NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—Following a controversy last December that attracted the attention of the national media, Rutgers University will be cutting a check to a New Brunswick soup kitchen for $2,451.90.

The donation represents 734 meals that Rutgers students donated from their meal plans at the University’s four dining halls during the month of February.  For each donated meal “swipe,” Rutgers is donating $3.30 to Elijah’s Promise soup kitchen.

“I am honored to have met such great people in our quest to help feed the less fortunate here in New Brunswick,” said Charles Kratovil, founder of the Operation: Robin Hood (ORH) campaign.  “We will continue to find creative ways to give back to the community that has given us so much.”

The campaign began in December when ORH volunteers solicited donations of takeout meals at two Rutgers University dining halls.  The meals were immediately brought to needy people, at several locations throughout the city.

After learning of the campaign, Dining Services shut down the program by limiting students to only one takeout meal per visit.  The obvious over-reaction, combined with the involvement of Rutgers Police Department, who sided with the activists, garnered attention from the national media.

After controversy erupted, the University and activists agreed to a compromise allowing students and faculty with meal plans to donate guest meals (each plan includes 10 per semester) to the city’s only soup kitchen during February 2010.

The University-sanctioned drive was a huge success and saw an eight-fold spike in donations during the final week thanks to ORH volunteers who distributed fliers to raise awareness of the option to give.  Just 199 meals were donated during the first three weeks of the drive, but an overwhelming 535 were given during the last week of the campaign, including over 200 on the final day alone.

A secondary part of the December 15^th compromise with the University was the formation of a “Meal Plan Reform Committee,” the first in twelve years, charged with examining ways to make the offered meal plans less deceptive and more flexible.

Vice President of Student Affairs Gregory Blimling appointed the committee’s membership in January.  They met for the first time in a private, closed-door meeting Friday February 19^th.  Notes were taken but their distribution to the press or the public was explicitly prohibited.  Their next meeting is this Friday at 3pm.

“I am concerned why this crucial committee is not meeting in public. How is that possibly in the best interests of the users of these meal plans?” said Kratovil.

Recent Media Coverage:

Daily Targum: http://www.dailytargum.com/news/robin-hood-intiative-swipes-to-final-close-1.2168837

By now, Charlie Kratovil is a well-known figure in the New Brunswick community. His most recent attempts to bring grassroots change and “good” to New Brunswick have been gathering a lot of support, but some criticism as well. Johnsonville Press Editor in Chief Alex Giannattasio and Editor Grace Hong sat down for a conversation with Mr. Kratovil to get the inside scoop on what he’s been up to since the end of the Wards Campaign.

What follows is the full transcription of that hour and a half conversation. Do not ask how long it took to transcribe. We include it here, in it’s entirety, for the public record. For those completely unfamiliar with the issue, the entire interview provides an in-depth explanation of exactly what has gone on between Operation: Robin Hood and Rutgers Dining Services this past week. For those who are well acquainted with the issue, I would suggest using the question prompts, displayed in bold, as a guide for finding material of interest to you. Further, for those interested in a more speedy read of the overall piece, major quotes have been highlighted, and reading through these will provide a good glimpse at the interview as a whole.

Alex: Tell us about Operation: Robin Hood (O:RH)

Charlie: This whole O:RH was something I had always wanted to do since I came here six years ago as a freshman. I had a meal plan, I saw the system wasn’t really working, and I saw tremendous poverty in New Brunswick, and people who needed meals. It’s something that if I had the time to do then, I would’ve done, but I had neither the time nor the organizing skills to make it happen. So now that I’ve graduated and finished working on this two-year campaign, I wanted to finish off the decade looking back saying, “What can I give back?” because this New Brunswick/Rutgers community has given me so much. Well, l thought this was a great idea I‘ve had all along–and I’m not the first one I’m sure–certainly not by any stretch of the imagination. But with all these resources, all these volunteers who are just sitting around now that the election is over, along with other people who wouldn’t work on the wards campaign in a million billion years but would work on this, it gives them a chance to get plugged into the New Brunswick community. It brings the students and the non-student community a lot closer, and is just generally a good thing to do. So, that’s why we started it and it started off as a smashing success.

Alex: How’d you go about it?

Charlie: Real simple. We handed out handbills. Brower is a great setup because there is really one way in and one way out, and you can tell who is getting take out and who is not. So if you see someone who’s headed to take out, you say, “Hey, can you get two, give one to me, and we’ll take it right to the soup kitchen in New Brunswick.” People with extra meals loved the idea; people without extra meals still loved the idea, but obviously they couldn’t do it. The first day I gave out 100 flyers and we got 36 meals in an hour, just doing lunch at brower, one dining hall, in one hour. It shows that a lot of people have extra meals that they’re trying to burn, and that they want to give them to good cause.

Alex: And you brought the meals to…?

Charlie: Straight to the Elijah’s Promise.

Grace: You spoke with them beforehand?

Charlie: Yes. I didn’t want to get stuck in a situation where we had a bunch of food people thought was going to a soup kitchen not go to it. So I said, “We have some takeout meals donated by Rutgers students. Is that the type of thing you’d accept?” The answer was yes, so we brought in the meals. There was a tense moment when we popped open the thing…”Two cheeseburgers and fries, is this good?” “Perfect”. Well, they actually said “Let me check with the boss.” The boss said, “We’ll take it,” so we’re good. Later that night we had a bunch of nachos, which are probably something that they wouldn’t have taken, and also they were closed when we got there, so we just drove around and gave it out to people. Middlesex County Resource Center, The Ozanam Shelter, the train station…just generally places where people who might be hungry hang around. So we did that, and got rid of 30 meals that way, threw some subs in my fridge and brought them in the next day. After two days of doing this at two different dining halls, we got over 100 meals donated and delivered, either directly to people or to the soup kitchen, and the soup kitchen and the people were loving it. I mean, obviously, if someone walks up to you and asks you, “You want some nachos?” and you’re really hungry, then it’s like a dream come true. So it was an astounding success and I suppose the higher-ups at dining services found out just what this meant for them, and they flipped out. They absolutely lost their cool and crossed lines that they shouldn’t have crossed.

Alex: What happened and what did they do? And let’s discuss maybe why they were upset in the first place, and what brought them to do what they did. But first, what happened?

Charlie: Well, Director Sams came out and he asked to speak with me, so we went down to his office.

Alex: Date and time?

Charlie: This was Tuesday (Dec. 8), probably around 1:30pm. We had already gathered about thirty some meals and we were about to send them to the soup kitchen at 2PM. He said to me “Get your stuff, come downstairs, you’re talking to me.” And he basically started out the conversation by saying, “First of all, that’s a health hazard up there, food borne illness, blah blah blah, we’re going to confiscate the meals and destroy them.” In this case, food borne illness meaning time and temperature, that’s the standard here at Rutgers. So Director Sams says, “We’re going to take these meals and we’re going to destroy them.” I said, “No you’re not, those are not your meals, they were donated, I have a record of it.”

Alex: What record?

Charlie: We had everybody sign a little thing that had the time that you gave [your donation] and your Eden email and your name. That way when we went to drop it off–“Oh, when did these come in?” “These are from too long ago, we can’t give ‘em” or, “These are fresh, we can give ‘em.” That’s what I’m talking about in terms of health. Standards are time and temperature. For certain things like chicken or beef, there’s a certain amount of time that they can be without refrigeration or without proper temperature.

Alex: How’d you take care of the temperature?

Charlie: We delivered them while they were still hot. That day was probably the longest gap we had. We began taking the meals at noon, they were supposed to be at Elijah’s promise by two, but in the end they didn’t get there until 2:45 because of this whole scene. Basically, [Charlie Sams] said his piece, said “What you’re doing is inappropriate, it’s unauthorized and you’re not allowed to solicit in the dining halls.” And I said “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that was the policy. We won’t solicit in the dining halls anymore, we’ll take it outside.” And he said, “Well, yeah, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re still confiscating the meals,” and I said, “No you’re not,” and he said, “Well, then I’m gonna get the police,” I said “Please, get the police here” and he picked up the phone, “I need a patrol man here.” He was under the impression that he was gonna have me arrested and have other people arrested who were involved in this. I think he really thought that because he’s a higher up–he’s one of the top guys in the Rutgers admnistration–that this sort of thing would automatically go his way.

Alex: The Director of Dining Services a top guy in the Rutgers Administration?

Charlie: Well, yeah, he reports directly to Greg Blimling. He figures he owns the building and the area around it, that it’s just his turf, so he can call up the cops and they work for him. I beg to differ: since these meals were donated already, and they were paid for. They’re not his to take, certainly not if he’s going to throw them in the garbage. So I said, “This meeting is over,” and he calls the police and I start moving the food out of the lobby and onto the steps. We got all the food out there…he actually sent some of his employees to go out there and grab the food back, which had already left the building, and bring it back into the building presumably to destroy it, so we stood guard over whatever food was left. He took about half, about fifteen meals, and there were like 20-25 meals leftover. We stood there guarding it until the cops came. Then it was this whole big thing, and of course the cops initially said, “Yeah, you’re gonna have to let them take the food and just move along,” and I said, “Actually no, whoever comes out here and picks up this food and brings it back into the building, I’m going to file a police report against them because they’re stealing food that has been entrusted to me. It was given to me under the impression that I’m taking it to the soup kitchen, so you’re not taking this food from me.” The cops agreed that they were not going to carry the food, they weren’t gonna touch the food, they quite frankly thought what we were doing was a good thing, and that Charlie Sams was being a little irate. We spoke very calmly with the police, we explained our position, and [the police] would go inside and talk to Charlie Sams for 20 minutes or a half hour, and come out and call the supervisors and the sergeant came out and they talked to him for a while, came out, and said, “Yeah, you’re gonna have to leave the food” and I said, “Nope, we’re going to file a police report against whoever takes it.” And he says, “Give me another thirty minutes.” He comes out 30 minutes later and says, “You can take the food.” And so after an hour stand-off in front of Brower Commons, we finally get to put the food in the car and take it to Elijah’s Promise. That night, we did the whole operation at Brower again with no problems. At Neilson we actually did get kicked out. This time, it was students, current students, who were in the building.

Grace: They were kicked out and told they weren’t allowed to come back into the take-out lines?

Charlie: Not only that, but they were told they couldn’t even canvass outside the building because it has the little ramp leading up to the take-out area, and they were told, “No, this is Rutgers property you gotta keep walking, you gotta get off of Rutgers property”—students, mind you!

Alex: They go to school here!

Charlie: It was just outrageous behavior…so the next day, we came back..

Grace: Why do you think Dining Services employees willingly took part in this fight with students?

Charlie: People associate themselves with a team. They’re like, “Oh, students are trying to take from us, this is our paychecks, this is our money, this is our budget,” and so they feel like they have to act. It’s funny how predictable it is—people end up acting in this horrible way, stealing food that’s been donated and throwing it in the garbage. It’s just like—what would make someone do that, you know? And it’s similar to the machine in New Brunswick politics, the Rutgers machine, that protects the status quo and essentially protects the resources that keep the system going–this scam of a system–that forces people to buy too many meals, and then the profit just kind of vanishes at the end of the semester. And so, in the end we came back the next day, we were right outside on the steps like we had agreed to, and we were having just as much success. We weren’t catching everybody who was getting take-out, we were wasting fliers on people who weren’t going to get take out, but in the end, we were still getting a couple of meals donated every minute, and so they called the cops back. The cops come, they keep pushing us further down the steps, and they say, “Actually, maybe just stay on the sidewalks for now,” and then we found out that they had changed the policy from two to one [take-out meal per student]. Everyone was really pissed, obviously. People were coming out saying, “I wanna give you a meal but they won’t let me down there.” They say even if the line’s short, you can’t get back in line and get another meal, they said strict orders from the manager, only one meal per student and you can’t come back. That effectively hindered our entire operation to the point where we were getting 5-10% of the donations that we would’ve gotten if they had kept the policy the way it’s been for years. My understanding, or my logical presumption is that first they thought the cops really were going to arrest us because they said so, and when that didn’t work, they said, “What the hell are we gonna do now? We gotta change the policy to just one,” and in the end, in exploring how to change that policy back, we basically exposed that the Rutgers dining system only plans for you to use 60-65% of your meals—that was the figures I was quoted by the Assistant Vice President yesterday. The rest are called “phantom meals” that never get cooked.

