There is lots of collusion very quietly going on in Lakewood Town Hall. The losers: the taxpayers.
Back on January 5, 2001, Lakewood Township officials acquiesced to a request from Stephen and Janet Scher to expand their property by purchasing from the Township the 6.56 acres parcel located at 1065 West Cross Street.
The purchase price was a modest $10,000.
The catch: encumbrance of a restrictive covenant prohibiting any development of the property which must remain as open space.
This deed restriction clearly states that it runs with the land in perpetuity and it applies to the Scher's successors and assigns.
In October 2021, Mesivta Ohr Chaim Meir acquired several parcels of property in this area, including this 6.5 acres lot.
The sale deed states that the lot is subject to covenants of record, i.e. the Township's January 5, 2001 open space encumbrance.
However, leaving this parcel as open space isn't exactly what the new property owners have in mind.
The developers of the yeshiva, represented by Millstone Attorney Kenneth L. Page Esq. filed legal action seeking a court order to extinguish the deed restriction.
The complaint, filed in New Jersey Superior Court, Chancery Division in Ocean County, states:
The imposition of the subject restriction was intended to limit development of the lands which it encumbered in consequence of the same, at the time of their conveyance, being vacant and landlocked. These lands, in consequence of their consolidation with other lands, are now no longer landlocked and enjoy access to an improved road.
Instead of vehemently opposing the request on the basis that the Township’s taxpayers are losing out on what should have been a public sale for a fair value, (i.e. because the Township was only paid the value of development-prohibited land), Township Attorneys Steven Secare and Harold Hensel Esq. wrote a nice letter to the judge urging that the judge grant the application and extinguish the deed restriction.
The nice letter worked. The judge just granted the application to vacate the deed restriction.
Curiously, Mesivta Ohr Chaim Meir is using a cover name in court.
On October 19, 2023, Mesivta Ohr Chaim Meir transferred title of the lot to Ohel Gittel. The legal action was filed in court using the Ohel Gittel cover name.
Biyan Ohel Gittel is the name of the yeshiva's new building.
Mrs. Gitty Friedman was the mother of the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Shimon Friedman.
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5 comments:
Soo sick. These clowns in the swamp are destroying our town every day. This needs to end already. Time to get all of those bums in the Township Committee thrown out of office already.
I wonder if any of them involved in this case donated any money to Ray Coles election campaign?
BMG Rosh Yeshivas need to stop endorsing these scumbags who are stealing from all of us taxpayers in Lakewood. If the RH continue to endorse them, they are part of the theft,and I surely do not forgive them for helping them steal from us the taxpayers. Enough already!!!
This is a MASSIVE chutzpah! Meir, Menashe, and Issac directed the town attorney to facilitate a huge geneivah from the tzibbur in broad daylight!
As part of the scheme, they first sold 6.5 acres of public property for pennies on the dollar at just 10K.. then a few years later they go ahead and change the zoning for those 6.5 acres (as this property was intentionally included in the recently adopted school overlay zone ordinance) to allow building multi-story apartment buildings - which automatically brings the value of a whopping 6.5 acres of developable land to Millions of dollars.. and then when the purchaser of said public property petitions the court to remove the deed restriction our committeemen send a letter to the Judge - and instead of strongly protesting like any normal committee would be expected to do - they encourage him to remove the restriction!!
This is crazy stuff! How is it that these politicians, who get paid a hefty salary for their part time jobs and are supposed to represent US the taxpayers from these shenanigans, get away with these tricks?!? This might even be worse than the land swapping fiasco which got exposed a few years ago!
Someone just received an incredibly sized favor at our expense. The only remaining question is what favor he gave them in return??
Throw the bums out already.
A yeshiva is a most worthy recipient of public land! Torah is the most important thing!
FAA once said it best during one of the in-person public township meetings. He directed his comment directly to the committee and their attorney and suggested that they publish a book entitled "How to be legally corrupt". It couldn't have been said better!
And now you know why they so adamantly refuse to continue the in-person meetings.
This is 3D chess corruption..someone needs to file suit.
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