Fair Haven resident Ben Hamilton, right, noting that “there are more dignitaries here than audience,” said he knows business owners who have been “suffering in silence” over the duration of the closure and will be glad to have it back in service. (Photos by Stacie Fanelli. Click to enlarge)

By MIKE BARON

The shareholders of Rumson-Fair Haven Bank & Trust have spoken, and they apparently aren’t all that worried that hedge fund honcho George Hall is going to turn the their well-heeled area into a Pottersville.

Hall is the founder of investment firm Clinton Group, which has more than $2.5 billion in assets under management, according to its website. On May 11, he won his battle to remove William Barrett as chairman of of the five-branch bank after an independent judge finalized the results of the bank’s annual shareholder vote. Hall is replacing Barrett on the board, and a new chairman is set to be chosen when the bank’s directors meet on Monday.

While the area is undoubtedly a far cry from Bedford Falls, the fictional setting of the classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Barrett had reportedly likened Hall to Henry Potter, the film’s villain, amid criticism by Hall that the bank wasn’t doing enough local lending.

In a letter to shareholders, Dennis Flanagan, Rumson-Fair Haven Bank & Trust CEO, said that Barrett “continues as a significant shareholder and has indicated that he will remain supportive of the bank.”

Greg Taxin, a Clinton Group managing director, said Hall is looking to help both Rumson-Fair Haven shareholders and the community. Hall and entities controlled by Hall currently have a 7.2 percent stake in the bank and, according to an April 12 proxy statement , those holdings could be bumped up as high as 9.9 percent now that Hall is on the board.

Taxin doesn’t expect Hall to replace Barrett as chairman and is optimistic the other directors won’t be at odds with Hall.

“We hope it’s not contentious,” he said. “Our interests are aligned with shareholders, as the rest of the board’s should be.”

Flanagan is also confident that the bank and Hall will be able to turn the page and move forward together.

“The vote is done, it’s finalized, and Mr. Hall is on the board,” he said. “The board and I are looking forward to working together. We have basically the same goals. Loan production has been growing since last year, and we’re highly optimistic that can continue.”

Taxin said that Rumson-Fair Haven’s stock, which trades on the Pink Sheets, has been flat for more than a decade, mainly because the bank’s leadership has been “incredibly conservative.”

“They’ve basically taken in deposits and bought Treasuries and high-quality bonds but done very little lending,” Taxin explained. “This [the Rumson-Fair Haven area] isn’t some troubled backwater. The real estate here is solid collateral. There have been plenty of good loans out there to make and they haven’t. Those are missed opportunities.”

That sentiment is similar to what was put forth in Hall’s proxy statement, which said:

“We believe the company has a duty to serve the community by providing loans to qualified borrowers. The bank is located in a vibrant area, and there should be ample opportunity to make quality loans to local residents and business. Instead, the current approach of the company appears to be to emphasize using its cash and deposits to purchase government bonds and securities; we do not believe this should a major endeavor of a community bank.”

The bank is already moving in this direction. Flanagan also announced in the May letter to shareholders that Rumson-Fair Haven is “re-entering the residential mortgage market” and hiring Scott Keller, an experienced mortgage banker, to lead the charge.

The clash between Hall and Barrett has received attention in the New York tabloids, in part because Hall is a high-profile name in horse racing, having bred Ruler on Ice, the winner of Belmont Stakes in 2011.

Last year, Hall paid $12 million for Long Point, a sprawling estate fronting on the Navesink River in Rumson, from Heisman Trophy winner Pete Dawkins.

Hall’s link to the area goes back nearly two decades. According to property records, Hall purchased a home at 23 North Ward Avenue in Rumson in May 1995 for $1.45 million. In April 2004, he paid $6.79 million for a home at 2 Brown’s Dock Road in Middletown.

By MARY ANN BOURBEAU

Looking to form a pickup hoops or softball game, but don’t have enough friends? Try Joinagame, a new social network for pickup sports based right here on the Green.

Launching today, Joinagame was built by Corey Wagner of Rumson and Patrick Finan of Fair Haven to handle all the pesky details, such as finding and reserving an available field or court.