Alex: Quoted by who? Assistant vice president of what?

Charlie: Delia Pitts. She’s of student affairs, Greg Blimling’s underling. I spoke with her yesterday at length and she was very helpful, but ultimately the only reason I was there was to get dining services to change their policy back, and she informed me that that was not going to happen this semester, and maybe never. She said maybe I should focus my energy on something else, like collecting cans from the dorms, and I said “That’s great, I’ll look into that for sure,” but in the end, this dining services policy is the problem.

Alex: Go on about that, these “phantom meals” and what she told you.

Charlie: Well yeah, she basically just said, “I don’t know if you care about this, but dining services says that they only anticipate 60-65% of the meals actually being used,” and she tried to play it off as some kind of good thing about the system. “See, the advantage is you only have to pay for 170 meals, but if you’re really hungry you can eat all 250.” She made it seem like you’re getting a discount. These meals are already $7-16 a piece depending upon your plan, and I know for a fact that those takeout meals cannot cost them that much to make. Eating in the dining hall, $7-16 is a fair price for an unlimited amount of food. But to use two of your swipes, which can be as much as $32 to get four burgers, or three burgers and a hot dog, or something, is just insane. It’s like Giant stadium prices, it’s like a concession stand more than it is like a valuable meal plan. And they’re telling me these meals are actually coming at a huge discount, that this is actually much cheaper than they would be if we actually followed a real system where one meal was actually paid for by somebody, that these whole phantom meals entitles people to somehow get away with not paying for using the full price. But if everyone were to use the full thing, then the whole system falls apart, is basically what I was told yesterday by high ranking people in the Rutgers administration, and quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that’s on them. They’ve been the ones who’ve allowed this system to get so out of hand that basically it doesn’t add up.

Alex: Do you know more about how this system came about, when it started?

Charlie: I do not know anything about that, I just know that since I’ve been here you could get two takeout meals and that was sort of the best way to eat away at your meal plan and even with that, it’s almost impossible to finish a 210 meal plan as a freshman. People have 150 meals left over. I had over 100 meals left over at the end of my first year.

Alex: I’m confused as to how this system functions. What’s the value here, to having so many meal points? Is it simply put that they’re taking whatever excess profit they can and using it for….

Charlie: Other things? Well, here’s what I think. I think it has to do with the housing, because they tie the meal plan to housing. They say, “If you’re gonna live in a dorm, you’ve gotta get at least 105 meals, and if you’re a freshman you gotta get 210, no choice in the matter.” If you want to live in the dorms, that’s the price to pay. And they use that. It basically makes the prices of the housing look cheaper than it really is, because you think you’re paying for the meal plan separately, when you’re really not using the full meal plan. You’re essentially just making a donation,, or an extra tax that you’re paying to Rutgers. It also makes the meals look cheaper if you say, “You’re getting a thousand meals,” when you know full well you’re not going to use them. It makes the rate look cheaper, makes it look like “Oh, I’m only paying 10-15 dollars a meal.” if they actually show you what it’s probably going to look like, it would look like you’re paying $25-35 a meal, and you know you can go to a gourmet fancy downtown restaurant in New Brunswick and eat for that price. You could eat for that kind of price every day, every meal, and actually save money and have more freedom to say “Well today, I’m going to eat here, and tomorrow I’m going to eat there.” With the meal plan, they lock you in, you’ve already paid for the meals, and they have a vested interest in you not using them all. So, that’s what we’ve exposed here, that they actually will actively try to prevent you from finishing your meal plan.

Alex: “Exposed” might be a little strong, I mean, I’ve known about this since I was a freshman, and everybody who is a student here knows about this. The question is why they do it, and what do they do with the excess money.

Charlie: I really don’t know, I think housing has something to do with it, and also just in general it makes the meals look cheaper when in reality you’re paying an exorbitant price per meal.

Alex: To me, I think this could be the start of a more in-depth investigation. It’s a real issue. People have talked about this many times. But nobody’s done anything about it, nobody’s campaigned about it, nobody’s canvassed for it, so it’s a good thing to look into.

Charlie: In the end, what I was hoping to achieve with this was not just to feed hungry people this winter, but to make it easier for students to use their unused meals, and create a long term solution for that. Not just to have volunteers collecting food and driving it to the soup kitchen every day, but to force the university to have some sort of better way. If you go to the University of Cincinnati, it’s a very simple process. In the very beginning of the semester, you pick a charity, and at the end of the semester, whatever meals you have left over, they donate a portion of that, about 25% of the meals left over, so if you have 100 meals, they’re going to take 25 meals put a dollar value on that and write a check to the charity of your choice.

Alex: Wow, that’s great.

Charlie: Right? And that’s just one university. In Rutgers New Brunswick, we have not only the dining halls refusing to put the leftovers to people, but if you eat a tray at Brower and you leave half a burger on the tray, that food is chopped up and given to pigs on Cook Campus. All the hundreds of thousands of leftovers every day, at Brower, Neilson, and Busch, and Tillet—it gets turned to food for pigs. Rutgers Camden, on the other hand, they give it to soup kitchens. So you have to think, there must be a better option for us. The end goal is to get the University to adopt some sort of better system. Right now, the system is five people who are on the RUSA allocations board part of the student government, go through every charity, or every student group that has put in a charity, an narrow it down to two. And they say, “These are the two charities this year,” and then they put it to the entire RUSA government, and those elected people who, I’ll say right now, are elected in a way that I don’t like, but they’re elected nevertheless, those people get to pick between the two, as to which one is the better charity to give the donations to, and then students are limited to donating one of their leftover meals, and in exchange for that donation, the university makes a two dollar contribution to that charity, which this year, as you probably know, is the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and it was very controversial. I mean, quite frankly, I would much rather have my donation go to something I could see. And it’s a really politically divisive issue, and so if you’re a student who, for whatever reason, disagrees with the charity that is chosen, you’re out of luck.

Grace: So, are you suggesting that now that you’ve discovered this weakness in the system for Rutgers, this is something you have a vested interest in solving in the coming period of time? Is this a new project that you see yourself being involved in now that you’re done with the Wards campaign, and since Operation: Robin Hood cannot continue?

Charlie: That was the plan. First of all, EON is not done. I’m still on the executive council of EON, and EON is going to continue to do good work. There is also a recount on the fourteenth, though I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Nevertheless, EON is alive and well. As far as this operation, it was specifically listed from the beginning that that was the end goal, to get Rutgers to come up to examine what the best way is to give people an option to put their extra meals to good use in our community, in New Brunswick and Piscataway. Right now, there is literally no option for that, except for Operation:Robin Hood. It’s the only way that people could in any way help the local community with their unused meals.

Grace: Do you think that the name of the operation may have impacted the way the administration perceives the group?

Charlie: I mean, I will agree that the naming of the program certainly could be construed as oppositional. But basically, the way I saw it, there are fortunate people in New Brunswick–usually Rutgers students who are getting a degree and have a meal plan paid for in advance, and they can eat whenever the want, and get two take-outs whenever they want–and there’s a lot of really less fortunate people in New Brunswick. The name “Robin Hood” might imply “stealing from the rich and giving to the poor,” when really it’s actually a donation being made out of someone’s heart, out of good will.

Grace: Well, you’re stealing from Rutgers, technically. That’s what Rutgers would be thinking. It’s the school that would be the “rich” in the equation, not the students, since they’re not the ones losing money.

Alex: Is the dining hall a private corporation?

Charlie: I believe it’s an internal operation, part of the Rutgers system. But, I don’t think Rutgers is rich. It’s pretty clear that the university is in dire straights financially. And I think that a lot of people are [in dire straights] all over New Jersey, and I think that something that really annoys students is when their parents are already paying to put them through college, and now they’re going to have to go home over winter break and their parents are going to ask them, “How many meals did you use?” and they’re gonna have to say, “I had a 120 meals left over,” or something, and they’re going to feel bad. The parents are going to feel as though they lost money and they’re gonna get into a fight about it, and it’s all because of a scam that Rutgers Dining Services has been pulling on students since I’ve been here. In the end, it’s about having the fortunate help the less fortunate and it’s about actually making a totally legitimate donation without breaking any rules, and we were just a vessel to help that happen. And that’s why we used the name Operation: Robin Hood. Like I said when I started this thing, it’s just an operation. It’s just a way to accomplish something good with a simple plan, raise awareness and make a point, and show that we care. And then move on to try to expand this into a greater framework for helping the needy in New Brunswick, period. We wantto mak e it a lasting instrument for positive change in this city, not just a one-off operation. That’s why we called it Operation: Robin Hood, and we see where it takes us. And then next year, when the students get back, hopefully we’ll have a huge base of support and we’ll have the right tools and the right knowledge to make real changes to the policy in the university and in the city to help needy people.

Alex: Why do you think the University or the individuals within the U. decided to challenge you on this? Is it just a matter of turf, or something? Because student organizations regularly do all sorts of soliciting and canvassing in and outside of Brower. So why specifically would they come after you?

Charlie: It’s all about the Benjamins. It’s all money, it’s very simple. Dozens of different groups solicit every week in front of Brower commons, some with permits, some without, nobody really questions them or says, “Get off of here, this isn’t your area.” People are out there wit mega-phones, blasting music—there’s all kind of solicitation going on outside of brower.

Alex: Traditionally that area outside of Brower is considered the Free Speech zone, isn’t it?

Charlie: What Dean Brim told me yesterday is that free speech does not include solicitaton–you’re not allowed to ask anybody to do anything. You can tell people what you think, but you can’t ask them for something. So, nevertheless, I put in the paperwork yesterday (Dec. 9) through a valid student organization for us to get the right to use Brower Commons every day from now until winter break from 11am till Midnight. We have that approval. The county board of health came out there and checked out the whole situation and said that it was sufficient. We’re taking food to the soup kitchen quick enough, we’re taking records of when the food is donated, and in general it’s nothing to be concerned about. So we have approval for everything now, those are just little roadblocks they threw in the way hoping to trip us up, hoping we’d give up, you know? They send the cops there the first day–lesser people would’ve backed down and just said, “Yeah, take the meals, we’re done here, we don’t want any trouble,” but we stood up for what was right. We said, “These meals were donated, we’re not going to stop this, this is a good cause.” And the next day, they bring the County Board of Health in, thinking that they’re going to be able to act on this, but they gave us the green light, and then they sent Dean Brim out there and tell us we’re not allowed to solicit anywhere on Rutgers property without his approval, and then we put in the paperwork to make that happen, and they’re left with no choice but to change the policy that’s lasted for years here. All because of one thing, and that’s money. Dining services tried to shut down an anti-hunger campaign for one simple reason – to save money. It’s not because they don’t like me, or they don’t like what we’re doing, or they don’t like the name of the program; it’s because it’s all about their bottom line, and they cannot afford this, or at least they don’t think they can.

Grace: Right, like we were discussing earlier, they don’t actually have all the food available. Everything comes in a pre-ordered quantity, and if there’s a spike, then they run out of food quicker and they’d have to have more money to buy more food than their initially budgeted amount. In which case, if you’re donating 50-100 meals a day for two weeks, you can be pretty sure they were not prepared for that kind of increase in consumption of their food. So this operation is on hold right now?

Charlie: Yeah, I think that under the current system it’s gonna be very hard for us to get enough donations to make it worth our while to be standing out their with fliers and driving the food there to drop off one or two meals to the soup kitchen, so…

Alex: As long as there making it a one meal per person policy…

Charlie: Right, it’s going to be very difficult. Now as exams start to finish, people do have that one or two days where they really have nothing on their plate, literally they just have nothing to do. So hopefully, we can organize one or two days next week at a couple of places where we’re just gonna get the word out massively via the internet and fliering saying, “Just come during this time, and get one take out and donate that, and then we’ll drive it.” Obviously we’re going to be looking into collective action since we have so many people who care about this and are outraged at the behavior of these people. We’re going to be organizing collective action, maybe to try and get this guy to resign, obviously to try and get McCormick to overturn the policy change, but also maybe come up with a better policy long term that’s going to be sustainable so that this doesn’t happen again–where these guys are caught with their pants down. And also just in general, collective action to raise awareness about this problem. It’s really two problems, that’s what started this whole thing. There’s the problem with the students being overcharged and scammed and forced to buy more meals than they’re going to use and then there’s the problem, that’s more serious, of people going to bed hungry.

