Stuff that bothers me about the school board candidate threads:

a) Few of the candidates seem to have children, let alone children in Jersey City schools.

b) Other than Hemingway, the candidates who, in theory, ought to be the cool, progressive candidates don't seem to know a whole lot about the Jersey City schools.

c) None of the candidates is talking about strategies for keeping middle-income downtown kids in the public schools.

In other words, is there something like Learning Community Charter School or Waterfront Montessori somewhere in the regular Jersey City school system? If not, why not?

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I tend to think that the Hudson County Democratic Organization supports Flood and that Flood supports these 3 candidates is a negative.

It looks as if Heather Martin has learned something about the nuts and bolts of school construction from her job helping to sell environmental construction services at EAI.

See:

http://www.njmayornet.com/Spring%2005%20Martin.htm

But my gut reaction is that probably the HCDO is supporting Martin because it thinks that she'll know how to get control of the pork barrel.

If someone out there has any evidence that Martin wouldn't just funnel work to some Tony Soprano type of guy, I'd welcome hearing about it.

It sounds as if Hemingway is an obvious pick.

What about:

- Heather Martin: I guess she builds schools for a living. Is she someone who's a part of the machine or someone outside who understands how the machine works and would stop the crooks?

- Cheatham: Some people in this thread have already praised the guy. Any more reactions?

- Jenny Campbell: Would she, basically, be a good voice for the the sorts of parents who are desperate to get their kids into Learning Community?

One thing that's sad about this is that the program comes with so much red tape that the owners of the most of the good, legitimate for-profit daycare centers in Hoboken and in downtown Jersey City all stayed away from the program.

I know that St. Bridget's, for example, has a good reputation, but it would be good if there were a lot more St. Bridget's out there.

My kid is probably going to be in the Jersey City schools in a few years, but I agree. If the state is going to tell rich New Jersey towns to help out poor New Jersey school districts, well, that's common sense. If the state is going to make the New Jersey suburbs help Mayor Healy and members of the city council give away the candy store to a bunch of Sopranos building cardboard condos in Newport and Paulus Hook, that's robbery.

Maybe the abatement for the Jersey City Medical Center project is warranted, but, aside from that, I can't imagine that there's a good excuse to abate a single project in the city.

If the city wants to support development in Greenville and Bergen-Lafayette, for example, it ought to do it by adding light rail spurs to make those neighborhoods more accessible, not by robbing the schools.

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I rent in Harsimus Cove. I walk around alone at all hours, and I think that most of downtown Jersey City east of Jersey Avenue is pretty safe.

My guess is that the shabbier parts of the Jersey City Heights are the parts of the city that are reasonably safe and have a good chance of going up a lot in value. Many of the streets there are gorgeous, the air is cleaner there than in other parts of the city, and the light rail is just starting to make it more convenient.

Downtown, it seems to me that the most vulnerable condos are the ones in new, ugly, poorly insulated buildings.

If the condo you're buying is in a well-insulated building, maybe it would hold its value. It would appeal to people who already like brownstones, and it would appeal to highrise people who start panicking about their energy bills.

I wouldn't buy in any of the new condos around here unless they're actually built and you can check on the energy bills, or you know someone who can evaluate the insulation.

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a) I know my ideas are nothing new. But I don't think Jersey City needs new ideas. It needs more of what used to work a few years ago. Some of the problem may, for example, be due to diversion of resources to antiterrorism work. But the JCPD have to really explain what's going on with that.

b) I think that it's really, really important that police patrol by themselves and serve guard duty by themselves. People who are walking by themselves are just a lot more aware of problems than people who are with other people. I know that if I were a police officer I'd probably get burned out and talk to other police officers, but, as much as possible, that needs to be prevented.

c) Where's the broken streetlight Web site, and does it actually work? It seems as if maybe it would be good to maybe even feature that on the home page here at some point.

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- I was just throwing out suggestions to get the ball rolling, so that the guy bashing Fulop couldn't accuse us of not having any ideas. I don't know anything about the JCPD and don't know if Fulop is really right, but I think at least the JCPD folks should come up with ideas, not just blame the universe.

- I think people here complained a lot about the Nicco (??) restaurant in Paulus Hook and Cafe Brand in Harsimus Cove, which drew yuppie crowds. I understand, for example, that a bunch of people freak out about perfectly nice, law-abiding, non-wealthy people who hang out on the stoops by C-Town. In my opinion, that's not a problem. The problem is the people who steal the cars and physically attack people, or shoot at random into Pershing Field.

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Well, how did Bratton do it in New York? (And, note: I have nothing against strip clubs or porno shops. I mean how Bratton did community policing, not how Giuliani chased out the porn places.)

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I think that's the best idea. I left out most of the "give kids something to do" suggestions because people seemed to flame those ideas when I included them in earlier posts. But, obviously, give kids things to do.

Also: why not create an early evening, adult supervised playground rehabilitation? Limit the jobs to jobs that kids can legally do.

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You're right, no question.

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Agreed, but keep in mind that most of the people killed in Jersey City have been low-income or moderate-income. So, preventing violent crime (and gang formation that might lead to more crime) is much more important for those kids and their families than it is for yuppies (even yuppies who feel poor) deciding between Paulus Hook and the Heights.

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a) It looks as if you're on the Troy/Healy team. Maybe you should try coming up with some proposals.

b) I always get flamed by Bouncing Soul or Alan Sommerman for daring to post a message that's more than 3 lines long, but, anyhow:

- Set up a Web site that residents can use to report broken streetlamps and do a better job of getting the streetlamps fixed. Having broken or burned out streetlamps sends a message that a block belongs to the crooks.

- Whenever possible, have police officers patrolling on foot or on scooters rather than in cars.

