APPress's One-Sided Coverage of West Side Press Conference

If you see the Online Report on the APPress website of today's press conference to announce the beginning of the West Side Redevelopment, for which we've learned there are no funds ready, you might miss Time4Change's opinion on this. So here is our press release, which the reporter barely quoted.

Time4Change Campaign Contact: Maureen Nevin 732-774-0779, Cell 732-261-4860
POBox 822
Asbury Park, NJ 07712
Press Release: Incumbents’ ‘Ground Breaking’ Ceremonies a Shameless Scam

For Immediate Release April 16, 2009

Bulldozers and backhoes are not going to be standing behind the current City of Asbury Park Council members when they hold their phony ‘ground breaking’ press conference on Friday April 17th, at Springwood and Atkins avenues.

They can say they are ready to begin construction of the long awaited Westside development, but it is only words. There is no city funding ready to turn on tractors and no July 17th construction start for the long-awaited permanent Senior Center for the elders of Asbury Park, as Deputy Mayor Jimmy Bruno announced at Asbury Tower on April 6th. Once again, this council is treating the citizens of Asbury Park like gullible children to be lied to in return for desired behavior. In this case votes! Let’s look at the facts regarding these projects:

- The Sisters Academy, an expansion of a private religious school, is wholly privately funded. Why is the Council even taking credit for this?
- The 611 Market project will be privately funded. Its start date is unknown.
- The Springwood Commons project is awaiting approval from State funding sources. Project start date unknown.
- The Springwood Center project, which is to include the new senior center that our senior citizens have been promised for 8 years has no funding yet. And the most optimistic construction date, according to city officials, is “Fall 2009” – if funding materializes.

“At the Meet the Candidates event, hosted by the Asbury Tower’s Residents’ Association, on April 6th, the incumbent Council told the citizens attending that the City would be breaking ground on Springwood Avenue developments,” notes Time4Change candidate Tony Perillo. “Did Deputy Mayor Jim Bruno say, ‘Ground breaking on the Senior Center will start July 17th’, simply to get the seniors’ votes? It’s desperation! We’ll let the voters decide.” Sound files of Bruno’s and the other candidates’ statements can be heard at www.Time4ChangeinAP.blogspot.com. Click here for Bruno's remarks.
“It is obvious that this council is lying again to our seniors, who were also initially told that their boardwalk would be renovated,” said Time4Change candidate Maureen Nevin. “Now they’re told it’s going to be replaced by a nature trail tucked between sand dunes.”

“Tomorrow’s much heralded ceremony is a shameless bit of pandering on the part of a council that has continued to fail the most vulnerable members of this community, the poor, disadvantaged and elderly,” said Time4Change candidate Rosetta Johnson.
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