Grace: So you guys have a meeting tonight. What do you hope to accomplish at this meeting?

Charlie: It’s going to be very interesting because there are going to be a lot of people there who I’ve never met, and I don’t know what they know about it–it’s probably just from the Targum or our facebook group, but I would anticipate we’re gonna have a lot of people there tonight who are PO’ed at the administration and the dining services. We’re going to have to see what it is they want to do because I can’t just show up with a plan and say, “Here’s what we’re doing guys, follow me.” I mean I could, but I want to see. I know somebody’s already organizing a petition, I know other people are researching into the facts of the situation and trying to expose more about this basic injustice as far as the students are concerned. But in the end, I’m sure we’ll all kind of speak with one voice and move in the same direction, and I hope we could really accomplish some changes. I know getting all the press today was probably very helpful, in the Targum, and I’m sure Johnsonville Press will be getting the word out, and the Home News Tribune has yet to write about it [they since have], but I’ve written an open letter to McCormick, and like I said, I’ll give that over to you guys, and hopefully he’ll take some action. He’s made hunger his main issue and that’s why I thought this program was going to succeed.

Alex: Why didn’t you talk to McCormick at the beginning?

Charlie: I haven’t been able to find McCormick yet. The only place I was able to find him was in the bathroom yesterday, but I didn’t think it was an appropriate place or time to approach him. I was pondering sending an email to RAH (Rutgers against Hunger) but I honestly didn’t know who was involved in that besides President McCormick, and this is just kind of a grassroots thing, it’s slapped together. I just said “Make a flier” and there it is, it doesn’t even say “Operation: Robin Hood” on it, this is just “flying by the seat of our pants” organizing. We’re just trying to do good as quick as we can since there’s not much time left. We had to get this off the ground. It would’ve been great to have RAH’s support but in the end, the same things that they’re saying right now, whatever they’re saying right now, all the excuses that they’re making, all of them– “the meals are pre-discounted” – or whatever way they spin it, they would’ve said the same thing if I had gone to them and put it through the “proper channels” which are two words I’ve heard way too much of the past three days. “Proper channels,” which I’ve even heard to refer to the garbage– “the food has to go through the proper channels,” “we’re gonna let the food go back to them and they’re going to put it through the proper channels.” Nevertheless, if this whole idea had been put through the “proper channels,” Charlie Sams and dining services would’ve said the same things he’s saying in the newspaper today, basically saying they can’t allowed it because they don’t have the resources to let students do what they want with their meals. And if everybody got all their meals, they would collapse, the whole system would fall apart, That’s really not a good system. They would’ve just said the same thing they said to me yesterday, “You should try to collect cans from the dorms, there’s probably going to be a lot of cans at the end of the semester that are going to be sitting around.” We would’ve entered into sort of a negotiations or discussion about it and that discussion would still be going on today, and it would still be going on in January, and it would still be going on in February, and in the end, maybe they would say, “Well, we’ll let you donate two meal swipes in stead of one at the end of the year, to whatever charity that the student government chooses,” and that would be their idea of compromise. In the end, I wanted to help people in New Brunswick. Like I said, the decade is coming to an end, and we’re all looking back—well, what did we accomplish? What did we do, what did we forget to do, what did we want to do that never happened? And this was something that I’d always wanted to do, and I think it really gives people a chance to do one good deed this year, not that they haven’t done others, but looking back at how much you take from the community, how much good stuff came your way this year, and yet that there’s still people who didn’t get that much good stuff this year, maybe give something back, just one hour. And really, if all the people that said they were going to volunteer just gave one or two hours over these two weeks, we would’ve been able to do an immense amount of good in New Brunswick.

Grace: Were you, or are you, aware of any of the other legitimate organizations that have been trying to fight hunger in this area?

Charlie: Yeah, I mean all these organizations are really in need right now because there are so many more hungry people than there were just even a month or two ago—Elijah’s Promise, I know NJPIRG always has a hunger and homelessness campaign that I’ve been in touch with very closely, and just in general, there’s a few different churches that have food pantries in the churches, and I’ve been talking to people who organize those that are actually working to try to make a new food pantry in the basement of the church right on College Ave, where we’ve had our fundraisers and stuff. That’s their initiative, they want to turn it into that, but I was helping them clean it up, and by January that should be up and running, so like, it’s not just like a “Fuck you Rutgers,” kind of thing. We really are committed to trying to make a lasting change in New Brunswick.

Alex: Yours is a political movement, as opposed to all the other alternative anti-hunger movements in the area. There are tons of groups working on hunger, that if you felt obliged to help feed the hungry just for that reason, you could go through those “channels”. But you have an ulterior motive here, which is also to instigate change in the dining services.

Charlie: You’re 100% right. We are a political movement, and I’ve been trained in that whole school of thought and organizing, and I saw this as a way to kind of shed light on how the system isn’t working for anybody except for the people at the top. It was a good way to do good, and demonstrate that at the same time, because like I said, machines are very predictable, and that’s the disgusting thing about it. These people, who are good people, find themselves stealing food that’s about to go to hungry people and throwing it in the garbage for no other reason than their job or the role that they play in the structure. That’s the type of thing that we unfortunately exposed, and I was hoping we wouldn’t expose it. I was hoping that President McCormick would stand up for us and say, “Yeah, these guys are doing a good thing, we’ll find the money somewhere else and we’ll pay for the extra food, and we’ll make it happen.” I mean, Rutgers Against Hunger has already done great work and I wanted to join their cause.

Alex: No you didn’t though. If you did, you would have joined Rutgers Against Hunger, instead of doing this.

Charlie: Well no, their cause is my cause—it’s the same cause. They’ve had six meeting, I haven’t been at any of those six meetings in the past year, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the same goals. The people who work on that thing, including President McCormick, do want the same things that I want. I just have a specific angle on New Brunswick, I approach this from a New Brunswick angle. I cleared it with Elijah’s Promise, I said, “will you take food if I can get you food?” and I said to the students—I didn’t clear it with the administration but I cleared it with the students—I said, “You think this could be the type of thing that would work? Would you volunteer for this type of thing? Do you think we could actually get students to get what they paid for and put it to a good cause?” And people said yes, so I organized it, and I was hoping that the university would be almost forced to support it because there were so many people who cared, because of the hard times this year, etcetera, etcetera, but right now the powers that be are actively fighting it.

Grace: Well, thanks for talking about this operation, but you also told us that EON is alive and well, and you’re still organizing, so what’s EON up to, and what does EON’s future looking like?

Charlie: We, right now, are trying to transition into the next phase of our existence. We were very passionate and very focused on the Wards Question. Obviously that was the reason that the organization was created–to advocate and win wards. And we came very close; there’s a recount, like I said, on the 14th, but I’m not sure if that will be the end of it, or if there will be a contest to the election, but with that said, we aren’t only focused on wards now. We have an immense, broad, swath of things that people are doing. But because we had all invested so much, 110% of our energy, into the wards thing, now that we’re free and able to take a week off and sit back, we each kind of want to go into a different direction, and that’s a good thing. That we’re all still together as one family, but that we all have different things we’re working on. I’m working on an anti-hunger initiative with Rutgers students and the New Brunswick community. But we’re also working to expand a mentorship program. Martha [Guarnieri] is working very hard to basically try and get more Rutgers students to help in the public schools in New Brunswick, and I think that, though I’m not sure if EON will be involved, I’m sure that where they will stand is in favor, but I’m pretty sure that someone is going to put a question on the ballot about changing the way that the school board is elected, or rather, making the school board be elected instead of handpicked by the mayor. And that could be on the ballot November 2010, and I’m sure EON would stand in support of that because we’re a democratic organization that supports democracy. I’m not sure if EON will be sponsoring that, I know there’s a parents group that is getting very active called PLACE. One of the elected committee people, Yolanda Baker, started that, and she’s trying to get parents involved. That’s probably going to be an issue that is big in the mayoral campaign and just in general. It’ll be a referendum. I know there’s another group of people who kind of were tangentially involved in the Ward campaign, who are organizing to put a question on the ballot about de-prioritizing marijuana as the lowest priority crime for police to look for in New Brunswick. That would be Avi Scher, who’s in the student government. He sort of started that whole thing and they’ve got a totally legal petition it seems, and he’s out getting signatures to put that on the ballot for November 2010, or actually I think they might want to get a special election on that one. I think that you know a lot of people in our movement are working on student issues, student government, there’s a whole big discussion…

Alex: You’re referring to the “Student Union” thing?

Charlie: Right, that’s exactly what a lot of our people are focused on right now, is winning incorporation for the student government.

Alex: That’s a lot of stuff going on.

Charlie: Yeah, and these are all things that are going on, it’s part of a movement, some of it is through EON, some of it is not.

Alex: What you have done is empowered, to use your own title, a large population of people in New Brunswick to get political active.

Charlie: Right, and that’s really cool.

Alex: And now you can see the cascade of events that will result from that.

Charlie: Yeah. In general what I’ve been doing is trying to be more involved in city hall, because there are all these various little boards and commissions–the traffic commission, the rent control board, the zoning board, the planning board, the friends of the public library, the environmental commission–all these important bodies that make a lot of decisions just sort of amongst themselves and nobody ever goes to these meetings, nobody ever really voices their opinion. But I’m trying to get in there and get to know these guys and find out what streets they are paving this year, what sidewalks are in most need of repair, how the new street signs are going to go up, whether they are coming along at the right pace, is the weather effecting it—these kinds of little things.

Alex: Sort of keeping them on their toes…

Charlie: Exactly. Now that the election’s over, these guys have a job to do, and so do we. And for us to only be focused on elections would be an error. Elections are a tactic to win things that you want to deliver to your constituents, to people. But the fact of the matter is, this election was decided by 82 votes. So the people on the city council, just like if the mayor hands them a law and says, “Pass this,” we can hand them a law, and say “pass this” and there’s a good chance that they will if it’s a good law because they know that we represent half the city, that we have half the city behind us. And these people, if they want to be re-elected, are going to have to respond to our concerns. I’ve already noticed, especially with the unfortunate death of George Coleman on Route 18, that the city council has been much more respectful and just in general, responsive to what we’re saying to them, rather than just saying “bah, these guys will be gone, we don’t need to worry about them.” They’re actually saying, “Okay these guys are here to stay, we’re going to have to work with them if we want to survive and remain in politics.” And so that’s what I’m trying to do in addition to the hunger thing, in addition to all these other things. But what I want to do is keep these guys on their toes and make sure they’re doing what’s best and bring our ideas as a group to them. Because the election is over, it’s not about “well, who’s ideas are better?” it’s about, “We both have ideas, let’s get together and put that to the good of the city,” instead of going back and forth about why what they’re doing is wrong and what we’re doing is right and vice versa. Now it’s time to work together. That’s what we’re doing right now.

Grace: Awesome.

Charlie: We’ll be having a convention. I’m not sure if it’s going to be EON or Coalition for Democracy, but we’ve always said for this 2010 election coming up, we will let the people of New Brunswick decide who the organization supports, so there will be a convention, probably at a school in NB, and any city resident, even if you can’t vote you can still come and undocumented people would be included, and you’d get to vote for who you think the mayor should be, and who you think the two council candidates should be, and everybody who puts themselves in that convention will sign a pledge that they’re not going to run against the victors of the convention if they lose.

Alex: Do you still have mayoral ambitions?

Charlie: It’s been something that I’ve said I’m going to do, and I’ll be honest, it is my dream, but we will see where the next decade takes us.

