UNION BEACH — No one ever imagined skinny little Flat Creek would be a flood threat to Union Beach's only school back when it was built in the 1960s, or during any of the subsequent expansions. As recently as 2005 – while Hurricane Floyd was still a recent memory — a new wing with a state-of-art media room and eight classrooms was added to Memorial School.

The Flat Creek is about 100 yards from the school, all but hidden by marsh grasses. It flows, south to north, through the center of Union Beach to the Raritan Bay. At bayside, it spills into a swamp, a flood absorber in normal times. But Hurricane Sandy, with its 85 mile-an-hour on-shore winds and two, full-moon tidal surges wasn’t normal times.

The surge pushed Flat Creek to heights never seen before, and Memorial School, on one of the highest points in town and nearly a mile inland off the bay, was flooded. Not severely. But just enough.

“We had about a foot of water,” said Union Beach superintendent Joseph J. Annibale. “When the water receded we were left with mud and muck and sewage. We have contamination issues, so we had to close the school.”

The closure set off a controversy in the battered town over the $47,000 a month rent being charged by the local Catholic school the displaced grades.

It’s a fair rent in normal times.

But these are not normal times, say some Union Beach residents.

“It’s not very neighborly of them,” said Kathy Dullard, who has two kindergartners now at Holy Family School, just across Route 36 in Hazlet. “This is our town parish (Holy Family Church is in Union Beach). They see what happened here. We all got flooded. Some people lost their homes, you’d think they’d want to help.”

“I know the parish is struggling, but we’re poor town,” said Jena Schellato, who has a second grader and kindergartner at Holy Family. “I mean, give us a break.”

The church did just that, according Rayanne Bennett, a spokeswoman to the Trenton Diocese.

“The rent being charged is 25 percent under fair market value,” she said. “A decision was made to give the town a 25 percent discount.”

Bennett was not aware of the reason for the discount, because the diocese did not negotitate the lease. The school is church property, but all questions to Holy Family were referred to Bennett,as the parish falls under the jurisdiction of the Trenton Diocese.

For $47,000 a month, the school district gets use of the 51,000 square-foot building, with 16 classrooms, a gym and cafeteria. Holy Family is paying utilities and has made their maintenance people available. Grade K through 5, with 438 students, are there for the foreseeable future.

Michael Practico Sr. of Richardson Commercial Realtors, which has handled other school rentals for the diocese, says the price is a bargain.

“It comes out to about $11 a square foot which, in that market, is a helluva deal,” said Practico, who did not work on the Holy Family lease. “Remember, this sounds like a lot of money, but this is a massive amount of space. You over an acre under one roof.”

Practico said he has leased similar-sized schools in that market “above and below” the Holy Family price.

“It falls somewhere in the middle, but if they (Holy Family) are paying utilities, then it’s a bargain,” he said.

But when news of the monthy rent began to circulate around Union Beach, some people were incensed.

“I thought they (Holy Family) were giving it to us,” Schellato said. “When I heard – what? $47,000 a month – I was like, ‘You got to be kidding?’ This is our town!”

Compounding the resident exasperation is the fact that Keyport is taking nothing to house Union Beach students during the crisis.

The day after the storm, Keyport superintendent Lisa Savoia called Annibale.

“ I drove through the town and thought, ‘My God!” she said. “I called Joe and said, ‘Whatever you need.’ ”

Annibale needed to get his kids back to school. Many had lost their homes and need a safe, dry place to go to each day. He wanted to rent Holy Family immediately, but the National Guard and State Police took it over, rent-free, to use as a staging area and barracks for Guarsdsmen and out-of-town troopers. The younger Union Beach kids were first sent to St. Catherine’s, which charged the district $27,000 a month. Annibale said was good short-term, but wasn’t big enough.

“We had classes being held in the cafeteria,” Annibale said. “It wasn’t a good option.”

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Keyport, which is a receiving district for Union Beach high school students (some also go to Red Bank), made room in its own elementary school for the 6th, 7th and 8th graders from Memorial. Union Beach pays Keyport $13,474 for each high school student, but Savoia felt it was inappropriate to charge for the younger kids, considering the circumstances.

“That town is devastated. My recommendation was to not charge – not even a nominal fee -- and our board (of education) agreed,” said Savoia. “It was just the right thing to do. I can’t say it more succinctly or eloquently than that.”

Annibale said the Holy Family rent “is what it is” and his top priority was to get his kids secured for what may be the rest of the year.

“I know people are complaining, but my job was to get the kids back in school,” he said. “Hopefully our insurance will cover the rent, the busing and our other costs incurred from the storm.”

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