--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "2fine4u" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Frank,
> When I read this in the paper, I was very confused. 1. When did the
> City Council begin speaking for the BOE? 2. Since you ALL are
> ELECTED, separately, (2 elections), by the Citizens of AP, are
> SEPARATE entities, budgets, etc., where the Council, is more geared
> toward municipal government, garbage pickup, street sweeping, law
> enforcement, salaries for municipal workers, etc. When citizens
> complain to the Council, are they legally able to intercede?
>
> They administer 1 aspect of governance, where your group attends to
> the educational needs of this community. I never thought that the
> Council would be so "dead set" against this BOE! What was I thinking?
Hi Sharon and Group,
The only thing I can say is that the Council may have been
conflating two completely different issues. (I'm trying to give them
the benefit of a doubt.) They are confusing our vital and long
overdue need for an Early Childhood Learning Center with the
controversy over where the Administration Building will be now that we
are being evicted due to the council's condemnation of the present
administration building.
Those are two separate, mutually exclusive things. The ECLC is
to be built on the Braverman Building site which the SCC bought in
2005 for the BOE to be used for that purpose only.
Although the SCC ran out of money, the project was never
abandoned. As a matter of fact, our very excellent Early Childhood
Supervisor, Nancy Sterling, has been working continuously with the
State Dept. of Education to make certain that when the SCC (now called
the State Development Authority) gets the necessary funding again, the
most up-to-date facility will be built there for our little ones.
There are some folks out there who claim that the present situation of
little preschools all over the city is "good enough". Meanwhile the
young people of Neptune and Long Branch have absolute state of the art
facilities. Our kids are at a huge competitive disadvantage. That is
not to say that the present preschools and the staffs are not good.
It's just that we need to end the preschool diaspora now and require a
state of the art, 21st century education for these kids. When that
happens, it will filter up to all the upper grades as well and inure
to the benefit of the entire city. Why the children of Asbury Park
are not entitled to the same advantages as the kids from Neptune, Long
Branch, or anywhere else has to be explained to me. The parents of
Asbury Park have been too patient; they and we should demand that ECLC
now.
So I ask people not to confuse the controversy over the so-called
"Brookdale" building with the vital plans we have for the "Braverman"
building property.
Regardless of what some council members or the city manager may
have either said or implied, the BOE never, never gave any indication
to the state that we were no longer interested in the Braverman site.
That would be yet another tragedy for this city.
I sincerely hope that this episode does not cause any further
delay in getting that Early Childhood Learning Center built. It is
extremely vital to the survival of this city as a viable entity.
In my opinion, and I do not speak for the Board in any of this,
the city council needs to stop stringing the senior citizens along
like they have been doing for five years now. As late as last month,
they claimed they were "negotiating" for a building in the
redevelopment zone. It is an open secret as to what building they
were talking about. Someone needs to ask them to 'fess up to the fact
that no real negotiations were transpiring at all. Their hopping
aboard the Braverman Building thing can only serve to continue their
"pie in the sky by and by" dance with the seniors at the same time
that they pull the rug out from under the BOE.
Again in my opinion, they owe the seniors a huge apology for
cynically lifting their hopes once again only to have them cruelly
dashed. How many times and for how many years can they get the
Seniors to believe them?
Frank ("I once was lost but now I'm found") D'Alessandro
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