Alex: You might be a little green for this election at this point…

Charlie: Well, I mean, I don’t know about that, I just think that I don’t have to decide yet whether I’m throwing my hat into the ring. I want to see who else wants to throw their hat into the ring; I want to see if I think I’m the best candidate. I’ve always said as far as the people I know, and people involved in the town, I did think I was the best candidate, and we’ll see if that’s still the case when it all shakes out and people decide what their ambitions are. But I do have the ambitions, that’s for sure, and I think if I don’t run for mayor in 2010, I might run for city council in 2010. There are a lot of options and there’s always the option that I wouldn’t run for anything. I do love being involved and I’ve managed to campaign for fifty different people and I wasn’t one of them. And that was probably the most fun I’ve had all year helping these people who were new to politics learn how to actually represent their community and help out. I do enjoy being a part of these movements regardless of whether it’s me on the line or what else we’re supporting, if what we’re supporting is the best for the city. I love New Brunswick, that’s the bottom line, so I’m not sure if I’ll run, but it’s definitely an option.

————

Follow up questioning after Thursday’s Meeting:

————

Grace: We were interested in knowing what the results were of Thursday’s Meeting?

Charlie: Yeah, we had a few people there and we discussed what we thought was the best way to do the most good in the next week. So what we’re going to be doing is organizing some kind of direct action this week to try to get dining services to change, or restore their old policy, and also make a real commitment to fighting hunger locally. So whatever that commitment is, in exchange for that, we would cease our operation. If they could donate a certain number of meals a day to Elijah’s Promise, or allow students one meal swipe per day to Elijah’s Promise or something, that will actually make a difference in the community, and also obviously restore the policy about takeout to what it was because there’s no reason to punish everyone for a few people in the student body and alumni who wanted to do good in the community.

Grace: What do you mean by “direct action” though? What kind of direct action do you plan on taking this week?

Charlie: Well, what we’re going to do is basically get together and pay President McCormick a visit and you know, ask for a meeting with him, and basically try and rectify this situation in some way that satisfies both parties. It’s going to be Tuesday at 2PM and we’re going to get together at Scott Hall 123.

Grace: How many people are you expecting?

Charlie: I have no idea, but I think there a lot of people – everyone with a meal plan right now is definitely upset or pissed off because they just basically lost a big chunk of their meal plan or, what used to be considered theirs, just basically got taken from them. So they’re all very angry, and the people without meal plans are supportive of what we’re doing and want to see some real attempt from the university to fight hunger locally.

Grace: Are you aware of any broad opposition to you in the student body as well?

Charlie: I am unaware of any “broad opposition,” I’m aware of a Facebook group, is that what you’re suggesting?

Alex: Well, there are a couple of Facebook groups, right?

Charlie: Yeah, there are. We have a Facebook group that’s got 750 people in it. I know there’s a much bigger one that an old housemate of mine started, and that one has like, 4.000 members. I joined the other one, the one that was spreading lies about me and I’m now banned from that one, so I can’t even tell you how many people are in that one.

Grace: Yes, that was actually another question I had for you. There have been rumors going around that you have been paid of by Elijah’s Promise—and I’m assuming that this is the group called “Corruption in the Dining Hall—Please, get it Right,”–they’re the ones suggesting that you were paid off? Somebody else also suggested that you were somehow making money off of the donations you had collected. Is that in any way true or is that just criticism that has gone awry?

Charlie: I don’t know what it is, but I’ll be honest, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know how I would be making money by giving food to the needy. The soup kitchen would not pay for those meals. There’s really no way to make money unless I just went to a corner and started selling them on the corner, but I didn’t do that, I gave them out and I donated them to a soup kitchen. I actually think it’s really offensive that somebody who is actually spending their time volunteering doing good work is going to get accused of making a profit when it’s just the opposite. I could be making money, but I’m deciding not to, and instead spending my time giving back. It’s really just outrageous, and really not even worth responding to. I think that it’s without merit, and it’s slander.

Alex: Well, those allegations come from anonymous parties for one thing, so its hard to sort it out at all, right?

Charlie: Right, there’s no citation.

Alex: There’s no citation; the people who said it apparently didn’t want to be quoted. However, those people are purportedly inside Elijah’s Promise, so the question becomes were you, or any of your volunteers compensated in any way for the activities that you engaged in? I’m not saying that you made money or not, or anything, all I’m asking is, did money change hands?

Charlie: Good question. No money ever changed hands. We drove food that had been donated within a pretty short amount of time. We drove it to the soup kitchen and delivered it – we signed in a log, it’s called a donation log, and presumably that donation log is still there and has records of all except one of our deliveries. I know one time the log was full, so I just couldn’t fill it out. But in the end, money never changed hands; it’s without real factual basis as to why it would even change hands. It’s a soup kitchen, they accept donations, sometimes they were accepting multiple donations from different groups and different types of donations, but money never changes hands. So to assume that it does without real concrete evidence is alarming really, and without a factual basis for why money would be changing hands. ]]> http://johnsonvillepress.com/an-in-depth-look-operation-robin-hood-and-charlie-kratovil/feed/ 7 http://johnsonvillepress.com/eon-press-release-election-update/ http://johnsonvillepress.com/eon-press-release-election-update/#comments Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:17:53 +0000 Alex G http://johnsonvillepress.com/?p=833 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Saturday, November 7, 2009
Gap closes further in ward election
Accepted ballots yield 81 yes votes

New Brunswick, NJ—Commissioners for the Middlesex County Board of Elections announced the unofficial count of provisional ballots Saturday morning in New Brunswick’s hotly contested municipal referendum.

The referendum question, if approved by voters, would change the way the City Council is elected to a ward-based system.

Ultimately, of the ballots accepted by the board at a public hearing yesterday, 81 were cast in favor of the question and 47 were cast against, narrowing the gap in the race to 82 votes.

The Coalition says the election is not by any means over until voters can be sure their voice was heard, including provisional or absentee ballots that were rejected in error.

“We want everyone’s vote to be counted and we will explore all avenues to ensure everyone’s vote counts in this important election, including a thorough recount if necessary.” said Martin Perez, spokesperson for the Coalition.

The unofficial tally of votes is currently 2,474 no to 2,392 yes.

10/30/09
Alex Giannattasio and Matia Guardabascio interviewing Martha Guarnieri and Charlie Kratovil of Empower Our Neighborhoods:

Alex: We’re coming down to the home stretch on the Wards Campaign. You guys nervous?

Martha: Nope. We’ve got ‘em. We got the votes, they’re there.  All the hard work we’ve done over the last few years allows us to identify our voters by name, so we know our voters at this point.

Charlie: Nope. We’re winning right now, we’ve got ‘em on the run. When we say we know our voters, we mean we know their names and addresses and phone numbers and we’ve talked to them before and they’ve told us they’re going to vote yes. All we have to do is remind them to do it. We ran a real grassroots campaign.

Alex: That’s one thing that I wanted to talk about so lets start there. What are the main demographics in New Brunswick? Who are the registered voters that you’re speaking to and where are they located?

Martha: The big populations for us are the student population, which is huge, the black population, which is getting smaller and smaller, and the growing Latino population. And then there are old, white homeowners, and I guess younger white homeowners in certain parts of town, which are usually people who work for the city. Among people who are “Yes [for wards] Voters”, the two biggest populations that are going to bring us the votes are students and Latinos, which makes sense because they are two of the strongest parts of our coalition.

Charlie: And they’re also the two most disadvantaged, underrepresented groups in New Brunswick

Matia: That’s the Coalition for Democracy?

Martha: That’s right, EON is essentially a lot of students, and the Latino Leadership Alliance is a lot of Latinos, and these two are among the strongest groups in the Coalition, in addition to other community allies.

Alex: In which wards are those two bases–Latinos and students–mainly located?

Charlie: Students are located in primarily two different wards: ward six and ward two. Ward two is Cook/Douglass, Ward six is Rutgers Campus.

Alex: Talk about the general populations there.

Charlie: Over the past thirty years, as Rutgers failed to meet the need for student housing and people wanted to live close to the campus, the students had no choice but to start renting the off campus housing near campus.

Alex: When was that?

Charlie: It happened slowly, starting in the seventies. When the last ward election happened in 1986, first of all it happened in August, so no students were around, and in fact a lot of people were on vacation. So they purposefully picked the worst time to have it. But also, back then the sixth ward was predominantly middle class homeowners, and if there were students living there, it wasn’t ten to a house, but maybe, a landlord on the first floor renting the second floor to one or two students. So now, times have changed big time, especially in the past ten years, to the point where students constitute around 90% of the population. Homeowners don’t even live there anymore; the ones that do are generally elderly, people who are comfortable and for whatever reason want to stay there. But there are no NEW homeowners moving in and buying homes. The only people buying homes are people who want to rent them.

Martha: Except for over in Eagonville, which is what we call the area where Joe Eagon lives over by Saint Peter’s across from Bucchelic Park. Technically that’s part of the sixth ward, but its well separated, over on the edge of town. It goes to show how vastly different neigborhoods can be: you’ve got St. Peter’s, a big blockade, on one side of which you have beautiful homes, clean streets, no parking problems, no crime issues, and the most gorgeous park in Central New Jersey, and on the other side what essentially amounts to a ghetto, the student ghetto, or the Central Avenue ghetto.

Alex: I used to live in that ghetto.

Charlie: Exactly. Now that’s ward six. On the other side of Hamilton is ward five, and in the past couple of years students have begun to spill over into that ward now, High Street, Plum Street, Division Street. When was the last time they built a dorm? They built Easton Ave. Apartments in 1994, they built Rockoff Hall in 2006…

Alex: …All the while the school continues to accept more students…

Charlie: …And they’re building more housing on Busch and Livingston, where people don’t want to live. I don’t have to tell you that College Ave. is the most coveted place to live, followed by Cook/Douglas, yet they haven’t built anything there to live in. The only thing they have built has been the luxury-apartment-style housing which costs more and isn’t as close to the campus as you’d want.

Martha: They’re doing some of it on Easton Ave, over by Century Apartments and across from the Shell Station. But it’s not Rutgers that’s doing it, its some contractors building privately owned living space.

Charlie: But to get back to the point, Wards two, five and six are increasingly becoming student occupied. As Martha accurately pointed out, unfortunately the African American population here has been shrinking…

Alex: Why is that?

Martha: Because they knock down projects.

Alex: Which projects?

Charlie: The New Brunswick Memorial homes. They were four high-rise project towers. They knocked them down and built something that couldn’t hold nearly as many families.

Martha: Watch the video of them knocking down the projects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNeuppsmD_k

Charlie: That was in 2001. But in general, they’ve been destroying neighborhoods systematically, eyeing it up as a neighborhood they want to redevelop, and then they find the best way to drive people to want to leave for a variety of reasons, because there’s nothing good in the neighborhood, or they drive all the drug traffic there, or because the landlords there don’t maintain the properties. One of the biggest accomplishments of some of the people in our movement is we won rent control in New Brunswick, specifically eliminating something called vacancy decontrol for many properties. Basically, vacancy decontrol meant that if no one lived in your place, you could jack up the rent to whatever you wanted. So if you could force your own tenants to move out, and then leave the place vacant for a month, you were exempt from rent control law, which had been on the book since 1970-something. This actually destroyed so many neighborhoods in New Brunswick because the landlords actually had a vested interest in not letting the tenants stay, the tenants didn’t get any of the repairs they wanted or the services they wanted, and so they would move every year. Constant moving meant no sense of community.

Alex: What would you say to homeowners who might see the City’s redevelopment-by-whatever-means policies as a good thing in the medium to long run that will bring more wealthy homeowners to and raise property values in those neighborhoods?

Charlie: I would say, what we really need is to look at the specific instance of redevelopment and whether or not they actually helped anybody at all. Who benefited? Was it mostly the developers? The construction companies? Or was it the people in the neighborhoods, the tax payers. I would argue that in almost every case, it was the developers and the people who were in on the construction. The reason for that is that almost every redevelopment project in New Brunswick gets a thirty year tax abatement, which means that because we’re so happy that you’re gonna come to town and build your new thing, we’re not gonna make yo upay taxes for thirty years. So, all these arguments you hear from the machine about how “we’re bringing in all of this money, making things cheaper for the residents, and we can hire more police and fire fighters, and still keep taxes low”, is actually a misleading argument. Most of these redevelopment projects cost the taxpayers money. The City chips in to fix up roads and this and that, and gives away our most precious resource, our land.

Alex: The result of which is this puzzle-work of a city, where a gated community might be found right next to a low income area, separated by a busy highway.

