Two New Contacts in the Blogosphere

NOPE has reached out to one member of the blogosphere - Michael Schindler, a Navy veteran and contributor to The Washington Times, as well as the Founder of Operation Military Family - in hopes that he will share our story with his readers.

Mr. Schindler's blog, The Military Wire (link embedded), discusses and raises "public awareness on issues that affect our service members and their families," and NOPE sees (among the slew of obvious pitfalls of civilians living on an active weapons base) the Laurelwood housing issue as a major compromise of the quality of life of the active service members living in other housing (i.e. Stark Road) at Weapons Station Earle, not to mention a significant compromise of base security and a distraction to Earle's singular mission to provide ammunition to the U.S. fleet (i.e. MPs pulling cars over for speeding on the proposed "Alternative #4" entry road to Laurelwood or settling domestic disputes at a Laurelwood home, rather than focusing on guarding weapons shipments from the bayfront installation to the Main Base in Colts Neck).

We also have heard from Amy Fankhauser of Howell TRUTH, a grassroots school-budget advocacy group that apparently has been keeping tabs on our case and encouraging greater resident participation in Howell (NJ) BOE matters in light of budget contraints that prompted the district to close Southard School. For some time we have tried to engage Howell's (a member of the Freehold Regional school district) elected leaders (and all elected township officials throughout Monmouth County) in support of our cause, and perhaps the contact with Howell TRUTH and other grassroots groups will prove the catalyst to such support.

We'll keep you posted on the results of this outreach.