STOP
REMOVING PEOPLE FROM PUBLIC BEACHES HELP IDENTIFY MORONS WHO CLOSE OFF BEACHES TO THE
PUBLIC
Don't let a privileged few take
what belongs to everyone. Write your elected officials and let them know where
you stand. Currently in the works are more than 100 proposals for parks on New
York City's 578 miles of waterfront. For communities that have been sealed off
from the water for generations, the chance to reclaim their waterfronts is now.
In Rockaway today, a few public beaches that belong to all, are being sacrificed
for the view of a few private property owners. We have a list of yearly voters
living in the Rockaways from East to West who have joined us and we are aiming
for more. If you use our beaches for swimming, fishing, jogging, surfing, diving
and you vote, please contact us through e-mail with your address and phone
number so we can get in touch with you when our elected officials who do not care about
our Beach Access Rights start to run for office again.
PUBLIC TRUST DOCTRINE
HOW CAN
THE AVERAGE CITIZEN HELP? Writing to your public officials is probably the most powerful
tool we have. Let them know how you feelconcerning this issue and,
most importantly, inform them of any incidents you may personally have had
where you feel that your rights have been denied. If they don't
respond, write your local papers or take a trip on the A train over to
City Hall. Also, make your friends aware of what is
happening to our beaches and encourage them to get involved. REMEMBER- We
are not looking for free beaches. We do not want to trespass on private
property. We do not want to stop people from building new homes.
WE SIMPLY WANT THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHERE WE WANT TO GO TO USE OUR NATURAL
RESOURCES
PUBLIC WATERFRONT ACCESS:
This website was created
to help our communities maintain public access to the shoreline. One of the
methods used to preserve access is the "preamble" or walk. Encourage your
friends, relatives and elected officials to walk the shoreline to preserve
access. Always know that we have 10 feet or more after high tide mark for
recreational uses. Can't lay a dry blanket on wet sand right?. So don't forget, if you
use our beaches for swimming, fishing, jogging, surfing or just being there to
watch a sun set and you are a voter voting in our elections, join us today.
Contact us through e-mail with your address and phone numbers. We will get back
in touch with you when our officials who do not care about our "Beach Access
Rights" start to run for office again.
BEACH
FRONT PROPERTY: In the
mid-1600s, the Massachusetts colony enacted legislation that provided
its citizens the right to use all of the beaches to fish, hunt or
navigate at the low-water mark. Over time, most beachgoers have
limited their fishing, hunting and navigating, replacing those
activities with lying around and chasing after their kids. As the
property values of beachfront property went up, the owners of those
properties sought to kick the common people off their "private"
beaches. One beach property owner made the mistake of chasing
William Bulger, the President of the Massachusetts Senate
off of his beachfront property. Mr.
Bulger
responded by enacting the 1991 Beach Access Law. The Beach Access Law
opened private beaches to the public by allowing the public to walk
across private beach property between the high and low water marks to
reach a public area. You can imagine the litigation that this law
produces every summer.
If you own beach front property and really
believe you own all rights to sand and water in front of your property,
you were wronged, and it will
take a few visits to
your states court to set the record right. There are
PTD lawyers
waiting to help. If you have
specific questions or problems, the statutes, cases and opinions
should be consulted. You also
may wish to refer the matter to the attorney for the agency in question, a
private attorney or your own State Attorney General.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT
It has been brought to our attention that incidents occurred this summer
in which citizens were challenged or denied access to certain beach areas as they
were walking along the waterline or trying to get to the waterline. If this has
happened
to you, please
e-mail us, or write us on our
Feedback
page.
Give
as much information as you can regarding the incident.
We need legislation which
will make our local leaders accountable when they cause economical hardship
on the
public by allowing others to
fence off and close our
beaches keeping
the public out?
