By Senior Correspondent Desirée Taylor
NJ Today
Sen. Barbara Buono came to Little Egg Harbor to shed light on the plight of residents who are still displaced by Sandy nearly one year after the storm.
“We just want to come home. My family’s living in a camper. I’m in a camper with my husband and kids in 33 feet of space. I want my house back,” said Christina Fiorenzo of Little Egg Harbor.
“It’s pretty much been a lot of red tape, going through FEMA, going through state, insurance companies. Everything has been just a gotcha,” said Little Egg Harbor resident Kelly Domitrowsky, who was displaced by the storm.
Buono says the governor should be doing more to help.
“This is a governor who talks a lot about cutting red tape. If ever there was a time to end the guessing games and the maze of bureaucratic red tape that’s going on, the time is now. All these people are asking for for the last 11 months is a little help,” Buono said.
Adding salt to their wounds, the governor’s recent announcement that millions of federal Sandy aid funds will be given to victims of the fire in Seaside Park and Seaside Heights last week.
“Now they’re taking money from us. And while they get it a couple weeks after we get it … not yet,” Domitrowsky said.
Buono is demanding more transparency about how Sandy funds are allocated and spent.
“Today I am calling on Chris Christie to make public all of the information about how Sandy recovery money is being distributed,” Buono said. “If he’s got nothing to hide, then why isn’t he making that information public?”
Buono says there are many small communities the governor has overlooked. The Christie campaign responded by sending a statement by Assemblyman Brian Rumpf who represents this district. He accused Buono of politicizing Sandy recovery. He also called Buono a “desperate partisan who will say or do anything to get attention for her failing campaign.”
“You tell these people here that we’re politicizing it,” Buono said. “I’m here to back these people up and if that’s political, then guilty as charged.”
Later, Buono held an event in Keansburg where she heard similar heartbreaking stories from displaced residents.
“We tried to get help with the state too. I filled out the RREM program and that was in March. So where are the funds?” asked Elena Pagonis of Keansburg.
Pagonis says she reached out to the governor’s office for help but got no response. However her call to Buono’s office was returned. Buono hopes this couple and others like them won’t forget her come election day.