Heartlessly flawed plan being initiated on Indiana Ave.

I am going to cut to the chase and not pretend to be demure or be politically correct. The decision to acquire and destroy property on Indiana Avenue in order to augment school property is both outrageous and unacceptable.

This decision is an affront to the very taxpayers who fund the Board of Education. It is a betrayal of the stewardship of taxpayers’ hard-earned money that a decision would be made without neighborhood homeowners’ foreknowledge and approval.

In the name of "progress," the Board of Education and the city are committing crimes of desecration against the values, dreams, assets and futures of individuals who had the courage to invest in Long Branch and, in particular, in one of its most enduring, stable neighborhoods.

This neighborhood is in the front lines of clinging to the American dream, which is still alive and well in these modest owner-occupied dwellings. This neighborhood is the poster child of every reason why Long Branch was deemed worth saving by virtue of state funds, and why builders have chosen this area to build premium housing stock.

While other areas of Long Branch have fallen to blight — and one has only to cross north of Bath Avenue to sense the destabilization of neighborhoods (despite Mayor Adam Schneider’s claim that all of Long Branch has improved in his tenure) — this neighborhood has quietly stood its ground with new and original homeowners displaying pride of ownership and concern for community.

Many homeowners, including myself, purchased our homes recently, with dreams of a lifetime of enjoyment or at least the assumption of self-determination concerning the biggest investment of our lives. I for one could have purchased a "brand name" town home in Tinton Falls, but chose the single-family housing stock of this community because it is a real community, not some builder’s fabrication.

Any plan to expand a school, which destroys the very community for which the school is built, and undermines the lives and neighborhood of the taxpayers who are funding the expansion, is heartlessly flawed and demographically shortsighted. Why not invest in a dying or troubled neighborhood? Why not invest in roach motel housing and give the occupants a better choice? Why not find vacant land where drug deals and other unsavory activities occur and improve that neighborhood with a school ballfield?

The argument for the Long Branch school system to have conveniently contiguous property may seem compelling if that is viewed as the only issue.

I am here to emphatically say to all parties involved: the issue of convenience to students pales compared to the shallowness of values your are supporting by gutting a living, breathing, wonderful neighborhood with appreciating property values, in order to put up another parking lot, ripe for loitering and littering.

Shame on those who insult the intelligence of taxpayers and violate the heart and soul of the West End section of Long Branch, which bears the pulse of the whole town!

Joyce Spadoro

Long Branch