Ocean County commissioner: We were a ‘better county’ in the 1950s than today

TOMS RIVER - The Ocean County commissioners are defending their record after recent criticism from fellow Republicans about their long-term stewardship of the county, as its barrels toward a projected population of one million by the middle of this century.

Nonetheless, Commissioner Jack Kelly, first elected in 1992 and now the most senior board member, said at a public meeting last week that the Ocean County of 1954 — when there were 50,000 residents — was superior to the Ocean County of 2024 with its 650,000 residents. Today, there are about 60,000 people living between Stafford and Little Egg Harbor alone, Kelly observed.

“So, it was a lot different county, it was a lot smaller and in my view, a better county,” Kelly said in public remarks at a regular commission meeting.

Manchester Mayor Robert Arace and Berkeley Board of Education President Jennifier Bacchione, who have replaced incumbent Commissioners Gary Quinn and Barbara Jo Crea on the Republican ticket this year, both attended Wednesday’s meeting. Both candidates have previously said that the board must do a better job of listening to the concerns of its constituent municipalities.

Arace has cited public concerns about the county’s population boom and Bacchione has said that flooding issues have become so common in the county to the extent that some communities feel forgotten by the county government.

More: Commissioner calls for ‘sweeping ethics reforms’ in Ocean County government and at OCC

Commissioner Frank Sadeghi, who took office after succeeding longtime Commissioner Joseph H. Vicari in January, has also criticized the county for not doing more to address the needs of a growing population, which he expects to reach one million by 2050.

He said the county government needs to lobby the state government harder to widen Route 9 from a two-lane road to a four-lane highway, particularly in the central and northern parts of the county where a 10-mile drive between Toms River and Lakewood can now take 45 minutes due to heavy traffic conditions.

“We’ve talked about Route 9 very often,” Kelly said. “But I will tell you we’re working on much more than that in Ocean County. We have flooding problems throughout Ocean County on almost every road and we always think that it is just along the Shore, but the fact of it is, there’s much flooding problems inland also. We are working very hard on that. In fact, we have meetings coming up to talk (about) a countywide plan on flooding. Town after town wants us to raise the roads up. Maybe that’s the right answer, maybe it isn’t.”

Kelly, who is liaison to the county Department of Engineering, said he has directed its staff to review options and come up with a countywide program to mitigate flooding.

He said the source of the overall issue appears to be the impact 2012’s superstorm Sandy had on tidal flows in Barnegat Bay.

More: Ocean County commissioners to cut tax rate by 2 cents, even as taxation jumps by $27.2M

Kelly also said that Sadeghi deserved credit for taking the initiative on exploring options with him for improvements to Route 9 since he took office more than two months ago.

However, he said there were more than 600 miles of county-owned roads in Ocean County and there is always work being done and money being spent to keep them maintained.

“You might note on today’s agenda all the new traffic lights that we’re putting up,” Kelly said. “And that might not seem like a lot, but it’s a quarter of a million dollars apiece to put these traffic lights in place. And I’m told this morning by (county engineer) John Ernst that we have 40 — 40 of those traffic lights — on the agenda to put in and establish over the weeks ahead. So, there’s a lot of work we’re doing. We continue to do it. There’s a lot more we haven’t even talked about today. The roads in Ocean County require a lot of money.”

Quinn noted that Kelly was now chairman of the Board of Trustees for the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, which oversees more than $3 billion each year in transportation improvement projects in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren counties.

Kelly’s position means that Ocean County, which the commissioners feel has long been neglected by the Statehouse in Trenton,, will now have a seat “at the head of the table,” Quinn said.

Sadeghi said the gas tax which was 14.5 cents in 2016 and increased to 37 cents a year will now be increased by the state to 50 cents — which places a disproportionate burden on Ocean County commuters, where there is little mass transit available.

“I wouldn’t have an objection to this if it came back to Ocean County to repair our roads and bridges,” Sadeghi said. “But the money is going up north and we are a commuter county.”

He said the commissioners had agreed to send a resolution to Trenton urging the state to reconsider the increase in the gas tax.

Sadeghi said this planned increase in the gas tax was coming on the heels of a 3 percent increase in tolls on the Garden State Parkway and a 15 percent fare hike for NJ Transit riders.

“If they are going to charge us more, this is a great opportunity for us to ask the state for additional money and get some attention for the roads in Ocean County,” he said.

“That is very, very unfair to the people of Ocean County,” Commissioner Virginia E. Haines said of the gas tax increase. “We have more of the Garden State Parkway in Ocean County than any other county in this state.”

As for the population growth, Haines said that about 60% of the county had been preserved from development.

“A lot of people don’t realize it, but that includes federal, state, county, local (lands),” Haines said. “Ocean County (alone has protected) approximately 30,000 acres of natural lands that have been preserved, about 5,000 acres in parks and about 3,300 acres in farmland. And it’s just continuing.”

Contact Asbury Park Press reporter Erik Larsen at elarsen@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Ocean County NJ commissioner: We were a ‘better county’ in the 1950s