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Vote like the lives of your children depend on your doing so!

Monday, July 14, 2014

What will Light Rail Do For the Average Homeowner?

Wow! There is nothing like spending money on something we really need like Light Rail. My high school Social Studies Teacher recently told me that he loved Englewood, but that he can't get people to move here, because there is no train. He has turned suave Realty Agent and thinks a train will help him sell real estate. I liked him better as a History teacher.

Negligence.
How do you like that idea? 
What does Tenafly have that makes them know
that they do not need a train? Smarter people?
They are considering an Academy (STEM) that does not segregate their high school.
How about improving the Englewood school system?
How about doing away with the segregated school system that takes ability tracking to a new level of unfair and neglect?


Why not get rid of the segregated swimming pool situation that is becoming an increasingly big problem? 

Did you think we would not notice that crap shoot?
How about the 8 basketball teams that were created so the Ethnic Groups do not have to mix it up by playing together on the same team. I thought it was clear that we do not infect others with color or melanin.


How about demonizing an entire generation of children, because they choose NOT to tie themselves to a major beginning in the 9th grade?

How about depriving 12 years of DMHS students of the privilege of having a campus wide Student Council or Student Government?
How about only allowing Academy Program teachers to teach honors classes?
How about refusing to accept even the idea of STEM Education when the rest of the world is embracing
it?
How about coddling a group of irate, biased, and bigoted out of town parents and students who say "out loud" that they do not care about integration?
How is it okay that they verbalize this concept in public, without shame?

Why do they refuse to walk the halls with our children?
How about allowing out of town students, whose education we supplement to the tune of over 2 million dollars a year demand a separate building, because they have earned it with higher test scores?

Why are they allowed to preach "academic segregation" in our town, on our high school campus, funded by our tax dollars?

How about putting our pre-school babies and kindergarten children in trailers while they build a million dollar office building/garage/shed to house the buses and a Commercial vendor called Pritchard?
When did we begin to ignore stipulations in deeds to gifted land given forever as athletic fields or parks? I am still waiting to see that PERMIT that is necessary when installing sewage lines on the "shoulder of a
Negligence.
stream" in the wetlands/flood hazard area. I wonder where
our Environmental Commission stands on this  issue.
Was it a coincidence that the Environmental Commission was killed and not allowed to meet until after the School Board got the yes vote to build on the shoulder of a stream without the proper permits?

How about forcing our Alternative School Students to endure a substandard, built for Elementary age children building with no ADA access and electrical outlets that shut down the entire building when air conditioners are used. 

Do you think that perhaps the School Board has determined that if they get permission from the state to actually use this building that they will be forced to put aside money in the budget that must be used to construct or provide a permanent structure? Ah, the value of reading.

How about taking better care of what we have and making Englewood more well kept in all Wards?

What about understanding that basing the town's economy on the very insecure and unstable restaurant business is not working? I spoke with a former colleague who referred to Palisade Avenue as Restaurant Way. We also noted how fast the turnover rate is. Here today, gone tomorrow. Gee Wizzz. Ya think?


What about building high rent apartments and condominiums that remain empty, because few people can afford the rent?


What about raising the rents on businesses to double in one year in order to drive them out leaving stores empty for far too long? Is the former Woolworth building haunted or is the owner just plain old greedy? 


What about giving Tax Abatements to the big developers while sending the average homeowner into the throes of Regressive Taxation, while paying top dollar  for the few services available.

"The City Council awarded a $19,600 contract to Remington, Vernick and Arango Engineers to review the NJ Transit Traffic Study — Light Rail in Englewood. Services from the consultant will include review, coordination, presentations and meetings. - See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/englewood-is-hiring-light-rail-consultant-1.1050809#sthash.qomdOBtc.dpuf
Who is going to pay for this study?
Where is the money coming from to pay for Light Rail? They tell me that the Department of Transportation will foot the bill.
Where does the Department of Transportation get money? From us.
There is only 1 POT of money and it is collected from us.
What are we going to do with the extra traffic?
Do we really need to spend this much money to know that we will have gridlock? 

