Jackson residents need to have businesses in their hometown
Icommend Stan Goldman for his letter to the editor ("People May Be Jackson Township's Real Endangered Species," Tri-Town News, Aug. 30). I am in my 25th year here in Jackson and couldn't agree with him more.

When are we going to stop planting more weeds (homes) and start sowing some crops - like some small and maybe some not-so-small businesses around here? Forty thousand folks and no hotel? Why build a hotel; there are no businesses for the folks to want to visit?

I made this point at a township meeting a while ago. It was met with blank stares.

I have no problem with any of my fellow townspeople, but doesn't it seem like there are a lot of HVAC, mechanical and plumbing contractors here? Not a lot of tax revenue there; many of them work from home or a small shop with few workers.

There are lots of landscapers, but they seem to have a mostly south-of-the-border work force so there is not a lot of tax revenue there either, or Social Security numbers for that matter.

Except for a few store owners, most of us go north or west in order to go to work each day. We drive 50 miles away, eat lunch and maybe pick up a few odds and ends at a store somewhere else. At the end of the day we head back home. On weekends we go to Route 9 to shop. A lot of good that does. The dollars we spend go to other communities.

Jackson is sorely in need of business infrastructure. We have almost no commercial businesses. I am talking about a fairly big company with a fairly big office. I am talking about a USA-class or world-class warehouse, production or operating facility.

We have an amusement park; sure, lots of professionaltypes there - and it is only active for half the year. During the winter we might as well curl up and hibernate.

I travel all over the state. There are many, many communities that, from a distance, seem to be residential, if not quaint and rural. Yet, still they find room to place their vital businesses.

During the day professionals come there to work and spend their cash. They go to places like Mahwah, Warren, Bridgeport, Somerville, Edison, Vineland and even Jamesburg.

As a township, if we don't institute a program that invites more businesses and more professionals to come, live and work here we are going to strangle ourselves in McMansions and the only traffic in town is going to be lawn mowers running up and down the streets.

Peter J. Collins

Jackson