But it also addresses a bigger hurdle: not knowing enough people who might be game for a game.

“Once you leave college, you lose your sports network,” said Wagner.

Wagner and Finan work with the recreation directors in Fair Haven, Little Silver, Red Bank, Rumson, Sea Bright and Shrewsbury, as well as Atlantic Highlands and Oceanport, to monitor availability of facilities. Once a person registers at Joinagame, he or she can sign up to play a game already formed online or start their own.

Sports offered are basketball, flag football, kickball, soccer, softball, tennis, Ultimate Frisbee and volleyball.

Joinagame is free, though some towns offer players the option of reserving a field for $40, which all the players would split via online payments. Joinagame takes care of all the paperwork, insurance and payments, making it a win-win for the players and the municipalities. The site will soon offer referees for hire, too.

“It’s free to register and we hope to keep it that way, covering our costs with advertising from sports merchandise stores or bars,” said Wagner.

Finan, 22, earned a finance degree from Providence College in Rhode Island, where he played intramural tennis, soccer, hockey and softball.

“Sports are a huge passion of mine,” he said.

But Joinagame isn’t just for the freshly minted grads. “I’ve seen a lot of parents who bring their kids to practice and say they miss being out there themselves,” he said.

Wagner, a 25-year-old construction worker, and Finan, who is currently waiting tables, met four years ago when Wagner began dating Finan’s sister Jennifer. They’ve spent the last five months creating the site.

Wagner says Joinagame works as well for avid players as it does for those who can only squeeze in a game or two a season.

“A pickup game is nice, because you can show up once,” he said. “You don’t have to commit to a league, and if you don’t mesh with the guys, you can get a whole different group next time.”

The key challenge to their roll-out, they said, is getting enough players on board from the outset so that games have enough players to commence. They spent a full day last week putting up fliers in area coffee shops, salons and other high-traffic businesses, and were pleased to find a lot of interest.

“I was surprised how quickly people picked up on the concept,” said Wagner. “We’re starting local to see how it goes, but we would like to do it for every town in the area.”

The first involved a stop of a vehicle on Shrewsbury Drive near Osprey Lane for speeding at about 10:20 p.m, said Chief Richard Tobias.

Lieutenant Scott Paterson and Patrolman Anthony Ciambrone approached the vehicle and saw, in plain view, open containers of alcohol, Tobias said.

The driver, 18-year-old Michael Alonzo, of Crabapple Lane in Rumson, was arrested and charged with underage
driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, and possessing an open container in a motor vehicle. He was also charged with providing alcohol to underage persons.

Four of Alonzo’s five passengers were also charged with possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages in a car: Sachi and Luke Bahra, both 18, of Washington Avenue, Rumson; Michael Nociolo, 18, Forrest Avenue, Fair Haven; and Brian Truex, 18, Forman Street, Fair Haven.

A 17-year-old juvenile was released to the custody of a parent, Tobias said.

In the second incident, Ciambrone was on patrol at about 11 p.m. Sunday when he saw a motorcyclist fall off his bike as he headed east on Rumson Road near Ward Avenue, Tobias said.

Rudolph Kastner of Paradise Trailer Park, Highlands, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated, refusal to submit breath samples, driving while revoked, driving without a license, and reckless driving. In addition, he was arrested on multiple warrants out of the Borough of Highlands, Tobias said.

Kastner was transported to Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, for injuries sustained during the accident.

Court dates in both incidents were scheduled for May 23.

Sophie Shea, center, and Kristina Taylor, right working their roadside bake sale with friend Willow Nicolaides on Saturday. (Click to enlarge)

By STEPHANIE SCHROEPFER

What began as a curbside nickel-and-dime lemonade stand turned into a fundraising phenomenon in Rumson this past weekend.

Decorated in red, white and blue, homemade goodies sold on Ward Avenue in Rumson Saturday and Sunday raised more than $2,000 for the Great American Bake Sale, a national anti-childhood hunger campaign.

Leading the effort were Kristina Taylor, 12, and Sophie Shea, 11. And they had their families baking all weekend.

