Asbury Park Residents To Discuss Effort To Create City Jobs

By Carol Williams/Patch Staff

ASBURY PARK, NJ - A new workforce development strategy seeks to turn the city into a year-round economic destination, requires efforts that can support and grow local businesses and increases work opportunities in certain growth industries. Residents will get their first glimpse of the proposed plan tonight at the City Council's work session when consultant Thomas J Miller Associates unveils the plan whose full text is available on the city's website. The report, which is more than 100 pages long, was commissioned to develop an actionable workforce strategy that would be unique to Asbury Park's needs and dynamics. Since February, the consultant has been working on preparing a report whose goal would seem to be simple but which has proven to be complex for other administrations: to improve meaningful employment opportunities in the city for city residents.

The report sought insight from what it described as 70 "stakeholders" or interested persons who advised on the strategy's possible direction and the challenges and barriers the city faces to its effort to increase employment, according to a release on the city's website. “One Asbury Park: A Community Workforce Strategy” is a document that is meant to evolve and change over time as it seeks to guide Asbury Park’s future workforce. The central theme is to create what the report refers to as “One Asbury Park” because economic growth requires unifying this diverse community.

“We have succeeded in creating an actionable plan to increase employment opportunities for all city residents.” said Mayor John Moor. “Now, the hard work is ahead of us as we implement 'One Asbury Park' and come together as a community with the goal of helping Asbury Park grow.”

The report maintains that in order for the strategy to be successful, the city must put in place programs and initiatives to develop the talent required to support business and economic growth and relies on increasing cooperation between the city and Monmouth County to expand and enhance career opportunities and suggests a pipeline must be create to develop and train younger residents, the next generation of talent. To that end, it would require young people be given opportunities to explore various careers. Related planning resources would be needed so young people could become qualified and capable of jobs that appeal to them and ultimately, the workforce of the future would require education and training.

To view “One Asbury Park: A Community Workforce Strategy,” go to www.tinyurl.com/oneapplan. The city council's work session begins at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.

A view of Asbury Park's boardwalk. The city's workforce plan requires moving the city to a year-round economy. Photography by Seth Wenig/Associated Press