A weekly paper’s role is clear. It must be a part of its community. Not just a reflection of it, but right into its roots. You may not be able to please everyone, but we have a diverse and rich Two River area and this paper tries hard to help make it even better.
Hence our new Pedestrian and Cyclist task force that addresses the issues of crosswalks, the lack of cyclist paths and speeding traffic through the Greater Red Bank area. The Two River Times is coordinating the initiative as an editorial campaign to improve safety first in Red Bank and then in the entire Two River area.
We’ve brought together government officials at the borough, county and state level, as well as representatives of schools, and major stakeholders in the community like Meridian and RiverCenter.
You can’t build Rome in a day, so we’ve begun by focusing on several areas of Red Bank that are dangerous first, will advance through Red Bank and then broaden out to the Two River area. It will involve rotating legislators, local officials and stakeholders in our monthly meetings as they progress but the same county officials will be at the table throughout the initiative, as will The Two River Times. We are not excluding anyone in our coverage area and I want to assure you of that.
Red Bank is very much an epicenter for vibrant cultural events, the restaurants and the business district as well as its burgeoning population so we thought that was a good place to start. But there are safety issues throughout our region, and many towns have the same positives and negatives of Red Bank on a bit of a smaller scale but their issues are just as important and we’ll tackle them all. We’ve only just begun.
And we will hold ourselves and the officials and stakeholders accountable. We will run a monthly checklist of what the initiatives are and then we will track how we’re all doing. We will always tell you what’s next up on the agenda, and that may change with your input. We want to hear from you about this issue. It involves our children, our elderly and everyone who walks or cycles. We think it’s a pretty important issue. We want to hear your thoughts about dangerous places to drive, cross, cycle. We want to hear about your complaints, your ideas, your solutions.
And be clear, this won’t be the only issue we address as we try to improve our Two River community. We want to follow our environment and make sure our waters and beaches are protected and the air we breathe is clean. We want to make sure our children our doing well and that our business districts flourish. We want strong hospitals and caring health services. And we want people to understand that when they donate to causes, it makes a difference in the entire community. The health of a society is built on community commitment, individual commitment. We’ve made ours and we hope you join us by advancing your ideas and concerns and help guide us to solutions.
We’re listening. And we care, a lot.
Let’s have coffee.
Jody Calendar
Executive Editor/Co-Publisher
jcalendar@tworivertimes.com
732-219-5788
