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Brigantine City Council met again on April 15. Topics included selective enforcement of stay-at-home rules. For example, the baseball fields are closed, but people are still golfing at the Links at Brigantine, for free.
Resident Jim Mackey sees people golfing at the Brigantine Golf Course. Mayor Simpson brushes it aside. He doesn’t see it as a problem.
Councilperson Karen Bew, who heads the Links Golf Course committee, had no comment. It’s true, insiders are still playing golf in Brigantine, for free.
Mayor Simpson, who increasingly sounds like a bumbling Joe Biden, admits people are out there hitting some balls around. ‘I like to see that, people out there playing some golf.’ Brigantine Mayor Andy Simpson often contradicts himself in the same sentence.
Note: Links at Brigantine Golf operates in the red. It’s a taxpayer subsidized money loser.
Councilman Dennis Haney talked about a 14-day travel quarantine that Councilman Riordan was pushing. Riordan, a real estate agent, reported that NJ State Senator Chris Brown would like to block all the roads into Ventnor if he could.
Spy & report on your short-term rental neighbors. Brigantine Fire Department will assist in the effort.
Brigantine Councilman Dennis Haney highlighted potential, past error committed by Council. Riordan blew a gasket. Immediately jumped down Haney’s throat. Riordan gets defensive fast. A total spazz.
Councilman Riordan is having such a bad month, might he step down? At the very least, Riordan should recuse himself whenever talking about Brigantine real estate & rentals. Same goes for Mayor Simpson. City Solicitor Scerni sees nothing wrong so far.
Will Brigantine public employees be furloughed? Laid off? Not likely.
Brigantine’s front beach is still open. So is the inlet jetty. But Mayor Simpson says they will likely be closed soon too, as the weather warms up.
Councilman Vince Sera asked about short-term rental enforcement. Sera, like the rest of council, endorses the ratting out of your neighbors. Fire Dept will handle enforcement duties. See someone you think doesn’t belong here? Rat em’ out. Many doubt local realtor rentals will face the same scrutiny.
As of June 1st, AirBnB will place a ‘calendar block’ on all Brigantine rentals, until further notice. VRBO, Home-Away and other short-term rental sites will also place a block on all Brigantine rentals effective June 1st, til further notice.
Brigantine City Hall is ready to issue summons to violators, and revoke rental privileges.
These same draconian measures will NOT be applied to local Brigantine real estate websites.
Brigantine City Hall always picking winners and losers. Brigantine real estate agents hate AirBnB type sites.
If you’re one of the 500+ property owners that use sites like AirBnB to pay your Brigantine taxes & mortgage, you’ll be faced with a very uncertain 2020 summer season.
Mayor Simpson will control when your rental listings get un-blocked. That’s a harmful conflict of interest for the Mayor who has substantial Brigantine real estate investments.
FACT: Local real estate offices in Brigantine only had to promise, (scouts honor) that they’d stop marketing their short-term rentals. History suggests that many will ignore that request.
Think Brigantine City Council & local real estate offices will play fair? Don’t bet on it.
Brigantine City Council would like to remind everyone that taxes are due on MAY 1.
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Mayor Simpson is out of his mind during this crazy erratic time. Not only is his self-interest in the realty market in Brigantine, he probably is a golf enthusiast.
The other matter that needs to be addressed regarding 2nd homeowners in Brigantine. At their last council meeting, Andy welcomes it. I love when our community opens up the summer season! It’s exciting, fun and it’s life. This does not coincide with Gov Murphy’s Directive at all.
I know they pay taxes and I know they are also the bread and butter and salt of the earth people. But I feel, that until Gov Murphy lifts the directive, that we should still shelter in place.
From the numbers I see, so far, we have been blessed. Let’s keep it that way. Mayor Andy, I need a response to this. Our older community needs a response to this. Because the nice weather is coming. Thanks
The level of ignorance here is beyond description. So you will close the beaches for the summer, force the few remaining businesses into bankruptcy, destroy your tax base, try to raise taxes to make up for the lost revenue, and then sit around and pat yourselves on the back for what a great job you did “protecting the community”.
‘Just a few guys hitting some balls around’. This by the same clown (Mayor Simpson) that killed the Jaworski golf deal. This would have shined a bright light on the mismanaged, money-losing golf course.
How many of the Brigantine insiders play for free, and treat the golf course as their own private club … on the taxpayers dime?
Mayor and city council spewing hot air. Plenty of NY tags in town. Tons of golfers at THE LINKS everyday. People are golfing. Mayor Simpson is misleading us.
There are many out of state cars around every weekend looking at homes for sale. I have a home next door up for sale. Every weekend, people stop & get out of their cars to walk around the home. This needs to stop.
If beaches are going to be closed, then outside traffic needs to be declined. We all know their 1st stop on the island is WAWA (after that long drive). This is how the disease is spreading. This needs to stop.
