The A-Team is your team
By Jim Keady
There are a small number of people in our community that want you to be afraid
of voting for the A-Team in the upcoming City Council election. They want you
to think that voting for our team is too much of a risk.
You know what is too much of a risk? Continuing to have an overall crime rate
(triple the national average) that has not effectively changed in the twelve
years that the incumbents have held power. The fact is that when you aggregate
murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts and arson
the crime rate in Asbury Park has remained alarmingly steady for the entire
time Forward Asbury has held office. Why? Because they have buried their
heads in the sand on these issues. Do you want to ensure that your business,
home value, your children, etc. remain at risk? Do you want another twelve
years of shootings, gang violence and drugs? Then vote for anyone BUT the
A-Team on May 14th. However, if you want to limit risk with regard to crime
and you want to start feeling safe walking our streets, then the A-Team is your
only choice in this year's election. Every member of our team has dealt
effectively with engaging marginalized urban youth in our personal and/or
professional lives. No other team running can say that. We have the ideas,
the experience, and most importantly, we are committed to making our city safe
for everyone.
You want to talk about risk? Let's continue to have an unemployment rate that
is 40% higher than the national unemployment rate. Let's continue to have 30%
of our citizens live below the poverty line with another 20% just above it.
Let's continue to have our median household income remain at $31,000 a year
(the state average is $68,000 a year). Yes, we have a lot of poor people in
Asbury Park and you know what? Poverty breeds crime. You want to address this
risk? You need to do two things consistently create living wage jobs in our
city and connect people to living wage jobs outside our city. Who is going to
do it? Forward Asbury? They had twelve years and have failed miserably. The
only team with a plan for lowering the jobless rate and increasing household
income for our residents is the A-Team. We will focus massive amounts of
energy on establishing Asbury Park as the premier tourist and entertainment
destination on the East Coast. With dynamic city-wide event programming we
will bring tens of thousands of tourists to Asbury Park fifty-two weeks of the
year. There was more than $40 billion dollars spent on tourism in NJ in 2012.
We can easily capture 5% of that and bring $2 billion dollars into our local
economy. Steady programming and steady revenues leads to reduced risk for
businesses, which leads to increased investment, which leads to more jobs,
higher incomes, etc.
Shall we go one more round on the question of risk? How about driving our city
into an effective state of bankruptcy? We are broke. The Forward Asbury team
has spent recklessly, they hocked every city asset they could for pennies on
the dollar, and they more than doubled our city's debt in their twelve years in
power. As far as the running of the day-to-day operations at City Hall, there
is no managerial oversight and no effective fiscal controls. For God's sake,
there are city employees who do not even have job descriptions. Who is going
to dig us out? The A-Team is, that's who (start A-Team theme music here). We
will tap into the resources that are immediately available to us to get the job
done. What are these resources? Our residents. We have dynamic professionals
in our city who have the skill sets and experience to effectively advise us on
these management and fiscal matters. They only need to be asked and empowered
to do so. We are asking them regularly on the campaign trail and many of them
have already pledged their commitment to help us on this front. Through these
women and men we will have more diversity of ideas and energy to effectively
manage tax dollars and streamline city operations. Practical professional
experience, increased numbers of stakeholders, diversity of skill sets
Guess
what this does? That's right, it decreases risk.
Let me spell it out for you as clearly as I possibly can. If you want to
reduce the risks of crime, poverty, joblessness, mismanagement and wasteful
spending, there is only one team to vote for in the May 14th Asbury Park City
Council election. That is the A-Team. You will find us on the ballot as
follows:
# 13 Remond Palmer
#14 Duanne Small
#15 Dr. Nora Hyland
#16 Daniel A. Harris III
#17 James W. Keady
Peace, Jim Keady
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