Research for another article led to the current Master Plan for Gloucester City. The Master Plan contains much information which is probably new to most, if not all residents who don’t work for the city. Over the next couple of weeks you will get to know the facts about Gloucester City.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are roughly 4,300 households in our city, of which 3,000 are apartments. Keep that in mind when you read the following.
House Heating Fuel:
Natural Gas 2,948
Bottled Gas 109
Electricity 255
Fuel Oil/Kerosene 818
Coal -0-
Wood 15
Solar -0-
Other -0-
No Fuel Used -0-
Selected Characteristics:
Lacking Complete Plumbing Facilities 16*
Lacking Complete Kitchen Facilities 3*
No Telephone Service 92**
* If someone knows that people don’t have plumbing and/or kitchen facilities, why has the Board of Health not been called?
** As difficult as it is to believe that 92 people in Gloucester City have no telephone service there are homeless and very-low income/senior residents. One way of counting families with no phone service is to count the students in school whose parents provide no home phone number. That doesn’t mean that there is no phone in the household, just that the parents don’t want to hear from the school.
Do you know how old your house is? Obviously, the houses between the railroad and the river are much older than most of the other homes. The web page datauniverse.com shows the year each house was built, though it is accurate for the older homes. The date is “around” or “about.”
The following are the number of houses built in each decade, according to the Gloucester City Master Plan.
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ (JUNE 19, 2023)(CNBNews)–It seems that everyone, every company, city and state is filing for bankruptcy. Just this week there have been bankruptcy sales at Bye, Bye Baby, Harmon Cosmetics, Bed Bath and Beyond, and David’s Bridal. They are just the companies in the Deptford Mall area.
Let’s move onto cities. Just the top 10 are New York City, Chicago, Honolulu, Portland, New Orleans, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Miami. It shouldn’t be any surprise that most of these cities are in trouble, they have either defunded their police departments or are being over-run by illegal immigrants.
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ (May 19, 2022)–I don’t try to hide my disappointment in America’s public education and never will apologize for wanting today’s kids to have the high quality of education we had decades ago. That being said, I also try to be fair and congratulate those who make changes in the right direction. This week I read that “trades” will be reintroduced to Gloucester City schools. A sincere thank you to those who made this happen.
I read so many Facebook posts from the boys of the 1960s discussing their woodshop or metal shop adventures and telling what they made. Girls took sewing and cooking classes. Because I took sewing classes I made all my own clothes through high school and college plus bridesmaid’s dresses and more. There is so much value to these classes. We learned how to make something. We learned to take pride in what we made.
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ (May 15, 2022)–Just about everyone knows that there is a baby formula shortage. Many of you are experiencing it. What is happening? This is America and every day we look more like a third-world country rather than the richest and most powerful nation in the world.
So, what is the story behind the story with the formula shortage? Let’s start with a few facts. The United States makes 98% of the formula we use. This is a good thing; it keeps jobs in America and we have much more control over the quality and distribution of the product. The majority of formula is used by WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) recipients. The federal government has a contract with Abbott Company to supply the formula for WIC and SNAP (formerly food stamps) administrated through the states. The states give a “discount” to Abbott et al. up to 85% This is very profitable for Abbott and the federal and state governments don’t really care because it is “We, the People” who pay for it.
Each year between and four babies are reported with infections from a bacteria called cronobacter sakazakii. Never before has a plant been closed. The closest I was able to find for the number of babies who became ill this year was four. Two babies recovered and two died. So, at some point the government closed the plant for inspection. This was the right thing to do. However, I could only come to an inspection date between January 31, 2022 and March 18, 2022. What was the time span between the disclosure of the problem, the decision to close the Michigan plant, the inspection and conclusion? We don’t know.
At the point it was determined to close the plant there should have also been a plan for an alternate source of formula. There are other U.S. based companies; but there is no evidence that this was done. We have to be more careful than usual because these are our babies, not IPhones or clothes, etc. In the past it was found that the Chinese were putting melamine into their formula. We grey hairs remember unbreakable dinnerware called Melmac which was taken off the market because it caused…yes, cancer. Where we get the replacement formula is essential but did anyone look right here in America?
According to the Washington Examiner, May 13, 2022 the inspection is complete, the results are in but the Food and Drug Administration won’t specify the exact criteria for full approval to re-open Abbott’s Michigan plant. The inspection found some of the bacteria but none in the processing area. Samples of the formula were completely free of the bacteria. Everything sounds good.
Bacteria, like humans and all other living things, has its own DNA. Scientists were able to determine that the bacterial DNA in the babies did not come from the closed plant. So why hasn’t the FDA provided a date or even criteria for a full opening?
