Ocean Ice Palace referendum could kill purchase, mayor says
Deadline is Friday to petition for Nov. ballot question
BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer
If the people pushing to put the Ocean Ice Palace purchase on the November ballot as a referendum are successful, the deal will probably fall through, Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis said.

"She won't wait until November," he said, referring to owner Joan Dwulet. "She will yank it and sell it to someone else. I know who that person is.And that person will develop the site."

Under the Faulkner Act, which is the township's form of government, the public has the right to demand questions be put on the ballot, providing enough valid signatures are submitted.

But Acropolis said referendums can sometimes hold up the work of elected officials.

"We have a representative form of government," he said. "If we are only going to do referendums every year, we have to figure out what we are going to do and then only in November, decide whether it's going to work or not."

Stop OverSpending (SOS), the group pushing for the referendum, has until May 23 to gather signatures before turning them over to Township Clerk Virginia Lampman. The group needs roughly 2,750 valid registered voter signatures to get the question on the ballot.

Republican Acropolis has called the group a "shill" committee of Democrats, putting partisan politics ahead of Brick's best interests.

"They are saying things that aren't true," Acropolis said. "They are distorting the facts. Usually referendums are like that. That's the battle we are waging right now. It's just unfortunate they have decided to put their party ahead of their town."

The SOS committee members include Sal Petoia (an independent), former Township Clerk and former Democratic Municipal Chairman George Cevasco, Joseph Lamb, Michael Mastroserio and Jeanine Schwartz.

The SOSWeb site had a notice Sunday night that said, "Please make sure all petitions are turned [in] by Thursday to the law offices of Charles Starkey." Starkey was the former longtime township attorney during the administration of former Democratic Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli.

Petoia has said the people signing the petitions are a mix of Republicans, Democrats and independents. He denied the group is partisan.

SOS was formed earlier this month, shortly after Township Council members introduced a $9.9 million ordinance to prepare for the purchase of the 45-year-old ice rink and 13.34 acres of property on Chambers Bridge Road.

The ordinance included the original $5.25 million purchase price for the site, which includes a separate building that was used by visiting hockey teams and a 25-yard outdoor pool.

The remaining $4.7 million in the new bond ordinance includes funds for a new park, repairs to the ice rink building, streetscaping and landscaping. It will cost roughly $1 million to renovate the inside of the ice rink building and roof. The rest will be spent on improvements to the parking lot and a senior center, the mayor has said.

Acropolis said the call for a referendum on the Ice Palace property purchase should have come last July.

"If they had come up with a referendum in July of last year, we might have put it on the November ballot," he said.

Former Democratic Mayor Daniel J. Kelly and Democratic Councilwoman Kathy Russell both called for a referendum question on the purchase at the Aug. 21 Township Council meeting.

But Township Attorney Jean Cipriani said at that meeting that the calls for a referendum and negative comments about the Ice Palace had hurt negotiations with the seller.

"The seller's primary concern is if the town is going to go ahead with the project, or if she will have to look for another buyer," Cipriani said then.

Areferendum question on plans for the new community center, after the sale was complete, would be more appropriate, she has said.

The mayor has a press release on the township Web site accusing the SOS group of confronting residents about signing the petitions and spreading "misinformation."

"This will be on the shoulders of the Democrats, who have been against the community center, that we lost the opportunity to buy this site," Acropolis said. "This will be on them. You lose the land, the revenue, you lose the control."

He accused the SOS group of "sour grapes."

"Now that it looks like we are going to succeed where the previous mayor failed, political operatives are trying to sandbag the project under the guise of a grass-roots effort," Acropolis said on the township Web site.

Township officials during the Scarpelli administration previously considered using the old Foodtown site on Route 70 as a site for a community center. The township bought the property for $6.1 million in 2003. Acropolis, the lone Republican on the Township Council at the time, voted for the Foodtown purchase.