This past month featured some of the highest highs that Asbury Park has seen in years - with one gut-wrenching drop (yes, I got my quarterly tax bill, too!) - so I thought I'd review the thrills and chills of the last 30 days, as seen from this side of the podium.

On the high side, the council passed a revised plan for Phase 1 of the STARS redevelopment project, which finally clears the way for 31 affordable, new single-family homes to be constructed on Asbury Park's West Side. We also initiated legal action to return the so-called Asbury Shores tracts on Springwood Avenue to the city for redevelopment.

We spent numerous hours negotiating a beachfront Redeveloper's Agreement, which will supply the details behind the Waterfront Redevelopment Plan we passed in May, and we look forward to announcing some pleasant enhancements in coming weeks.

We also passed a resolution establishing a downtown redevelopment zone and held two public hearings where merchants and residents debated downtown issues ranging from parking and infrastructure improvements to housing density and design standards. City planning consultant Jim Higgins will now draft a downtown redevelopment plan, followed by more public hearings and a Planning Board review.

Also on the business front, Urban Enterprise Zone Director Tom Gilmour and I led a forum on behalf of the new UEZ Quality-of-Life Committee where merchants from around the city shared concerns about parking and traffic, trash, public safety, aesthetics, and lighting.

Committee members are now meeting with city officials on each of these topics to develop action plans for citywide improvements, and we will petition the UEZ for financial support where needed. (UEZ merchants interested in joining the Quality-of-Life Committee can contact me or Tom.)

What else? Responding to resident complaints about neighborhood crime, new Public Safety Director Lou Jordan led a 2-1/2 hour "funeral procession for crime" through city streets in mid-July, which resulted in 14 very public arrests and was applauded by crowds of supportive residents. Since then, he has coordinated additional strikes against several high-crime locations in Asbury Park.

And, thanks overwhelmingly to Jordon's careful planning, this year's mislabeled "Greekfest" came off as a peaceful beachside jazz concert that will hopefully grow as a family event, rather than the crime-scarred, non-sponsored gathering that led to growing resident complaints in recent years.

Less visibly this month, the city's Education and Training Task Force began planning a September construction trades and health careers forum - led by the city, the STARS Community Development Corporation, and Brookdale Community College - to match eligible city residents with training programs and jobs. (Details to follow.)

And Mayor Kevin Sanders spearheaded a successful drive to bring evening concerts to public parks and performing arts training to children in the summer recreation program co-sponsored by the city and the Board of Education.

Family & Children's Service (F&CS) and Meridian Health Services also partnered with the city to add healthy snacks, health screenings, free books, and a reading program to the summer's recreational offerings - an initiative that will be extended to city churches this fall.

And F&CS is also helping us plan a September 14 "Asbury Park Roadshow" at the Paramount Theatre. This high-profile fund-raiser for the 2003 city recreation program will feature talks, tours, auctions, appraisals, and more by local experts and a dozen members of PBS's popular "Antiques Roadshow" cast. (For tickets, call F&CS's Linda Steel at 732-531-9111. To place an ad in the program journal, call me at 732-774-7871.)

Of course, the high point of the last month was the July 30 "Today Show" broadcast from Asbury Park's boardwalk, complete with three separate rehearsal concerts by Bruce Springsteen - events which not only earned us unbeatable coverage in outlets ranging from the New York Daily News to a Sydney (Australia) daily, but which netted generous donations (thanks to Springsteen) for the STARS Community Development Corporation, Hope Academy Charter School, Interfaith Neighbors, and Family & Children's Service.

And the new Asbury Park Merchants Guild sponsored a downtown and oceanfront clean-up and devised a July 30 promotion that kept cash registers ringing all week at its 31 member stores.

Plans are now underway for the two-day Clearwater Festival, to be held this weekend (August 17-18) at Bradley and Atlantic Parks. (Remember to wear your "Asbury Park Friendship Force" t-shirts or buttons when you go!)

In the midst of all these heart-stopping highs, the third-quarter property tax bills hit local mailboxes with a decidedly unwelcome thud this month, despite an approximate 26 cent decrease in our combined city, school, and county tax rates. (And, yes, my annual property tax now exceeds my city council salary!)

What caused these third-quarter tax jumps (which actually include about six months of your 2002 tax increase)? As we've discussed before, a 1999, county-mandated property re-evaluation was postponed until last year, hitting at a time when property values were soaring in Asbury Park.

At the same time, the federal government terminated its COPS grant program, forcing the city to assume almost $1 million in police salaries and benefits for the officers we already have. City insurance costs also soared by about $350,000 this year, largely for liability, and the city must pay retroactive raises to union members who had worked without a contract for almost four years.

We are also obligated to pay the county more than $269,000 of the $6.5 million we collected in beachfront back taxes last year. (This number was negotiated down from an original figure of $1.2 million.) And the cash-strapped state, which usually increases our funding by about $500,000 a year, actually decreased our funding by $50,000 in 2002.

As I've described in previous columns, Asbury Park's budget situation has long been bleak, and the city narrowly missed a state financial takeover in Summer, 2001. Even with this year's higher bills, we are still counting on a $3.5 million payment for the beachfront pavilions to balance our 2002 budget - a budget that cannot be finalized until we finalize our beachfront Redeveloper's Agreement.

And because Asbury Park's tax collection rate is the lowest in Monmouth County (20% of property owners still fail to pay their property taxes), we were forced to increase our reserve fund for uncollected taxes by $400,000 to $2,691,572 this year.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers and, until citywide redevelopment takes off in the next few years, we'll need to find creative ways to limit our city tax burden while providing the increased services that residents demand.

Just when I thought this month couldn't possibly get more hectic, Dave and I dragged ourselves home from a sweltering Springsteen benefit at Convention Hall, and collapsed exhausted across the bed.

We awoke to a lightning blast that took out our neighbor's tree, along with our electrical service, and embarked on a five-day odyssey of no refrigeration, no lights, no air conditioning...and, coincidentally, no alarm clock, no e-mail, no answering machine, and no doorbell.

You know, sometimes I think that Mother Nature is looking out for me, after all.