No parking lot; just paradise

They tried to pave paradise. But, to paraphrase Springsteen: The machine? She was a dud. And she got stuck in the mud.

I was stunned when I saw the results. The powerful block that's ruled Ocean County, N.J. - and dominated everywhere else - couldn't find a way to creep into the town I've long called home, and elect another one of their own.

Yeah, I'm talking, again, about Point Pleasant, N.J., and the news that came from there, my hometown, and the news from the other Jersey Shore towns, and the news from places like Brick Township. The politics of promise won over the typical politics of fear, and even deception.

On Election Day, in Point Pleasant, the people rejected Susan Rogers, who ran for mayor, and they rejected her soundly. They didn't believe her claims to have roots in the community that likely never existed.

In Lacey Township, the people who have elected the machine that's paved over the pines along Route 72 in Manhawkin - another one of my former homes - and was ready to do the same along Lacey Road, were booted, too. One of the power brokers who lost had held his seat for decades.

Like I said before: It was the people fought back, just like the fought back against those who wanted to tear down a swath of forest known as "Red Desert" in Point Pleasant, or a dusty old hill called Forked River Mountain in Lacey.

The developers that feed the coffers of those in power tried, and tried hard, to get their way. But it was the people who stopped it, and they banded to together to halt the bulldozers that would have flattened a thick patch of oak, cedar and maple trees that stretch for more than a mile in Point Pleasant; or acres of pine trees in Lacey that help preserve the Pine Barrens of New Jersey as one of the nation's largest undeveloped patches of land.

I'm looking forward to coming back to these places, in Point Pleasant, Lacey and Brick as the Jersey Shore regional editor for Patch.com, for which I've set up http://www.jerseyshorenews.org for Jersey Shore news. In these towns, there is no push for a big parking lot or a Wal-Mart store.

They know that, regardless of who's in charge, it's the people who matter. Not the bulldozers.

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NJShorePatch or at http:www.jerseyshorepatch.com.

Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot SPOT
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
‘Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
Then they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you've got
‘Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer, farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But LEAVE me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
‘Til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Come and took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
‘Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

I said
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
‘Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot