Russ Zimmer

@RussZimmer

Highlands, which was devastated by superstorm Sandy, turned down a sea wall project Thursday night.

Residents were concerned about how the town would pay for its share of the cost and what the wall would do to home prices.

Mayor Rick O'Neil's gavel got plenty of use during the raucous meeting. Watch what happens in the video above.

One of the Bayshore's most Sandy-ravaged towns has rejected a federal project that would have built a sea wall designed to protect it against the next major storm.

Some 50 Highlands residents packed into the Robert D. Wilson Memorial Community Center behind the public beach on Thursday night, anticipating that the council would be turning down the Army Corps' offer to construct a wall — as part of a $110 million project —along the borough's beach at a height of 14-feet above base flood elevation.

The project was pitched to town residents as a way to block the surge from future coastal storms.

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Highlands isn't actually high — not all of it anyway — so when superstorm Sandy's record tidal floods in 2012 rushed ashore, 1,400 homes and most of the downtown businesses were devastated. The borough still hasn't been able to replace the town hall, which was ruined by the superstorm.

But other concerns won out on Thursday night.

The vocal, sometimes rowdy, anti-wall crowd had Mayor Rick O'Neil frequently banging his gavel and calling for order.

These residents feared a massive tax increase — the town would be responsible for $10.5 million, or 9 percent of the project's cost — as well as what would happen to their quality of life and property values with a steel and concrete wall where their unimpeded ocean view used to be.

"If I don't have my beach, my kids, my family, I'm afraid a lot of people would think about selling," said Tommy Stramka, 58, a part-time resident on Gravelly Point Road. "But what are they going to get for it? With a big wall there? That brings the value down."

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Other residents of the 5,000-person town preached patience and demanded a public vote.

"We should put it to referendum, put it out to the people," said Tricia Rivera, of Waterwitch Avenue. "For two years, you've been promising us that."

The council was split. O'Neil and councilwoman Rebecca Kane Wells were both careful to say they didn't approve of the project, but neither wanted to reject it on Thursday night.

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"In my humble opinion, to decline that now is not the right thing to do," O'Neil said. "My opinion is to ask for an extension, get more information and then put it up for a referendum."

But councilmembers Doug Card, Carolyn Broullon and Claudette D'Arrigo first rejected the mayor's plan to ask for an extension — the Army Corps wants an answer this summer — and put the question on the ballot in June.

After the mayor's motion failed, it was clear the wall was doomed. The vote to officially decline was approved minutes later by the same count.

The Army Corps did not return messages seeking comment.

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com