Martha: Take for instance Ward One, which constitutes Rutgers Village and the Dewey Heights area. You can’t even access the place unless you drive down Rt. 18. It’s completely isolated from the rest of New Brunswick, and in fact, that’s where most of the cities people live. Thomas Peoples, a member of EON, has lived in New Brunswick for 51, his whole life. He visited the neighborhood for the first time this year; he said he didn’t even realize it was part of New Brunswick until now.

Charlie: There are 32 neighborhoods (depending on how you slice it) and four apartment buildings. All except for one of the City department heads live in four neighborhoods. The Mayor, City Council members, the Police Director, the Sanitation Director all live down there. Now while the city council is important in theory, in practice it basically functions like a rubber stamp for the Mayor, passing all the laws the Mayor passes to them. The people who actually run the City are the ten department heads, people appointed by the Mayor. All of these department heads live in those four neighborhoods, excepting one who lives in a luxury apartment complex just outside of town. And it’s no wonder that their streets are clean, and the cops protect their neighborhoods, and they don’t have the same problems having traffic improvements made. These people are in touch with THIER neighborhoods, they know THEIR problems, and they address them. They enjoy the benefits of ward-based government, without a wards-based system. They are granted the special treatment of being guaranteed someone in their neighborhood who cares about them.

Martha: I always tell this story, probably too much, about the time we tried to get a speed bump installed in Ward Four over by Joyce Killmer park. It’s a very dangerous area for children, and after a little boy was hit by a car, his grandmother, and the crossing guard from that corner came down to City Hall along with a few other people and petitioned for the city council. The City Council president, who lives down near Ward Four was very insensitive to them, and didn’t want to give them special treatment because she doesn’t rely on them for her votes, even though they’re her neighbors. In a wards based system, if she were the fourth ward council person, she would not have been able to do that without risking her reelection.

Alex: Let’s talk about the specifics behind EON’s campaign strategy.

Martha: As I was saying earlier, since we know all of our voters, basically the tactic now is to make sure that they actually do vote, particularly for the students. That might mean helping them to vote early, or getting them to the right polling stations on Tuesday. At this point, we are not canvassing as heavily as we have, except in those swing districts where we can still steal votes from the machine, for example, in the Pine Street Park area and Riverside, places where if we aren’t there, they’ll vote with the machine, but if we hustle, they could swing to us. So now we’ve targeted these areas and sent in our best canvassers. We also have people making phone calls to voters, and it’s important that our callers know their shit, know about the city and know their issues. Third is covering the city with literature, having people with Wards tee-shirts distributing information to potential voters and making sure the community is as aware as possible of the issue. We’re also always compiling a lot of information, trying to figure out who is going to the polls and when, so as to be able to follow up with the base on election day. We need to be able to communicate between polling places, headquarters and street teams, so that everybody is where they need to be. A really awesome –and daunting–thing about the next couple of days is that we have a group of about 75 people coming to help with the last few days of the campaign. We call them the “Weekend Warriors”. A lot of students who didn’t have time before, because of midterms or whatever else are calling us to be like “I’m in now!” so our street team is about to explode tomorrow morning.

Matia: How many people did you say you have working with you?

Martha: About 20 working full-time, and another 30 or so on the periphery, although like I said, that periphery is about to triple in size.

Charlie: People just keep coming in and asking us how can I help; this weekend we will have an unprecedented number of volunteers working with us. I just want to be clear that we do have a lot of people coming from different places, who have a special connection to New Brunswick for whatever reason. Maybe they went to Rutgers for a while and then left because they couldn’t afford it, or people who’ve lived in Jersey for some time and know how messed up New Brunswick is, and they really care and want to change things here for the better. That’s the difference between us and the political machine here: we bring people from other towns who volunteer because they’re committed to change, they bring people from other towns to vote–for instance, people who own property here but don’t live here.

Matia: So, approximately what percentage of the people working for EON would you say are students vs. non-students?

Martha: I’d say around 80% are students, [to Charlie] would you say that’s fair?

Charlie: I would say that 80% of the hours put in are done by students. I’d say it’s about 50/50 as far as people involved is concerned. Its just people with kids and jobs can’t come in during the day, but they help where they can.

Martha: There are also quite a few people out there talking to their neighbors and friends whose hours aren’t clocked, but who are still invaluable to the cause.

Matia: You mentioned to me earlier your policy for distributing funds back into the community. Could you talk about that please?

Martha: Well, while the machine tends to recruit school kids or out-of-towners to distribute literature in the area, we decided to hire people from around town to help with distribution. So we started hiring three or four people a day to go out and hand out our literature for us. We think it’s important that we put any money we have for the campaign back into the community. We could have called up some of our college friends who live kinda cushy lives and could have used a few bucks for beer money, but I’d much rather inject that money back into the communities that need it most, so that’s what we do.

Matia: One of the things that I think has gotten lost during this campaign is the people who are working it. Actions speak louder than words, and I think this is a prime example of just that happening.

Charlie: Well here’s another thing about the phones. I don’t know if you’ve heard the Mayor’s phone message to city residents, but it’s what is known as a robocall. Politicians who are out-of-touch with the people use them all the time. On our end, we have real people calling their neighbors and talking to them. It’s a two way conversation, we can hear what they have to say, they can ask us questions and we can answer them, whereas the Mayor is calling up every resident in the City, telling them how to vote and hanging up. Another thing was the push poll they recently put out. Push polling is a time honored tradition in politics, it’s where you call up, pretend to be an independent subject that just wants to know how you are going to vote, but ask the question in such a way that predisposes you towards one candidate or another. I actually got a call from these people. They said “Hi, this is Unite New Brunswick calling to let you know that the mayor wants you to vote against this new wards question on the upcoming ballot; the current system has kept taxes to a minimum and created better schools. Can we count on your vote?” So I said “Oh, that’s great! I just moved to New Brunswick, what has the current administration done to improve the schools?” She responds “Oh I don’t have that information.” So I asked “What exactly is the question on the ballot?” She responds “I don’t have that information.” So I asked “How many people are on the New Brunswick city council?” “I don’t have that information”. So I asked “Are you calling from New Brunswick or somewhere else in New Jersey?” And she says “No, I’m not in New Jersey, I’m calling from the South.” I said “The South, as in, of America?” These guys don’t know anything, they’re just an out of town corporation being paid to send the message out.

Martha: When they called me, they asked me whether I’d be voting with the Mayor, and when I told the woman I would not, she just wouldn’t take no for an answer. I tried to tell her I was the President of the opposition party, but she just said thanks for my support and hung up. So I don’t even know if the results of the push poll are accurate…

Alex: Obviously one of the most prominent claims the City levels against the idea of real student representation in New Brunswick is that we are transients, who don’t stick around long enough to deserve a say in policy. Charlie, how long do you plan to stay here in New Brunswick.

Charlie: I’m planning to stay around for the foreseeable future. There is no place I’d rather be. People give me shit for not being a lifelong New Brunswick resident. But obviously, I had no choice where I was going to be living before I turned 18. I’m fully committed to this city and its people, whether or not this question is passed. The entrenched political machine is not with the people. I’m gonna fight these guys until they’re done.

Alex: How about you Martha. You’re president of EON and campaign manager of the Wards campaign. Will you be here for the foreseeable future?

Martha: I really like this city a lot. If I move anywhere, it’ll be for a few years to go to law school before I come back. New Brunswick is such a story. It’s just so clear who are the bad guys and who are the good guys. I want to see it through.

Charlie: Yea, you know, in politics often times you doubt yourself and your not sure whether you’re doing the right thing, but here, every time I’ve never doubted it because the people here are SO crooked and so out of touch with the people they are supposed to represent. I’ve never had to doubt that by fighting them tooth and nail I was doing the right thing. By the way, the number one thing that makes people who love New Brunswick and would want to stay leave is our school system. Our school system is a miserable failure. You see the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings walking around downtown with little babies in strollers. Mark my words, their days in this town are numbered, because when it comes time for those kids to go to school, those people are going to leave New Brunswick. They simply can not feel safe sending their kids to a New Brunswick school. Middlesex County just released a report that we’re number one for violence in our schools.

Alex: Since we’re riffing on that now, tell me some problems you have with the school system.

Charlie: Well, for starters, the kids living in my neighborhood are currently attending elementary school in a warehouse on Jersey Ave. Before that, they were attending school in this beautiful brick building, the old high school. The Mayor ordered that it be torn down, because he wanted to get state money to build a new school. The money fell through, and now they get bussed across the train tracks to attend school in a warehouse. That’s been the case for about six years now, so at this point, that’s what the kids know as school.

Martha: But the City just says it’s nice on the inside. City Spokesman Bill Bray calls it the “swing space”.

Charlie: It’s not just that school though. Every school in New Brunswick has trailers. The Schools are failing our kids.

Alex: What about the brand new high school the city is building?

Charlie: The new high school is a great initiative, but if the kids can’t read by the time they get to ninth grade, its useless.

Alex: Do you have a position on the specialization structure that the new high school will institute?

Charlie: I honestly like the idea. I know I would have liked it in high school because I was always in classes I thought were dumb, and I just wanted to take the classes I wanted to take.And honestly I think that’s the direction that education is moving in, and it’s a step in the right direction. But a bigger step in the right direction would be building an elementary school in my neighborhood so the kids there could learn to read.

Matia: After this whole wards thing i s over, would you say that the schools will be the next big issue on your agenda?

Martha: I can’t speak for the whole coalition, but personally, my big issue is the schools

Charlie: I think we need to elect our Board of Education in the town. It’s criminal that the Mayor can appoint them, leaving the parents no recourse to implement change. What do you say to a parent whose kid can’t get a good education because the Board of Education doesn’t need to listen to what they have to say?

Martha: I was really confused when I first came to Rutgers because it seemed that the students didn’t really communicate with the community at all. So what I wanted to do at first was to create the world’s biggest mentoring program, with Rutgers students mentoring New Brunswick kids. And it would encourage more New Brunswick kids to go to Rutgers. This is something we could do even without the coalition.

Charlie: I was in the RU Big Buddy program. There were 100 big buddies and 100 little buddies. And the new Principle of the school, who is one of the highest paid members of the Board of Education, Susan McGinty, didn’t like the program, didn’t like Rutgers students coming to her school and talking to her kids. She wanted to exercise some control over the situation, so she said, this year, we’re only going to have 20 big buddies and 20 little buddies, and only for special ed students. We ended up negotiating to 30. So 60 Rutgers students who came out to a general interest meeting, who were willing and able to help out New Brunswick schools were turned away, and told “maybe next year”. There are people who say “Oh, well there must be some reason they did this”. Well, keep in mind, this program is free, it doesn’t cost any money and is completely volunteer-based. It’s just that the administration and the Board of Education actively fight to keep students out of the schools. This is what we are experiencing in New Brunswick: a divide and conquer tactic. The use negative attacks on me, on EON, and on students getting involved. They actively fight to keep the communities apart. They tell the students “don’t go into those neighborhoods, you don’t want to go in those neighborhoods, and they spread all these crazy scare tactics in the community, telling people that the students are all socialists, are all drunks, only want to piss on your lawn, and they continue to succeed election after election. But what’s happening now is the students and the community are starting to work together, and once that happens, the sky is the limit. Things like this mentorship program will happen, and will happen on a massive scale. Because the students do want to get active and do want to make New Brunswick a better place.

Alex: Let’s change gears here. What is it going to take for you guys to win this election? What are the necessary ingredients for victory?

Martha: We need 75 people here, working hard Saturday Sunday Monday, and we need about 200 people on election day.

Matia: What is the expected turnout for this election, and how many votes do you need to win?

Martha: We expect a turnout of around 6000. 3100 votes will win. We expect to win between 2700 and 3300 votes.

Matia: So you think it’s going to be close.

Martha: We do. I think it’s gonna be close, and I think we’re gonna be dragging people out to the polls by their hair, down to the last minutes.

Matia: Are you providing transportation to the polls?

Charlie: Of course. We are working with Amigo Taxi. Not only will they be carrying “Yes for Wards” signs on their taxis but they’ll give anyone a ride to the polls for free.

Alex: I’m glad you guys are realistic. I came in here expecting to hear about how you were gonna win 80% of the vote.

