Commissioner Lowe says 30 years. Well, it certainly seems like 30 years that we have all been discussing our beach. It’s been at least since 2002 when the Mayor, Rodney Romano, decided to jack-hammer our casino and “prove” once and for all that our casino had to come down. “Tear down that building,” he said. This is when all routine maintenance stopped at our casino. The Mayor must have been thinking of Ronald Reagan when President Reagan said, “ Mr.Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” because he was determined that our structure would be demolished and his developer and Realtor friends would come on our beachfront and take over its destiny.Well, here it is 7 years later and the only thing we have to show for it all is a casino building that was never maintained since year 2002, not once, and even the jack hammered holes were not filled in with cement further allowing our building to deteriorate. A few months ago the City finally covered up the ugliness with boards with the pretense of shoring up our building that was “just about to fall down,” per the Interim Building Official. Not one engineering report in the past had said that this building was structurally unsound other than Mr. Farinelli’s suggestion.
Right now, because of the change in politics, we have the best opportunity to stop this runaway horse in order to keep the present zoning of PROS and refurbish the present building. To wait would be folly. The time is now. The vast majority of the people would approve. And if you don’t believe that, let us vote.
