Kevin Taylor

James Gerrish

The Election is NOT over until November 5th! You can still WRITE IN your vote for KEVIN TAYLOR. Here's How.

I first began to notice Kevin Taylor as a Mayoral candidate in 2009. But then I was a registered Republican and unable to vote in the Democratic primary that Robert Bowser won for his fourth term in office.

It was then I realized that if I wanted to be able to vote for a mayor in this city, I needed to register as a Democrat, which I did this year after seeing that Kevin Taylor was about to make his third run for the position.

The thing that impressed me about Kevin in 2009 was that he was NOT a politician, but was running on his background as a businessman. That's the same thing that inspired me to attend one of his "Meet & Greet" meetings at his house in March of this year (2013).

The difference between politicians and a businessman:

Politicians

  

Business person

Property Taxes

Aggressively working to reduce taxes
Carol Taylor's Platform

Hold the line on taxes by being smarter about how the city spends our tax dollars.
Create new revenue streams to balance the budget without raising taxes.
Lester Taylor's Web site

  

Property Taxes

Use our Water Wealth from the city's 18 artesian wells to generate revenue to bring down property taxes.
Develop some of the land on the outskirts of our watershed property to add further revenue to bring down property taxes.
Convert the many vacant buildings and vacant schools into money-making properties, creating jobs and adding to the revenue to help lower taxes.
Kevin Taylor's Goals

Education

3. Strengthen our schools by engaging all community stakeholders (educator, students, parents, and community members) to build a better educational system.
Carol Taylor's Platform

"Investing in education so that our children have a brighter future."
Lester Taylor's Goals

"Lester will set goals for success and appoint only the most qualified and competent individuals to the school board and hold them accountable for results."
Lester Taylor's Web site

  

Education

Reform our school district with transparency and by having a partially elected school board, giving parents and teachers a greater say in running our schools.
Kevin Taylor's Goals

Steps towards Reform
Televising & streaming Board of Education Meetings
Place budget online for transparency
Invest in extensive weekend and afterschool programs
Create Fund/ Scholarship for East Orange students that wish to go to college.
Create Education Federation Council consisting of parents, students, teachers, administrators , the board of education and the mayors office
Get more citizens involved with the education process by moving to a partially elected board firm.
Kevin Taylor's Web site

Summary- all talk, but no solid solutions given so you can't hold them accountable if anything in their campaign promises doesn't work. They need someone to blame for their failures so they can meet their ultimate goal of getting re-elected in some public office at the same or a higher level.

  

Summary- A business person makes business plans. The plans have to be practical and have clearly defined goals that can be judged by their success or failure. If a business plan fails, he is accountable, but also capable of making adjustments to the plan in order to get the goals to ultimately succeed.

I've compared just two of the issues in this campaign as an example. You can do the same with any of the many other issues involved in this election, but let's move on. The one thing I needed to find out about Kevin was how good he was at keeping his word. I found out the hard way that Barack Obama said things and made promises that, as it turned out, he had no intention of keeping. I didn't want to go though that again. So I did what I should have done before voting for Barack Obama. It's called "vetting".

Kevin said that he built Shop Rite (at its present location in Brick Church Plaza). Every time he says that in public, someone in the audience makes noises of disbelief, but Kevin is not saying that he constructed the Shop Rite building all by himself, but that his company, named KETCO, was involved. A search through microfilms of The East Orange Record for the years 1985 - 1987 reveals that is true. Also in charge of the Public Works Department of East Orange at that same time was the younger Robert L. Bowser, today the Mayor, who sat through several debates where the question of Kevin's building Shop Rite brought forth snorts from the audience, but not from the Mayor.

My co-custodian, Frederick Goode, will tell you how he vetted the integrity of Kevin Taylor by offering him a challenge recently, which won Kevin the respect of both of us who regard honesty as the most important quality in someone you plan to vote for. (To see Fred's Challenge, click HERE and scroll to bottom of page.)

One of the biggest problems of the current East Orange administration, from mayor through every member of the current city council, is the lack of communication. The city has a Web site that is never updated on time. The city has a Facebook page which continues to fill up with commercial spam advertisements, just like the street lamposts around the city which are covered with advertisements and political signs, despite an ordinance forbidding that use of public property. The mayor set up a Facebook page when he ran for mayor, but to this date (5/27/13) he has never visited the page to respond to any concerns or questions from constituents. The number of visitors to the mayor's page was 15 on that date, by the way.

By contrast, every question I have put to Kevin Taylor, either in person or on his Facebook page, has gotten a quick and honest response. The responses aren't immediate, but Kevin is a busy man. He will respond when he gets the chance. If he doesn't know the answer to a question, he doesn't make up an answer. He either admits he doesn't know, or he does some research to discover the answer.

I am convinced that my vote for Kevin Taylor for mayor won't be wasted. If Kevin wins, we will have an honest businessman as mayor, instead of a politician who answers to political bosses. We will have new solutions to old problems from someone who knows how to communicate on the Internet and off. Furthermore, we have his word that he will not try to stay mayor-for-life, but considers three term limits to be enough for any mayor.

If Kevin loses, we will still have an honest businessman as an active citizen, helping to solve the city's problems as best he can without the power of office of the mayor... the same as he has been doing for the last eight years as a community advocate. But we will be the losers, not Kevin.

06/01/13 Kevin Taylor's Statement on PolitickerNJ

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