BLOOMFIELD, NJ – A two-year project to clean up township parks was quietly shut down last week.
“Who cares? I mean really. They’re parks. Who uses our town’s parks anyway? Drug dealers? Kids going at night to make out? It should be dirty for them,” Mayor Tom Clement said from his home. “I’ve got a yard and it’s hard enough to take care of that. If people want space for their kids to play, they need to get yards.”
The cleanup plan began with former Mayor Sally Hutchins, who, coming from apartments her entire life, felt the township’s parks needed a facelift. When Clement took over, opponents said he ignored the project, relegating it to low-level paper pushers.
While Hutchins had hoped to revitalize the green areas by replacing plants and trees and cracking down on after-hours occurrences such as drug deals, Clement’s only efforts to continue the project took the form of a few Bloomfield Department of Public Works employees with large brooms cleaning the paths in Brookside Park.
“No one really wanted to do anything, and I didn’t want to push them,” Clement said, adding that township employees liked him and he wanted to keep it that way.
Fran Tucker, who was credited by Hutchins with developing the idea was furious with the decision to not do anything.
“This isn’t right. It’s wrong, so wrong,” she said, standing next to a two-foot pile of discarded refuse in Watsessing Park. When she tapped it with her foot for emphasis, a rat scurried out, heading towards the Parkway.
“How can anyone let someone else live like this? How can anyone let children play here?” she said.
When asked these questions Clement merely shrugged.
“As I said, if people want a place for their kids to play, they need to buy homes in Bloomfield that have yards. It doesn’t matter if there aren’t any available. These people who complain need to make it happen themselves. I don’t see why I need to do anything this wasn’t my idea,” Clement said.
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