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.”

As the headline suggests, the weekend that awaits is jammed with the potential for good times.

We’ve got the fifth Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale, this one making a migration from fall to spring.

We’ve got one of the inaugural events of this year’s weeklong Paint the Town Pink festivities to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection.

And capping it all off, rain or shine, is the first-ever Red Bank International Flavour Fest, an outdoor celebration of the wide variety of cuisines available year-round at Red Bank restaurants.

And Mother Nature appears to be in a mood to cooperate.

Details, as they used to say when that was still a two-syllable word, are just below.

SATURDAY: Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale
Location: all over town. Maps available at the Red Bank Public Library and at many of the participating homes.
Time: Officially, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., but sellers can set their own hours.

From an email update from Beth Hanratty, president of the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library, which has hosted the event since 2010:

lots of records, books and air conditioners

SATURDAY: Pink Hat Tea Party
Pilgrim Baptist Church
172 Shrewsbury Avenue
Doors open 10:30 a.m., Event 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Don’t miss this important Paint the Town Pink event, presented by Riverview Medical Center. Gather all the special women in your life to join us for an educational and entertaining Pink Hat Tea, with a hat and apparel fashion show courtesy Geneva’s Boutique of Neptune, a speacial presentation from Adi Smolinsky, M.D., a Riverview Medical Center OB/GYN, education about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of the importance of annual mammography, and more! Refreshments will be provided by Jameson’s Ultimate Southern Cooking Restaurant in Neptune. Don’t forget to wear your pink hat!

*Pink Sale Event. Deck your pink all year long with our exclusive Paint the Town Pink gear and goodies for sale at this signature event.

This event is FREE but registration is required. RSVP: 1-800-DOCTORS

SUNDAY: Paint Everything Pink Community Day
Riverview Medical Center parking lot
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Pink your town, pink your house, pink your family. Everything is pink at our family-centered, free Community Day! Featuring many of the same pink “zones” families have come to expect as well as exciting new ones, this year’s event will feature:

Kids’ Fun & Games: Rides, arts and crafts, face painting – all the things your kids have come to love! And don’t miss photos with Dr. Bernard from the Pawsitive Action Team at
K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital.

Pink it Yourself Man Cave: In line with this year’s theme of Men in Pink, our “man cave” will offer the men in your life an area just for them. Activities will include DYI demonstrations from the Home Depot, interactive games, and of course our exclusive Real Men Wear Pink t-shirts.

Rockin’ Country Thunder 106.3: Bring out the country in you! With live music from a local country artist, this local-favorite station will have you dancin’ in your boots. Your kids will love our pony rides and everyone can enjoy some good old fashioned root beer!

And that’s not all! Enjoy some snack-food favorites and other sweet treats, and beverages from a number of local pink partners, and don’t forget to stop by our educational tables to pick-up important information about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

Special Pink Cotton Candy and Snow Cones presented by Arrow Limousine.

SUNDAY: Red Bank International Flavour Festival
White Street Parking Lot
12 p.m. to 7 p.m., rain or shine

Here’s the National Weather Service forecast:

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind between 10 and 13 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind around 9 mph.

By JOHN T. WARD

Community garden proponents assailed the Red Bank council Wednesday night for what they termed its “because-I-said-so” opposition to the creation of a farm plot at a borough-owned Navesink River site.

Revisiting the council’s 2011 rejection of a proposal for a pilot garden behind the borough library parking lot on West Front Street, residents challenged elected officials to articulate their opposition to the plan, and left as frustrated as they were going in.

“What we have a hard time understanding is that we haven’t really heard a good reason why not,” Locust Avenue’s Kathleen Gasenica told the governing body.

“It’s very simple,” replied borough Administrator Stanley Sickels. “The council doesn’t share your vision for a garden there.”

“That doesn’t really answer the question,” Gasenica said.

Marked by sharp exchanges and several instances of gavel-banging by Mayor Pasquale Menna, the hearing pitted gardening enthusiasts against council members they feel have irrationally dug in their heels against a spot proponents consider ideal for a garden.

The site, with ample upland area, is “underutilized” by the public that the council professes to want to keep it open for, said garden movement organizer Cindy Burnham, of Fair Haven, who previously led the push to save nearby Maple Cove from sale by the borough.

