'Believe your eyes' is what magicians say when they hoodwink you.
Healy sure has done a lot of hoodwinking as Mayor !

After reading Healy's flyer you start to get agita and that funny feeling you're being snookered, you're being snookered.

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It certainly looks like him and that young guy looks like his kid. Fun times. Be Proud Jersey City.

is this really healy in this video? i know the pic is legit but is this legit as well.....??

healy

Sounds like fuzzy math to me.

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Yes, but you can make violent crime go down by under reporting events and changing how you designate certain crimes. Murder suddenly becomes assault, and assault becomes a disorderly persons and suddenly murder is down and assaults are down and the mayor has nice stats.

I received a Healy '09 promo flyer in the mail called "Believe Your Own Eyes". Inside it says "change is at work in Jersey City." He then lists what he calls "change you can see facts". I found some of them quite problematic, if not laughable.

He lists the following:

- a 24% decrease in violent crime. Problem - hasn't violent crime gone UP in the last year? Also, notice how he hedges by referencing only "violent" crime. What about property crimes? Have they gone up or done?

- over 1,000 "dangerous" guns taken off the street. Good, but has there been an overall reduction or increase in crime using guns?

- more than 1,000 kids enrolled in programs to keep them safe from gangs. Sounds good, but just what are these programs and, more importantly, how exactly have they kept kids safe from gangs? Is there any evidence that the programs have worked?

- over 100 new jobs created by forcing developers to train and hire JC residents. A paltry 100 jobs, given all of the construction in JC over the past few years, makes we want to vote for anyone but Healy. Plus, the idea that he "forced" developers to do anything strains the imagination given how the city has been over backwards for developers by giving them tax abatements, etc.

- the Jersey City One Stop program helped 934 Jersey City residents find a job. Yes. And how?

- 940 units of affordable housing built. Ok, but how many units of affordable housing were destroyed over that time? The really important question is not how many units were built, but rather has there been a net INCREASE in affordable housing in JC during his term?

- municipal tax rebate stable for two years in a row. How's that deficit doing? Also, given those tax rebates to developers and the increase in the city's population and their needs, how much longer is this going to last?

- 4 new Green Initiative Laws passed to make JC a national leader in green building. Healy passed on the opportunity to get (and someone can correct me as to the proper amount) $2 million in no-interest funding for the Embankment for no apparent reason.

- 2,635 children and 800 adults immunized. Good. But I'd like to know how many children still need to be immunized, i.e. what is the percentage of the city's kids who still need immunization?

- paved 10 miles of streets every year. I don't know how many miles of streets JC has, but given that the city has 15 square miles of land, I imagine that at this rate it will take 20-30 years to pave all of the city's streets. Since I am just pulling this figure out of thin air, perhaps someone who knows how many miles of streets JC has can make a more accurate calculation.

In short, Healy's flyer makes me want to vote for someone other than Healy.

I would love to hear anyone else's comments on the above list of "change you can see".

Peace