Kristina’s a foodie who wants to be a chef and “watches the Food Network all the time,” according to her mother, Kathryn Taylor.

A lemonade stand Kristina and Sophie ran outside the Taylor family’s windmill on Ward Avenue was a neighborhood staple that eked out a small profit, “but we never really came up with a cause,” said Kristina.

When she saw the Great American Bake Sale promoted on the Food Network, she enlisted Sophie to help.

On their first day of selling lemonade for the effort, they grossed $30. The next day sales went up to $60. After that, the pair felt they could handle a bigger challenge, so they upped their goal and broke out the secret family recipes of pinwheels, hot fudge, lemon bars, chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cookies.

They promoted their effort online, which enabled friends, family and fans to donate without attending the bake sale. They also placed some posters around town, told their lemonade stand customers and notified local news sources, but they were still surprised to start selling out within the first hour of selling on Saturday.

Online donations caused them to repeatedly increase their goal: $300 went to $600; $600 went to $1000. By the close of the weekend, they’d made $2,002.65.

“I can’t believe our goal was $300, and we raised over $2000,” Kristina said, as her mom was inside the house making a fresh batch of caramel. “I feel happy and proud.”

Jimmy Nunez, 31, was identified earlier this week by the Essex County Prosecutor’s office as one of 11 members of an alleged car-stealing ring, according to various news reports.

Tobias said Nunez was charged in the borough Thursday with three counts of auto theft, two counts of burglary, and one count of theft of movable property. Municipal Judge Richard Thompson set Nunez’s bail at $75,000 with no option to post just ten percent. Nunez was in Essex County Jail Thursday, Tobias said.

Other complaints are pending against Nunez by Rumson, Tobias said.

Detective Christopher Isherwood has been working with an Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Task Force set up to investigate an auto theft network since October of 2011, Tobias said.

Here’s what NorthJersey.com wrote about the alleged auto-theft ring earlier this week:

The arrests stem from Operation High-End, a long-term investigation conducted by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, the Newark Police Department and the New Jersey State Police, involving high-end autos that were stolen from affluent communities from Bergen to Ocean Counties.In addition to the above agencies, the Jersey City and Millburn Police Departments provided assistance.

The investigation began when the Newark Police Department began recovering a number of luxury automobiles that had been stolen from various communities in New Jersey. The law enforcement agencies represented here today formed a task force.

Through hundreds of hours of surveillance, detectives determined that members of this organization would travel to affluent communities throughout northern New Jersey and would search for luxury automobiles. The thefts would occur during the early morning hours and most often, the vehicle owners had left the keys in the car. Most of the cars were then resold for a fraction of their value. Other vehicles were dismantled for parts. Several of the stolen vehicles were recovered during the course of the investigation and have been returned to their owners.

By JOHN T. WARD

For six months, Salt Creek Grille owner Steve Bidgood has watched with guarded optimism the progress of work to replace the 100-foot-long bascule on the Oceanic Bridge over the Navesink River.

Denied since October the benefit of traffic the 72-year-old bridge was built to carry between Middletown and his side, Rumson, Bidgood’s foremost concern has been that the job wrap up, as advertised, by the start of the busy summer season – Memorial Day weekend.

“I’d love to see them do it,” Bidgood told redbankgreen this week, eyeing the elegant bridge framed by the restaurant’s windows. “If they do, I might even buy them dinner.”

It’s looking as though Bidgood will need to reserve a large table.

Monmouth County Engineer Joe Ettore, whose office is managing the project, tells redbankgreen that the Oceanic’s target reopening date remains Thursday, May 31.

An earlier reopening is possible, he said. But don’t count on it.

“We are doing everything we can, working with the contractor, to come in with the best possible date for reopening,” Ettore said Wednesday. “But there is critical work that remains, and that critical work has to by necessity take place at this late point in the project.”

Eighty-five-to-95 percent of the structural work is done, he said, but critical testing of the electrical and mechanical systems remains.

Ettore said the project “had a very tight window in which to complete a substantial amount of work” on the moving parts of the 2,752-foot-long span – by far the county’s longest. The timetable was designed to minimize the adverse economic impact on businesses that are reliant on bridge traffic, he said.

