be T.U.F.

Dear Honorable Congressman Pallone: July7th 2004

I am a registered Democrat, in the 4th ward of Somerset New Jersey and I am in need of your HELP!

I purchased my first home from HUD just days before My husband and I married on June 13 2003. I was never informed by the town officials or by anyone in the HUD organization that my house was in a Redevelopment Area which I now discover means that my house may be taken through Eminent Domain.

The community I now call home is composed of mostly single-family homes although there are some businesses, and the majority of the residents take pride in home ownership, although there are a few houses that are in need of repair. This is an affordable neighborhood and if my house is taken from me even if they pay "fair market value," all the other homes in the Franklin area are much more than I can afford.

My community was declared "blighted" by the town in order for them to get the authority to institute Eminent Domain, but my neighbors and I disagree with that description. It is true that some homes are better maintained than others, but this is a lower income neighborhood and my neighbors and I do the best we can with the money we earn. We take pride in owning a house, and for many of us, including myself, this was an area we could afford to be first time homebuyers.

I feel that the Town of Franklin may be unfairly targeting my area because it is predominately a black, working class community. We pay our taxes and were expecting to receive the same consideration as the rest of the people in Franklin, but the Town does not fix our streets, or enforce the codes in my community as well as it does in other areas, and the two worst boarded up neglected eyesores I found out recently are owned by the town!

This is a case of a Municipality causing the "blight" they are charging us with!

Now, the Redevelopment Agency is asking the Town Council to expand the redevelopment area into a previously unaffected area, and instead of building residential infill as the plan recommended, they are changing my quiet, safe neighborhood into a commercial zone with a Pathmark food store as an anchor.

This project will involve the "taking" of 56 of my neighbors properties and will affect the quality of life for the remaining "lucky" homeowners. We don't want the bright lights and constant truck traffic of a commercial district, literally in our back yards.

The fact that no one was obligated by law to inform me that my house was in a redevelopment zone was inexcusable, but to give a group of unelected and untrained redevelopment Agency commissioners the authority to just change an area from residential to commercial without the normal approvals and processes of the planning board and regular government agencies seems a recipe for disaster, and in this case, possibly discriminatory.

The current threat we live under is for a Pathmark store, but just a year ago a ShopRite store closed its doors in an adjacent commercial area. The Redevelopment agency makes its decisions in a vacuum. Why couldn't the town entice Pathmark to move into a vacant Shopping center just up the street? I believe that our Redevelopment Agency is not interested in what is good for the people in town, but rather is being unduly influenced by large developers who may be promising political contributions or favors. This is definitely not in the best interests of the poor and working class people, and isn't that who the Democrat party is supposed to be for? Most of the council members are Democrats, but they seem to be hypnotized by the deep pockets of certain developers and have put our needs in second place.

Our Mayor is one of only two Republicans on our Council, but he has been helpful, and has listened to our comments.

He is going to propose that the Council take the power of Eminent Domain away from the Redevelopment Agency so that any further development will proceed WITH the approval of the residents.

We need you to reach out and speak to the 7 Democrat members of our Council. We have been attending Council meetings and Redevelopment meetings with our thoughts and complaints but thus far have gotten no consideration from the Council. This redevelopment is not in the best interests of the Town, nor in the best interests of the local residents, it is only in the best interests of the millionaire developers and and a power grab by the Agency.

Two of the commissioners on the Agency are members of The First Baptist Church, as are several of the Council members. The First Baptist Church is the developer that is threatening me with this commercial development... don't you think that is a conflict of interest?

To conclude, my neighborhood is my family. It is a quiet and great place to live and we do not want redevelopment in our area. We want the Eminent Domain taken off of our properties, and the redevelopment agency, to be disbanded, and instead of a redevelopment of our neighborhood, why not a revitalization effort? It would be less expensive for the state to encourage us to improve our own properties than to subsidize an obviously flawed process.

Please help us, I can be contacted at (contact information withheld by TUF for privacy considerations)

Thank you in advance for your help.

Yours very truly:

Francine Certo-Bowers
Somerset, NJ 08873