Martha: I spend all my time looking at databases and talking to staff and I think that if we hustle in the next few days I think we can take it. Clearly they’re beating us on the lawn sign front — they got more of them and they’re bigger. And they can pay people to put out their lit, so they got more of that…

Charlie:…and they can mail out their stuff to everyone…

Martha:…and in those swing districts, we are out there all day. We put our literature somewhere, leave and come back, and they’ve covered it up with their literature. It is literally war like that. You also have people like Councilman Jimmy Cook and Aide to the Mayor Kevin Jones, who are the two black leaders in the City government who are out there canvassing for the city a lot.

Alex: So you’ve really got mobilize those two bases: students and Latinos.

Charlie: Yea, well, they are organized and ready to go so, well see.

Martha: One thing to keep in mind is that those two groups are the groups that are going to get F-ed with the most on election day. Even if its pollsters being particularly or purposefully slow, long lines will deter students, so we have to be mindful.

Matia: Where can we find out the results?

Charlie: The votes are counted at 8pm. But we’ll work on getting the results posted in real time online.

Alex: Do you think they will call for a recount?

Martha: Sure, if it’s super close…I wouldn’t put anything past them at this point…

Charlie: I don’t think there will be much room for gerrymandering this time; we’ve got it on the ballot, that’s what counts. It isn’t over after the election. But the fact of the matter is that ours is a movement that is growing, theirs is a political patronage machine, and it is shrinking.

Alex: What are some rookie mistakes you guys made during the course of the campaign?

Martha: Internally, the biggest mistake was the difficulty of getting the coalition, which was in charge of running the campaign, to communicate effectively with the army of campaign volunteers. It can make for a situation where you are duplicating work, so coordination is key. There was a point two weeks ago where the campaigners did not endorse a decision made by the coalition, and that caused some confusion, and we had to get the groups together to resolve the issue. Externally, it is very very hard to organize the black community. I don’t know that that is exactly a fault, it’s just the truth, and it’s something we are going to have to work on in the future.

Matia: Why was it so hard?

Charlie: It’s because black people have been systematically targeted by the current administration, to the point where they don’t feel there is any way they can make change. They’ve seen so many candidates come and so many people go. It’s because they’ve been here so long and they’ve never gotten their fair say. And they’ve actually been booted out of town by the hundreds, by families after families, moving to Virgina, moving to South Carolina, moving to Franklin, moving to North Brunswick, because the current administration has actually made quite an organized effort to facilitate that movement.

Matia: Would you highlight the demolition of those projects as evidence of this?

Charlie: Yea, there’s that, but it doesn’t stop there. The area where the Hyatt is now, Hiram Square, the oldest part of the city where New Brunswick actually got its start was all torn down under the leadership of Mayor John Lynch, the currently incarcerated, formerly most powerful politician in New Jersey. He made the unprecedented step of taking a trip to Washington to lobby the US Congress to remove the historic designation from that neighborhood–because it was occupied by black and Puerto Rican populations. That area was home to the largest collection of historic architecture in New Jersey and perhaps America, a fact that almost made it the home to the John Rockefeller-funded colonial city (second only to Williamsburg, VA). There’s still some colonial architecture on George Street, but the vast majority of it was destroyed by John Lynch.

Matia: Are you calling him a racist?

Charlie: I’m saying his policies were racist. He might have had the best interests of the city at heart, but his policies were discriminatory and they lacked compassion for the people he was supposed to represent.

Alex: We’re about to run out of tape, so I think we’ll end it there. Charlie Kratovil and Martha Guarnieri, thanks for your time and good luck on Tuesday.

Charlie & Martha: Thank you.

A great deal of Rutgers students affectionately call New Brunswick “home,” at least for eight months out of the year. While the city certainly isn’t without its quirks (we like it that way), it has been a model for growth and development, dating back long before any of us were students. The city of New Brunswick and Rutgers University have together enjoyed over two decades of vast revitalization and enhancement, and that’s no coincidence.

To put this in perspective, students can now walk safely from Cook to College Ave. and back without thinking twice. Remsen Ave. and French St. no longer carry their sordid reputations. People can go downtown to enjoy anything from a couple slices to renowned fine dining; from locally brewed beer to upscale lounges. And believe it or not, driving in and out of New Brunswick is not only simple, but also quite smooth thanks to the recent completion of the Route 18 construction.

We take these things for granted, no doubt. Most of us hardly consider the history of our city, but then again, why should we? The vast majority of us will go through school here and relocate within a year or two of graduation.

Here’s why it’s important: while we are here, we are residents of this city, and decision-making in New Brunswick directly affects us, even if it goes unnoticed.

So, when a group called Empower Our Neighborhoods (EON) began canvassing around the city, it caught my attention. It was led by young people, mostly students, who wanted to change the form of city council. No matter what, students deserve the right to speak out and let their voices be heard, and EON did just that. Unfortunately, EON’s plan is full of flaws.

New Brunswick has enjoyed its recent period of success under the five member at-large system of council. This means that all five council members are elected by all of the voters in the city. You can vote for anyone that runs for council, regardless of your class, creed, ideology, or location. The at-large system is designed to ensure that the most pressing interests of the voters are represented on council.

Earlier in EON’s campaign, they advocated an expansion of the council to nine members, either elected at-large or through a ward system. When they were pressed to pick only one of these options, they chose to promote the ward system.

Now, the same people that proposed an expansion of the at-large council are vehemently opposing that same kind of change. This begs the question: Is this EON group really concerned with how council works, or are they simply trying to seize a seat on council for one of their own?

Let’s just assume it’s the former, and that EON simply wants what is right for the city and its residents. Still, for New Brunswick, and students especially, the six-ward system represents the wrong kind of change—it’s the kind of change that will divide the city and hinder our progress.

In EON’s the six-ward system, you vote for four out of nine council members: your ward representative and three at-large candidates. That means that, even if all three at-large council members support your ward (which is a dicey assumption), you are still in the minority in council. In an at-large system, you can vote for every candidate.

Think about it: students aren’t a traditionally integrated part of the city. They’re renters, they’re transient, they’re young, and they’re mostly confined to one area, known as Ward 6. Why would other wards vote in the interests of the students if it means less funding for their neighborhoods and the rest of the city? Their interests don’t lie with the majority of the student population—simple as that.

Students have benefited from an at-large council system that forces members to consider Rutgers and its students in the context of the city as a whole. Rockoff Hall, Bloustein, Cook Campus additions, renovation projects on College Ave, rent control—all of these plans flourished under the at-large system, and would probably flounder under a ward system.

After reading some of the misguided rhetoric and dubious promises made by EON about the six-ward system, students may be especially confused about what this all means. In the end, it’s about representation, and it’s about being considered in the decision making in this city. The at-large system allows for that, and the ward system will only damage our influence.

Don’t lose your voice, and don’t move New Brunswick backwards.

SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE ORDERS NEW BRUNSWICK
TO PUT WARD QUESTION TO VOTERS

Cites Illegality of City’s Charter Study Ordinance

New Brunswick, NJ – The Honorable Judge James P. Hurley ruled today, that New Brunswick residents will get to vote on a citywide referendum for ward-based City Council elections this November. In his highly anticipated decision, Hurley ordered New Brunswick City Clerk Dan Torrisi to honor the petition of a local grassroots group, Empower Our Neighborhoods. Hurley said that the New Brunswick city government acted improperly when it rejected the group’s petition on October 21, 2008. Both Torrissi and the City Council were defendants in the suit.

This decision is the latest in a chain of litigation which began in July of 2008, when the city government improperly rejected a petition for a vote on wards signed by 1,116 New Brunswick residents. EON brought suit against the city to compel Torrisi to accept the petition, and that litigation was still pending when ballots were printed for the November 2008 general election.

In October 2008, EON circulated a new petition calling for a referendum on wards in November of 2009, which the city again declined, citing an action of the City Council for an alternative ballot question. Judge Hurley rejected that rationale, pointing out that the prior litigation had determined the Council’s ordinance, O-060807, to be illegal. Charter study ordinances, as they are commonly known, are frequently used by incumbent New Jersey municipal governments who favor the status quo to prevent residents’ groups from winning changes to the municipal elections process.

“It’s fairly apparent by now that the city’s objections were politically motivated,” said EON member Martha Guarnieri. “The law requires a public vote on a legitimate petition, no matter what the government thinks of it content. We’re very glad Judge Hurley has affirmed the people’s right to determine their own form of government and look forward to another exciting campaign for change in our City.”

Longtime New Brunswick resident Thomas Peoples felt that the decision was a long time coming. “This is a great victory for New Brunswick.” said Peoples, leader of the Lincoln Gardens Neighborhood Block Association. “We’re finally going to have a government of the people, and that’s accountable to the people.”

The ward question, which would guarantee each ward one representative on the City Council, will appear on the ballot in the general election on November 3, 2009.

In New Jersey politics, the machine-mentality is the norm. Perhaps it’s the overwhelming population density characteristic of New Jersey communities, or perhaps it’s simply the deep seeded heritage of gang-politics that New Jersey boasts; whatever the reason, last week’s municipal elections bore serious implications for two old guard NJ political machines—those of Edison and New Brunswick. In Edison, incumbent Mayor Jun Choi was beaten back from his electoral victory four years ago by now Mayor-elect Toni Ricigliano—by a tiny margin of approximately 600 votes. For some, Ricigliano’s victory came as a surprise, considering her well-known ties to the old Spadoro gang, ousted by Mayor Choi in 2004. For others, it was not so surprising, considering the endorsement the 72 year old mother of eight and grandmother of many received from the Edison Police Department. For more on that election, read columnist Carl Peter Klapper’s article “Populism vs. Popularity”.

But in New Brunswick, a different sort of upset took place. Mayoral elections in New Brunswick are scheduled for 2010, but this year’s cycle was still very significant for Hub City residents—it marked the first contested race for the county Democratic Committee seats in a decade. Committee members serve as liaisons between the local population and the county branch of the Democratic Party. They are responsible for mobilizing the voting base, as well as collectively nominating a mayoral candidate. Essentially, they draw the major party lines in city elections.

Democrats for Change (DC), the local grassroots organization you’ve all heard of, perhaps better known as Charlie Kratovil and the Empower Our Neighborhoods crew, slated 50 candidates against T. K. Shamy and the old guard’s 53. DC walked away with 25 of those seats, 3 seats short of half the committee vote. All said and done, that equals 910 votes for the DCs, against the old guard’s 1,100. Incumbent Mayor James Cahill is reported to have visited the Democrats for Change headquarters to congratulate them on, or as Kratovil would have it, “concede” to them their victory. On Monday evening, an “organizational meeting” will take place for the newly elected committee. Shamy, who in addition to being the old guard’s campaign manager serves as the party chairman, is expected to be challenged for his position. It is well known that the Democrats for Change have largely opposed the current city establishment, lambasting Cahill and crew for many of their policies. But whether this recent victory will bear real administrative fruit is yet to be seen. More on that story as it unfolds.

As a Hub City resident, I can tell you this: the two campaigns differed very little. I received calls and junk mail from both sides. I saw signs picketed on lawns for both crews. I received highly suspect promises from both campaigns, and I met none of the candidates in person. But if any factor speaks to the reality of this election, it is the voter turnout, which, while higher than in previous years, still only rose to a meager 2,000 in a city of 50,000 people. In other words, only one in twenty-five Johnsonvillians actually cared enough to turn out—hardly a showing of popular support for either side of the struggle.

Democrats for Change are often quoted as working against the New Brunswick political machine. But what is a political machine, really? I would suggest we define it as a small group of individuals who work together to consolidate and maintain political power over a larger non-political or semi-political population. Typically, a political machine can function only in the midst of a politically apathetic population. Well, clearly that is the case in New Brunswick. What follows? A battle between an old machine and a new aspiring one?

The Democrats for Change have won a major victory. But they have also opened themselves up to much more difficult conflicts in the future, and with these the possibility of much more devastating failures. By running in this last election, they have made a commitment to the city, one which may not easily, or at least gracefully, be shirked. What happens when the Democrats for Change student members graduate, as Charlie K. did this year, and Martha Guarnieri does next year? If the group collapses under the weight of its own self-imposed commitments, the call for hope and change they have latched onto is bound to be pestered by cries of hypocrisy, cries which will follow the more politically minded members of the group in future races. The challenge posed to the DCs is to awaken the possibility of a popular government in New Brunswick. But in order to do so they must mobilize a group of largely apathetic, disinterested, or, dare I use the word, transient peoples. If they fail to generate a genuine degree of support, I fear the city will simply be plagued by a perhaps continuous battle between political machines on BOTH ends.

