On January 19th 2012, the Governor of the State of New Jersey, Chris Christie, came to Christian Love Baptist Church in Irvington for a Town Hall Meeting.
The purpose of Christie’s visit was to get feedback from people in the city. The church was standing room only, and the overflow room downstairs was packed. Hundreds came out to hear what the governor had to say about crime, taxes, politics, and the state of New Jersey. Several clergy, politicians, dignitaries, bossiness owners, community leaders, and NJ residents from all over the area were in attendance.
Pastor Reginald Jackson performed the opening prayer. Irvington Mayor Wayne Smith welcomed everyone, and Rev. Ron Christian asked the crowd to remember that they are in a church, saying “Let’s be civil here today, and remember we can all agree to disagree.”
At about 10:45 A.M., the governor came out and took the podium. The crowd applauded him, not because of his political stances, but because he showed up to speak to the people.
As he opened his speech, he gave a little history about himself and his family, and how he was born and raised in Newark until he was 5 years old, and then his family moved to Livingston. He spoke about how he wanted to cut income taxes in the state.
Once he was feeling comfortable, he told a few jokes keep a few of the people laughing, with one line being that he united 95% of the city against him in the last election. Then he went on to talk about how he wants to fix the education system.
“The education system isn't doing well in many cases. Children's futures are being determined by their zip code, not what they can learn,” Christie said.
He further added, “We are spending $23,000 per pupil per year on Newark students and only 23% of students are graduating. If my mother had not moved us out of Newark when I was 5, I would not be governor today. We have to reform teacher tenure. It should be unacceptable for someone to work three years and a day and be tenured. Let’s keep the good teachers in the class, and pay them well. But the ones not performing should not be in front of the class teaching our children.”
Christie also spoke about the crime and the violence that plague Newark, stating that he was upset to read and hear the many stories, and that he gave the city of Newark money to hire some of the police back.
“We all need to be much more concerned about saving lives,” he said.
I did notice in part of the governor’s speech that he spoke about wanting to change the way nonviolent offenders are dealt with. He told the audience that the criminal justice system in the state needs to treat the nonviolent drug offender with treatment rather than incarceration. Again, he received applause.
He also said that higher education leads to putting people back to work. Some of the things discussed were jobs, reclaiming NJ, and cutting income taxes.
“I would like to come back one more time (term) and do it all over again,” said Christie. “I found this to be a very productive meeting, and am look forward to the next one.”
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