“This is not an area that's going to be revitalized with a coat of paint and some grants to improve a few houses, ... That is not going to work, and nothing that has happened in the last few years has changed my mind.”
“I don't care what a bunch of out-of-towners say, ... Trying to draw a comparison to development in the Pinelands 25 years ago to this is shoddy thinking. It sounds like one more person who is from out of town, who doesn't know the history of this project, who is passing judgment on what he perceives to be the current political climate.”
“What we see is a plan that has been working, ... It is turning the town around. People returned to the Long Branch beachfront in significant numbers this year for the first time in 30 or 40 years. We needed to get investment in the infrastructure of the area the city didn't have the money to pay for. Without a redevelopment zone the size we ended up declaring, it wasn't going to happen.”
“Everybody in the city knew from 1996 on that there were extensive plans for the redevelopment of Broadway and the oceanfront, ... The argument that people there didn't know until two or four or five years later is, to my mind, ridiculous.”
“The guys made a huge improvement. Last year, I told them they were like eighth-graders wrestling at the varsity level. I'm proud of them for getting where they are.”
