Congratulations to the good folks at Lakewood Township and the Lakewood Development Corporation. This week, they formally paid off the final bonds owed on FirstEnergy Park. Friday, we hosted a “Bond-fire.” From today’s Asbury Park Press…

The “bond” fire at the BlueClaws stadium on Friday was little more than a flame sputtering from a portable hibachi grill — perhaps a bit anticlimactic for the ceremonial end to the largest and longest-running public debt facing township economic development.

But, the point was made.

“(Twenty) million dollars . . . it burns fast,” Mayor Robert W. Singer said after dipping into the fire a scroll meant to represent that last bond owed to pay off the minor league ball field and promised commercial anchor of Lakewood.

The last payment, made Dec. 1, actually was about $1.8 million, with $20 million being the total cost, plus interest, of building the 6,588-seat park in 2000. After 10 years, it finally belongs to Lakewood.

Read the rest here

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