Obama Set To Praise Camden Policing; ACLU Has Concerns

President Obama is expected to speak at 3 p.m. in Camden, where administration officials say he will praise the work of the Camden County Police Department in establishing better ties with the community.

Camden is a “good example of a community that’s putting innovative strategies in place to advance community policing,” Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said in a conference call with reporters Sunday.

Obama chose to visit Camden because of its emphasis on community policing to reduce crime, Muñoz said. She noted that Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson had testified at one of the task force’s hearings in February.

Camden also is participating in Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, which the president launched last year to address persistent opportunity gaps for boys and young men of color.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20150519_Obama_to_recommend_Camden_policing_as_national_model.html#262XoD8CAOx7O6Wy.99

Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson Gets Raise

The Camden County freeholders on Thursday approved a $66,800 raise for Metro Police Chief Scott Thomson, bringing his annual salary to $230,000.

Thomson’s new contract guarantees that he will stay in Camden until at least 2019, county spokesman Dan Keashen said Friday.

“This is about retaining one of the sharpest law enforcement minds in the country,” Keashen said.

No county funds are used for the operation of the Camden County Police Department, which is paid for by Camden City and the state.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20150321_Camden_s_police_chief_receives__66_800_pay_increase.html#Zl2PFt58e6hq4eVd.99

Wiz Khalifa Taking Under The Influence Tour To Camden / Scranton

Editor’s note:  Don’t necessarily agree with some of his activities but it’s cool to see somebody from Pittsburgh love their hometown and be proud of it.  

Summer is Wiz Khalifa time. His tune “Shell Shocked” is on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sound track. His new album, Blacc Hollywood, drops in August. And the rapper will take his third Under the Influence of Music summer tour through Scranton on Thursday and to Camden on Friday.

“I always wanted to make Under the Influence something to talk about,” says Khalifa, “not just the day after the show, but the rest of your life.”

He’s a Pittsburgh native. His 2010 hit “Black and Yellow” was a pledge of allegiance to the Steelers. “Eagles, Steelers,” he says. “You know there’s no competition. You already know about that.” But there is a Philly connection: his wife, South Philadelphia-raised Amber Rose. “My Philly girl,” he calls her. He and the model married in 2013 after their son, Sebastian, was born, and they settled in Canonsburg, near Pittsburgh.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20140724_Wiz_Khalifa_taking_Under_the_Influence_tour_to_Scranton_and_Camden.html#sQPxiIK8oCy2WyV3.99

Cities Deploy Fakery Techniques To Cover Up Urban Blight

Camden, New Jersey, one of the poorest and most crime-ridden U.S. cities, has awaited rebirth for a generation. For now, it has Christopher Toepfer and his paintbrush.

Ten feet up a ladder, Toepfer, a 51-year-old artist, is turning a rotting factory’s plywood-covered windows from a mess of gang graffiti into a railroad mural. The spruce-up, though it won’t cure the neighborhood’s ills of poverty and violence, will make a bright spot of the biggest blight on Federal Street.

Thirty years after New York City Mayor Ed Koch drew scorn for gussying up uninhabitable Bronx tenements with decals of curtained windows, urban fakery is spreading in U.S. cities where the recession’s wave of foreclosures added to decades-long decay. The city of Wilmington, Delaware, used the decal approach on a string of row houses earlier this year, and Bridgeport, Connecticut, started working with local artists in October to adopt Toepfer’s approach.

If the technique that Toepfer calls aesthetic board-up is a stopgap, it’s a cheap one, costing just $500 to $1,000 per property, a fraction of demolition costs. It’s also immediate, with a typical makeover done in less than a day.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/07/05/Vacant-House-Fakery-Reborn-as-Cleveland-to-Camden-Fight-Blight/stories/201407040018#ixzz36bqH18zQ

In Solving Camden Homicides, Intimidation Is Huge Hurdle

English: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Camden suffers from unemployment, urban decay, poverty, and many other social issues. Much of the city of Camden, New Jersey suffers from urban decay. 日本語: ニュージャージー州カムデンのスラム. Svenska: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Kiswahili: Camden, New Jersey ni moja ya mataifa maskini zaidi katika miji ya Marekani. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ernesto Torres was gunned down nearly two months ago, the bullets flying, his family suspects, because of his dispute with another man about a woman.

