"The foundation for moral leadership is the Truth."
|
"The foundation for moral leadership is the Truth." |
|
Biggy Strikes Out...Again Says Poor Don't Live In Barnegat, and Blames Websites For Not Getting His Own Words Straight. EDITOR'S NOTE AND CORRECTION: We just received an email from Mr. Biggy who says he tried to contact us after his 7/5 article. We did not receive these emails sent at the time this most current story was written. We have corrected this story to reflect that. We apologize to Mr. Biggy for this missed communication. But other than the correction that Mr. Biggy did in fact try to contact us, this story now stands as written. Mr. Biggy made some mistakes and the facts laid out here and also in The Barnegat Press make that perfectly clear. We extend Mr. Biggy an invitation to post his views here, and will reach out to him directly to do so. David P. Biggy lashes out at The Barnegat Press and DowntownBarnegat.com for not getting his message straight. Mr. Biggy is quickly losing credibility as he is unable to clearly state his own opinion. As we stated in our last posting of Mr. Biggy's July 5th column, his words speak for themselves. Now he does not just owe an apology to the people he offended in his last column, but should apologize to The Barnegat Press and DowntownBarnegat.com for his unfair misrepresentation of these sites for not agreeing with his characterization of the poor in Barnegat. Mr. Biggy used a good part of his 7/12 column to criticize DowntownBarnegat.com. All we did was use his own words to point out one ridiculous statement he made in an otherwise very good column about recreation. In the 5 years we have run this website, we have carefully tried to present only the truth in any article that states our opinion. If Mr. Biggy has issues with anything we wrote, we will gladly correct any mistake we made. After reading Mr. Biggy's latest column, he does not point out anything we wrote as incorrect. Our goal is to serve our community by pointing out truths not represented in our local press. Sadly, this is something BADLY needed in our community. We will now point out where Mr. Biggy is incorrect in regard to what he has written about us. First, Mr. Biggy seems to have a problem with our headline "Biggy Strikes Out. Blames Poor For Eating Out, Smoking, Drinking and Gambling." This headline is true. These are Mr. Biggy's words. As we stated, and Mr. Biggy conveniently left out of his criticism of our ability to get his message straight, his words speak for themselves. We presented his entire column, and let the reader decide. Only Mr. Biggy had a problem with the reader forming an opinion from his article. No one commented to us that we misrepresented Mr. Biggy's point in any way, since we did not. His words were clear. We think he is wrong with his characterization of some of the poor in Barnegat. We believe this is an ignorant statement, and was unnecessary and hurtful to be used to make his point. Although we support Mr. Biggy's view on recreation his remarks about the poor were off base, and don't represent the Barnegat that we know and love. Secondly, Mr. Biggy has a problem with us saying "we have never seen a column by Mr. Biggy about the Youth Center this Committee closed down, or our children's playground that was ripped down behind the Edwards School." Mr. Biggy confirms that this statement is 100% CORRECT. He has never written about these subjects regarding our town's recreation. Incredibly Mr. Biggy also shows a lack of knowledge about these issues. He can't fully be blamed for this since he could be getting his information from his own newspaper. The local press will not fully cover the loss of these two recreational resources from our town. If Mr. Biggy was informed he would know that the playground (you know the thing that Mr. Biggy doesn't talk about) was ripped down for a FOOTBALL FIELD. The school superintendent Mr. Mahon himself told us this was done because Barnegat Twp. doesn't supply adequate recreational facilities. So does Mr. Biggy support ripping down the only public place for a toddler to play downtown because of poor recreational planning? We don't think so. And no one should. But since the newspaper is silent about it, and our Twp. Committee won't address it, the children suffer. Also the "Community Center where kids do arts and crafts" as Mr. Biggy refers to it, was called the YOUTH CENTER. We already have a community center in the Town Hall complex where kids can do arts and crafts as much as they want. This Youth Center we spoke of (something also not under Mr. Biggy's list of recreational topics to discuss) was a facility run by our town's RECREATION DEPARTMENT! Last time we looked, they had something to do with the topic Mr. Biggy has spent much time on (...you know, recreation). If Mr. Biggy doesn't want to discuss these specific recreational issues, then he shouldn't bring up recreation as a topic in his column. His excuse of these two items not falling under recreation we believe is weak, and wrong. He is being selective staying away from topics our Township Committee is ashamed of. We do thank him though for putting these 2 issues in print. The Youth Center and downtown playground are issues we've tried countless times to get our Twp. Committee to speak with us about and Rose Hill Park should not be built until they are addressed. Our Youth Center was an existing recreational resource, and an area where additional recreational activities (where people could compete against each other) could easily exist. Mr. Biggy should have known that about the Youth Center, and our children's playground. If he didn't know it, he does now. And we hope he will apologize to his readers for misleading them. By the way, Mr. Biggy, the Youth Center was closed and replaced with...a Food Pantry. Yes, a Food Pantry. The people who run the Food Pantry do an outstanding job feeding people in need in Barnegat. Our Food Pantry has our support 100%. The Food Pantry, like Ken's Kitchen (ironically featured on the front page of Mr. Biggy's paper this week) feed people in need in Barnegat. The same people Mr. Biggy ignorantly says do not exist in Barnegat. And that brings us to our next point. Mr. Biggy - in defense of his ignorant statement about the poor eating out, drinking, smoking and gambling - now states that "If you are 'poor', you are not living in Barnegat Township or anywhere else in Southern Ocean County." Wow. We would say that Mr. Biggy's words speak for themselves, but then Mr. Biggy would accuse us of not getting his story straight. So we will just say this. Mr. Biggy, you are unfortunately wrong again. Do yourself a favor and go to the other website you criticized (The Barnegat Press). They do an excellent job of supporting facts, and will clearly show you statistically how wrong you are. Click here to read their article. If Mr. Biggy does not apologize after reading what The Barnegat Press wrote, we hope that his paper steps in and publicly apologizes for him. The Barnegat Press so eloquently expressed itself with facts to back them up, proving Mr. Biggy is totally off-base criticizing our websites. DowntownBarnegat.com has no wish to speak negatively in any way about Mr. Biggy. He was just sadly off base about one important thing regarding the poor. He was also uninformed about our recreational resources downtown (the downtown playground, and the youth center). Mr. Biggy has been dead on regarding recreation in Barnegat, and we gave him praise when he deserved it. Unfortunately he has now made a mistake in our opinion. Now that's no big deal. Mr. Biggy did in fact try to contact us and we will gladly give him space to clarify his opinion regarding his column and let him say anything he would like on this web site that he so unfairly criticized. Mr. Biggy, or the paper he works for, now owes us an apology. If he can prove any misrepresentation by us stating our opinion, we will gladly make any corrections. This is what we have always done, and what we have proven here by correcting the fact that Mr. Biggy did in fact try to contact us. We incorrectly stated that he didn't and have no problem admitting it. Integrity is important to us, as we strive to serve our community. Click here to read Mr. Biggy's unfair and uninformed column attacking Barnegat's websites.Disclaimer: We are not responsible for all views posted on this website. Authors are solely responsible for the content of their articles. Linked material is the responsibility of the party who created it. Commenters are responsible for the content of comments. The opinions expressed in articles, linked materials, and comments are not necessarily those of DowntownBarnegat.com |