No, you don't know! In the 256 apartment dwelling I live in, many of
the "dyed in the wool" Asbury Park residents have served either as
council or some governing board, so your "biased" thinkig that renters
or apartment dwellers don't have the interest of the City at heart, is
erroneous! In this very building former Mayor Kramer lived on the
15th Floor with his Filipino Wife! Many police Officers still live
here, Firemen and City workers.
This building has every race, creed and color! This building is
District 4, as far as voting and when District 4 votes, come in, the
election gets decided, most of the time, although you could get on the
council with less than 350 votes. The residents here are pretty savvy
politically, how else would candidates want and need our votes.
There are also a lot of retirees, such as myself, who aren't ready for
Asbury Towers or Lumley Homes, thank you! There are residents here
with Ph.D's, Masters degrees and other assorted credentials. I and the
lady below me are Telephone Pioneers. She through NJ Bell and me
through Bell Laboratories. Like most old people, I've now lost my
train of thought.
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "sandpiper15" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "justifiedright"
> > --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "Gabrielle Obre"
> > I can only think of two councilmembers from the Southwest side of
> > Asbury Park in my lifetime.
> >
> > That's whey Asbury Park needs to go to a ward system, to allow one
> > councilmember from each section of town.
> >
> > Ward systems were created exactly for places like Asbury Park where
> > there are distinct neighborhoods.
> >
>
> I hear what you're saying, but just to play devil's advocate here:
> Wouldn't that reinforce the balkanization of a town that shouldn't
> naturally have distinct neighborhoods? By that I mean the current
> division between east and west is a stubborn legacy of the Bradley
> era, when certain people were allowed to work near the ocean but not
> live there, yes? One might presume (erroneously perhaps?) that the
> city would want to move beyond that and work toward eliminating the
> stark demographic differences between each side of the tracks. Would
> cutting up a 1 square mile town into wards do that?
>
> Also, is there in fact a system, written or otherwise, that
> doesn't "allow" someone from the southwest portion of town to run for
> office?
>
> I just looked up each of the council members' addresses on
> WhitePages.com. They all live in the north end of town, where the
> properties are predominantly owner occupied houses. The south end of
> town trends a little more toward apartment complexes and rented
> houses, right? Might that have something to do with it? I don't know
> the details of each council member's living arrangements, obviously,
> so this is all very unscientific, but might it be that property
> owners tend to be more compelled toward public service? I emphasize
> "tend" there. I'm sure there are plenty of apartment dwellers working
> for the city. But it stands to reason that if you've taken out a
> mortgage and accepted the responsibility of property maintenance and
> the like, you're more inclined to invest your time and effort into
> city government. Whereas, if you're in an apartment that,
> particularly in this economy, you may have to leave at any moment and
> move to another town, you might not be as compelled to invest the
> time and effort required to run for office.
>
> Certainly the residents of the southwest side deserve equal
> representation, and from what I've read here and on Maureen's page,
> it seems like Keady and Johnson are both trying their best to provide
> that. Maybe someone who lives in that area can speak to that more in
> detail. But if a ward system was implemented, isn't it possible you
> might wind up with council members by default? e.g. "Well, one of us
> has to do it, so, alright, vote for me, candidate A." But you
> wouldn't be getting a candidate as personally invested in the job as
> someone who ran with the idea of representing the WHOLE town,
> regardless of what street he or she lives on.
>
> Again, I don't really know. Just throwing that out there.
>
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