Like others whose loved ones have been killed in Camden this year, his mother, Cary Soldevila, hoped for a quick arrest. But the investigation, which came to a head over the weekend when an arrest warrant was issued for a suspect, took patience.

“I want peace in my heart,” said Soldevila, 43, “that I can go to sleep at night and know that this person who destroyed my life is put away.”

Torres, 22, is one of 17 people killed in Camden so far this year. Of those 17 homicides, 12 are unsolved. Investigators say they have promising leads in some of the cases. But witness intimidation, a lack of people willing to step forward, and a backlog of homicide cases from past years – including 2012, when a record 67 people were killed – have slowed progress.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20140526_In_solving_Camden_homicides__intimidation_is_huge_hurdle.html#QDSmOQafb3k89YLB.99

New Jersey-To-Philly Commuters Face Rough Summer

A PATCO Speedline train pulls into Woodcrest station, heading towards Philadelphia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) – Commuters between southern New Jersey and Philadelphia are in for a rough summer.

Work on the tracks and electrical systems on the PATCO Speedline will mean a less frequent schedule for the train line used by 40,000 per day and closed car lanes on the Ben Franklin Bridge, which carries trains – and 100,000 cars daily – over the Delaware River,

“I have no choice but to catch the train because the parking is horrible and expensive over there,” Juanita King, who works as a scheduler at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Hospital, said before she hopped on her train recently at Camden’s Ferry Avenue Station, a popular place for park-and-ride customers from Camden and Gloucester counties.

A round-trip ride from there is $4.50 a day and most of the parking is free.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/transportation/20140525_ap_f585186901dd4e639c628853a7f38cd5.html#hVeJsZcKJYLOL6tO.99

Two Camden Killings End Year On A Fatal Note

English: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Camden suffers from unemployment, urban decay, poverty, and many other social issues. Much of the city of Camden, New Jersey suffers from urban decay. 日本語: ニュージャージー州カムデンのスラム. Svenska: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Kiswahili: Camden, New Jersey ni moja ya mataifa maskini zaidi katika miji ya Marekani. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CAMDEN, NJ — Two men were killed Tuesday in Camden in what authorities said appeared to be a drug-related shooting.

They became the city’s 56th and 57th homicide victims of 2013, pushing the homicide rate to the second-highest level on record and the number of victims to its third-highest level. In 2012, 67 people were slain.

Around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, police were called to a house on the 700 block of Division Street, also known as Ramona Gonzalez Street, in the Bergen Square neighborhood.

They found Jorge Chavis, 31, and James Anderson, 23, dead from gunshot wounds, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20140101_2_shot_dead_in_Camden.html#uxyK08fKAQjQsho0.99

In Camden, 89 New Officers And 17 Languages

English: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Camden suffers from unemployment, urban decay, poverty, and many other social issues. Much of the city of Camden, New Jersey suffers from urban decay. 日本語: ニュージャージー州カムデンのスラム. Svenska: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Kiswahili: Camden, New Jersey ni moja ya mataifa maskini zaidi katika miji ya Marekani. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Virginia Matias was a senior in high school when her uncle Miguel Espinal was shot and killed during an armed robbery at his corner store.

The robber shot Espinal in the abdomen and made off with $900 from his La Dominicana store in East Camden.

The slaying prompted Matias, now 27, to study law and justice at Rowan University with an eye toward becoming a police officer in Camden, to try to prevent similar acts of senseless violence.

This month, Matias graduated from the Camden County police academy, along with 108 others in the largest graduating class to date. Eighty-nine of the officers, including Matias, are now working for the Camden County Police Metro Division. Another class, graduating in April, will bring the force up to 411 officers, county officials said.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20131228_In_Camden__89_new_officers_and_17_languages.html#DaidPhGXFz2LtawH.99

Study: Deep Poverty On The Rise In Delaware And Camden Counties

English: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Camden suffers from unemployment, urban decay, poverty, and many other social issues. Much of the city of Camden, New Jersey suffers from urban decay. 日本語: ニュージャージー州カムデンのスラム. Svenska: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Kiswahili: Camden, New Jersey ni moja ya mataifa maskini zaidi katika miji ya Marekani. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Deep poverty appears to be accelerating in Delaware and Camden Counties, as the poorest of the poor scramble for rent, heat, and food.

