This was published in last week¹s TriCity News in case you missed it. Peace, JWK
Strategies to stop the shootings in Asbury Park By Jim Keady [triCity note: Keady is a former Asbury Councilman, who was the high vote-getter on the A-Team council ticket in May. That slate has a pending legal challenge to the election results which could change the outcome if successful.] In his August 22nd Publisher¹s Message, Dan Jacobson delivered a perfect example of why his publication to date has been absolutely useless in serving the Asbury Park community with regard to stopping the escalating and ongoing violence in our city. He spent 1000 words offering nothing of import to the much-needed discussion on what should be the number one issue for every Asbury Park resident and business owner stopping the shootings and murders. I could go on with regard Mr. Jacobson¹s failings on this matter, but what is more important is laying out a course of action to address the problem. I offer the following list of actions that the Asbury Park City Council should take immediately. I am limiting my focus to the City Council for two reasons: first, they need to lead our community on this issue; second, there is not another stakeholder in the City that can marshal resources in the way that our duly elected officials can if they make it a priority. 1. Put ³Stopping the Shootings² on the City Council agenda. Literally, put it on the agenda of the Executive Session, Workshop Session, and the Regular Public Meeting and make it the number one agenda item at every meeting. If it is on the agenda, week in and week out, it will begin to get the attention it deserves. If the governing body regularly met and discussed this issue half as much they discussed the waterfront redevelopment, we would begin to see real action flow from the dais. 2. Do NOT form another giant committee to discuss the issue to death. It is not rocket science that needs to be employed to solve this problem it takes leadership, action and follow through. Name a small committee, maybe 5 people, and set them to work in concert with the governing body to get to the goal of ZERO SHOOTINGS. 3. Direct our Police Chief to implement the High Point Initiative (www.nij.gov/journals/262/high-point-intervention.htm) in our city. 4. Re-deploy the Special I and Special II police officers from the boardwalk and downtown areas. There is no need to have a dozen special officers walking these beats and no officers walking the Prospect Ave basketball courts, Washington Avenue, DeWitt Avenue, Bangs Avenue, etc. 5. Now that the Prosecutor¹s Office has thrown down the gauntlet [TriCity note: the acting Monmouth County Prosecutor this week said that the city police have to increase their presence and activity on the west side of the city] the Council should request help through their office to flood the Westside with a police presence. 6. Publicly request direct help from the Governor to bring the State Police and/or the National Guard into the city until the killings have stopped for at least one year. This is a state of emergency. We have had 6 people murdered and more than 70 shootings in the past 15 months. I can tell you that if this were happening in Belmar (the town I grew up in) or Spring Lake or Deal, every resource would be delivered to stop it. The elected leaders of Asbury Park must demand the same for our city. 7. Exhaust the Community Development Fund and immediately invest in staff and 24-hour programming at the Westside Community Center and the Boys and Girls Club. 8. Hire a full-time grant writer that can be accessed by all non-profits and churches in the city utilize Community Development Funds for this. The sole focus of this grant writer will be to secure funding for both immediate violence prevention programs and programs that are geared towards getting at the root causes that are driving kids to gangs and lives of violence. 9. Reallocate all Federal Community Development Block Grant Funding to job creation initiatives for youth and young adults in Asbury Park. This should be done by bringing Youth Build (https://youthbuild.org/) to Asbury Park and funding it with the CDBG money. 10. Immediately bring in the following programs to Asbury Park and have them run through the City, through the schools or through non-profits. The Amer-I-Can program (www.amer-i-can.org) and the Getting Out and Staying Out program (www.gosonyc.org). 11. The Mayor and Council should utilize their bully pulpit and go to every church in Asbury Park and speak on this issue. They need to challenge residents with the following truth. Our churches, our families and our City Government have failed on this matter to date. This must change. The City can step up its game by doing the actions listed above. The churches must now pull their weight. They need to stop worrying about saving souls from eternal damnation and start worrying about saving the lives of our kids. Every church should be offering daily programming for at-risk kids and young adults. They get their non-profit status and their tax breaks with the understanding that they will meet community needs that the government cannot meet. It¹s time they started delivering. The Mayor and Council also need to share, with our predominantly black Churches in particular, that the majority of these crimes are young black men shooting other young black men. These are our kids, our brothers, our uncles, our fathers, our nephews... The blame for their ongoing criminal activity lays squarely with each of us. These are not alien monsters who just dropped into Asbury Park and are wreaking havoc on our community. We ALL have to be responsible for what is being done and we have to stand up to these young men, offer them tough love [even if this means turning in or ³snitching² on a relative], and an opportunity to live life in a much different direction. 12. If by chance there is another murder of one of our residents, the entire governing body should be at the funeral. As far as I could see, none of them were at Tyrell Howard¹s funeral on Saturday. This speaks volumes to the community about the perceived level of commitment and concern that our elected officials have for these murdered residents and their friends and families. The Council should immediately get to work on the items above. This is by no means an exhaustive list and I hope it serves as a springboard for discussion and more importantly ACTION. Peace, Jim Keady -- Jim Keady, Director Educating for Justice, Inc. [email protected] 732.988.7322 www.educatingforjustice.org [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
