To the Editor:
There was a time when Bayonne was known as “The Peninsula of Industry.” The exodus of industry has devastated our city financially! Most of the land occupied by industry has been bought up by out of town developers to build private homes or malls. Mayor Smith’s city letter head states that Bayonne is “The Peninsula of Business and Technology.” What a joke. Where is it?
I will present some of the industries that joined the exodus from Bayonne: Standard Oil, Tide Water, Consumer Coal Ice Co., Babcock Wilcox Co., Vacuum Oil Co., Safety Cable Co., American Radiator, Gulf Refining Co., Elco Electric Dynamics, Texaco Oil, Huber Co., Pacific Coast Borax co., Asiatic Petroleum Co., Bayonne Supply Co., Wesson Oil, General Cable, Madenform, Divera Sportswear, C.J. Murphy, Keenan Cashman, Swift Meat Co., Bayonne Bolt and Nut, Bayonne Times, Geigy Chemical, Barny Rubine, Twin City Auto, Englander, F and A Distributors, ICI Americas, Garden State Foods, Ogden Corp., Best Foods, Pharma Chemical, Farina Co., Fitch Co. Their loss resulted in millions of tax dollars and jobs!
The fiscal responsibility of our elected officials is a disgrace. They presented no economic plan to overcome the loss of industry! Their reasoning was to favor the private development of homes to be built in our city! This resulted in higher taxes because for every new student in our public school system, it cost almost $13,000, much more for a special education student. To overcome this, they had to take out millions in bonds and one shot deals, resulting in higher debt and property taxes!
I am against this terrible representation of city residents. Help me to help you by voting for Leonard R. Kantor on Election Day on May 11, 2010. Please vote. Thank you.
LEONARD R. KANTOR