In the city of Chester, Donald Grover, 47, and his wife, Melissa Zirilli, 43, can’t do their jobs – he because the home-remodeling firm he works for cut his time from 60 hours a week to nearly nothing, she because debilitating seizures keep her from being a nurse’s aide.

In the city of Camden, Mark Woodall, 49, once a construction worker and a trained cook, now makes $10 an hour in a soup kitchen as he and his out-of-work fiancee are forced to live on a street he says is thronged with armed teenagers “without morals.”

“Lack of work is really, really hurting us,” said Zirilli, who lives with her husband and three children on about $6,000 a year.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20131025_Study__Deep_poverty_on_the_rise_in_Delaware_and_Camden_Counties.html#GSyaLqbobqbX9VUX.99

Prospect Of Jobs Draws Thousands To Camden Site

Map of New Jersey highlighting Camden County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The news that a company coming to Camden would be accepting applications for as many as 1,000 positions brought double that number of people to a job fair whose organizers combined it with a political rally Monday afternoon.

Amir Khan, a Camden mayoral candidate, hosted the ribbon-cutting for Acts Industries L.L.C., a maker of modular temporary housing units that is leasing a former factory building at East State Street and River Avenue.

Khan, who said he has no financial stake in the company, said he was a friend of Acts owner Irv Richter, who is also chairman and chief executive of the Evesham-based construction management company Hill International.

Khan, who last year failed in a bid to open a charter school catering to suburban children, said he persuaded the businessman to locate Acts, a subsidiary of AlphaGen International, in Camden instead of Mississippi.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20131015_Prospect_of_jobs_draws_thousands_to_Camden_site.html#rzHGfjxPUWvGmlOb.99

Camden Waterfront Eyed For World Trade Center

The development firm that hoped to build a World Trade Center in Philadelphia is now looking at erecting it on the former prison site on Camden‘s waterfront.

In a statement, Waterfront Renaissance Associates (WRA) said Monday it in talks with state and local officials to determine the feasibility for developing the site.

WRA is the developer of the residential towers directly across the river, just north of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia.  That site was once considered for the Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center, which was established in 2002.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20130910_Camden_waterfront_eyed_for_World_Trade_Center.html#v7Dy7dOP6PTAzPWf.99

In Camden, Christie Hails New Force

English: , U.S. Attorney, Governor-elect of New Jersey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gov. Christie came to Camden Wednesday to hail the advent of a new county-run police force in the city as “a transformational moment for both the city of Camden and Camden County – most importantly for the people, the children, the families, and the neighborhoods that they live in.”

Christie, an early supporter of the new Camden County Police, which Wednesday replaced the nearly 184-year-old city police department, said it would lead to “better, stronger, more effective, more visible law enforcement.”

Flanked by the new department’s leadership, the governor spoke at the swearing-in ceremony for former city Police Chief Scott Thomson, the new chief of the city’s metro division, in Malandra Hall, a community center in the Fairview Village section.

Before Christie’s remarks, more than a dozen former city officers gathered outside.  Some carried signs indicating their years of service and made a symbolic line on the street with their patrolman’s boots in a neat row. One retired sergeant said the group had come to attend the ceremony but was told it was a private event.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20130502_Camden_Council_approves_county_police_agreement.html

Governor Christie To Announce State Takeover Of Camden Schools

English: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Camden suffers from unemployment, urban decay, poverty, and many other social issues. Much of the city of Camden, New Jersey suffers from urban decay. 日本語: ニュージャージー州カムデンのスラム. Svenska: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Kiswahili: Camden, New Jersey ni moja ya mataifa maskini zaidi katika miji ya Marekani. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TRENTON – Gov. Christie plans to announce Monday that he is taking the extraordinary step of putting the educational and fiscal management of the Camden School District under state control, The Inquirer has learned.

As part of the takeover of what the state considers the worst-performing district in New Jersey, Christie will appoint a new superintendent and leadership team, shifting the school board to an advisory role, according to Christie administration officials briefed on the plan.

