Asbury Park. October 2, 2014. Blogfinger photo. ©
Blogfinger has a long history of reporting a variety of worrisome issues in the Grove, but frequently, no matter what we (BF and our commenters) say about our concerns, our opinions seem to fall on deaf ears.
The problem is that “we the people” seem to have power only when our elected officials pay attention to us, and that is how things should work . Unfortunately, on Blogfinger, no elected officials participate in our discussions. Why? You can guess why, but that is the bottom line. You can go to the Township Committee meetings and say things for 5 minutes, but you won’t make an impact unless you go in force, and that rarely occurs.
Citizen activism is the only answer, and we saw that work when a group of Broadway flood citizen activists pushed the Township. And now a group of Wesley Lake activists are making things happen on that front. We can’t depend on groups such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Home Groaners Association to run with the ball on things that worry us.
All of us are concerned about crime. The other day, a police officer in Asbury was stabbed. That town has serious crime problems, and we in OG need to be watchful regarding that situation. We must stick to our “guns” in continuing the locking of the two Wesley Lake bridges. Soon it will be winter, and our streets will be darker at night, and our population will be smaller.
We have previously called for a resurrection of the Neighborhood Watch in town, but the NTPD, a superb police force, doesn’t seem to be enthused about that method of crime fighting, but we think it has great potential to help protect us and our properties. Perhaps we need a group of citizen activists to start their own neighborhood watch program and do it right with signs (see above), foot patrols, effective email/phone lists, and educational programs–including pushing for better lighting and cameras all over town. Such a group can urge the NTPD to help them. Don’t forget that the OG Citizen Patrol was started by a citizen activist and cooperates with the police.
Here is a link to our Neighborhood Watch post in April, 2012 which discusses the problems NW has in the Grove. BF on NW
Anybody that starts a citizen activist group can count on publicity @Blogfinger.
Paul Goldfinger, Editor.