But officials questioned whether the site might be within the purview of the state Department of Environmental Protection, which borough Engineer Christine Ballard said has jurisdiction over all development within 300 feet of waterways – an assertion that prompted mutterings from the audience that gardening is not “development.”

Officials also questioned how the plots would be apportioned among residents who want to raise vegetables and flowers at the site; where gardeners would park without taking spaces reserved for library patrons; the accessibility of the site to handicapped; and plans for the restoration of a deteriorated bulkhead, possibly this year, that might require the destruction of the garden.

In the past, officials argued that the waterfront site should be preserved for use by all residents, and not the select few.

The session kicked off with councilmembers Kathy Horgan and Ed Zipprich offering a compromise, one they said they had arrived at after visiting every borough-owned parcel of vacant land over the weekend: Marion Street, near Eastside Park, the site of an old pump station.

“It seemed, in our uneducated opinion, to be the ideal spot,” Zipprich said.

But the suggestion elicited a welter of complaints by Burnham and others that the site could hardly be less centrally located for the use of all residents, a requirement that some on the council itself had insisted on last year.

“Marion is as far out on the East Side of Red Bank as you can get,” Burnham said. She said nearby residents are likely to oppose having a community garden next door, “and I don’t blame them.”

Horgan also suggested the gardeners approach New Jersey Transit about creating a plot on a triangular lot outside the train station on Monmouth Street, arguing it was unlikely to be vandalized because of the number of passersby. But she also wondered aloud whether an alternative offered by the proponents, at Maple Cove, might not be right for the same reason.

“There are a lot of people around. It could get destroyed,” she said.

Environmental Commission chairman Andres Simonson told the council that it was “missing the boat” by rejecting the library site. “What a great beacon that would be” for the town’s commitment to the community gardening concept, he said.

The sharpest attack of the night was leveled by Ernest Anemone of Riverside Avenue, who singled out Zipprich for what he and others called the council’s “because I said so” rationale for opposing the library site.

“This town doesn’t need to impress you,” he said. “You need to impress this town.”

By meeting’s end, the council had approved a resolution approving the Marion Street site, but leaving open the possibility that Maple Cove might be farmed for a year – even though farm engineer Tony Sloan, appearing on behalf of proponents, said the site would require “itty-bitty plots and itty-bitty walkways.”

Buds were bursting outside the Atrium at Navesink on Riverside Avenue in Red Bank Sunday as

Monday’s temperatures are expected to hit 71 degrees under partly sunny skies, according to the Weather Channel. Spring debuts Tuesday with highs of about 64. (Click to enlarge)

From a summery high of 72 degrees Thursday, the greater Red Bank Green settles back into more seasonable weather over the next few days.

Or so says the National Weather Service. The Weather Channel  has a somewhat different take. Its outlook is for noticeably higher daily highs than the NWS calls for, particularly for Sunday and Tuesday.

Here’s the extended forecast from the NWS, with the Weather Channel outlook for daily high temperatures in brackets:

Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 54. Northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph. [Weather Channel high: 50]

Tonight: A chance of sprinkles before 7pm, then a slight chance of showers between 7pm and 8pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 32. Northwest wind between 15 and 18 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 44. Northwest wind between 8 and 15 mph. [Weather Channel high: 47]

Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 33. West wind between 5 and 9 mph.

Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 55. West wind between 10 and 14 mph. [Weather Channel high: 63 ]

Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 40.

Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 62. [Weather Channel high: 64 ]

Monday Night: A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 45. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Tuesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 64. [Weather Channel high: 70]

Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 47.

Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 62. [Weather Channel high: 66]

Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 47.

Thursday: A chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 62. Chance of precipitation is 30%. [Weather Channel high: 67]

By STACIE FANELLI

Sixty years old, the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge over the Shrewsbury River is rapidly corroding, inadequate for today’s traffic loads and behind the times on accident safety. Its electrical system is the same one installed in 1952. It’s not up to snuff in terms of earthquake resistance, either.

In a word, Monmouth County engineering officials say, the bridge’s condition is “serious.”

Whether to spend an estimated $10 million to rehabilitate the bridge or some $50 million to replace it was the core question at a pair of public hearings held Monday in Sea Bright and Rumson. More than a dozen county officials and consultants were present at each to kick off a series of discussions aimed, they said, at “building consensus” on a solution.