Aided by a snowless and unseasonably mild winter, it appears not a day of the summer season will be lost, Ettore said.

“The fact that we’re on-schedule is a real good sign, and we’re very happy with the contractor’s performance,” he said. The contractor on the $3.6 million job is Iron Bridge Group of North Brunswick.

Funding for the project came from the state, which prohibits early-completion incentives, Ettore said.

The repaired bascule is expected to have a useful life of 20 years, he said, but the long concrete approaches to the bascule are already overdue for replacement, a project that’s not expected to get into construction for at least three more years.

Local and county officials are hoping to persuade the federal government to fund another low-level drawbridge, rather than a high-arc, fixed span that area residents say would adversely affect property values and the aesthetics of the river.

The opening of a new bridge “is at least six years away, and it’s not inconceivable that it could be 10,” Ettore said.

Documents explaining the repair job can be found at the engineering department website.

The reason? The borough’s court is pretty efficient all by itself, bringing in nearly $175,000 more than it spends on salaries and operating costs each year, town Administrator Stanley Sickels tells the Press.

Also, Red Bank “never heard back” from Fair Haven, Little Silver, Rumson and Shrewsbury about the proposal, Sickels said.

Menna aired the proposal last September as Matawan – where he was, and remains, the borough attorney – prepared to consolidate its court with those of Hazlet and Keyport.

At the time, Menna said a merged peninsula court would operate with one judge, one prosecutor, one public defender, one court administrator and one physical court space. The court, he said, could be more cost-effective than a shared service agreement, in which towns often use their own staff members rather than sharing with other boroughs.

A month later, Menna reported to the council that tone town had responded quickly and “very affirmatively,” partially reviewed by another. “The naysayers who said this couldn’t happen will be surprised.”

At a Tuesday night presentation on the Red Bank budget, however, Sickels said that “our numbers are so favorable to us, it doesn’t make sense. Our court is very efficient,” according to the Press.

The newspaper reports that Red Bank’s court earned $546,161 in revenue in 2011, and the proposed court budget for the current year allocates $373,402 for salaries and operating expenses.

Some 40 teens from Rumson and Fair Haven, and a pair of Rumson homeowners, are facing charges following a police raid on a house party Saturday night, Rumson police said Monday.

The raid followed a police officer’s discovery of an “extremely intoxicated” female juvenile in the area of Bellevue Avenue and Rumson Road at 9:54 p.m., said Chief Richard Tobias.

Further investigation led police to a house at 60 Bellevue, where underage consumption of alcohol was occurring, Tobias said.

The homeowners were present, and were charged with maintaining a nuisance, a disorderly person’s offense, and were scheduled to appear in municipal court on May 9, he said.

Tobias, and a press release he issued, did not identify the homeowners. But Mayor John Ekdahl confirmed that the couple identified in property records as owning the home, Adam and Roslyn Bryan, were charged.

With help from Fair Haven police, “approximately 40″ juveniles were taken into custody and released to their parents, with possible charges pending, Tobias said.

Among those already charged is the teen who was alleged to have been drunk in the street. She faces a disorderly persons charge. Lieutenant Scott Paterson, who made the initial arrest, is determining which other juveniles to charge, Tobias said.

Ekdahl said the arrests come just as Fair Haven and Rumson are ramping up an anti-drug, anti-alcohol abuse alliance at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High.

The program, in development for several months and called the Municipal Alliance to Prevent Alcohol and Drug Abuse, is scheduled to put a program officer in the school on a part-time basis to educate students and parents about the dangers of substance abuse.

The program came about, Ekdahl said, after an anonymous survey of R-FH students found that more than 50 percent of all students had used illegal drugs or alcohol, and more than 90 percent of seniors had.

The results suggested that an in-school Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program aimed at students as young as fifth-graders “is not having a great impact,” Ekdahl said.

Now, it’s time for the two towns to “crack down hard” on parents who allow kids to drink, Ekdahl said.

Such parties, said Tobias, “happen on occasion, and the town is reacting to that.”