"The
Brown Act " The taking or closing of public land
and beaches from the public with out
the publics consent is flat out WRONG All town business should be open to
the public. Rockaway Beach New
York
care takers are and for the longest time have been in violation by
allowing a certain few to fence off public beach
property and call it private.
"The Brown Act"
The taking or closing of public land and beaches
from the public
with out the publics consent
is flat out WRONG!!! All town business should be
open to
the public. Rockaway NY care takers are and
for the longest time have been in violation by allowing a
certain few
to fence off public beach property and call it private.
"Environmental Imperialism" A Better Public Rockaway isn't making a dime off of this website. We don't want you to mail us money. We're placing this site up on the internet because we love our beaches and are sick and tired of having our rights walked on by the selfish, greedy factions of the
environmental movement, private property owners with their flagrant disregard of the laws and our local politicians that serve their every whim. We won't stop going after these people un-till their is written agreement that calls for public parking and bathrooms near all our beaches and public rights of way for us and our handy cap. No Signs
keeping us out and No Fences blocking our way!!! Why were there never any
public hearings with the district on or around beaches mentioned on this website to solicit public input? All town business should be open to the public. And we aim to make this happen so all future plans for
the Rockaways
include us The Public with Rights to Access our Beaches, no matter who
builds here in the future.
Over the years the restrictions on beach access have become greater and greater.
With
the introduction of the Threatened Endangered Species Act, some special interest groups have seen this as a way to try to close beaches to motorized access
under the guise of conservation. These so called conservationists are actually preservationists, and won’t be happy until the
only way to access the beach is by paid guided tours, sponsored by these special interest groups. These special interest groups have also infiltrated the local governments, conservation commissions, state and federal government,
to set up roadblocks to
fair beach access. The greatest barrier to beach access at this time is the Piping Plover, a little migratory shore bird listed on
the Threatened list,
this little bird now numbers in the thousands.We don’t want to see any species become extinct, what we
are looking for is coexistence. There has to be a happy medium of user access versus propagation of any species. Over the last
5 years the plover has almost doubled its numbers on the eastern seaboard. Because these special interest groups operate
and prey upon an emotional basis, the availability of sound and logical beach management can be impaired.
The Endangered Species Act
is being misused and abused by the federal government to take our lands from us.
Excuses such as: wildlife habitat, watershed, flora and fauna protection are
being used to lock us out of our land. We are being locked out to protect their
new habitat. Americans are growing numb to the constant cries of wolf. Back in
the 1960s, environmentalists told us the population explosion would cause
civilization collapse by 1990. It never happened, and even people in the third
world are living longer, better-fed lives than ever before. In the 1970s,
environmentalists told us that we would run out of oil and most other valuable
resources by the turn of the century, plunging us into a new Dark Age. It never
happened. Later in the 1970s, the environmentalists told us that a new Ice Age
was upon us unless we took drastic action to reduce pollution (which, we were
told, clouded the skies, blocking the sun). Now we're told that it's warming,
not cooling, that's the threat and that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are
about to descend upon us. Yet during all this warming, crop yields are at record
levels, the economy is humming along quite nicely and human welfare has never
been better. If everyone's an environmentalist, then no one's an
environmentalist. And that's fine with me. The environmental lobby, while it has
its good points, is all too filled with pseudo science, quasi-paganism,
self-righteousness and ant capitalist fervor for me to spill tears over its
troubles. Its childish morality plays and economic know-nothingism too often
get in the way of serious discussion about real environmental issues.
CLICK
HERE
"The Best Defense is a Good Crowd of
Friends" "We at, 'A Better Public Rock' do not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, or religion... unless the religions are
bizarre and unpopular and can be considered cults (and so may be freely discriminated against), or if you are a short, fat, bald, ugly guy fencing a beach off to the
public
for your own personal reasons that DO NOT serve a compelling public purpose providing benefits to the public as a whole as opposed to your individual or your private
interests. Maybe you're a "Keep Off the Beach" sign placing nerd, or single person with nothing better to do but help take a beach away from some family with kids with
shovel and buckets in hand? Note: Slum lords are our favorites! Also condo developers and private home
owners and the folks who lock our public parking lots that lead to
our beaches!!! Stupid people
may now also be discriminated against due to the failure of their lobbying efforts."
