State earmarks $230K for city UEZ program
Grant money will help pay for police,
redevelopment effort

BY CHRISTINE VARNO

Staff Writer

LONG BRANCH — The city’s Urban Enterprise Zone received grants totaling $230,000 from the state on Dec. 15.

The New Jersey Commerce and Economic Growth Commission met for its final Urban Enterprise Zone Authority meeting of 2003, and approved 13 projects, two of which were for the city. More than $2.1 million was dispersed to seven of the 30 zones in the program in New Jersey.

"These projects are further evidence of the success and enduring legacy of the Urban Enterprise Zone Program," Commerce Secretary William D. Watley said at the meeting.

Long Branch received $130,000 for salaries, services and equipment associated with police security and patrols within their designated urban enterprise zones.

An additional $100,000 will go toward the progress of the ongoing Oceanfront and Broadway Redevelopment Project.

"The UEZ provides significant benefits in businesses located in the zones," Karen Wolfe, a spokeswoman for NJ Commerce Commission said. "The program encourages investments in urban areas."

The program targets metropolitan areas of New Jersey by creating private-sector jobs and public and private investments in these communities.

The UEZ helps areas that have an annual average of at least 2,000 unemployed persons, and in which the municipal average unemployment rate for that year exceeds the state average annual unemployment rate.

The program requires a UEZ to be established on the premises of each town it represents. They then provide grant money to the specific zones for local improvements and for creating more jobs.

"The money we receive can go toward new sidewalks, new parks and anything that can help the business district," Jacob L. Jones, head of the UEZ in Long Branch, said. "This includes the city’s holiday decorations too."

Jones said he encourages more merchants to sign up because the bigger the program gets, the more improvements there will be.

According to Wolfe, since 1984, more than 100,000 jobs were created in the zones, and 43,000 of them were under Gov. James E. McGreevey.

Funding for these projects comes from a sales tax collected through investments made from the program and the investment goes right back into the community, according to Wolfe.

"It [the program] really benefits the businesses," Wolfe said, " It reduces sales tax, gives a sales-tax redemption and you receive unemployment benefits."