What’s gone wrong in Long Branch

A public forum was held this week to address the alarming increase in incidents of violence in Long Branch.

While community activists like Bill Dangler of the Greater Long Branch NAACP and Julia Wheeler of the Concerned Citizens Coalition are stepping up to address issues of violence and gang activity, Mayor Adam Schneider and the majority of the City Council were conspicuously absent.

That’s pretty telling, since this is the political team that has to share in the blame for the rising tide of violence.

In the wake of the fourth murder in Long Branch in as many months, people are justified in asking what’s gone wrong. There isn’t an easy answer, the issues are complex, and don’t ask Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin, who wasn’t exactly sure the tally had risen to four fatalities when a reporter called to ask what his office is doing.

One conclusion can reasonably be drawn — that part of the city has slipped further into poverty, violence and despair while the energies of the Schneider administration have been focused almost exclusively on redeveloping the beachfront.

One resident told it like it is in our front page story last week: disadvantaged people living in the city’s poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods feel despair when they look across Ocean Boulevard and see the luxury condos that are the current administration’s vision for the future of Long Branch.

That kind of hopelessness breeds despair and violence, the kind that’s played out on the streets of the city over the past four months.

For many residents, the murders, the gang activity, should serve as a wake-up call.

For those who have remained aloof from the struggles of people faced with losing their homes to the redevelopment, the message is, you’re no longer as safe as you once were. The administration has focused too narrowly for too long on the redevelopment, while the quality of life in the remainder of the city has slipped.

When you can, like Keith Mason, be sitting in your home, and have the door pushed in and become a murder victim – you’re no longer safe. It’s time to call on the administration to stop denying problems exist for the sake of the redevelopment and start paying attention to the rest of Long Branch – the real Long Branch — where legitimate concerns about housing for the poor, the safety of residents, violence and gang activity need to be addressed.