- Get serious about the drug supermarket on Wayne Street. How can such a thing exist a couple of blocks from city hall on a street with million-dollar homes?

- We all see the young gangstas riding around on their bikes. Why not ask NJT bus drivers to report in to a kiddie gangsta hotline whenever they see the kiddie gangstas. Send the police to have nice friendly chats with these youngsters.

- Make sure that any developers who get new tax abatements end up with a responsibility to hire at least one evening security guard (or, even better, to fund the hiring of one dedicated uniformed police officer) for the area around the development and one for some other area of town that really needs some attention.

- Do a Bratton and have squads of the new police officers pick a few troubled blocks per night and walk down those troubled blocks talking to people, issuing warnings, giving tickets and scaring bad guys away. Have plain clothes cops waiting on nearby blocks to can arrest bad guys who start selling drugs, mugging people, etc. 1 or 2 blocks over.

- Have Bratton recommend a consultant who can come in and evaluating what's going right and what's going wrong with the police force.

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Arguments for:

- Paulus Hook has a bunch of good schools.

- It's really more convenient to lower Manhattan than most of Manhattan is, and it's even reasonably convenient to businesses located in Brooklyn.

- The Statue of Liberty view is pretty cool.

- If energy prices stay home, many moderately affluent people (or wealthy, environmentally conscious people) who now drive in to Manhattan from distant suburbs might prefer to live in Paulus Hook.

Arguments against:

- I think that, overall, because of factors such as student loans and the high cost of nursing home care for parents, people under 45 are going to turn out to be quite a bit poorer at each age than people over 45 were at the same age. At some point, demand for expensive homes may drop dramatically.

- Paulus Hook is under a nuclear bull's eye. If terrorism becomes commonplace on U.S. soil, people might decide they'd rather not live next to either the Statue of Liberty or the Goldman Sachs building. Not to mention all the guys with rifles who show up periodically.

- At this point, the retail options in Paulus Hook are pitiful. Make fun of C-Town all you want, but, hot refrigerators and all, it still has a much better selection than the Green Cow.

- The air seems to be a lot cleaner in the Jersey City Heights, and there are a lot more nice, stand-alone single-family houses in the Heights. It seems to me that many people who can afford a $2 million house want a stand-alone house.

My toddler doesn't get into the kinds of problems that Anonymous mentioned because, first, she's pretty well-behaved and tightly controlled, and, second, I've resigned myself to going for about 3 years without going to cool restaurants, except on the rare occasions when I can get a babysitter.

But why does every establishment in a neighborhood with hundreds of toddlers have to cater to adults who are dining without small children?

Why can't there be one or two restaurants, or corners of restaurants, set up for parents who would like to let active toddlers play in a play area for a few minutes? Or, even better, why can't there be a toddler playground (a la Romparo or Echo of Art Too in Hoboken) that also serves cappucino?

I think that the humorless truth is that the coolest places in Jersey City tend to be both toddler and pet resistant.

Toddlers really are a lot like other small mammals. Chances are that all of the toddler-proofing ideas would also work for pets. Just put pet toys in the enclosure and schedule different play times for pets and toddlers.

Another idea: why doesn't someone just break down and open a Showbiz Pizza Palace type place that serves decent food?

1. I understand that owners of most establishments will never be interested in toddler-proofing. But there are tons of toddlers, stay-at-home moms, nannies, etc. in Paulus Hook, and I think it makes sense for one of the coffee places there (probably Daily Grind, which is owned by someone with a small child) to become the unofficial parent coffee place and maybe the other one to be the unofficial singles/get work done coffee place. And maybe for both places to amplify their tiny marketing budgets by getting together to market each other as little bubbles of humanity in a new-construction concrete jungle.

2. Toddler-proofing basics:

a) No candles on tables. I know candles are pretty, but I just don't understand why owners of restaurants in crowded, 100-year-old firetraps put candles on their tables.

b) Fill the holes in exposed sockets with baby-protection plugs.

c) If possible, get tables that are hard for toddlers to knock over or move. (E.g., no 4-legged tables with a short third leg or featherweight tables that are so light a 2-year-old can push them around.)

d) If you have shelves or bureaus against walls, anchor the shelves or bureaus to the wall. (My guess is that, at a commercial establishment, this step would also increase safety for adult patrons.)

e) If you display merchandise, such as bags of coffee or coffee cups, make sure the seriously breakable stuff is at waist level or higher. (In other words, maybe you can depend on parents to keep 2-year-olds from making a mess out of bags of coffee, but don't depend solely on parents' reflexes to keep 2-year-olds safe. Even 2-year-olds with inattentive parents deserve not to get glass splinters in their fingers, and the shop owner deserves not to have glass merchandise broken.)

f) In general try to keep as much movable stuff as possible, other maybe than paper, at the height of an adult waist, or higher.

g) If you really, really want toddler parent and nanny business: figure out a way to wall in a corner with furniture and toddler barriers, put soft, easily cleaned padding on the floor, and put a few toddler toys in the enclosure. Encourage parents to drink their coffee in the toddler area, or just outside it, while the toddlers play in the toddler area.

Of course, as non-toddler parents are going to probably going to reply: all these steps may repulse other patrons. One solution might be for the Daily Grind, which has more than one room, to make its backroom a toddler room and shield the civilians by closing the door.

Another approach might be for a place to set up a portable toddler area during some period in the day when business is usually slow.

Regardless, I think avoiding candles and covering electrical sockets are good basic steps for any establishment that might occasionally have toddlers on the premises, and I really think that, unless there's some kind of huge bad blood, Daily Grind and Legal Grounds should think of themselves as allies against a Starbuck's invasion, not archrivals.