A BMG BFD — “Lakewood’s $70 million land giveaway to BMG yeshiva,” by the Asbury Park Press’ Joe Strupp: “The largest Orthodox Jewish school in America has amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune courtesy of Lakewood taxpayers after the township began giving away more than 200 acres of prime undeveloped land a quarter century ago to the local yeshiva. In the past 25 years, Beth Medrash Govoha (BMG), through a development company it created, has received 220 acres of township land near the Jersey Shore Blue Claws minor league park for free and sold it for a tax-free profit of nearly $70 million, an investigation by the Asbury Park Press has revealed. While challenged unsuccessfully in court 16 years ago, the highly unusual municipal land giveaway has not only sparked cries of favoritism toward the developer, it’s also alarmed constitutional experts who assert that the deal likely runs afoul of the New Jersey Constitution, which bars the free transfer of public land. ‘When you give property away, the town should get some of the value back,’ said Marc Pfeiffer, a Senior Policy Fellow at the Rutgers’ Center for Urban Policy Research. ‘Right now the developer has kept all of that.’”