By Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron
NJ Today
The Toms River Municipal Building was the scene of the first of three planned Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee hearings on Superstorm Sandy.
Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo said he wanted to hear from local officials who were on the ground during the storm. Ranking Republican Kevin O’Toole pledged bi-partisanship.
With the two Senate party leaders Steve Sweeney and Tom Kean looking on, the committee heard first from Toms River officials, who said nearly 5,000 homes in the township are still uninhabitable, and that’s going to play havoc with the local tax base.
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“We have 225 homes in that number in Ortley Beach that are either gone or cannot be reoccupied presently. The numbers are huge. That represents 30 percent of the township’s assessed valuation base,” said Toms River Business Administrator Paul Shives.
Next to testify was State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes. He read a statement that provided a day-to-day log of the storm and its aftermath. He also said the chain of command for incident reporting, from local offices of emergency management up to the county level and then the state worked well.
“By using that chain of command through the OEMs to state OEMs, that allowed us to be able to leverage the power of the state emergency operating center against the more pressing needs, and that was very important,” Fuentes said.
Members of the committee raised all manner of issues — how were people alerted to the existence of shelters that allowed pets, was there looting, do we need mold certifications now when a shore house is sold, did the evacuations work well?
The mayors of Brick Township and Belmar fielded some of those. Brick Township Mayor Stephen Acropolis warned of possible house fires from copper wires.
“That wire, white coated wire that goes underneath your house. Basically what United Laboratories said, and the people that make it is, after Katrina any water on that wire at all, it’s like this — we’re not taking any responsibility if anything happens,” Acropolis said. “And that’s an issue that I think is going to have to be addressed as well either at the state level or federal level because I’m getting all of that wire that was under water at my house replaced. Some people are not.”
For such a dramatic event as Sandy, today’s hearing was rather undramatic. The committee seems to be feeling its way toward the issues that will require legislation.
“Again, there’s a rush to give people answers that might not be the right answers and might not be fair to businesses and the taxpayers of this state. So for us, honestly, it’s taking a step back to do it the right way,” said Sweeney.
Committee staff are looking for a location for a second hearing next week in Bergen County.