Stay at home means just that. No golfing. We have so many out of state cars on the island. We need to stop this. We can’t have people bringing their germs. STAY HOME.
Even NJ plates that don’t live here do not belong
Don’t pay any realtor over 10% on rentals. This is so wrong to ban any other rental agencies. Council knows this too. I think they forget who really carries the town.
Yup, screwing my daughters rental for the winter sonshe can attend grad school…..funny thing, its available now through additional cost with realtor. Absolute corruption!!!!
Leaders in time of crisis are supposed to lead. Essential services like food, gas, police must continue to function and with safety guidelines are able to do so safely and efficiently. This allows society to function and survive.
Tourism is essential service for Brigantine. Without it, loss of revenue and taxes would cause town to go broke. Leadership involves establishing standards and guidelines that will allow this essential service to function.
Blanket bans that exempt local realtors, alarmist reactions, and indiscriminate dictates, is not leadership.
Who writes these articles? “Blew a gasket”? “Spazz”? “Ratting”?
Very unprofessional to say the least, nowhere near being an actual piece of journalism, more like an opinion based drama rag. Fun to read though.
BrigantineNOW is fact-based editorial. Yes, occasionally it’s snarky & goofy.
We advocate for ALL Brigantine taxpayers, not just the 25% with voting rights.
So-called journalism from Press from AC & Brigantine Times is non-existent. Those publications are primarily engaged in printing press releases. 🙂
I lived on a Jaworski course. Had my time bumped many times by friends of the owners. They used to gang up the times so close together the rounds would last close to 6 hours. Always some drama going on. Hated playing there, even though it was a 3 wood from my back door. Be careful what you wish
The meeting offers insight as to how things are really run…..”don’t say it here”. etc. Strong arm hillbilly tactics.
I guess the ignorant SHOOBIE mentality will never stop. Neither will the shameful defacement of property owned by 2nd homeowners.
If anyone is thinking of bombing my house and car with eggs again, just know you’re now being recorded. Did anyone else have this experience? Please share.
Brigantine is a poor beach town. The lowest income on entire jersey shore with basically zero business. Let’s see it survive this.
As a second homeowner, any shutdown (unless entire jersey shore is shut) will come with many lawsuits. Hopefully locals can afford major increase in taxes next year. Trust me, city council will be overwhelmed with lawsuits.
The blatant corruption displayed by Brigantine City officials by barring AirBnB and VRBO to divert all short-term rental opportunity to their local click, is appalling.
The state banned short-term rentals for the safety of community. Do Brigantine lawmakers think they’re exempt from State guidelines?
Unless local realtors are COVID-19 testing each short-term rental guest, they have no more right to host and profit from short-term rental opportunities in Brigantine, than anyone else here, using any rental platform.
Same goes for opening the golf course. Obviously, these corrupt officials think they can make their own rules.
Brigantine city officials are irresponsible, dangerous, and greedy. They should be ashamed of themselves. They need to stay home like the rest of NJ citizens and stop using this city as their personal playground, especially in this dangerous and vulnerable time.
Drive on beach tags. Purchased ours in January. Hoping for beaches to stay open, but if not, will there be refund / reimbursement?
Illegal free use of golf course. Another political handout to chosen few. Andy Simpson is like Joe Biden. Stumbling over his words. He can’t stand the heat.
Taxpayers are waking up to this legislation garbage of legislating who can rent to whom.
They are NO laws that prevent anyone from using their own homes. The Politicians think if they bark loud enough, residents will believe them. But NOW, people are waking up.
Been a taxpaying Brigantine family for 50 years and sick of the B/S coming out of the mouths of a few council people.
I though Andy would be different. But the last few weeks have proven me wrong. Keep up the news that we don’t get from the Brigantine Times.
Mayor says it’s nice to see people on golf course. Are these people trespassing? Keep looking the other way, right? Same with Realtors. Shame on all of you! We as adults need to keep our heads on and be responsible, we need to do that to keep our seniors and children safe! It’s just sad.
I don’t think I will be voting for Simpson again. During this time, we can clearly see the ‘officials’ motives. I don’t see myself voting for anyone in office at this point.
It’s nice how we as people can come together in a time of a pandemic… not to say anyone has ever gone through this before I can see through everyone’s comments how you are concerned about your own personal well beings… that’s great… great to see humanity in this island… we hear we should be preparing for a wave down here at the jersey shore and all I see is people arguing about golf? And shoobies? It’s very simple STAY HOME!
The island doesn’t have enough resources to help the locals alone I can’t even find something so stupid like tissues on the island and people want to be here? Why ?
Beaches are closed… majority of businesses and restaurants aren’t even open!
Dopey mike Riordan has a Facebook page. what a nitwit