006 through 2009.  Our best year of gross commissions was 2005 (no surprise there), followed by 2004, 2002, and 2003.  Again, 2001 (our first year in business, so it might not be a fair comparison) and 2006 through 2009 were the dog years. 

We do expect 2010 to be our best year since 2005.  In January, we’ve already had 25% as many transactions closing as in all of 2009.  And the phones are ringing and the offers are coming in.  Yeee-haaa!

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

Anyway, our Tundra was one of over four million Toyotas recalled last summer because of a reported problem with the driver’s floor mat slipping underneath the pedals.  Our mat is secured by a big plastic clip and it can’t be moved even with force, so we filed the recall notice in the “if it ever becomes a problem” folder. 

Now Toyota has begun a recall of over one million vehicles – again ours is on the list – because the accelerator sticks.  An advocacy group, Safety Research and Strategies, has said that since 1999 Toyotas have had 2,274 incidences of “sudden unintended acceleration” leading to 18 deaths in 275 crashes.

We haven’t received the recall notice yet, but even when we do there is no hurry to get out Tundra back to the dealer.  Toyota hasn’t yet come up with a solution to the problem.  It’s some sort of multiple problem concerning interconnected linkage.  It’s not just spraying it with WD-40 or replacing a single part and everything is okay.

Our Tundra is our third vehicle, so we don’t drive it often.  We use it to get from our home in Cape May County, New Jersey to our vacation log home in mountains of Pocahontas County, West Virginia.  It’s 396 miles each way. 

We needed the 4-wheel drive in case of snow or ice going through the mountains, and the large size gives us plenty of room to bring along all the tools, supplies, etc that we always seem to need.  But other than those trips (about 12,000 miles a year), our Toyota stays parked under cover in New Jersey.  We each drive smaller, more economical vehicles in our everyday New Jersey life.

Toyota has put out some warnings of what symptoms to look for in advance of your gas pedal sticking.  They say the pedal may gradually become harder to depress, and there may be a roughness or chattering when pressing or releasing the gas pedal.  It that happens, call your Toyota dealer.

If the pedal does stick at full acceleration, follow these steps:  Brake hard, but don’t pump the brakes, just depress the brake pedal enough without going into a skid.  Then throw the engine in “neutral”.  While the engine will still be running at excessive RPM’s, it won’t be pushing you along anymore.  Don’t turn the engine off until you’re safely stopped and off the road.  Got all that?

We’re sure Toyota will figure out a solution to the problem soon, then we can all take our vehicles to the dealer for the repairs.  We’re just sorry that we have to go back to the incompetent dealer that we bought it from.

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

I feel qualified to have an opinion about the Jersey Shore (the place, not the show) because, heck, I live here.  Our real estate office is located in Wildwood Crest, Cape May County.  We’re just four blocks from the beach and the beginning of the 39 city block long Boardwalk.  From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the population on our island swells from 14,000 yearround to over 250,000.

Our closest metropolitan area is Philadelphia.  It’s predominantly Italian and Irish heritage.  And it’s a rite of passage for families and their kids to vacation here.  It’s also an unofficial “tradition” that kids in their late teens and twenties come here in the summer to party.  Party hard!  Party hard away from their elders, out of sight of those who might inflict family repercussions.

I have a little more insight than most because I also owned a bar here from 2002 through 2004.  Though my tavern was off the beaten track and it attracted an older (30 to 75) crowd, I did become acquainted with many other bar owners and I did make the late night rounds more than once.

Long story short, I recently did catch two episodes of Jersey Shore.  It’s about these eight Italian-American young twenty-somethings who come to the shore town of Seaside Heights, NJ, about 50 miles north of us.  They have an assortment of MTV-generation names like Snooki, JWoWW, and The Situation.  The Situation?  Give me a break.

Anyway, they primp and argue at their rented beach house, then go out and drink and carouse, and inevitably come home and be promiscious with a newfound partner.  They call it “hooking up”.  You can call it what you like.

