Gov. Chris Christie opposes a unified coastal commission to oversee the rebuilding effort. The Asbury Park Press notes that Christie wants state government to set some minimal safety standards, but allow each municipality to determine their own standards. This helps retain the diversity of the various Jersey shore towns.
“How high? How does that affect the maximum heights in the individual towns? What kind of setbacks?” Christie said. “All the rest of those things are things that I think the state has a role in regulating, and then have the municipalities use that as their floor. If they want to enhance them, they can. If they want to address issues that we don’t address in our regulations, that’s their business. But I would see us as the regulator of setting the floor of safety for rebuilding, and then let the towns go from there.”
“One of the great things about the Jersey Shore in my view, compared to some other places, some other vacation spots, is the uniqueness of the experience from town to town to town,” Christie said. “Belmar is different from Long Branch, and Long Branch is different from Sea Bright, that’s different than Spring Lake, different than Point Pleasant or Seaside and very different than Long Beach Island. I’d like to keep that difference from town to town, if I can, and I think the best way for me to do that is to set a regulatory floor but then allow the towns to work from there with individual homeowners and business owners on how they rebuild.”
NJ estimates a Sandy storm loss of about $37B US. The Federal Government emergency recovery bill would provide about $50B for NJ, NY and CT. The bill has been criticized because $400M of unrelated pork type funding has been included. Also, $17B of the bill will go out as block grants, which have few strings attached to how the money is spent. Christie defends the block grants as the most efficient way for the relief money to get spent, with decisions being made at the local level.
The Sandy Storm Relief benefit concert by Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi and many others raised $50M that now must be distributed. The Robin Hood Foundation has that task. Their list of $17.8M of funded grant requests is fascinating. I noticed Mennonite Disaster Services (I worked with them to build their headquarters) received $150,000 for supplies for volunteers to rebuild 10 homes. That seems like a great return on investment to me.
How will the Sandy money get spent? The Robin Hood Foundation funded grant requests gives a quick view of tasks now being done. But that amount is much less than one percent of what will be spent. It will be fascinating to see how the process works. And, with those huge numbers, opportunities to do good and to do well exist.
