The Ruins of Trenton

There was a report in a local newspaper Wednesday that provided readers with an interesting and instructive, yet incomplete view into the world of economic development, Trenton, and the current city administration.

It was a Trentonian piece by reporter and columnist L.A. Parker, who wrote about an older couple from Trenton living in the West Ward near the old Magic Marker brownfield site.

Sometime last year, following a multi-million dollar cleanup of the heavily polluted property, Mayor Douglas H. Palmer apparently promised the two longtime city residents - James and Louise Rollings - that one of the streets built on the site would bear their names, as a tribute to the longtime residents.

But a full year later, the property remains fallow, devoid of any streets or the 45 homes city officials have repeatedly touted at public meetings in recent times.

"There is no point in talking because they will tell us something, get our hopes up and then nothing. We're tired. Disappointed. We just want to know if the project is still in the works. They should tell us if it's not," said Mr. Rolling, according to The Trentonian.

Those comments, paired with earlier details provided in Mr. Parker's story, seem to scream out to the reader "who is at fault here?"

Mr. Parker, one of Mayor Palmer's most subservient supporters, failed to tie up that little missing piece in the story, even though the mere mention that Mayor Palmer promised something that goes on as undelivered seems to provide enough implication.

What's also missing from this story is the long line of similar empty promises made by Mayor Palmer and his other officials, who are quick to make promises and tout projects that more often than not never see the light of day.

Even that could have been conveyed in a somewhat objective fashion, with a simple list of projects, Trenton-sponsored or not, which Mayor Palmer has talked up yet have never come to fruition: Champale, Magic Marker, Full Spectrum, Manex, Performa...

Perhaps someone should have told the poor people up in the West Ward about this before they signed on to the notion they would one day have a street named after them.