My mentor who used to work for a daily newspaper and once owned a newspaper himself likes to revert back to when he worked at that daily and tries to make our layout similar to his former employer. But when I’m doing the paper, especially the front page, some of the time I won’t have a clue as what will be the lead story. In some cases during a slow week I may get a gift and a front page story may land in my lap at the last minute. (For instance, the Thomas O’Leary Guilty Plea) If you look throughout the paper you will see that we take great liberty with some of the pages. For instance one week we may do an Amboy Spotlight on a particular business or individual or we may need to do a movie revue or soft news or even an advertisement. We are not a conventional newspaper where we may have a set format every single week. We turned our newspaper into a format that is suited to our needs and that of the community for that particular week. There are times when we run into a problem when we have so many meetings going on during the same week that is very easy for us to do a 32 page edition. When this happens we have to decide not always what is the most important item discussed at a meeting but if there was something new said at a meeting that had not been brought up before.

Let’s face it. When you have meetings that are attended by individuals who have a strong conviction for what they believe in they may repeat the same information over and over. Lately when I’ve been going to meetings I’m listening to see who is bringing up a new topic or in the case of the last Perth Amboy Council Meeting residents of Hidden Village II came up with similar problem having to do with their water meters. I instantly thought back to Harbortown residents and what they went through with the same exact problems packing the Council Chambers meeting after meeting. My thoughts also go back to the time when the Harbortown residents are so frustrated that they protested in bitter cold temperatures outside of City Hall. I could still see the determinations in their faces that they would not go away until their problem was solved. They were a very forceful group and had very dedicated and powerful leaders.

Perhaps the Hidden Village II residents could contact the Harbortown Association members and see how they were able to resolve their issues and were they satisfied with the final outcome. This is a situation where the community can truly help each other out.

C.M.