Archive for the ‘Trenton Elections’ Category

I’ve been voting candidates off the island on FaceBook.  This is my advice on the remaining six (including me).

Eric Jackson, Frank Weeden, John Harmon, Keith Hamilton and Annette Lartigue are left on the Island along with me. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the thing.  I don’t want to have to be involved in local politics at all.

However, I live in Trenton and own enough property so that high taxes and declining value could be a substantial economic blow.  I am not alone in this precarious situation.  Every home and building owner in Trenton is at risk as our city’s budget comes closer to falling into the financial abyss. Read the rest of this entry »

The Fix Trenton’s Budget committee created a multiple choice survey to assess the aptitude and policy perspective of Trenton’s municipal candidates.  This was the committee’s major pre-election project.  We hope it gives some perspective on the kinds of things that are necessary to fix the problem and the candidates who are most in tune with the correct solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

In the past, I’ve criticized candidates for having little or no Internet presence.  By the last election cycle in 2006, the Internet had been in wide use for 10 years, and yet only a tiny handful of Trenton’s municipal candidates had web site and many didn’t know how to use e-mail.

In this cycle the situation has improved dramatically. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the Petitioners have won their court case, the voters may need to decide on whether to do the Water Deal.  This is a complicated decision and presumably will be on the ballot this December.  In the meantime, the city will have to pass along at least an $.80 / $100 tax hike.  That’s assuming there’s not another tax hike on top of that to make up for money the State is taking away. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve come a long way since 2006 when very few of our candidates had web sites.  In this election cycle most of the 42 candidates for Mayor and City Council have web sites, email addresses and even FaceBook pages.  However there are some stragglers. Read the rest of this entry »

Trenton is a boosterish town.  It’s the kind of place where if a visitor said, “My, those buildings look grungy”, his host would say, “Oh no, that’s its patina”.

Ask any Trenton native and they’ll tell you how proud they are of the city, “I’m Trenton Proud”.

What?

We’ve done such a great job running the place that our industry has left town, our education level is among the lowest in the state and we’re on the verge of bankruptcy.  Yea for us! Read the rest of this entry »

How many of us have started industrial scale businesses that have gone on to produce great value and therefore great wealth? How many have started industrial companies that produce “green” products?

I suspect none.

I know plenty of entrepreneurs (some successful) but not one has started a successful industrial, much less “green”, company. One can argue that the U.S has regulated all industrial production green or otherwise out of the country. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Christmas, I wrote an article about how community spirit is a necessary and present ingredient for Trenton’s revitalization.

“Community spirit as an economic engine”

Beautiful Trenton is the best example of that spirit to date but there are problems.

Read the rest of this entry »

President Obama’s Attorney General must have little regard for the mostly black voters of Kinston, North Carolina.

Kinston is a quiet little city of 23,000 between Raleigh and the coast. I know many folks from Kinston (I’m a native North Carolinian) and have found them to have above average intelligence.

This wasn’t the same conclusion to which Attorney General Eric Holder arrived.

Kinston recently voted to adopt a non-partisan election process for its city council and mayoral elections, similar to Trenton’s. The theory is that this type of system prevents any one party from dominating elections. Read the rest of this entry »