[AsburyPark] Re: Asbury Park from a newcomers perspective

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:52:35 -0700

Allan,

No Condo in Asbury Park is worth $1 Million, nor will any be for probably a decade, or more!

As far as the Crime goes, it's 3 Times worse now than it was in 2000, Before the Redevelopment Began! Until these Clowns who think destroying the lives of 10,000 Local Minorities to get themselves Rich REALIZE that they're CAUSING the Crime, Reality won't set in!

I've just been in Asbury Park since 1996, but there's been a BIG change in just the past 4 Years!  I've never seen so much unrest in Minority Communities since the late 1960's and early 1970's!  The "Community" as it's been referred to generally, which more accurately would be called the "Old" or Past or previously existing Community has NEVER, to this day, been invited "To the Table" with the Redevelopers ... To discuss how they can partake in the benefits of the Redevelopment!

And since they consist of 78% of the Population, to them the Redevelopment is NOT a redevelopment, but an Invasion by the Rich!  And it IS!  People who have lived here from 20 Years to over three or four generations are expected to now just get up and Disappear .... Peacefully, so that strangers who weren't even HERE 5 years ago can come in and get Rich in 3-4 Years!

Yes, there's Crime!  More importantly, the biggest Criminals ARE the Redevelopers, who are breaking Every Law that God has given us about caring for our fellow Man (And Women & Children).  They are just intentionally forcing OUT the Afro-Americans, of which about 2,000 are already gone!  And it's being done because People on the City Council, School Board and Planning Board are placed BY the Redevelopers!  Money does it!  And cheating and rigging Elections!

But just wait until the Condo Owners start to move in, and a few of them are Shot!  Wow, all of a sudden, the Values may drop overnight on the Condo Values!  Wanna make a bet?

The way this Redevelopment SHOULD have gone was that they should build ALL 3,100 Condos in three tier price ranging:  Low Income, Moderate Income and the ones they're building .. High Income!

As I mentioned many other times, we need (The City):

  1. Rent Control
  2. Affordable Housing  (Three Tier)
  3. Living Wage Jobs  & a Program to Attract Jobs and Train People

WHY is there so much Crime?  Below are many of the Reasons, which combined, add up to creating a boiling point crisis for Asbury Residents:

          Redevelopment Created Problems:

  • The Redevelopment is designed to Gentrify the Population on Purpose. Two Groups of People came here from Lakewood and NYC to carry out the plans. Afro-Americans are the highest level of targeted People for them to get out of the City at any cost!
  • A Totally Dysfunctional City Hall, where the same People who are supposed to be helping the Minorities have sold out, and are stacking the odds against them, rather than helping them.  Plus a new City Manager and his Team who were brought in to Service the Redeveloper as their primary responsibility, whether or not the City OR it's Residents gain from the results. 
  • No Rent Control Passed to protect existing Residents (By City Council)
  • NO Affordable Housing at ALL in Redevelopment Plan or Contract
  • Master Redeveloper in Default of Contract by NOT hiring 20% of Asbury Park Workers and Contractors as promised for Construction Jobs.
  • Redevelopment caused a Crime Rate Increase for the past four years, due to NO Provisions to help or protect Low Income Residents, which caused tensions to rise, and resulted in desperate people doing desperate things, and placed the entire City at Unrest!       

             Pre-Existing Problems:

  1. A Population of about 8-10,000 under-educated Minority People, many of them with no High School Diploma.
  2. One of the largest concentrations of Dysfunctional Families with mostly no Fathers present.
  3. A Group of Religious Leaders who are out for their OWN Congregant's needs only, or their OWN personal gains.  Most don't care about the general population, or don't do anything.
  4. No Existing large Organizational Tenants Rights Group or Citizens Group to Organize requests for inclusion in Redevelopment Plans & Benefits.
  5. Poor Educational System with few exceptions.
  6. No City Community Center.
  7. No City Youth Center.
  8. West Side Community Center is under funded, partly due to misallocation of Community Development Block Grants by the City.
  9. Severe lack of well paying Jobs available for Residents.
  10. Racial Prejudice is alive and kicking both in the Private Sector, as well as throughout City Hall and the School System.
So, Allan, chew on those things for a while, OK?  You'll most likely disagree with me like the selfish Yuppie Raiders that have dropped into the City in recent years, but, it's your right, even if you're wrong!

Bottom line is that the situation is getting worse, not better, as time goes on!  When you hold an entire Community hostage for years while you're planning to evict them, what must you and I expect, anyway?

Peace,

Steve

W


--- In [email protected], Allan Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Where else can you get all this and now have to pay 400 to over a million for a home.
>
> Hinge [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Greetings,
> I'm writing this in response to the ongoing fight on this message board pertaining to
> racism, minimum wage and the entire Asburysteve thread.
> I recently moved to Asbury, and when I told my many friends that I was doing so, they all
> had the same reaction..."Asbury, ew. It's dangerous there" or "Asbury, you mean that town
> on the shore that has all that crime"
> I was even apprenhensive to move here. A week after I signed my lease, I took a drive to
> visit my soon to be home, and had a drug dealer try and flag me down near the
> Golddigger, and immediately after I got approached by a prostitute because she figured I
> pulled over for her, not because I wanted to check out my new home.
> In any case, I love living in Asbury. Asbury has been a part of my life for as long as I can
> remember. But unfortunately, the good memories are mingled with the bad...tales of
> friends being attacked outside of the Stone Pony one night, having one of my beloved
> bicycles stolen, only to be spotted outside a crack den in Asbury. I'm sure we all have such
> tales of woe.
> Since moving to Asbury, I've gotten to see the political in-fighting that doesn't seem to be
> making much progress. I've seen people doing crack in broad daylight in the beautiful
> Library Square Park. I've been yelled at in that park while walking my dog because some
> guy thought I was looking at him (he yelled some pretty ugly racial things at me, then
> yelled "what's the matter, you don't want a black man in your white assed park") I have
> liquor bottles and other debris on my lawn practically every morning. My neighborhood is
> filled with the same 3 or 4 prostitututes daily, and the accompanying cars that troll around
> in search of them.
> What's going to happen when the new people that AP is trying to attract wind up here?
> I think there's quite a bit of good going on in AP right now, but unfortunately that is being
> overshadowed by the bad. On one hand, we have the amazing Market in the Middle and
> it's little group of flourishing restaraunts, on the other hand we have 3 people shot and
> one killed just a few blocks away from where I live.
> It seems to me that most of the problems in AP are drug related. AP has been known for
> decades to be a place to score drugs. The prostitutes are all drug addicts, and the dealers
> supply them. It's a vicious cycle.
> Asbury is also plagued with racial seperation and racial stereotyping, which is fueled by
> things like last weeks murder, and the weekly stories that appear in local newspapers
> police blotters.
> I hope Asbury doesn't suffer a similar fate to Atlantic City, where they have a 2 block wide
> strip of prosperity bordering on a wasteland.
> I don't know what the answers are, but I believe that Asbury needs to unite the east and
> west, and both sides need to fight the sleezy and dangerous parts of Asbury that give us
> the horrible reputation that we have.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Next-gen email? Have it all with the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta.
>
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