They say no good deed goes unpunished. A local woman who helped animals impacted by Hurricane Sandy is learning that the hard way.

Laura Pople provided shelter for about 150 cats and dogs separated from their families during Sandy, taking them into her Jackson Township home.

“I’m committed to the families,” she said. “I’m committed to the animals.”

The pets come to Pople’s home through Seer Farms, a non-profit organization that she runs, which cares for animals of families in crisis until they can get back on their feet.

Just last month however, Jackson Township cited Pople for “running an illegal kennel in a residential area.”

“This is not a kennel,” said Pople. “This is my home and we provide foster care.”

According to the township’s business administrator, the local zoning officer has informed Pople of laws on animal facilities for the past three years. The administrator says the violations were issued after Pople failed to apply for a land use variance as well as complaints from her neighbors. One of those neighbors is Richard Cusumano.

“It’s not about the animals,” he said. “It’s about what they’re doing. It has obviously reduced the value of my home.”

Pople says she’s “not sure” if she’s in compliance with the township ordinances. She is scheduled for a court appearance next week. She also says she hopes to have a conversation with the Jackson Township mayor before then.

In the meantime, Pople has gained plenty of support. An online petition drive is urging the township to allow the animals to stay.
 

A local brewing company is giving beer drinkers the chance to enjoy a fresh ale for a good cause.
Flying Fish Brewing Company, based in Cherry Hill, NJ, officially released its Forever Unloved (F.U.) Sandy beer Saturday night. The hybrid wheat-pale ale, available only on tap, is now available at over 75 bars and restaurants.

Flying Fish made $45,000 from selling the kegs and will donate the entire amount to a Sandy relief charity.

Click here to see the full list of bars and restaurants where the beer is being sold.
 

New Jersey's Ocean County received close to half of all the Hurricane Sandy FEMA aid given to the state, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark.

Of the $348 million the Federal Emergency Management Agency distributed to New Jersey, Ocean County received $157 million. The money will be used to pay for damages to primary residences that suffered most during the devastating storm.

Half of the damage recorded in New Jersey occured in Ocean County alone, and at least 40,000 buildings throughout the County felt the effects of Sandy's high winds and heavy rains.

53,185 of the 254,519 FEMA applicants in the state were from Ocean County, reported The Star-Ledger of Newark.

Monmouth County, in the second-highest spot, received $69 million.

New Jersey residents displaced by Superstorm Sandy can now use Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to pay for security deposits when renting apartments or homes.
 
Officials say the policy change announced Tuesday will especially benefit low- to moderate-income families who have been in motels and hotels since the storm hit in late October and can't afford security deposits.
 
FEMA usually provides two months of rent to households that have been displaced due to storms, but all households that receive FEMA rental assistance can seek additional funding. They must provide their lease and all receipts for rent and security deposits.
 
FEMA cannot reimburse households that have already paid a security deposit with their own money. And FEMA rent money can't be used to pay for utilities, telephone or television service.

Meanwhile in Washington, northeastern lawmakers hoping to push a $50.7 billion Superstorm Sandy aid package through the House face roadblocks by fiscal conservatives seeking offsetting spending cuts to pay for recovery efforts as well as cuts for projects they say are unrelated to the Oct. 29 storm.

Their amendments set up a faceoff Tuesday as the House moved toward votes on the emergency spending package, with Northeast lawmakers in both parties eager to provide recovery aid for one of the worst storms ever to strike the region.
 
The base $17 billion bill by the House Appropriations Committee is aimed at immediate Sandy recovery needs, including $5.4 billion for New York and New Jersey transit systems and $5.4 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief aid fund.
 
Northeast lawmakers will have a chance to add to that bill with an amendment by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., for an additional $33.7 billion, including $10.9 billion for public transportation projects.
 
The Club for Growth, a conservative group, is urging lawmakers to oppose both Sandy aid measures. Sandy aid supporters, nonetheless, voiced confidence Monday they would prevail. The Senate passed a $60.4 billion Sandy aid package in December with bipartisan support.
 
Lawmakers emerging from a private meeting of House Democrats Tuesday morning said they were urged to support the bill despite imperfections.
 
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said after a private meeting of House Democrats Tuesday morning that he believed the full Sandy measure would pass. He said he was expecting about 50 Republican votes for the $33 billion portion of the measure, and he said he believed the votes would be there for the $17 billion portion and to defeat a GOP across-the-board spending cut amendment as well.
 
“I think we'll be all right,” he said.
 
Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said Congress had waited far too long to act, 79 days after the storm struck.
 
“It is imperative that we pass this package today,” said Lowey.
 
The House will consider 13 amendments, including one requiring spending offsets and four seeking to strike money for some projects either not directly related to Sandy or not seen as emergency spending.
 
As with past natural disasters, the $50.7 billion Sandy aid package does not provide for offsetting spending cuts, meaning the aid comes at the cost of higher deficits. The lone exception is an offset provision in the Frelinghuysen amendment requiring that the $3.4 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects to protect against future storms be paid for by spending cuts elsewhere in the 2013 budget.

Sandy aid supporters are most concerned about the amendment by conservative Reps. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., Tom McClintock, R-Calif., Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.,  to offset the $17 billion base bill with spending cuts of 1.6 percent for all discretionary appropriations for 2013.
 
Northeast lawmakers said passage of the Mulvaney amendment could complicate prospects for quick action on the broader Sandy aid package in the Senate, which has passed a $60.4 billion aid package with bipartisan support that does not have offsetting spending cuts.
 
Mulvaney said he wasn't trying to torpedo the aid package with his amendment.

“This is not a poison pill,” he said. “It's not designed for delay. ... I just want to try and find a way to pay for” Sandy aid.
 
Other amendments set for floor debate would cut $150 million for Regional Ocean Partnership Grants, $13 million for the National Weather Service ground readiness project, $1 million for the Legal Services Corporation and $9.8 million for rebuilding seawalls and buildings on uninhabited islands in the Steward McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Connecticut.
 
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, planned votes on both the $17 billion base bill and the Frelinghuysen proposal for $33.7 billion more. He's responding both to conservatives who are opposed to more deficit spending, and to pointed criticism from Govs. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., and Chris Christie, R-N.J., who are fuming because the House hasn't acted sooner.
 
Boehner decided on New Year's Day to delay a scheduled vote after House Republicans rebelled over a bill allowing taxes to rise on families making more than $450,000 a year because it included only meager spending cuts. Christie called the speaker's action “disgusting.”

The Senate's $60.4 billion bill on Sandy relief expired with the previous Congress on Jan. 3. But about $9.7 billion was money for replenishing the government's flood insurance fund to help pay Sandy victims, and Congress approved that separately earlier this month. Whatever emerges from the House this week is scheduled for debate in the Senate next week after President Barack Obama's second inauguration.

FEMA has spent about $3.1 billion in disaster relief money for shelters, restoring power and other immediate needs after the storm pounded the Atlantic Coast with hurricane-force winds. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were the hardest hit. 

A messy situation left in Superstorm Sandy’s wake in Atlantic City -- a pile of debris dumped outside a damaged motel -- has at least one Atlantic County resident and the city demanding that it be cleaned up.

“It’s an eyesore, it’s depressing.”

That’s how Amy Barbella describes the pile of ruined rugs, furniture and mattresses outside the Master Hosts Inns on Route 40, a.k.a Albany Avenue and the Black Horse Pike.

Barbella, who is from nearby Margate, says she got fed up looking at the mess and.

“All these tourists, Go A.C., Do A.C., how can we do that when they’re driving into Atlantic City and this is what they got to look at.”

Barbella tells NBC10 that she’s especially worried about the storm-damaged debris impacting the environment, because it’s dumped so close to a back-bay marsh and she says that as recent as Tuesday night some discarded mattresses appeared to be in the marsh.

When asked Wednesday by NBC10 Jersey Shore Bureau Reporter Ted Greenberg if the area along the edge of the marsh was an appropriate place to leave trash, the motel manager said, “it did not fall in the water and second of all, it’s going to be taken up.”

The motel manager, who didn’t want to give NBC10 his name, just moments later moved a mattress away from the edge of the marsh.

The head of Atlantic City’s Code Enforcement Department said that the city wasn’t even aware of the mess until being alerted by NBC10. He said the debris was too close to the marsh, should have been in a dumpster and that the motel would be ordered to remove it.

But, why hadn’t the folks at the motel just taken the debris and placed it in a dumpster in the first place?

““We already had trucks out here, we already had dumpsters out here, cleaning it up,” the manager said.

He said the rest of the mess would be cleared Thursday.

“If you come back by 12 o’clock noon, it won’t be here anymore.”

NBC10 will let viewers know if that happens.

New Jersey is taking action to hold businesses accountable for alleged price gouging after Superstorm Sandy.

Five hotels and a gas station were the latest to be sued by the state hiking prices after the storm. Authorities say they illegally raised their rates for people forced to leave their homes.

The Howard Johnson and Econo Lodge, both on the Black Horse Pike in Egg Harbor Township, are two of the hotels accused of price gouging, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.

“We allege that these hotel owners broke our price gouging law, at a time when vulnerable consumers desperately needed the most basic of necessities -- shelter,” Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa said. “There is no excuse, legally or morally, for businesses trying to gouge consumers in the aftermath of a widespread disaster, and we are holding them accountable.”

The A.G.’s office says that Howard Johnson is accused of hiking room rates 58 percent from $75 to $119 at least 52 times. The Econo Lodge is accused of hiking prices even higher by increasing rooms from $75 to $199.99 (150 percent) a total of 545 times.

NBC10’s Ted Greenberg searched for comment from the Econo Lodge.

“Were these rates fair?” Ted asked.

A man at the hotel who identified himself as an adviser and friend of the operators spoke on their behalf. “We don’t want to answer that right now. We think that whatever we did was fully in compliance with everything.

“There are reasons why some of the prices were up. There are more people in the room compared to what we normally would have.”

In most cases, state law forbids prices to be hiked more than 10-percent during a state of emergency. These six new businesses put the total amount of businesses accused of price gouging after Sandy at 24, according to the A.G.

The owner of the Howard Johnson said that they didn’t do anything illegal. She said the only reason rates went up was because more people than normal were staying in certain rooms..

Fines start at $10,000 for a first offense and the state also wants the businesses to pay restitution to storm victims who investigators say were charged way too much.

“If the Attorney General’s Office determines that we have to give money back, then we will give them the money back,” the adviser to the Econo Lodge said.