Asbury Park Press from Asbury Park, New Jersey • Page 24

AA2 Asbury Park PressSunday, Feb. 27, 1 994 THE LOCAL FRONT 'HP' Diary GOP dinner not so inviting to outsiders Bring In That Sick Muffflerl i I I tax Ask About Lifetime Warranty Exhaust systems from Catalytic Converter Back (any midsize American car) Resinators extraan other cars at low low I pnces. Cal or stop m. I EXP. 33194 I SU z'kJ -jaJs pr a tsraues Disc or Drum i RetacePads Calipers Wheel Cylinder PAne Free Brake Inspection! -semi merawc extra i Forebears and trucks slightly higher I Convenient 1 Jersey Alive! is the complete entertainment guide.

This Friday and every Friday, be the first to- know where to go, what to do and who to see in Central Jersey. From movie reviews and museums to beaches and boardwalk events. Find out what's hot on the music scene or where to 'go on a rainy day. Jersey Alive! Find it in the Press every Friday. It's the best way to plan youftree time.

NANCY RICHMONDAsbury Park Preii Brian T. Kennedy, a former state senator and assemblyman who is seeking the nomination for U.S. Senate, in his Sea Girt law office. I 1 Clean Efficient Economical I J3 ith Republican friends like this, who needs Demo crats? Ask Sea Girt's Brian T. Kennedy, who is seeking the GOP nomination to run for the U.S.

Senate seat currently held by Democrat Frank Lau-tenberg. Or ask Cary Edwards, who sought theRepublican nod to run for governor last year. Ask them about the reception or lack of one they were given at the Lincoln Day Dinner, the Monmouth County GOFs major gala. Last year, the dinner's featured speaker a Christine whom county Re-publican Chairman JOE SAPIA William F. Dowd and nearly all the county GOP bigwigs supported for governor.

Yes, Edwards, a former state attorney general, also got a chance to speak, but it was Whitman's show. On Feb. 13, at this year's dinner in Aberdeen Township, Whitman again the featured speaker and now governor gave a boost to Garabed "Chuck" Haytaian of Warren County, against whom Kennedy is competing for the GOP nomination for the Senate. "Chuck Haytaian is our Assembly speaker for the moment, but not for very much longer if he does what we want him to do," Whitman said." A murmur was heard from the audience over Whitman's comment. Intentionally or not, she had slighted Kennedy on his own turf (though Kennedy already had left the dinner and didn't hear her remarks).

Prior to the dinner, the county GOP had invited Haytaian to address the audience(which he did), without extending an invitation to Kennedy. "I did my speaking before the dinner, went through the room and greeted as many Republicans as I could," said Kennedy, adding that he didn't seek to address the gathering. "I don't need an introduction to the Republicans of Monmouth County. They all know me," said Kennedy, who represented a part of the county, as an assemblyman and state senator, for most of the period from 1972 to 1983. Dowd said "no one was snubbed" at the Lincoln Day Dinner.

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ALPHONSE STEPHENSON AND HIS FULL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA vO-' in the world. There is no county (party) line," said Kennedy. Dowd said he wishes Kennedy well if he has the support of as many Republicans as he says he does. "Well, God bless him," Dowd said. "If that's true, he'll prove it on (primary) Election Day." Kennedy is running a grass-roots campaign, circumventing the party hierarchy to reach out to the GOP masses.

A few weeks ago, he sent out letters to the thousands of mem-, bers of the GOP's 21 county executive committees the kind of vot- ers likely to go to a primary but not necessarily closely tied to party organizations. "I will raise enough money to get my message across to the Republicans who will be voting in the pri-; mary," said Kennedy, adding he hopes to raise "in the area of $200,000 to $500,000." But Kennedy remains an outsider, even in his home county. The county Republican organization doesn't support his candidacy. And the Monmouth County GOP doesn't roll out the red carpet for people it doesn't support at the Lincoln Day Dinner. Joseph Sapia covers the Monmouth County beat from the Freehold bureau of the Asbury Park Press.

Monmouth Diary appears Sundays. Boyd Elementary School on Bay Boulevard are from families on public assistance. "The county has a lot to do with our demise," said Shirley Dreyer, a longtime resident who has taught at the school for 30 years. Families and businesses started moving out when taxes began to climb in the 1980s. Business people who used to be able to live off their summertime profits and close up shop in the winter couldn't make ends meet.

So they left, she said. "This is when the absentee landlords started to come in," Dreyer said. "They weren't con- cerned with the community or its appearance." The absentee landlords began renting to welfare clients, who took advantage of the cheap winter rates available at motels and houses in the borough, Vaz said. "Most of the property in town is owned by people who don't live in town," he said. "Gone are the days where anybody could walk up and down the block and know every--body." Because of the money landlords are making through housing assistance, Vaz said, there's no incentive for landlords to invest in addressing problems.

When Vaz and Camera appeared before the Board of Freeholders two weeks ago, they asked the board to support the borough's efforts to enforce housing codes. Camera wants the freeholders to ensure that the Board of Social Services uses only. motel rental units certified by the' borough when seeking housing for clients. "It seems the times they are a--" changing, and we have to find a way to deal with it," Vaz said. Patricia A.

Miller covers the Ocean County beat from the Toms River bureau of the Asbury Park Press. Ocean Diary appears Sundays. Aberdeen Twp. Sea Girt for state Senate in 1987, lost a 1988 primary bid for Congress, bowed out from seeking an Assembly seat in 1989 in favor of the party's picks, and withdrew from party consideration to run for the House of Representatives in 1990. Haytaian, on the other hand, is a winner, now holding the third-highest political office in New Jersey government.

