The Ruins of Trenton

What could be a new chapter in Trenton's history started Saturday when a group of concerned citizens gathered in the State House Annex to review their current situation within the city.











Organized by resident Paul Harris, of Centre Street, the opening of the meeting saw its 25 or so delegates address a litany of problems, eventually resolving that a unifying theme in all of the problems was the current government and administration of the city.

"Trenton deserves a functioning goverment that upholds and executes the laws that are currently on the books," said one delegate, adding this wasn't occurring at City Hall.











The rest of the delegates, including students, businessowners, community activists, and plain old residents, seemed to agree with this statement, eventually scrapping an examination of the individual problems to discuss the big problem on the government, or lack thereof.

The three-hour meeting adjourned around 5 p.m., with a new date set for a follow-up meeting on August 4. Attendees were also urged to attend Thursday's doubleheader City Council meeting.














The administration will be presenting an overhaul of housing and inspections code they say could address some of the city's problems with slum landlords and tenants.

The plan has taken several months to bring together due to administrative foul-ups and general inactivity on the part of the Trenton legislative body.

There should also be discussion of the much-needed ordinance revising city code language dictating the minimum numbers of officers.

As young men are being shot down in the street, Mayor Palmer called the plan "knee-jerk" and asked the council to hold off until police contract negotiations, which have taken years to complete in the past, are complete.

While Trenton waits for bureaucrats to finish talking in City Hall count on five more body bags piling up at the coroner's office. There may be some all-too familiar scenes like this: