Miss a day on Patch and you can miss a lot. Here's a rundown of the news from the last week:

• Tuesday was the deadline for school districts to report to their county tax boards on whether they planned to use their extra state aid for tax relief in the coming school year. Like most districts in the state, Barnegat didn't use the aid to lower the current tax levy. Instead, it will wait to apply the extra aid to the 2012-2013 budget – and will likely use at least some of it to bring down the tax levy, according to the business administrator.

• The township offered up the costs involved in the construction of a new softball field on Lower Shore Road, which is nearing completion. The field remains a controversial topic in town, as some still feel it was built at the behest of a small group of residents – though officials continue to point out that it will be open to everyone in Barnegat.

• The state Department of Environmental Protection held a final hearing on the New Jersey Radiological Emergency Response Plan in Toms River Tuesday, hearing input from many residents worried about the similarities between Oyster Creek and the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

• The Barneat Bengals 2011 football schedule has been released, and sports writer Andrew Jones offered up an analaysis of the season's match-ups.

• The DEP held a press conference in Waretown Wednesday to discuss how water testing will be an important part of its plan to restore Barnegat Bay.

• On Thursday, a driver ran a red light at the intersection of Bay Avenue and Route 9, crashing into a dump truck that then careened into downtown Gazebo Park, taking out a light and sign pole, some trees and shrubs and damaging the gazebo. Two were injured, and both the driver of the car and the dump truck driver received summonses following the accident.

• This week brought a daily beach badge comparison for Monmouth and Ocean county's beach towns. Check out our seasonal badge comparison, too.

• The local Little League and travel ball teams may be nearing a compromise that would allow some non-Little League teams to play on the township-owned, League-leased fields on Barnegat Boulevard that have been at the heart of an ongoing dispute between the two parties.

• Country freeholders moved a step closer to connecting Western Boulevard and Route 9 in Berkeley Township this week. The project would effectively create a bypass around the congested highway in Bayville.

• We're still in the grips of a heat wave that sent temperatures soaring to the triple digist this week. On Friday afternoon, we headed to Barnegat's municipal beach to see who was cooling off in the bay.