And lets not forget those Airline Pilots
that fly close over
us when we are on the Parkways. We don't discriminate, we pick on everyone who place and help
others place
KEEP OFF THE BEACH
signs and fences on our beaches...
Public Beaches in Queens:
Rockaway Beach and Boardwalk
On Atlantic Ocean, from Beach 1st St., Far Rockaway, to Beach 149th
St., Neponsit (718) 318-4000
CLICK HERE
For pictures of closed public
streets and fenced off beaches. CLICK HERE
LAND OF THE FREE
NOT FREE LAND FOR THE TAKING
The Brown Act requires Public Meetings before Public Land is closed or used for any purpose other then
what it is presently being used for. There shall be no man-made obstructions or barriers in the nature of
ropes, chains, concrete walls or fences of any type within the set-back areas to keep the public
out.
The Brown Act
also protects Public Land from closing and illegal seizure!!!
Wildlife Refuge Plans should be designed to provide the maximum use by the
public within guidelines that protect the refuges. Swimming, boating, fishing, surfing and scuba diving etc. Studies are underway to help solve some of the coastal recreation problems we are having here in the Rockaways such as, access to our beaches and bays, marina shortage, needs to increase offshore fish habitats to improve offshore fishing, docks, piers etc. We are currently working on legislation which will make the government and
our local leaders accountable when they cause economical hardship on the public through the Endangered Species Act and the
fencing and closing of our beaches to keep us the public out.
Americans for
Responsible Recreational
Access (ARRA)
has been formed to ensure that every-day, tax-paying
Americans are not arbitrarily denied the right to responsibly experience and enjoy the public
lands and waterways that belong to the citizens of the United States.
We need legislation which will make our local leaders accountable when they cause economical hardship
on
the public by allowing others to fence off and close our beaches keeping the public out?
Contacting the Congress is a very up-to-date database of congressional contact information for the 107th Congress. As of June 26, 2001 there are
509 email addresses (of which 201 are Web-based email homepages), and 535 WWW homepages known for the 540
members of the 107th Congress.
More traditional ground mail addresses are available for all Congress members.
Point Pleasant Beach Officials have been ordered by the State to enforce
public trust doctrian
and to increase beach access:
The
PUBLIC TRUST DOCTRINE states that the public has the right to use ALL LAND up to the mean high water mark and some of the dry sand above it.
NO ONE can deny the public access to this area of STATE OWNED
LAND. All beaches are maintained by our taxes which pay to re-supply sand, build jetties,
and make available FEMA assistance whenever and wherever it is needed. We
want to make sure that everyone is aware of the PUBLIC TRUST DOCTRINE
and that it's principles are upheld in all cases..
Read this document:
This agreement was sent from the State Attorney General to the Point
Pleasant Beach Government.
Beach access agreement document.
We at "A Public Rockaway", are working with the State to get same for the Rockaways.
Citizens Right to Access Beaches
Community Board 14
Local complaints for the Rockaways click here!
19-13 Mott Avenue Far Rockaway, NY 11691
(718) 471-7300 Fax: (718) 868-2657
Monthly meeting: 2nd Tuesday
The Rockaway's, Rockaway Point, Breezy Point, Roxbury, Neponsit, Belle Harbor, Rockaway Park, Seaside,
Broad Channel, Hammels, Sommerville, Edgemere, Arverne, Bayswater, Wavecrest, Far Rockaway, Rockaway Beach.
Let's say there's a nest'
and one of these signs posted by
the nest' ok' I'll stay
away, maybe
take a peek, but I still want to make
my way to the waters edge!!! A Piping Plover lands on a beach, runs
around for 14 minutes, you don't go
and close off the entire beach or blocks or
miles of beach for years to come!!!
