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SIX WAYS YOU CAN HELP THE RU WOMEN'S CENTER

PUBLIC INVITATION TO THE NEW BRUNSWICK COMMUNITY

AN INVITATION TO THE MEMBERS OF THE NEW BRUNSWICK AND RUTGERS UNIVERSITY COMMUNITIES,

Specifically the

Residents of New Brunswick, whether homeowners or tenants or neither; Community leaders of every stripe; Students of Rutgers University, both living off-campus and on; Student Governments of Rutgers University; Rutgers University Administration, specifically President McCormick; Rutgers University Academic Departments and Deans; Rutgers University Board of Governors members who want transparency and accountability; RU Sustainable Coalition; Women’s Defense Coalition and Center; New Jersey Public Interest and Research Group (NJPIRG); Rutgers activist community; New Brunswick student governments; Citizen Action; and any other student or community organizations including church groups and food banks; AS WELL AS the local New Brunswick high school and elementary-school students, young people interested in basketball courts and swimming pools, teachers and staff, parents a nd any Parent-Teacher-Associations (PTAs), after-school-program staff, and anyone else concerned with the welfare of the New Brunswick in which we live, particularly:

BUILDING A COMMUNITY CENTER,

GETTING PUBLIC ACCESS CHANNELS,

REPEALING THE BAN ON FLYERS,

TO A PUBLIC DISCUSSION AT

CITY HALL

ON

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2nd AT 5PM

AND

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4th AT 7PM

As you may or may not know, we are facing a serious attack on justice in the current landscape of New Brunswick politics. It is unfortunate that in the midst of such tension within national politics, we must also suffer attacks from our own local government. These local injustices within the New Brunswick community have strong links to statewide political and business interests and are suspiciously reminiscent of tactics employed by the notorious, and recently-resigned, President of Rutgers University, Fran Lawrence. These issues hit many of us closer to home than we would like to imagine.

This is not an attack on the Democratic Party; this is an attack on an unchallenged-one-party system. And our local Democratic machine is not alone to blame; it is very well-connected to a variety of “special interests,” most notably, powerful players in the New Brunswick redevelopment game. By these players, I am, of course, primarily referring to Johnson & Johnson and their puppet—“DEVCO.” That such “redevelopment” only benefits a tight cabal of well-connected politicians, and is opposed by most of the community itself, is clearly demonstrated by the countless “DEVCO Please Play Fair” banners that can easily be spotted in the windows of local small businesses facing displacement in the name of “progress.” In the wake of the controversial tear down of the local Projects, New Brunswick residents and small businesses alike have been dealt very few options for relocation, if any at all. The result has been an entire population left with no clear place in a quickly transforming city.

In keeping with this process of selective transformation, student voices have been effectively silenced by an inability to vote on campus. The ongoing demand for on-campus polling places in our public university has never truly or adequately been answered. And although there have been limited victories in the struggle to be heard, as with the Tent State University Coalition’s successful efforts to finally provide strong opposition to Rutgers University’s rising tuition rates, students may unfortunately encounter a significant obstacle within their own administration unless it begins to help echo their concerns over community affairs and joins an albeit difficult fight to save a city on the verge of being taken away from its own people.

And many students are prepared for such a fight: the Community Empowerment Project (CEP), a mix of residents and students, has already been fighting for quite some time, but it cannot win alone. Recently, it has helped create three public initiatives forcing the City to either address several pressing public interests or allow the people to vote for themselves on the matters in a special election to be held in the spring. The public initiatives hope to make a reluctant city government:

(1) Create an independently-run Community Center which would solely be funded with the help of grant-assistance and public aid. The Center would hopefully be met with support by the Rutgers Administration and providing unique opportunities for Rutgers students to engage in out-of-the-classroom experiences such as refereeing basketball games for local youth or tutoring lower-income New Brunswick youth and adults. The Center would also contain the only New Brunswick swimming pool which would be available for public use, etc.

(2) Repeal the very notorious and unpopular flyer ban which would suppress, not only grassroots activism efforts, but the very ability for communication within the community; this includes any source of advertisement for local bands, help-wanted job/internship opportunities, independent media, House/Apartment-for-sale/rent signs, information about local police-brutality grievances, warnings about the well-reputed serial rapist, etc.

(3) Utilize our already-existent resources for a Public Access Channel which would serve the public in a host of ways – such as publicly-airing City Council Meetings and other public meetings, perhaps even those of the University student government and Board of Governors. Essentially, any public meeting that could or would take place before the public could be publicly aired for viewing. Aside from giving some measure of political accountability and transparency, this channel would serve as a unique tool for the public in airing their own programming; the possibilities are clearly endless.

And perhaps it is because these possibilities are endless, that I am concerned with the City Machine’s opposition to them. In the City’s very recent, seven month-late, report outlining plans for community center, they proposed spending an estimated eleven to fifteen million dollars. Although the claim is that this has been a work in progress, the timing of its release comes suspiciously on the heels of the public initiative forcing the issue. I cannot help but be concerned with where this money would be coming from, and ultimately, who would have control of the Community Center; the people who use it, or the private interests that fund it? As New Jersey newspapers indicate, city officials intend to utilize Rutgers University faciliti es such as gyms and fitness centers for public-use. This is a great idea. However, would such access entail creating an upscale-spa resort out of Rutgers facilities; one that requires an expensive membership to join? To add insult to injury, the City’s proposed location of the Community Center is completely inaccessible, unreachable by most methods of public transportation and too far for a walk. The City’s proposal represents the complete opposite of what the community wants. Any Community Center should be affordable, easily accessible to the public, and run by the people who use it; it is not meant to be an expensive health club—it is a public space for everyone to enjoy.

The public’s demands are not subject to negotiation and should be the City’s highest priority. Yet they are not: By placing the Heldrich Center, a massive hotel conference center, literally in the center of town, the City shows that it places the accommodation of outside private interests over the welfare of its residents, its children, and Rutgers University students. The City would have the Community Center placed near its one high school, an extremely remote location near the border of North Brunswick and an insurmountable distance for most residents. In this, the City shows remarkable gall considering the placement of the infamous “Recreation Park,” an Atlantis of New Brunswick heard of by few and seen by less. The City has a fairly extensive history of squashing anything that sounds like a “community center”: the YWCA pool and the social services building, once located in the center of town, have been razed in favor of a bank as part of DEVCO’s “Urban Renewal” plan; DEVCO and the City essentially pound home the message: “Build it and they won’t come.”

The public’s efforts are not as futile as the local government would have you believe; but help is needed if the people of New Brunswick and Rutgers University are to have a true Urban Renewal and Redevelopment Plan.