I am Slowly Going Blind

The governing bodies of Highlands and Atlantic Highlands can continue their apparent disdain for residents; they can continue ignoring any problematic situation that could easily and cheaply be resolved simply by communicating and caring about their towns or its people. The NJ Division on Civil Rights can continue to act like it’s really trying to help people with disabilities. But the truth of the matter is, as horrific and painful as it is for me to say, I am slowly going blind and nobody in these entities, or at least them and  one more that I’ve tried, even want to hear about it, let do anything to help.   Even being a senior citizen doesn’t help. The truth is, they simply don’t want me or others to know what’s going on with their tax dollars.

They can continue to delay, put off, and end up doing nothing about things that are in their control or on which they should take action, whether it be for a resident or simply to save money. Or any other reason.

They can  continue to conduct all their activities, or so many of them, in secret, like the public doesn’t even have a right to know.

Then they continue to have their paid attorneys or their paid employees or whoever they have making decisions for them,  simply demand, not publicly of course, that a resident, a journalist, an honest professional who has been a part of the community since 1955, violate her own ethical standards and professional promises of a lifetime  before they will even try  to resolve an issue the 86-year old woman with a disability has with attending any government meetings.

But in the end, on top of all of this insulting attitude and action, the state is no better. At least as far as the  NJ  Division on  Civil Rights is concerned.  They not only approve of standards any professional journalist finds unethical, but actually demand  a directive that violates a core tenant all a true journalists hold essential …the right to let the people know…. In short, sacrifice my Freedom of Speech in order to try to mediate a disability discrimination complaint I have filed.

SEVERAL COLUMNS

This will take several columns to report, but suffice it to say it will give information to the public that at least in the Bayshore, so long as Muriel J. Smith can put pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that will force her to lower her standards, violate her journalistic oath, or take any action that would shame her family’s name, reputation, or history.

LEARNING ABOUT THAT NEEDLE IN THE EYE

It started back in 2021, more than a year and a half ago, when I, this 86-year old journalist and local resident who has lived most of her life in either Highlands or Atlantic Highlands, was suddenly stricken with aging macular degeneration, a disease difficult for anyone to accept, but especially someone who is required to be at night meetings to report on events and happenings the public might not ever get to know otherwise. Ophthalmologists advised her there were no options to cure the disease that had advanced so rapidly, without any notice. AMD, as it is more commonly known, at the sudden stage hers had achieved, could not be cured. It could only be halted. But in this case, even that was doubtful. A possible solution would be a $5,000 needle in the eye every month, or possibly every two months, sometime in the future.

For a woman, a self-supporting widow of 16 years,  brought up with strong Christian ideals and a history of writing  award winning stories in every field from society and athletics to hard news and murders … it was and awful choice.

Take that needle in the eye and continue to report the news.  Did I really want to go through that? Did I want to see whether I had the money for it, or if hospitalization would cover that $5,000 per shot  cost of the medicine along with the other costs for the eye surgeon who administers it, the tests that had to be done before each shot, or the ancillary other costs it would mean every month or so? Could I face this, or simply  sit back and “look“, no pun intended, to a future when I would be totally blind?

I knew, because of their love and the fact they, too were raised with these high standards, I would always have my children, even my grandchildren, to look out for me for however many years I have left. So maybe avoiding a shot in the eye all those times wouldn’t be worth the possibility it might not get any worse.

A FAMILY NAME TO UPHOLD

But then I thought of my background. I thought of my father, Vincent de Paul Slavin, the Newark Evening News Police reporter, who reported for all of New Jersey on everything as diverse as Dutch Shultz being killed in front of that tavern in Newark, to the Hindenburg explosion off  Lakehurst Naval Air Station in 1937. I thought of my father at the same time he was a newspaper reporter also  volunteered and was named by President Roosevelt to head the largest draft board in New Jersey during World War II. I thought of  how he wrote to the President shortly after his appointment to let him know he disagreed with his draft program. He wanted the President to  know he would not be sending any married men with children to war until after every eligible single man was drafted first.

His strength got the law changed and kept families together.

I thought of how he was vilified and as a kid I heard the threats he faced from angry parents for drafting teenagers. I thought about the three  of my  four children who all enlisted to serve our country,  knowing of their grandfather’s heroism in standing up for what he knew was right as well as learning from their parents the importance of patriotism, honesty integrity and helping others. How could I dare tell my kids to be strong and face any adversity with hope and prayer and then me not do it myself?

I thought of Matthew J. Gill, the publisher of The Courier, that beloved weekly newspaper he published in Middletown and for which I covered news and everything else for 22 years. He sent me out to cover every untoward report of any official doing anything wrong, and supported … no … encouraged, my covering the story no matter which official would be ousted when the truth came out.

I thought of how Matt put the future of his newspaper on the line but nonetheless financed the editor and this reporter to get a decision on a story that urged “Kick out the Mafia” when there appeared to be a  problem with bids for a garbage collection contract.  Or the time I went all the way to the United States Supreme Court for a decision on who could vote in municipal elections in Highlands or any place else in the state. The Supreme Court said it was a state decision, and the following year, the state law was changed as the suit  said it should be.

I thought of the years I worked for Malcolm Forbes as a reporter and editor for his Somerset County newspapers and how he was so proud of the integrity of his staff that we were bused to his funeral and remembered in his will.

THE FINAL DECISION …BUT STILL NO HELP

With these memories embedded in my heart, could I take the easy way out and simply sit back, grow old gracefully and depend on my kids to take care of my remaining years?

Of course not. I agreed to the shots in my eye.  Now, a year and a half later, I still get the shots in my eye … and I still try to do my job as a reporter.

NOT THE SAME ETHICS

But in spite of all this, the boroughs of Highlands and Atlantic Highlands … whoever their powers may be, and the New Jersey State Department of Civil Rights don’t have those same memories or subscribe to those standards of ethics.

Getting the shots in my eye is a piece of cake compared to how all three have treated me  in the year and a half since this disaster began. So much for a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

Because now all three…the state of New Jersey, the borough of Highlands and the borough of Atlantic Highlands, want to not only prohibit me from having a cheap, easy way of finding out like everybody else what goes on at government meetings, I just learned that if I try to fight it, they all have another trick up their sleeve to muzzle the First Amendment rights of an 86 year old journalist.

They want to shut me up me if I attempt to get it fixed.

NEXT:  Atlantic Highlands history of delay and do nothing 

More Stories About AMD

Medicine

AMD

Improvement

Living