But some residents of the two towns voiced skepticism that their concerns – which include the impacts of a new span on property values on the Rumson side and on the business district in Sea Bright – would be given much weight in the process.

“They seem to have it in mind to build a new bridge, and I just don’t want it destroying the neighborhood in the process,” said Tom Calvanico, who lives near the Rumson anchorage.

The bridge, designated S-32, was the focus of an open-house style meeting in Rumson Monday night, as well as at a separate meeting in Sea Bright earlier in the day. Thirteen members of the project team were on hand to answer questions about traffic, design, engineering and the environmental impact of several courses of action.

On the table are replacing the low drawbridge or building a high fixed bridge, which would mean road realignment and a possible loss of private property, officials acknowledged.

“Doing nothing is not an option. At some point, something has to be done,” Martine Culbertson, a community involvement facilitator hired by the county, told the Rumson audience.

But as in Sea Bright earlier, the Rumson Q&A session elicited concern over whether the community’s voices would actually matter in the final decision of the preferred alternative that will be presented to the federal government.

“This just reminds me of Sandy Hook,” said Rumson resident Phil Wagner, referring to the replacement of the Route 36 Highlands Bridge with the new Joe Azzolina Bridge. “Everybody was listened to and all of a sudden, hocus pocus, a decision was made.”

Jon Moren, the county’s principal engineer for bridges, repeatedly assured the audiences that no decision has been made regarding any aspect of the bridge’s construction, including whether construction will ever occur. And team members stressed that in order for the project to qualify for federal funding, Uncle Sam requires them to weigh all options. He encouraged residents to comment in writing with their objections to a fixed bridge.

While a drawbridge would allow for the structure to stay where it is, an issue of funding concerned the crowd. Glen Schetelich, project manager from the engineering firm Hardesty and Hanover, refuted the rumor that the federal government is not interested in funding movable bridges because of maintenance.

“It’s project by project,” he said. “I’ve worked on drawbridges that were replaced with drawbridges.”

The estimate is $10 million to repair only what has been damaged up until now. That does not include preventative construction or replacement, which could come with a budget of over $50 million, said Moren, who added that the county typically spends only $10 million per year on bridges altogether.

All funding is expected to come from the federal government, through the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, but only if the project team follows the procedures outlined by the National Environmental Policy Administration (NEPA), which include holding Monday’s public informational meetings.

The meeting “is one of the early litmus tests the Federal Highway Administration will take a look at,” Culbertson told the Rumson crowd.

A traffic survey will be conducted during the summer, the peak of bridge use, to address concerns about congestion.

Moren, who is also the project manager of the Oceanic Bridge project, said construction would not happen on both bridges at once. He confirmed that the current closure of the Oceanic is on schedule to end before next Memorial Day, which is when only the first phase of the Rumson-Sea Bright bridge would be completed.

If Rumson, Sea Bright and the county cannot reach a consensus, though, the team will have to go off course from the schedule put in place by NEPA and will lose its federal funding. The first phase of planning, “local concept development” is 18 months long and should end by April 2013. If everyone agrees on the type of bridge to build and how to do it, they will then go into the engineering, design and construction phases.

Members of the team could not comment on how long construction might last or when it would begin because no one has agreed that it will be built yet. But there seemed to be a consensus opposition to a completely new span.

“That bridge would have to be so huge that it would have to start at Holy Cross and end in the ocean. You would have to build a monstrosity,” said Rumson resident Ingeborg Perndorfer.

“Stakeholders,” which the officials said includes fire and police departments from both municipalities, Holy Cross School, the two hospitals, marinas, bordering towns and local business owners, already met with the project team earlier this month to discuss their apprehension. The most notable bullet was keeping the bridge open during construction.

The bridge is a vital part of the evacuation on Route 520, but community members cited the last time it underwent repairs as a main concern. It was the early 90s and the bridge was shut down entirely for about three months.

“Business in Sea Bright practically died,” said Rumson resident Jude Skowron.

The next public information meeting will be held in October, when the data collection is finished and the preferred alternative for the bridge will be presented, officials said.

Stacie Fanelli, a sophomore at Syracuse University, is a reporting and photography intern at redbankgreen