New Jersey State Senator Ray Lesniak

March 10, 2010

Senator Ray Lesniak
985 Stuyvesant Avenue
Union, NJ 07083

RE: Housing, “fairness”, and a lesson that everyone in Bayonne knows before they go to high school. But wait! There’s more. Some lessons for Lent plus some comments on the Paul Mulshine column about you in today’s Star Ledger

Senator Lesniak,

I had a manatee close to my snare when I saw your remarks to Paul Mulshine in today’s NJ.COM. Don’t get your knickers in a knot over the manatees. I use them to feed polar bears who have been rescued from melting icebergs in “tempest toss’d seas”, said seas being in meltdown condition because of Western man’s insatiable desire for air conditioning, plastic, and microwaves. Having been Heimliched back into being potentially productive members of society I provide the bears with a secure habitat to sharpen their predatory skills. No sense having a vegan polar bear, is there? The baby seals would like it but what then would happen to the American mink business?

It being the holy season of Lent please accept the enclosed gentle chastisement in the Christian sense that it is offered. In a bow to diversity and multi-culturalism, and why didn’t Vatican 2 think of it, Jesu Cristi Akbar.

#1 – My wife and I had a place in Bay Head for a few years. Bay Head Shores, Bay Head South, Bay Head Landings, any such plays on the word Bay Head were verboten. Either you were in Bay Head or you were in Point Pleasant or Lavalette or East Jabib or some other nautically named Palookaville. I had two friends, each of whom owned homes on the ocean of Mantoloking, who told me you were either in Mantoloking or you were in…yuck…Brick Township.

That was 30 years ago.

I am glad to see that some things never change in New Jersey.

If you need any other reason for living in Brick a few title searches will show you that Mantoloking had restrictive covenants. You had to be a Christian to buy there.

#2 – A quick look at your legislative record shows that you are a Jersey-style modern American Liberal.



Time precludes a full explanation of that endearing sobriquet so I must turn to Dr. Johnson for a quick definition. All public policy decisions on anything and everything, things ranging from taxes to why Johnny can’t read to beach badges to public pension plans to tenure to “fair housing” are predicated, like the great Doctor said, on “the triumph of hope over experience”. The rules governing gravity are always suspended when the legislature is in session. The political party of the Governor is irrelevant.

#3 – When the Council on Affordable Housing [COAH] assigns a quota to each of the 567 separate towns in New Jersey for, Guess What, “affordable housing”, what methodology is used?

If, as Mulshine says, the number of low income units required in Brick Township is 1908 and the number of low income units in Mantoloking is 61 how do we get to those numbers? Can Mantoloking count garages as low income housing if Manual Labor, the Mexican gardener, lives there? Can Brick Township count the VW van that Cousin Fred’s kids camp out in for the weekend as low income housing?

Only someone who was deeply disappointed that “Midnight Basketball” did not become national policy could believe in such clap-trap. Further, as soon as the word “fair” is attached to it all rational discussion is banned. The only other word to cause such anti-rational actions is “equal”. If the two of them appear in the same sentence the only antidote is to reach for a copy of “Utopia”. All serious politicians should copy Governor Palin. Tattoo the word “Utopia” on one palm. Tattoo the word “Nowhere” on the opposite palm. Etymologically they are the same. In fact, they are interchangeable. And, like the horizon, neither is attainable.

As I recall there were 2 wars in the 1960s.

The one in Asia ended.

The one in America, the War on Poverty, goes on and on and on. If someone mentions “exit strategy” they are called racist. We can’t do a “surge” a la Sherman or Bush because we have had one every year since 1964. A rational man would have long ago stopped trying to put a ten penny nail into a 2x10 by using his forehead as the hammer. Do 45 years of stuff not working have any effect on public policy? Will at least a truce be declared? There is a phrase from Bayonne that covers that contingency. Before the Word Police outlaw it “my brother the hunchback will straighten up before that happens” springs to mind.

How can you figure the number of something, anything, that isn’t there? Only a closet Fascist can arrive at such a number. When you factor in age, race, and handicap status you are entering a world where Oz resembles Switzerland. Would not a poor, elderly, handicapped female Muslim be entitled to the next available penthouse in exGovernor Corzine’s building in Hoboken?



When you are sitting on the veranda of your summer home on the beach – even if the beach is on the not so posh side of the bay – I suggest you do some homework. If it’s early PM I suggest you try some Polish favorites from Bayonne. A hunk of kielbasa, some hard boiled eggs, and a plumber’s helper to wash it down is a good way to start a teachable moment. Try to find out where “He has created a multitude of new offices, and sent hither a swarm of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance” is from. I’ll give you a hint. Think July 4, 1776.

#4 – “Fair” and “Equal” reminds me of a decision by a French Judge. He said that it was only fair that the rich and the poor have an equal right to sleep under the bridges over the Seine. The rich get the summer and the poor get the winter. What could be fairer?

Your assignment for Lent is to become familiar with the Works of Mercy, both Corporal and Spiritual. That you will open your summer home to the undeserving poor this summer is a given. Swimming lessons for the Abbot District children is a good start. It’s the least that I think you must do. Isn’t that the way modern American Liberals think?

I have assigned one of my most ardent acolytes, Donald Nowicki, AKA the Polish Prince of Bayonne, as Master of Novices to monitor your compliance. If he sees that you are making progress he will let you pick a Democratic Congressman of your choice to “tickle you” to wretched excess. I have expressly forbidden him from threatening you with a “screaming death from rectal cancer”. Sean Penn, that noted modern American Liberal humanitarian activist, has saved that for people who don’t like Hugo Chavez.

Do you like Hugo Chavez?

½ Stolat!

Kevin Smith