Add community gardens to Liberty State Park; More ideas for LSP; We principals deeply cared about Jersey City students; Dump Columbus | Letters

Insert group gardens to LSP

The individuals of the Backyard garden State — the place our farmers are identified to deliver additional than 100 types of fruits and greens — should not facial area foods entry and inequity difficulties.

But, when the New Jersey Financial Growth Authority announced the state’s to start with position of foods deserts earlier this yr, a large space of Jersey Metropolis covering virtually 200,000 residents was included.

As a devoted volunteer at Rows for the Hungry, a Middlesex County system that grows and donates new develop for local distribution and teaches community customers how to grow their own meals, I see local community gardens as a important component of the remedy to the foods insecurity disaster. The addition of new group gardens in Jersey City would support to tackle the foods insecurity, and the cleanup and renovation of Liberty State Park offers a unique opportunity to tackle the difficulty.

For some, community gardens are a lifeline to contemporary food that could otherwise be unavailable owing to meager incomes or residing in food stuff deserts. Community gardening also delivers environmental benefits (lowering fossil fuel-intensive food storage and shipping), wellness advantages (gardeners are extra probable to eat additional fruits and vegetables), social gains (advertising of group empowerment and involvement), financial advantages (including inspiring a new era to improve food items), and a lot more.

Even if food stuff deserts and food stuff insecurity hopefully grow to be a issue of the earlier, the lots of benefits of group gardening will remain. I urge our leaders to believe boldly and incorporate group gardens into the foreseeable future of Liberty State Park.

Gina Kennedy, Rutgers Master Gardener, Sea Girt

Develop varied recreation areas in LSP

As lifelong residents of Jersey Metropolis, Chris and I are acutely mindful of the rewards and challenges of city living. We lifted 3 little ones in the Greenville section of Jersey Town and have lived Downtown for more than 20 years. As a probation officer supervising adults for practically 30 many years, I observed what takes place when a person’s likely is not absolutely understood. My time at St. Anthony Superior School also authorized me the chance to aid younger individuals to access their desires.

That’s why I have long observed the Liberty State Park saga with terrific desire. I use the park as a bike owner virtually day by day and enjoy my time away from the hustle and bustle of day by day life. On the other hand, I am acutely knowledgeable of the park’s issues with contamination and absence of a lot more active spots for exercise.

I applaud the New Jersey Legislature for their vote signaling the want to equally thoroughly clean the park and include what the men and women want and need to have — without switching the terrific features that currently exist.

We need to have ballfields, a neighborhood backyard, a recreation middle, tennis, basketball, and pickleball courts, a observe and subject training and opposition spot, and a competitors football stadium to give our youth and families the possibilities to excel and expand.

When some talk to why can’t Liberty Condition Park be our Central Park, I check with why it can not be like Bayonne Park, which carries on to add to what has generally been a area for all forms of leisure things to do. Time is losing!

Coach Bob Hurley, Jersey Metropolis

Principals deeply cared about students

I strenuously object to your editorial “Raising up kids have to always be Job Just one for JCPS” (Monday), which mentioned “that no one in management roles definitely cared about children” (at the time of the condition takeover).

I was the principal of Lincoln High School at the time of the “takeover” and I can guarantee you that all of my fellow principals, each higher university and elementary, cared deeply about their college students and labored tirelessly to offer the best training we could supplied the ailments below which we worked.

I challenge the editorial board to determine the specific folks (educators and politicians) that the Jersey Journal editorial board has determined that “didn’t care” and provoked the “takeover.” The tricky-performing, caring skilled educators of the time, both equally in the classroom and in the faculty building’s administrative offices, should have no considerably less.

In fairness, you are not able to moderately indict the overall JCPS personnel for the offenses of individuals persons that you have determined as the induce of the “takeover.”

John A. Pacifico, retired principal, Lincoln Large College, JCPS

Goodbye, Columbus, and superior riddance

I lived in Jersey Metropolis for almost 50 percent a century ahead of relocating to Issue Nice. I fondly recall the flourishing Italian community that experienced existed in Jersey Town.

Without having doubt, Italians and Italian-Individuals need to be happy of our heritage, and we should really do every little thing humanly feasible to end the detrimental stereotyping of those of us with roots to Italy.

But, each year, we foolishly strengthen all the unfavorable stereotypes that have plagued Italians and Italian-Americans for the past century.

I look at myself a happy Italian. I have openly admonished Italians and Italian-Americans for performing unethically, and I have praised “paisani” for making worthwhile, positive contributions to the local community. Nonetheless, I vehemently disagree with the absurd idea of displaying our pleasure during Columbus Day. Christopher Columbus is not a source of delight for the Italian men and women. In reality, Columbus is a supply of shame and shame to the Italian folks during the entire world.

Christopher Columbus is not an Italian hero. Rather, Columbus was Spain’s quite initially conquistador, and, if you actually think about it, he is the “original gangster” in the “New World.”

For numerous decades, I have tried out to influence people today that we really should no longer honor and pay out tribute to Christopher Columbus. “Don Colombo” reinforces all the destructive stereotypes of Italian people. Just like the stereotypical Mafiosi boss that we see in gangster movies, Columbus terrorized and exploited the indigenous population and European settlers for his very own particular acquire and to sustain control of his territory. Columbus instituted the slave trade in the Western Hemisphere. He was also a “pimp” who rewarded his “lieutenants” with pubescent, underage indigenous girls. Everyone who dared to defy the authority of “Don Colombo” was cruelly punished.

These factual accounts of “Don Colombo” are all quite properly documented. If we genuinely want to finish the damaging stereotyping of Italian men and women, then we will have to start out by dumping Columbus Working day. We should not make it possible for a “pimp,” assassin, slave trader, and the “original gangster” in the Western Hemisphere to be the “poster boy” of Italian legacy, lifestyle, and heritage.

Carminuccio Cosimo Palladino, Position Enjoyable

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