They also get into fights and do other immature, egotistical things.  They are an extreme example of typical summertime behavior.  Tone it down a little bit and they’re just like the others who go “Animal House” at the shore.

The Italian-American groups call Jersey Shore demeaning and not reality.  “That’s not how our kids act,” is their general feeling. 

Bottom line: 

Is this behavior the norm at the shore in the summertime?  Yes.  It’s called “sowing your oats” before settling down to a lifetime of responsibility and 2.3 kids and a soccer-mom vehicle and a mortgage.

Should Italian-American groups be offended?  No.  Get over it.  It’s also Irish-American kids and CEO’s kids and teachers’ kids and mayors’ kids.  And your kids!

- Mountain Man and City Girl    http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com 

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ    http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

New Jersey’s Assembly and Senate recently approved a bill which would regulate ATV’s, while at the same time creating three parks for ATV’s and dirtbikes.  Governor Jon Corzine, whose last day in office is today, is expected to sign the bill into law as he packs up his belongings.  If he doesn’t give it his John Hancock, incoming Governor Christopher Christie no doubt will enact ATV laws in the near future.

New Jersey prohibits dirt bikes and ATV’s from all public lands, which includes state parks, preserves, utility power lines, and roads.  Unfortunately, many riders have thumbed their noses at the law and police regularly have cat and mouse pursuits of scofflaws.  Many municipalities, including here in Middle Township, Cape May County where we live, have had to purchase ATV’s and train officers to catch the illegal riders.

The new ATV regulations going into effect would require all owners to register their machine within six months.  New vehicles have to be registered to take delivery.  The cost will be $50, plus a $10 surcharge to help fund the three riding parks.  The fine for getting caught without a registration will be $500.  Since the ATV’s and dirt bikes would now have license plates front and rear, police and the public should have no problem spotting unregistered vehicles.

There are 85 ATV and dirt bike dealers listed in New Jersey.  There are 25,000 riders, according to estimates.  Acquiring three riding parks will probably be difficult.  They’ll have to be located away from populations, wetlands, and water.  Presumably, they’ll locate one each in North Jersey, Central Jersey, and South Jersey.  Hopefully, the 1.1 million acre Pinelands will be off-limits in the South.

The root of ATV problems can often be traced to condescending parents, who buy their kid a dirt bike or ATV even though there is nowhere to legally operate it.  Soon a bunch of kids are tearing through private property, destroying gates and fences and rutting footpaths to the point that they are unwalkable.  The ruts also hold water, making ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes.  And then there are the idiots who chase deer and other wildlife.  Irresponsible adults are as often to blame as teenagers for the many transgressions of riders.

That said, ATV’s aren’t all bad.  In West Virginia, where we also own a log home on 19 acres, ATV’s are permitted on any road that is not a “numbered highway”.  That makes zipping down to the neighbors for a cup of coffee as easy as hopping on your machine, which many have parked right outside the front door.  But West Virginia has just 75 folks per square mile (6% of NJ) and plenty of families own 100-acre tracts.  Riding in a National Forest, however, still results in confiscation of the ATV if caught.

Let’s hope that New Jersey’s new ATV laws put an end to the illegal trespassing that so many riders feel is their inherent right.  This is a chance to legitimize their hobby.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com 

The blogsite of Jewell Real Estate Agency, Wildwood Crest, NJ  http://www.JewellRealEstateAgency.com

Well, that is unless you consider it not really a word, since it was made up by the two brothers who wrote the song for the Disney movie.  In that case, the longest word is “antidisestablishmentarianism”, at 28 letters.  Can’t you remember back in the 1950s or ’60s being so smug because as an eight year old you knew the longest word in the English language?  That tongue twister originally meant, basically, opposition to the proposal to disestablish the Church of England.  Yikes.  Not to be outdone, some folks have added “pseudo” to the beginning of the word to stretch it to 34 letters.

