Edward Fitzgerald

For both Ed Fitzgerald and Ryan Demro I am going to use my notes from the debate to have them explain their ideas for a Better Lakewood, since the Mayor wasn't there and has not graced my door to explain his platform I was forced to use his website.

I would also like to keep to the main themes of this campaign for very reason that we may consider it an apples to apples scenario.

Ed is running a somewhat similar campaign do what George did four years ago, that is I am not the Mayor, but I definitely wanted to be one for a while.

Let's see what Ed has to say or what I found to be interesting little nuggets of information:

Before I go on, I will state that not only was I at the debate, but I also attended one the many coffee get togethers that was very popular amongst the candidates. So the coffee talk and the debate answers for Ed were fairly close.

On the streets, Ed has stated the obvious "that politics have been played with fixing the streets" and that we are competing for own residents.

On crime, Ed clearly states that there is a "perception vs. reality" with the current Mayor, but what is his plan for the crime and safety: Its 15 Points, I am not going to go into all 15 because your time and mine is short.

The Big three are:

1) Shifting resources so that more safety forces can be added;

2) Create a Neighborhood Policing Strategy, (similar to enhanced Block
Watches - I will bet if he moves on to the General Election there may be the
theory of sub stations coming out.)

3) Cracking down on Section 8 Housing, being the tenants or the Landlords.

On Housing, Ed is all about the crack down on the Section 8 housing by having Building Inspectors dedicated to handle just the Section 8 housing problems. Don't forget he is also going to go after the abandoned buildings. Good solid plans there!

The next is Taxes and Fiscal Responsibility, Ed has a 10 point plan solving the city financial woes.

With taxes, Ed has stated fairly clearly that increasing taxes is "not your first line of defense", he believes that implementing CitiStat fully will help in identifying inefficiencies to save the City money, also the city must be able to stimulate economic growth through the use of Economic Development funds to fill the empty storefronts.

If you remember one of my issues two years ago was to turn multi-family properties into Single family usage, well low and behold its back under a different wrapper called "gaining title to foreclosed and dilapidated properties and convert them to single family home, recreation space or parking".

Here is the knock on Ed, he just doesn't instill a lot of confidence in some people as a singular leader, he has been a good councilman and somewhat responsive to a majority of the citizens, but at times he can drop the ball and then it becomes similar to Tom George's issue, lack of communication.

In order for him to win in November he must two things, communicate his message much better with a little more passion and steal all the George votes to him, which may be a tall order to fill.

If you want to see the multi-point plans for turning around Lakewood, just click on the header.