As a courtesy to our SHPOA Members, we’re bringing you a summary of each Stone Harbor Work Session and Council Meeting. Intended as summaries, these intentionally don’t have a lot of details and are not a substitute for the official Borough minutes.

Work Session
Recreation, Cars, and Holidays
It was noted that Wildwood Catholic uses Borough fields and tennis courts at the 82nd Street rec complex on some weekday afternoons for their soccer and tennis teams.

The Stone Harbor Classic and Vintage Car Show on October 12th had 47 cars entered, about twice as many as the 2023 show. SHPOA again awarded a prize for one of the categories.

The beach sweep is planned for this Saturday, October 19th and volunteers are needed and must register.

Lastly, planning has begun for the Stone Harbor holiday weekend of November 29-30 with several events including the holiday market, pet parade, tree lighting, and Santa parade.

Wetlands
The Wetlands marsh replenishment project is underway and can be seen from the causeway most days.

Beach Utility
A presentation was made to Council by Mike Garcia of the Borough’s auditing firm Ford, Scott and Associates on the pros and cons of establishing a beach utility. Annual expenses to run the beaches generally exceed revenue from beach tags and concessions by about $600,000 per year for the past four years. It seems that the only method to bridge the gap would be to increase the cost of beach tags. Since the Borough is already subsidizing this gap from the general fund, there would be no benefit to Stone Harbor budget planning by having a separate beach utility, as it relates to state funding and expense caps. It was noted that it would be difficult to raise the cost of beach tags in any meaningful way since Stone Harbor has a reciprocal agreement in place with Avalon, and residents would just buy their tags from Avalon if
they cost less.

97th Street Playground
A discussion on the first phase of the 97th Street Playground complex noted that the bids were about $135,000 above what was budgeted. CFO Cynthia Lindsay, in conjunction with Administrator Manny Parada, identified unspent funds from previously funded ordinances (generally from 2004-2017) and proposed re-appropriating those funds to this portion of the project to meet the gap.

Regular Meeting
Council voted to move unspent funds to award the bid for the concrete phase of the 97th Street Playground project and voted to award the bid.

Council voted to send a letter drafted by Administrator Parada to the state Department of Environmental Protection on the Proposed REAL (Resilient Environment and Landscapes) standards, which restrict new construction.

To view legislation from the meeting, please click: https://stoneharbornj.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/10.15.2024-Regular-Meeting-Agenda-and-Documents.pdf
To view a video of the meeting, please click:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pjrlS5dkUg