In the category of English place names, there’s an 85 letter word for a certain hill in New Zealand.  I won’t bother typing it.  The two longest words in the entire English language are, well, a bit extreme.  There’s a 189,819 letter word that is the chemical name for a protein.  And the overall winner is the 280,000 word name for DNA, that molecular structure that embodies life.  The word is so long that it reportedly has never been written.  Duh.

We certainly have come a long way from the days when cavemen pointed and probably said, “Ugh”. 

The evolution of our civilization is directly tied to the evolution of our sophisticated language.  As communication became more effective, humans could interact better and progress was made.  Of course, earth still had to endure millenia of slavery, savagery, and wars, but in the end things got better because we became better communicators.  Ideas were able to be passed from one generation to the next, with each generation improving on the past.  Socrates taught Plato, who taught Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great, and so on.  Later on, Leonardo da Vinci was followed by Copernicus, who was followed by Galileo.  Continuing the procession of ideas and thought, Darwin was followed by Einstein, blah, blah, blah.  You get the picture.

Without the continuing upgrading of language for the past 30,000 years, where would we be today?  Schools wouldn’t exist, teachers wouldn’t teach, there would be no books, no pencils, no computers.  We’d still be hunter-gatherers, living in small clans and wandering the land.  Life would be eat or be eaten, stay warm or perish.

So as you read this, contemplate the 600 generations that improved communication.  We exist as we do because the human spirit strived to be better.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com

In 2007, St. Raymond’s elementary/junior high school in the Villas section of Lower Township was closed by the Diocese of Camden, which oversees the Catholic goings-on in southern New Jersey.  Students, parents, and teachers were saddened, outraged, and in shock.  Students were offered the chance to transfer to Star of the Sea in Cape May or St. Ann’s in Wildwood.

Then in 2008 the Diocese announced the closing of Star of the Sea elementary/junior high school, merging it with St. Ann’s elementary/junior high school.  That didn’t sit well with Star of the Sea parents, who didn’t like the prospect of their kids be bussed to lowly Wildwood, a decidedly less affluent community.  The parents are still fighting the closing, recently taking out ads on the radio to drum up support for keeping Star of the Sea open.  Tuition at the school is around $3,500 for Catholic kids and a thousand dollars more for non-Catholics.

The diocese also previously announced the closing of the Assumption church in upscale Wildwood Crest, offering just summer services when tourists are in town.  Parishioners picketed and instituted a letter writing campaign to keep their church, which is self-supporting and not losing money, from merging with St. Ann’s.  The move by the Diocese was part of a plan to merge 14 Cape may County parishes into eight.

With all these closings happening, the biggest shock is the demise of Wildwood Catholic High School, an institution on the island since 1948.  The North Wildwood school boasts state titles in soccer and basketball, and their rivalries with Wildwood High School and other county high schools are legendary.  In the 1990’s, the school’s enrollment increased from 250 to 374 students.  A $1.5 million addition was built onto the school to handle the increase. 

But in these tough economic times, with tuition at the Catholic high school running about $6,000 per student, many parents balked at sending their kids there.  And yes, religion is less common in families than in previous times.  Enrollment is now down to 194 at Wildwood Catholic High.  The school will lose a half million dollars this year, with expected red ink of $900,000 next year if they stayed open.

Catholic parents of high schoolers will now have several options of where to send their kids next year.  To stay parochial, the options are Holy Spirit High School in Absecon (35 miles), St. Augustine in Richland (45 miles), or St. Joseph in Hammonton (52 miles).  Locally, the students can attend their home public high schools which are Wildwood HS, Lower Cape May Regional HS, Middle Township HS, Ocean City HS, or Cape May Technical HS. 

Unlike St. Raymond’s, which now sits unused and gathering dust, Wildwood Catholic will not be mothballed.  The school will become the new home of the St. Ann and Star of the Sea merger and used for church activities, offices, and ministry.  It presumably will be called Cape Trinity Catholic School.

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com