If you ask me, the key to their success must be technology, that is, the internet. The difficulties of finding the time for local participatory politics can be circumvented by an efficient, online solution. Efforts must be made to consolidate the New Brunswick community and its local organizations into a cyberspace community, the kind which all residents would have easy access to. Such a community could be administered directly through the city, or through an outside organization. It would give community members and community organizations an easy and efficient means of interacting with each other and deciding on what would be best for the community itself. The JVP might not be a bad place to start…This sort of model stands in direct opposition to the machine model, which largely adopts a corporate-managerial structure for administrating government. And most importantly, it provides a means of gaining real and meaningful support from constituents. If they fail to gain any strong support from the community, the DCs risk turning into the very thing they sought to oppose: a machine.

Several weeks ago, the Johnsonville Press published an article exploring the “wards question” in New Brunswick, as it has been represented in the mainstream media. Later that week, we were contacted by New Brunswick City Spokesman Bill Bray, who took issue with the way the wards question had been represented in our article (which can be found here in full). He offered to meet with our staff to clarify the City’s position. To briefly recapitulate, the Wards question was raised in the summer of last year by the grassroots political organization Empower Our Neighborhoods (EON), a group seeking to change the form of municipal government in New Brunswick. Today, New Brunswick’s government operates under a Mayor-Council system, as laid out in the Faulkner Act of 1981. Under this system, the Mayor works with a five-member city council, elected from the city at large. EON has petitioned for the adoption of a ward-based electoral system, under which each city “ward”–or neighborhood–would be represented by a member of the municipal city council. Because it had not been adequately represented in the media to date, The Johnsonville Press sat down with Mr. Bray to get the city’s side of the story.

It is important to keep in mind from the beginning Bill Bray refused to comment on the political aspects of this issue; as a government spokesman, he focused on the legal matters surrounding the wards question. But he did express concern as to how the issue had been represented by the mainstream media to date: “Certainly not everyone is going to accept our point of view, but I think up until this point, the media has not understood our point of view.  They have failed to fairly or completely represent it,” he explained.

EON’s position and petition

Mr. Bray began by reviewing EON’s position, as the City understands it: “They began campaigning before they even circulated or submitted a petition for wards. Anything and everything they ever said was not only ‘we want wards,’ but it also attacked the at-large system, as being everything from racist, undemocratic, . . .  prone to corruption, the list goes on and on.”  As Mr. Bray and the City see it, EON seems to think that wards will fix the alleged structural problems with New Brunswick’s municipal government.  “Their campaign isn’t just that wards are better,” he said, “but that at-large is terrible, and that’s something very important to keep in mind.”

In April, the ward campaign got some press, and the members of EON became educated about New Brunswick city politics. From the beginning, many EON members didn’t fully understand the history of New Brunswick or its form of government, Mr. Bray said.  New Brunswick has been an at-large system since the early 1900’s, originally under the Walsh Act of 1915, but members of EON had been under the incorrect assumption that the City had switched to the at-large system in the 1970’s when the Faulkner Act was adopted. In the eyes of Mr. Bray, this constitutes a gross oversight and misconception on EON’s part, and illustrates their incomplete conception of New Brunswick’s long history.

EON submitted their initial petition on June 28, 2008 comprised of two questions.  According to Mr. Bray, the wording of the petition was based on a similar initiative that had been circulated in Edison twice in the past, in 2003 and 2007 respectively—a fact to which EON has freely admitted.   Mr. Bray explained the City’s interpretation of the petition as follows: “The proposal had two parts: switching to a ward-based council system and expanding the city council from five members to nine. [The petitioners] were under the incorrect assumption that both questions needed to be adopted, one that would adopt wards and one that would set the size of the governing body.  On their own admission, that was the assumption EON was operating under when they created their ward-based petition.  EON was under the assumption that you needed two questions to get rid of the evil, nasty, discriminatory at-large system and adopt the ward system, and they were wrong.  That has significant implications to the validity of the petition.  Legally, the two questions proposed by the city petitioners cannot be on the same petition.”

Mr. Bray elaborated on this crucial problem with the petition, arguing that the two questions actually conflicted with one another.  “What I mean by that,” he said, “is that they cannot both be adopted.  One establishes a 9-member council with wards.  The other establishes a 9-member council at large.  Under state law, whichever of these two questions gets the most votes is enacted.  Even if they both pass, the one with the most votes passes and the other question is rejected.”

In the City’s eyes, this posed a major problem to these questions being placed on the ballot. “You could have a situation where 500 people vote for wards, and 501 vote for the 9-member at large; the result would be no wards,” Bray said.  “Our question was, and the case law says, when you sign a petition, the signer must clearly understand what they’re being asked to sponsor.  Our position was that EON had got it wrong, because they based it upon [the Edison petition], which also got it wrong.  Because of this, they could not possibly have explained it to their supporters and signatories; [hence] none of the people who signed the petition could have understood what they were signing, so the petition was invalid.”

In addition, Mr. Bray said nearly a third of the signatories of the EON petition were not registered voters, making those signatures invalid, a point of oversight in the popular media’s representation of the wards issue. But in the end, the City held to its above stated position, that none of the signatures were valid. “There were multiple problems with that petition,” but in the end, “not a single signature was valid…which was not mentioned anywhere [in the media].”

The city rejected the petition on July 18th, and EON filed their appeal on August 5th.  At the trial, EON’s stated position was that their petition offered the voters of New Brunswick two alternatives.  “This was the biggest piece that was totally missed,” Bray stated.  Bill Bray found it odd that EON revised their position after the initial rejection of their petition. “EON is no longer all about wards, even though at-large systems are ‘evil and repressive’,” he said.

Mr. Bray next addressed the allegations from EON and the popular media that the City had used underhanded tactics in their rejection of the petition.  “If we were really duplicitous and corrupt, and trying to pull one over on EON, we would not have said anything about the petition, played the old shell game with them and got a couple hundred of our friends to tip the scales in favor of at-large, because then there’s a period of several years before you can petition to change it again. This was not a ward-based petition. This was a ward or our second option, a larger at-large petition.”

Bill Bray said he could understand how the petitioners made this mistake, as it was based upon an incomplete knowledge of the complex legal stipulations of the Faulkner Act. “If you have a ward system and you want to abandon it that is the only time you need two ballot questions,” he explained, “and that’s where they got tripped up.  They got it backwards.”  Under the law, only one question is needed to change the form of municipal government from an at-large system to a ward-based one.  The only situation that requires two ballot questions is when a ward-based system is being abandoned, in which case there needs to be a sub-question stipulating the number of council members on the at-large council.

In the initial stages of the ensuing trial, Judge Willis-Currier proposed that the misunderstanding be rectified by the inclusion of an interpretive statement on the ballot. The City objected, maintaining that “the time for certainty, to eliminate ambiguity, is not at the ballot box; it’s when [signatories] signed the petition.”  There was a group of people who did not know what they were signing, and so Judge Currier issued a stay, effectively eliminating EON’s chance of getting their question on the November 4, 2008 ballot.  Judge Currier also said that there was not enough time for the question to get on the ballot anyway.

The EON Petition vs. the Charter Study Commission

Mr. Bray next addressed the question of the charter study commission, a competing ordinance issued by the city council just two days after the submission of the wards petition. EON argued that because their petition was submitted first, the charter study commission ordinance had to be rejected. “If you don’t treat [the petition] as the introduction of an ordinance, which is how it functions, then the second it’s dropped off, it trumps any ordinances the city subsequently attempts to implement,” Mr. Bray said.  The City does not acknowledge petitions after they have been withdrawn, and now that the petition is gone, it’s as if it never existed because it was never certified.  Because of this, it is no longer representative of a pending change in the form of government.  “If we were to adopt EON’s argument, someone could submit a petition to kill every ordinance the city tried to pass before the public hearing on the ordinance,” Bray said, “Through an action of submitting and withdrawing petitions, you could effectively prevent the governing body from ever engaging in a charter study commission, even if the petition is later withdrawn or rejected, as this one was.”

But what does the charter study commission mean anyway? In this case, a commission of five directly elected individuals “will have nine months to look at all forms of government available to our municipality, through a series of hearings. Experts will be brought in, the public will be able to offer testimony, to sit in on their discussions, and then the commission will generate a report making a recommendation.  That recommendation could be any number of things: the recommendation could be no change, or it could be ‘we recommend adopting so and so form of government.’”  For Mr. Bray the question is, “do you only look at one form of government and vote it up or down, which then precludes later changes, regardless of the up or down vote, or do you look at all forms of government, and bring in more than just the committee of petitioners, [but] a larger diversity of questions to the issue?”

There was a charter study commission undertaken in the mid 1990’s which did not recommend any change—but Mr. Bray was quick to acknowledge that the City has grown in the past ten years.  There has been much more change and redevelopment since that time, when Mr. Bray was pursuing his undergraduate degree on the Banks.  “When I was a student at Rutgers, the students did not walk down George Street between Livingston Avenue and Commercial Avenue in the middle of the day.  Whether it was you, or twenty of your friends, you just didn’t do it.  I graduated in 1998, so you can see how far things have come in just that short a period.  It’s a completely different world.”

According to Mr. Bray, the only thing the City has said has been that now might be a good time to think about changing the form of government, and that they think a charter study commission is the best way to accomplish that. The implementation of a charter study commission would not preclude a recommendation of a wards-based system—or any other system for that matter—and to date, the City has taken no stance on which system should be adopted.

Are Wards Ideal?

There are several reasons to suspect that a wards-based system might not be the ideal, utopian form of government EON seems to purport it would be. For example Mr. Bray mentioned an early justification for the adoption of an at-large system in New Brunswick, made by previous lawmakers in the public domain. Back then, he said, the at large system was adopted as a means of unifying the city, in order to avoid certain neighborhoods bargaining with each other at the expense of smaller or weaker ones. It was hoped that by uniting the city under an at large system, political back scratching could be circumvented—or at least kept at a minimum.

Mr. Bray also mentioned Piscataway, where a wards system is currently in effect: “There are wards in Piscataway, and there are Rutgers students in Piscataway.  There has been no discussion about the impact of wards in Piscataway.  Do they help students? Do the students feel more empowered? Are they better represented?  Have any students run for city council in Piscataway? None of those questions have been asked and none of those questions have been answered.”

Mr. Bray also expressed doubt as to the degree to which EON’s supporters understood New Brunswick’s local government as a whole. “A lot of people who signed the petition are in dorms. A lot of them are new registrants, 18 or 19 years old. So the question is, the people who now want to change the form of government, how familiar could they be with the current form of government? How much knowledge could they have of New Brunswick…and our form of government? . . . The students, or anybody else that’s new to a community, don’t understand where we started from, or where we’re going.  So having the ability to talk about all forms of government and having an entire committee over a simple yes or no will give us more information about what we need, what we’re lacking, and how we can improve.”

Mr Bray proceeded to question why students feel underrepresented in New Brunswick’s municipal government. “[City Council President] Elizabeth Garlatti is a Rutgers graduate, Councilman Bob Recine is a Rutgers graduate… In terms of elected officials, department heads and things like that, there is a tremendous amount of Rutgers graduates [in New Brunswick city government] including myself.” Again, Mr. Bray is a Rutgers alumni from the class of ’98. In addition, the City has reached out to student organizations, for instance the Rutgers Democrats (who, as an aside, never responded to the City’s outreach). But, “the Mayor has regularly met with student leaders in the past”, and plans to continue to do so, although this has been more difficult in recent years owing to the campus and student government consolidation at Rutgers. “The City has responded to student requests and the vast majority of them—over 90%—have been approved. . . . We are always in a constant struggle to make ties and maintain ties with students.”

Mr. Bray also commented on some of the misconceptions established by EON’s campaign rhetoric, for example, that all city council members currently reside in one or two wards, at the expense of the other four or five neighborhoods. “Right now we have five members of the city council who live in four different wards,” a point which, if true, flies in the face of many of EON’s statements regarding elitist, patronage politics. Additionally, the wards, as they exist today, are merely vestigial remains from the alderman system which was in place in New Brunswick in the late 1800’s. Of course today, the populations and compositions of those wards have changed dramatically, and so if a wards system were adopted, the lines would have to be redrawn to provide for equal representation.