This is where you have to take off your scientist’s hat and put on your lawyer’s hat. On May 12, 2022 the Washington Post issued a headline about the “faux outrage” over this supposed problem. The term “faux outrage” is outrageous in itself but the article went on to say there is no real formula shortage. “They” were just following the law. Fortunately, The Post printed excerpts from the law. In my opinion, for what that’s worth, it all has to do with politics and money. Here’s what happened:
In 2015 The Obama administration passed a law pertaining to illegal immigrant minors. They have to be read their rights (a minor immigrant understands his rights?) The law goes on to detail their rights as food, clothing, and shelter and a ton of other rights the average citizen doesn’t have. Last year, 2021, The Biden Administration updated the law. Read the next sentence very carefully! The update specified that the government had to supply illegal immigrant children with “baby formula and milk.” The Washington Post wrote the article with a “see, there’s no problem – we’re just following the law.”
President Biden can solve the problem with the stroke of a pen. I am usually against Executive Orders. I feel Presidents use them to make law that would normally not get through Congress. In this case I am exasperated that President hasn’t already signed an executive order to alter the “formula or milk for illegal babies” to “Give the illegals formula or milk after all the citizen and legal resident babies have been fed.”
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ –Years ago, I took a Criminal Justice course at St. Joseph’s University. The instructor was a captain of the Philadelphia Police Department who brought his police-issued laptop with him to every class. The first thing he told us was that what he was going to present was the truth and he had and would show us the documentation to prove it. He said that if anyone was easily offended, this was the time to drop the course.
That was one of the best courses I took in my long educational career and one thing that I took away from the course and stayed with me was “The Broken Window Theory.” Many times, I read on Gloucester City Facebook pages that this is not the city in which many of us grew up. I’ve lived here for 70 years, and I can attest that the Gloucester City of today is not the Gloucester City of years gone by. The difference? The Broken Window Theory.
TRENTON, NJ (April 27, 2022)(CNBNewsnet)–In New Jersey the Democrats and Republicans are actually working together on the unemployment problem. They might as well hold up signs reading “election year, our friends and we want your vote.”
Many State Senators have formed a new committee to investigate the Department of Labor have said the same things. The residents they represent, every single one, complained that they never got through on the phone and no one ever called them back. They heard everyday “There is no one [at the Dept of Labor] to talk to. After weeks of being ignored the claimants would go to their state representatives for help. State Senator Michael Testa (R-CM) claims to have helped thousands and thousands of people and finally had to dedicate staff just to do the job of the Department of Labor.
Is there ever a story behind the story when it comes to Disney it all started in 1967. The story also includes other major theme parks in the Orlando, FL area.
In 1967 when Disney was buying thousands of acres of land in the Orlando area they made an “agreement” with the state of Florida that they could manage themselves. “Manage” included zoning, planning, utilities, as well as governing themselves. If Disney wanted to build a nuclear power plant in the middle of the Magic Kingdom, they could do it and no one could do anything about it. Again, this is not based on any law; it is based on an agreement. As time went on, the other theme parks got the same agreement.
GLOUCESTER CITY NJ (April 21, 2022)–Every year I buy a subscription to the Walnut Street Theatre and one of my favorite things to do is scan the list of supporters. Last year I noticed that one of the financial supporters was The Shriners’ Hospital. I think most everyone has seen the ads for Shriners’, a boy named Alec is in a wheelchair and shows you the adorable blanket you will get if you give $19 per month.
Planning to fly? You can now do it mask free, thank you to an 11th District Federal Court judge, centered in Florida. On the evening news was a clip from inside a plane. People’s cell phones were going off, masks were being torn off and people were applauding. So, what happened?
The federal judge ruled, as other courts before, that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) only has the responsibility to advise the government and citizens. It does not have the authority to make law, as it has been doing for the past two years. The big difference in this case is that this was a federal decision. The decision applies only to those areas within the lawsuit. In this case, federal transportation – plane travel, TSA agents within airports, trains and buses because they are federally funded. Only minutes after the decision was made public the following airlines announced that masks are now optional: Alaska Airline, American, Delta, Frontier/Spirit (now merged,) Jet Blue, Southwest, and United.
I recently read an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer; it was called “These Are Your Rights if the Police Knock at Your Door.” Unfortunately, it offered a lot of advice from the ACLU (Americans Civil Liberties Union.) That organization tends to be very anti-police and in favor of the individual’s right to speech. I’m very much in favor of the First Amendment – tempered with common sense.
Please allow me to start with a personal narrative. Early one morning there was a bang at my front door. It wasn’t a tap. It wasn’t a knock. It was a bang. I looked out the living room window and saw a man wearing camo with his hands around his eyes looking into the house. This was strange but I still had to answer the door.