As Assembly speaker, he ranks behind only the governor and Senate president. But while Haytaian may have name recognition among people familiar with state politics, the common voter probably wouldn't know who he is, Kennedy said. And Kennedy said he and Haytaian will get equal billing on the ballot. "It's an open primary and that means my name and Haytaian's name will be in the first column with no other names," Kennedy said. In U.S.

Senate races in New Jersey, none of the various candidates within a party get the advantage of being listed with the candidates the county organization has endorsed in other races. "And that makes all the difference Asbury Park Press file photo Christopher Vaz "It didn't happen overnight" beasioe neigmaj business. The bad owners don't want to be part of our overall plan. We can try and enforce the liquor statutes and the borough code, but that's a difficult thing to do." And besides the bars, there's the borough's welfare problem. According to recent statistics compiled by the Ocean County Board of Social Services, Seaside Heights had 884 people 37 percent of its wintertime population of 2,366 on public assistance.

And officials estimate that between 90 to 95 percent of the children attending the Hugh J. A a i Seaside Heights' image disturbs councilmen Haytaian was the choice among prominent Republicans to be the party's candidate for the Senate. "Brian Kennedy could have got up and said a few words (at the dinner). (But) it would have been embarrassing for him," Dowd said. "Brian's candidacy is so nonviable, it's embarrassing.

Not to us, (to) him." In 1989, Tom Blomquist, who was seeking the GOP nomination for governor that year, originally got a cold shoulder from Dowd when he wanted to address the dinner, Blomquist said. But Blomquist said he eventually was given a few minutes to speak. Blomquist put it this way: "If you're running and not looked upon with favor by the hierarchy of the party, they're not always amenable" to allowing outsider to participate in a party fonim. Dowd said he wouldn't treat any GOP candidate rudely, and he said he didn't remember Blomquist addressing a Lincoln Day Dinner. But published accounts of the '89 event reveal Blomquist was indeed among six Republican gubernatorial candidates who spoke.

Discussing his own candidacy for the Senate, Kennedy said he's not concerned about his political record over the last 11 years, although it been glamorous. He lost his state Senate seat in 1983 and lost races for Congress in 1984 and 1986. He faUed to get the GOP nod whose father Anthony, was a longtime councilman in the '80s. And not Councilman John Camera, the borough's former embattled housing inspector. The bar problems began when liquor license owners moved their boardwalk establishments down to the Boulevard and transformed them into nightclubs, Vaz said.

"The bottom line is there were a lot of liquor licenses issued years ago," he said. "But they weren't at that time used as nightclubs. Most were mom and pop bars. In the beginning of the '80s, the bars moved down to the Boulevard. There was really nothing that could be done about it at the time.

But we've gotten a little bit more creative Vaz and Camera have plans to breathe life back into the town, from which many old-time families and businesses have fled. Their ambitious revitalization proposal calls for free weekday beaches, and tax abatements for residents who improve their properties. It would also make use of $165,000 worth of free advertising that Pepsi-Cola has promised the borough. Perhaps the most controversial portion of the plan is a proposal to buy the Hollywood nightclub on the Boulevard, retire the liquor license and use the building as a storage facility for the borough's electric pany. The council plans to buy the nightclub for $570,000, using surplus funds generated by the utility.

But the owners of the club are asking $800,000 for it. So some bar owners in town have offered to kick in $150,000 toward the purchase, which would eliminate a rival. But not everyone is thrilled about spending taxpayers' money to buy a bar. "You have your good bar owners and you have your bad bar owners," Vaz said. "The good ones are smart enough to realize that bringing families into the town won't hurt their Former musical director and conductor of A Chorus Line.

A benefit performance for Brick Hospital Pediatric Services. Saturday, March 5, 1994 Strand Theatre Lakewood, NJ 7:30 p.m. Reserved Seating: $17.50 $25 Call Brick Hospital Awoeiation 920-6006 A'' iwr On a cold, snow-and-rain-filled February morning last week, Seaside Heights looked like anything but the Land of Sun n' Fun. But the borough hasn't really lived up to that perky description underneath its fading welcome sip off Route 35 for a long time, even in good weather. "It didn't happen overnight," said Councilman 1 nhai nn "It was a process.

But at some point we reached bottom When we reached bottom, PATRICIA A. MILLER people opened their eyes." Some critics contend that the town fathers dozed through the 1970s and '80s as Seaside Heights slowly slipped from a once family-oriented shore haven into Sleazeside Heights, a honky-tonk strip of bars and cheap rental housing known for noise, rowdy patrons and tough cops. It was routine at Borough Council meetings in the '80s for longtime Mayor George E. Tompkins to nod resignedly while furious residents told him of drunken visitors who urinated and fornicated on their properties. To their credit, council members did enact several ordinances during the '80s to deal with the problems.

But some say the ordinances, which tightened up housing regulations and held landlords more responsible for their tenants, came too little, too late kind of like tossing deck chairs off the Titanic. But in a town with 18 count 'em, 18 liquor licenses, over less than one square mile of earth, is anybody surprised? Not Vaz, 26, a borough native, "om- 1 Zfen 5ier, MD is proud to announce the opening of the Atlantic Allergy Asthma Center. And not a moment too soon. Dr. Sher is Fellowship trained in Asthma and Allergic diseases.

She also specializes in: Shortness of breath Nasal congestion Sinus trouble Watery, itchy eyes Chronic cough Skin allergies Give the Center a call today Atlantic Allergy Asthma Center and breathe easier. Evening aDDomtments available zi- 2 tO Hall Street Hnt hmg Itranch, 07764 9082292222 Board Certif ted Affiliated with Monmouth Medical Center 9.