The Republican governor’s move nonetheless has support from at least a few school board members and key Democratic leaders in the South Jersey political establishment, some of whom are expected to join Christie at the takeover announcement Monday in the city, officials said.

Camden will become the fourth urban district under state control, after Paterson, Newark, and Jersey City. This is the first takeover initiated by Christie, who will add the severely challenged district to his education portfolio less than eight months before his reelection bid.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/nj/20130325_Christie_to_announce_state_takeover_of_Camden_schools.html

Reading Sheds ‘Poorest’ Rank, But Poverty Still A Challenge

Those who were standing in line at a food pantry in Reading on Wednesday did not know the city had spent a year ranked as the most impoverished city in the nation.

They didn’t know that ranking would be changed by statistics released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

They just knew they needed food.

“Most of them really need it,” said Dorothy Fletcher, 79, of Stony Creek Mills, who is a volunteer and a client at the monthly food pantry at Family First Resource Center, 416 S. Seventh St.

Read more:   http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=415738

Camden Plagued By Fires

Because Camden does not already have enough problems, a string of fires has rocked the beleaguered city this summer.

Here’s a list of where things stand:

June 9^th – fire at a former tire-distribution center

June 11^th – fire at a former garment factory

June 19^th – fire at a former detergent plant (ruled arson, no arrests)

July 5^th – fire at a former paint-manufacturing plant (suspect charged)

July 30^th – fire at an abandoned warehouse

Any information on the June 19^th fire, please call 1-888-283-3473.  There is a reward up to $5,000.

“M’m, M’m Layoff” Campbell’s Soup To Cut 770 Jobs

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

The Campbell Soup Company is laying of 770 people worldwide, including 130 at their Camden, NJ headquarters.

The layoffs represent 4 percent of Campbell’s workforce and will save the company $60 million.  Soup sales are declining domestically and Campbell’s attempts to enter foreign markets has met with minimal success.

Camden, New Jersey: Enter At Your Own Risk

Image via Wikipedia

Camden, New Jersey was just ranked the second most dangerous city in the United States.  A 2009 estimate census showed Camden’s population at 78,790.  Camden has a police force of 373 or one officer for every 211 people (This figure does not include civilian employees). The US average is one officer per 333 people.  The land area of the city is 8.8 square miles. 

Six months ago, 50 new officers were hired to beef up security for the beleaguered city.  Now it appears that on January 18^th, up to 180 officers could be laid off.  Camden is financially distressed and is asking the officers to take a 20% pay cut.  Police sources say the pay cut approaches 35% with all total concessions.  Some of the new officers are wondering why they were hired in the first place.  On a positive note, there are other cities lining up to recruit any laid off Camden cops.  Nashville, Atlanta and Norfolk are interested in hiring any Camden law enforcement budget casualties. 

Camden has been in a free fall for decades.  Major employers like RCA, Campbell’s Soup and New York Shipbuilding employed well over 50,000 people.  Camden’s population peaked in 1950 at 124,555 residents.  The 2009 estimate shows a net loss of 45,765 residents since 1950 or about 37%.  By comparison, the state of New Jersey’s population has nearly doubled since 1950. 

41.7% of Camden residents lived in poverty in 2008.  Camden was ranked as American’s poorest city in 2006 when 52% of its residents lived in poverty.  By contrast, New Jersey had the nations second highest per capita personal income in 2008, the highest percentage of millionaire households and is second in the US for towns/cities with per capital incomes above the national average (76.4%).

Camden’s median household income was estimated at $24,283 per year in 2008 (NJ $70,378).  The estimated per capita income for Camden in 2008 was $10,771.  In April 2010 the unemployment rate in Camden was 18.1%, compared to 9.6% for the state of New Jersey.  

Camden scored a 967.6 crime index on City-data.com for 2009.  There were 34 murders.  In 2008 Camden scored 1114.6 and had 54 murders.  As we learned in my earlier post about crime stats, a score of over 700 is considered HIGH and a score about 1000 is considered VERY HIGH.

So what will become of Camden if, worst case scenario, 48% of their officers are laid off!  Or even if only 25% are laid off.  I shudder to think!

Enter at your own risk! 

(Demographic data taken from Wikipedia and City-data.com.)