Do we really need to splurge on some consulting company who will come up with the exact same information they were told to produce?
It  is just another paid Think Tank being told what to think.

Did we need to pay a consultant to lead the Rink Task Force to the conclusion that we were going to put $200,000 in the budget for the running and maintenance of the Rink? We have not had a single meeting concerning any other activity that will take place in the John T. Wright Arena. Not one. Stop pretending. You are gonna do what you are gonna do anyway.


How do we accommodate the extra cars since we will lose parking spaces?
How are we going to protect our school children down in the area where the station that they say is not a station will be located? This is the Durie Avenue area. You know where the school bus burned to a crisp outside our Elementary School.  Grieco and McCloud Elementary School children will all be impacted by this new situation. What, if anything will the benefit be to their parents? More worry that one of them will wind up under a car......?


What is different about this, yet again, another fact finding mission where the destination has already been mapped out by the people spending our money?

What makes everyone think that loads of people will suddenly 
decide to come to Englewood, because
Negligence.
there is a train?

When people go to sight seeing Destinations, they expect to see spectacular stuff.
They do not expect to see a town where the residents are treated poorly in school, around the pools, in recreation programs, sports activities and inside some of these stores that seem hell bent on catering to fake fingernail Kim Khardashian wannabe types.


Is this the 1930's?


Do the Elected Officials and City Fathers realize that the situation at the pools mirror situations in places like East Orange where the pool was filled in and covered over, because whites did not wish to swim with blacks? Unsavory conditions have been allowed to fester in facilities that have not been maintained for years. Services have been taken away that came with the original facility. If the people of Teaneck could find a way to have everybody use the pool without riots, why can't Englewood do the same? Oh, and what is up with certain groups being able to use the Middle School facilities as was the 
plan and custom when the pool was first constructed?

Is this the 1940's?

How do the rest of you feel about City Employees that we pay 6 figures and more threatening to close facilities if usage does not increase? Meanwhile, conditions have been allowed to exist that will drive any sane person away, while fees rise.
Now isn't that rich? How do you like it when a City Councilman stresses that he has lowered pool fees? He has also decreased the days that you may use the pool by 3 days. Did he do you any favors? Did he actually raise the pool fees?


Is this the 1950's?

We have a high school where students and parents do not wish to walk the same halls as children they believe are not as smart as they are. What year is this and is this really America?


I know that it is not the 1960's, because the conditions were better for people of color then. There was a Community House with programs and activities for children and teenagers. There was an open gym where one could play basketball. I lived next door to the Memorial House for a time and nurtured a love of African Dance while listening to the drumming. St. Paul's Church had a teen program and a basement room called the Hatch that was very popular. Dwight Morrow High School had a campus inclusive school newspaper, magazine, student council, student government and countless other clubs. The Marching Band looked regal high stepping in their dress uniforms, and the color guard (Starlettes, I think they were called) was awesome. The steel drums filled the City with awe inspired listeners. I was new in town. I had just arrived from the deeply segregated south where one dared not look a white person in the face. They called that "eye balling". One might actually get themselves killed for "eye balling" a white person. They tell me that I arrived just weeks after a riot. They tell me that the Republicans ran Englewood then. I really don't care about party systems. I care about what is fair to all people. 

Someone please explain to this southern born realist the difference between that deep south philosophy and the one that is prevalent on the Dwight Morrow High School campus right now. I had to move all the way to New Jersey, grow to a ripe old age to witness some History teacher indoctrinate students to the concept that slavery was uncompensated labor.

Is this the 1800's?

Our priorities are severely twisted. I don't care about the train. I care about children. I want to make sure that it does not dump more traffic into the areas surrounding our Schools. No one has been able to convince me that it won't. The Master Plan barely dealt with the schools. My first question was why it seems that there is no high school in the year 2025. 

I watched a child get hit by an automobile in front  of the Middle School a few months ago. I still hear that sound in my head.

I know where they can put their light rail. 

Destinations usually have good stuff to show off. So you want to show off this, huh?

http://www.northjersey.com/news/englewood-is-hiring-light-rail-consultant-1.1050809


Why is this building still empty?