Some thing is wrong here.
"Any law that allows two biologists to have
that kind of power is wrong." Enjoy this website, get lost going through
the links to other very informative websites. Click on a few banners for the real deal on
what's happening not only here in the Rockaways
but around the country. ...
Coming soon, massive directory of
Government Agencies and Photo Gallery.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly things happening in and around The Rock.
APublicRock.com
We are sorry if this website offends you but we are tired of getting
turned
away
and we aren't going to take it any more!!!
"Preserving our Natural Resources for the Public, instead of from the Public."
Welcome to the BlueRibbon Coalition. The Blue Ribbon Coalition
is made up of members defending our rights to utilize public lands. They operate
from the donations of members and concerned citizens. These donations help to
fight road closures the "Gate People" so desperately want to erect.
Assistance to Local Governments: REGIONAL COASTAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS Long Island Sound Coast
Who to Contact See something wrong and want to know who to call?
The agencies listed here are a good place to start. More listings to come. Please visit: BAY KEEPER
Environmental Information and Hotlines
EPA
New York Office - (212) 637-3000, New Jersey Office - (732) 548-8730
Superfund Ombudsman – (888)-283-7626
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Hotline - 877-WARN-DEP Wetlands filling, dumping, spills or discharges
Right to Know - (609) 292-6714 Information on chemicals in your community
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Hotline - (800)-TIPP-DEC Wetlands filling, dumping, spills or discharges
Spill Hotline - (800)-457-7362 to report oil or chemical spills
Army Corps of Engineers
212- 264-9055 Coastal wetlands disturbances, floatables, debris into waterways
Coast Guard
Oil Spill Hotline - (800) 424-8802 to report sheens or spills on waterways
Sandy Hook Station - (732) 872-3428, Staten Island Station - (718) 354-41 01
Sick or Injured Birds
NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife - (609) 292-2965
NY Division of Wildlife - (516) 444-03 10
Marine Mammal Stranding
NY Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research - (516) 369-9829
Marine Mammal Stranding Center - (609) 266-0538
Marine Police
To report poaching, illegal harvesting or discharges
Newark Bay - (973) 578-8173
Monmouth Beach - (908) 229-6000
New York Harbor Patrol - (212) 993-0950
Letters
Letters to your local politicians in support of strict enforcement of environmental regulations
and voicing concerns about issues in the
Hudson Raritan Estuary has a powerful impact.
Below are the addresses of the New York and New Jersey Governors.
For contact
information for your local representatives, see the League of Women Voters web sites:
New Jersey ( www.lwvnj.org )
or New York ( www.lwvny.org
).
Governor George E. Pataki
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
Governor Donald T. DiFrancesco
P.O. Box 001, State House
Trenton, NJ 08625-0001
Baykeeper's mission is to protect,
preserve and restore the ecological integrity and productivity of the
Hudson-River Estuary (New York/New Jersey Harbor).
Baykeeper stops would-be polluters,
champions public access, influences land use decisions,
pursues habitat restoration and helps advance the Estuary's environmental and
biological importance
as well as its values as a recreational and cultural resource.
Baykeeper's efforts have included a
successful defense of public access to the waterfront;
investigation and litigation of sewer overflow and storm water discharge
violations; preservation
of the New Jersey Meadowlands Wetlands; pollution prevention strategies; and
opposition to
dredge disposal in Raritan and Lower New York Bays.
HELP IDENTIFY MORONS WHO CLOSE OFF BEACHES TO THE PUBLIC!!!
"A Word of Warning:
Despite our efforts to be accurate, these pages may contain errors.
We present this website to you with a good-faith
representation that the information it contains is generally reliable.
Information on this site should not be relied upon for
legal purposes. If you need further
information,
we would encourage you to contact us directly or seek the advice of a professional."
