Welcome to Jackson Square, the Former Home of the African American Business District
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#1 Source For Hudson County Political Insider News
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Welcome to Jackson Square, the Former Home of the African American Business District
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I am not ashamed to admit I would have voted for Mayor Steven Fulop for a second term if I had been able to cast a vote. Hey, I might even vote for him for his third time.But Mr. Mayor you must begin to adhere to a more inclusionary community-based agenda when it comes to Southside of Jersey City.The opening of the MLK Hub Annex is being lauded by the administration as one of the major accomplishments of the Fulop Administration. Yes, this is the same Hub that was hailed by then-Mayor Bret Schundler as a beacon of hope and the future of prosperity for the Southside when it first opened.Well, Schundler was wrong, and, Mayor Fulop, I believe you are making the same philosophical mistake he made. Simply believing that if you build nice buildings it will rid the culture of crime, poverty, and the historical drug dealing along the MLK Drive corridor. Unless the City begins to address the structural issues embedded in this community, the City Hall Annex will be nothing more than a well-intended gesture of goodwill to the community.The Fulop administration now has taken on the task of a developing a Municipal Campus. In essence, relocating city employees to one of the most notorious drug and crime ridden areas of the City while renaming it the Jackson Square.The visionary in me believes the new Jackson Square should not just pay "naming" homage to the cultural history of Jackson Ave. The proposed Jackson Square should re-invigorate the past glory of Jackson Avenue. The City should be paving the way for minority businesses and ensuring that economic opportunities for people of color will be the benefactors at Jackson Square. The new annex will not usher in an era of prosperity to the area unless the administration begins addressing the issue of poverty, and the systemic racism which denies people of color from having the ability to redevelop their own communities.The Annex should be used as an economic stimulus to attract commercial revitalization to the area but where are the plans to attract jobs, and the building of affordable and moderate housing in and around Jackson Square. The Mayor touted a coffee shop as expressing interest. Nice, but they are expressing interest in order to compete with Dunkin Donuts in who becomes the Caffeine distributor for City workers.We must ask ourselves if the City is intent on using 75 million of taxpayers’ dollars to bring forth a Municipal Campus, Why has it failed to earmark even 1 million dollars to eradicate the issues set forth in the Croson Study.By building a Municipal Complex without community input, the City is now the leading hand in the whitewashing of MLK Drive, finally revealing it is the primary driving force behind the gentrification efforts along the Southside of Jersey City.State Sen. Sandra Cunningham gleamed with pride that she is happy that Jackson Square will be honoring the Jackson brothers, former slaves who were the pioneers of Jackson Ave, but that is not enough. The Senator should be pressing the Mayor that African American community remains the major stakeholders, along with the entire corridor, and it must be mandated with funding given by the state and city governments.If the current elected officials want to honor the Jackson Brother's, let it be with the "Jackson Economic Opportunity Stimulus Bill". A minority repatriations package in which the city earmarks 70 million is provided to spearhead efforts, for Minority Developers, Entrepreneurs and residents to use in eradicating the racial discriminatory findings in the Croson Study.One must ponder will a new Municipal Campus solve the structural foundation issues of this community. It seems we could have least had an open dialogue by simply having City government include us in the planning.For the record, I was a supporter of the City Hall Annex, however, I am not a supporter of the Municipal Campus.
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