Not only does this redistricting pose a daunting administrative task, at great expense to the taxpayer, but it also shows that the ward with which a New Brunswick resident associates today could be changed if the ward-based system were to be implemented. As such, to associate yourself with the ward in which you live is to misunderstand how a ward-based system would represent you as a resident. On these grounds, Mr. Bray takes issue with the assumption that students would be better represented by the implementation of wards. After all, registered voters can currently vote for any member of the city council they see fit, regardless of their occupational status (provided they are registered to vote in New Brunswick).

“Can you cut New Brunswick up into six distinct neighborhoods?” Mr. Bray asked rhetorically.  “You probably can’t. But maybe you could; it’s just food for thought.  . . .  New Brunswick has always been a port of entry city. It’s the mix of people here that make this city distinct.” The constant flux and movement of people in, out and around the city would make it difficult to fairly implement a solid ward system. But, Mr. Bray still does not count out the possibility of a change, if such a recommendation was fairly proposed to the voters.

Conclusion

Like Bill Bray, the Johnsonville Press editorial board is not seeking to comment on the political nature of this argument. In fact, we stand divided on the issue at current time. That being the case, it is important to keep in mind that the contents of this article are strictly geared towards explicating the stance of the City of New Brunswick on this issue. All the ideas expressed herein are those of the City, and in no way reflect the opinions or beliefs of the Johnsonville Press. However, in keeping with the subjective bent of our publication, we would like to extend our thanks to Mr. Bray for his willingness to meet with us. Contrarily to the overbearing image of Bill Bray as suggested by the mainstream media, we found him to be a personable, understanding individual, whose arguments were both rational and informative. We hope our readers will keep in mind that there are two sides (often many more) to every story, and this one is no exception. Perhaps if both sides (EON and the City) can come to compromise in the future, this issue will be settled once and for all. But after all, if Mr. Bray is right, “in a couple of years, nobody on campus is going to remember this.”

]]> http://johnsonvillepress.com/a-conversation-with-bill-bray/feed/ 4 http://johnsonvillepress.com/new-brunswick-residents-unite-for-change-in-local-democratic-party-an-eon-press-release/ http://johnsonvillepress.com/new-brunswick-residents-unite-for-change-in-local-democratic-party-an-eon-press-release/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:42:56 +0000 Alex G http://johnsonvillepress.com/?p=236 Read more »]]> NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ— Launching a bold grassroots electoral campaign of a magnitude not seen in decades, a diverse coalition of 50 New Brunswick residents hailing from all corners of the city filed petitions yesterday afternoon (Monday 4/6) to run for seats on the Middlesex County Democratic Committee in the upcoming June 2 election.

The candidates, running under the common slogan “Democrats for Change,” represent the full range of city neighborhoods in all five New Brunswick wards and include such notable residents as Thomas Peoples, leader of the Fourth Ward Crime Watch and Angela Salazar, 2002 New Brunswick High School valedictorian.

“Democrats for Change” candidates want each neighborhood to have representatives that will put the real-life concerns of their neighbors first on the city’s agenda.

Noting that current city leaders have grown aloof to the needs of residents and are unknown to most of the city, Thomas Peoples, candidate for committeeman for Ward 4, District 5 said: “There is no communication with the Councilpeople. They never come to the neighborhoods. The only way we can have change is if real people step up to represent that actually LIVE in all neighborhoods.”

Adam Gold, a Rutgers graduate and candidate for committeeman in Ward 6, District 6 added: “I just want people to be able to answer a simple question: Who is representing you?”

“Democrats for Change” plan to address citywide issues that impact all residents such as the lack of representation for many constituencies in the city (by supporting ward-based elections) and the need to improve the city’s schools and to make them more accountable (with an elected school board).  Additionally, candidates plan to tackle specific issues impacting their neighborhoods such as improving street cleaning, alleviating parking and transportation problems, offering greater access to affordable and safe housing, expanding and improving city parks, and providing activities and programs for local youth.

“I’m running because I am sick and tired of this city building new condominiums, apartments, and hotels when our schools are falling apart,” said Marge Kerber, member of the Second Ward Crime Watch and candidate for Ward 2, District 4. “I can’t imagine how much more money New Brunswick would have if, instead of providing tax abatements to those that have no ties to this city, they used the tax’ money from these projects to improve our schools.”

Added Brent Klokis, Rutgers graduate and candidate for committeeman for Ward 6, District 5: “We are about more than just downtown.”

The grassroots campaign for seats on the Democratic Party County Committee was initiated by Empower Our Neighborhoods (EON), the New Brunswick community organization that spent most of the past year organizing to return the city to a ward-based election system.  The campaign, still being fought in the courts in the face of stubborn opposition from City Hall, brought EON organizers in touch with thousands of residents.

William Simmons, candidate for committeeman for Ward 2, District 2 said, “This diverse group of men and women embody the spirit of the Obama Movement and the ‘Yes We Can’ attitude that brought change on the national level. Now, we want to bring that same change to the local government here.”

In November, EON organizers and volunteers helped bring thousands of voters to the polls where President Obama won New Brunswick in a landslide.  The “Democrats for Change” campaign is a natural next step for the community group and marks a unique opportunity because every seat on the committee is up for re-election June 2.

“We are in touch with the residents of our neighborhoods,” added Angela Salazar, candidate for committeewoman for Ward 4, District 4, “and they are not happy with the way the city is being run. We are ready to take back our city by any means necessary. Our nation was able to institute change in our federal government, now it is time to do the same in New Brunswick.”

Cedrick Goodman, a lifelong resident and candidate for committeeman in Ward 4, District 1 summed up the campaign: “The time has come for new leadership.”

There are 28 election districts in New Brunswick.  Each will elect a man and a woman from the district to the Democratic Party County Committee in the June 2 primary election.

LIST OF “DEMOCRATS FOR CHANGE” CANDIDATES

FOR DEMOCRATIC PARTY COUNTY COMMITTEE:

Ward 1, District 1: Nona Dempsey & Sam Romero

Ward 1, District 2: Ginile Weeks & Eddie Rodriguez

Ward 1, District 3: Danielle Stransky & Anthony Fuscaldo

Ward 1, District 4: Keisha Jordan & James Woodley

Ward 1, District 5: Olga Martinez-Sanchez & Cristhian Flores

Ward 1, District 6: Greg Davis

Ward 2, District 1: Lily Naha & James Mona

Ward 2, District 2: Kate Feeney & William Simmons

Ward 2, District 3: Caitlin Ferrer & Thomas McKeon

Ward 2, District 4: Marge Kerber & Michael Nazzaro

Ward 2, District 5: Barbara Cepeda & Jaimie Skinner

Ward 2, District 6: Carmen Azcona & Shaun Belton

Ward 2, District 7: Trudia Jones & Corpus Guante

Ward 4, District 1: Sharon Mitchell & Cedrick Goodman

Ward 4, District 2: Angela Porrespita-Jones & Charles Jones

Ward 4, District 3: Yolonda Baker & Jose Solano

Ward 4, District 4: Angela Salazar & Jim Walsh

Ward 4, District 5: Lyndel Myles & Thomas Peoples

Ward 5, District 1: Ruth Mercado & Ian Campbell

Ward 5, District 2: Amy Braunstein & Sean Monahan

Ward 6, District 1: Meredith Neely & Carmen Rao

Ward 6, District 2: Yelena Shvarts & David Harding

Ward 6, District 3: Stacy Milliman & Patrick Lee

Ward 6, District 4: Leor Tal & Michael Shanahan

Ward 6, District 5: Carolyn Selheim & Brent Klokis

Ward 6, District 6: Adam Gold

]]> http://johnsonvillepress.com/new-brunswick-residents-unite-for-change-in-local-democratic-party-an-eon-press-release/feed/ 0 http://johnsonvillepress.com/wards-wards-wards-a-sample-of-eons-ward-campaign-literature/ http://johnsonvillepress.com/wards-wards-wards-a-sample-of-eons-ward-campaign-literature/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:21:48 +0000 Alex G http://johnsonvillepress.com/?p=234 Read more »]]>

The following is a content-copy of an Empower Our Neighborhoods brochure, designed for the propagation of EON’s position on the wards question. We have included it here, in the same issue as our conversation with New Brunswick City Spokesman Bill Bray, in order to juxtapose the two viewpoints. Hopefully, access to both sides will provide the reader with a clearer understanding of the issue as it is presented to the public.

EON

EMPOWER OUR NEIGHBORHOODS

Check out our website at:

EMPOWERNB.COM

Email any questions or comments to:

info@empowernb.com

Empower Our Neighborhoods

P.O. Box 3115

New Brunswick, NJ 08901

(908) 295-8909

THE WARD SYSTEM

THE RETURN OF CITIZEN POWER TO NEW BRUNSWICK

Sponsored by: EON

(Empower Our Neighborhoods)

Dear New Brunswick Resident,

We at Empower Our Neighborhoods would like to formally introduce you to the Ward System. Our goal at EON is to help you, the citizens of New Brunswick, regain your collective voice so that together we can make the city council a true government of the people.

The questions we will address in this pamphlet are:

• What is the Ward System?

• What is the current electoral system in New Brunswick?

• Why is the Ward system better for me and my community?

We hope that you are inspired by this pamphlet to join us. Please refer to the reverse side for our contact information.

Sincerely Yours,

The Members of Empower Our Neighborhoods

WHO IS EMPOWER OUR NEIGHBORHOODS?

Empower Our Neighborhoods [EON] was created in early 2008 by a diverse array of student activists, recent college graduates, and longtime members of the community.

EON seeks to restore democracy to New Brunswick to ensure that the Mayor and City Council truly represent the people of New Brunswick.

Our goal is to reform the way local elections are run in New Brunswick so that the people are fairly represented in the city government.

EON encourages the people of New Brunswick to become involved in this movement by:

· Attending city council meetings and speaking up about the issues in your neighborhood;

· Coming to our meetings to learn about the problems in New Brunswick;

· Talking to the people within your community to encourage awareness of the issues in your neighborhood;

For more details about how you can get Involved please see our contact information on the back.

WHAT IS THE CURRENT ELECTORAL SYSTEM IN NEW BRUNSWICK?

The city of New Brunswick elects the city council as well as other city officials by way of the At-Large System.

The At-Large System is:

· A city wide election process where the people elect the five city council members to represent the city as a whole.

· This system is ideal for smaller cities or large towns with a less diverse population.

Important Effects of the At-Large System:

· The members do not come from every part of New Brunswick, so only a portion of New Brunswick residents are represented;

· The people tend to be disconnected from their government;

· It is difficult to run for office in an at-large system because of the cost of campaigning throughout all of New Brunswick.

WHAT IS THE WARD SYSTEM?

A ward is a district, or neighborhood within a city.

Under the Ward System:

• Each ward in New Brunswick would elect a representative from their neighborhood to the City Council;

• There would be six representatives for the six wards in New Brunswick;

• In accordance with the law, there would be three representatives would be elected at-large to represent the city as a whole;

Important Effects of the Ward System:

• The issues from each ward would be addressed directly by the City Council and they would be more efficiently handled;

• Every neighborhood would be represented on the City Council;

• The people of New Brunswick would be more connected to the government;

• Because the ward representatives come from each neighborhood it will be easier to hold them accountable for their decisions;

WHY IS THE WARD SYSTEM BETTER FOR ME AND MY COMMUNITY?

The Ward System would be better for you and your community because:

• New Brunswick is already divided into wards for the purpose of:

- garbage and recycle collection;

- on-street parking;

- mail distribution;

• The representatives from each ward would be members of those communities so the people can talk to someone from their ward about their ward;

• Problems within each ward would more likely be solved because the issues would be at the forefront of the City Council agenda;

The Ward System gives the people of New Brunswick an opportunity to improve their communities and makes it easier to take care of the issues in each neighborhood.

We at EON hope that you found this pamphlet interesting and helpful. For more information or to get involved in this community movement please refer to our contact information on the reverse side.