Bergson Leneus
Running for 3rd Ward Councilman for East Orange
in the November 7th Election on LINE A
04/23/17 - Bergson Leneus came to
my house with his four children to ask me to vote for him as my
3rd Ward Councilman, replacing Ted Green who is running for mayor
this year. He handed me the flyer shown above. Having his
children present with him stopped me from asking him questions; I
wouldn't want to embarrass him in front of his children. However,
I notice that while he was talking, one of his children kept
trying to ask him for something and was ignored. If he doesn't
listen to his own children, I can't imagine he would listen to
me, either.
I would have asked him what he
meant by "Stabilize
Taxes" on his flyer. None of the
council persons has ever done anything to lower, reduce or
stabilize taxes in this city as long as I have lived here. Taxes
have always been raised, by the mayor but then always approved by
the council afterwards. Lester Taylor promised to reduce taxes
when he ran for mayor, but immediately raised them when he was
elected and both Ted Green and Quilla Talmadge (current council
for the 3rd ward) approved it then and approved every increase in
taxes since that time.
I would have asked him what he
meant by "Enhance
Redevelopment" on his flyer.
Redevelopment of what? Enhance it how? I'm not impressed that the
President of the Board of Education does not know how to
communicate better.
I would have asked him how he
plans to "Create
Employment Opportunities." The only
way he can do that, since he does not run a business of his own,
and is not running for the office of mayor, would be to approve
the hiring of more public workers paid on my tax payer money. We
already have more than 1,000 public workers employed in this
city, whose main function is to vote Line A Democrats into office
so they can continue to be employed for another term. Even as
President of the Board of Education, he has no power to
"create employment opportunities" in the school
district.
On the reverse side of the flyer,
he mentions "Increasing
overall academic achievement." He has
been a member of the board of education since 2012, and in all
that time has done nothing to increase academic achievement in
Reading, Writing, Math or Science. Suddenly, as 3rd Ward
Councilman, he plans to finally do what he should have been doing
for the past five years?
East Orange Student Academic Achievement Records for 2012-2013 ;
2013-2014 ;
2014-2015 ;
2015-2016
He also mentions "Decreasing Violence and
Bullying". He has been a member of the
board of education since 2012, and in all that time has done
nothing to decrease the violence in the most violent schools in
Essex County.
Let's Do The Math!
Comparing 2014-2015
with 2015-2016
Enrollment
DOWN by: 331 Students
Violence UP by 7
Vandalism down by 1
Weapons down by 2
Substances down by 14
HIB UP by 9
TOTAL down by TWO!
Did we get rid of the
wrong students?
His flyer mentions "Securing funding to construct a
new George Washington Carver School",
but that would be in the fifth ward, not the third ward. He
mentions nothing about making use of the three abandoned school
buildings in the 3rd Ward, the former Washington Academy, the
former Elmwood School, and the former VLD/ aka Cicely Tyson
Middle School.
His flyer mentions "Securing funds to add more world
language in all 22 schools". I don't
see how that takes funds from tax payers to accomplish. As
President of the Board of Education, he should have already
accomplished that, if it was really important, but since most of
the students in East Orange schools are having difficulty with
the English language, I would think that would be a higher
priority, and again it doesn't take funding, but just good
educational decisions and teaching strategies.
Finally, he mentions that he is
President of the Leneus
Family Foundation, described as an
organization geared towards creating opportunities for children
in East Orange and Haiti. The Foundation has been in existence
for a few years now, and so far seems to have done nothing except
put on fashion shows and black tie dinners. Like the Lester
Taylor III Foundation, it seems that it is more about increasing
political opportunities of the Foundation's Founders and Families
than in creating opportunities for the truly needy children of
East Orange or Haiti. But judge for yourself based on the Foundation's Facebook Page.
