Around this time of year, we begin to think about history and the triumphs that we as American people have overcome. In the daily hustle we sometimes neglect our history and take our culture for granted, yet they feed our sense of identity and belonging. But everyone digests that history differently. For some it’s a sense of accomplishment and for others, a sense of pride and dignity.

In order to grasp the wide-range of impact that Black History has on various individuals in this community, we present the Honoring History Guest Blog Series, allowing our guest bloggers the opportunity to speak freely and fearlessly, about the impact that Black History has on each of them. Our guest bloggers represent community leaders, students and educators within our community. With each new post we not only encourage our community to read and share the ideas and opinions brought forward by the guest blogger but to also engage in conversation and in our facebook and twitter realms using the SoundOut Feature.

Check back weekly as we will be adding new Honoring History posts every Friday in February. We’re looking forward to it and hope you are too!

We’ve had so many questions from people asking how this newspaper idea came about until we knew that we had to blog about it. So the idea of this blog is to explain the purpose of the newspaper, who’s behind it and why we are passionate about it.

Our media team gathers articles from many social-media linked literature. These articles represent facts from legislature, businesses, organizations, faith-based groups and individual readers. We spend time gathering, reviewing and organizing articles to bring you relevant news, in real time.

As part of our move towards a user-friendly experience across our newspaper, the Lunchtime Reader is made up of six distinct elements - headlines, business, society, leisure, technology and education. In addition, we add two unique elements that change monthly. This month’s two elements are affordable housing and New Jersey.

On the first day of the launch, we had over 100 views and will add 50 pages every working day to the archive. So the pace of progression for our newspaper is pretty relentless and of course, this brings with it further challenges and technical requirements in the future. Scanning and digesting relevant news worth reading every day is a phenomenal task but we’re confident that the architecture we have in place will provide a world-leading user experience for the interactive audience we’ve already seen subscribing to our editions.

Why not give it a go for yourself online here and have lunch with us while you search out news in your community, local area and beyond? If you have a large appetite, you can “reserve lunch with us” by subscribing to our daily editions.

If you have any questions or want to find out more information about the Lunchtime Reader follow us on Twitter and we will see you at lunch!

Today, we launched the “Fair Share Lunchtime Reader”, our social-media driven online newspaper – published at noon Monday – Friday and even on Saturdays and Sundays (for our weekend workers). This newspaper reflects the growth of our organization and our vision for the future. We want to provide relevant news in an innovative way.

This change was a long time coming. For decades, readers would need to search various websites to get bits of information. Nearly two hours ago, we launched our Fair Share edition; on a typical Tuesday, and it attracted lots of readers. In our honest opinion, the Lunchtime Reader will become your favorite newspaper. The Fair Share Lunchtime Reader adopted this new name from our time to publish, which will continue to be published at noon. Both east coast and west coast readers now have access to our newspaper – in real time.

Throughout New Jersey and abroad, people feel such attachment to their own communities, and to their news. We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel so instead of reproducing the news, we take news and merge it in one place – making it a comprehensive read for all subscribers.

But like other citizens and community leaders, we recognize that news is subjective and is every changing. This is why we try to balance corporate and legislative news with editorials from everyday readers that are impacting change in local communities.

In each direction, first to publicize national news and then to give a voice to individual contributors, the Lunchtime Reader has been guided by the best interests of our community and its citizens. Today, that community of New Jersey is wider, deeper and more dynamic than it was a century ago. So is the newspaper. As we open a chapter as the Fair Share Lunchtime Reader, I anticipate great things ahead, both for the paper and Fair Share Housing Center. This is your news, served hot and fresh.

View the newspaper here or if you’re really feeling hungry, you can subscribe to our newspaper and get daily editions delivered hot and fresh to your email inbox.

If you have any questions or want to find out more information about the Lunchtime Reader follow us on Twitter @FairShareNJ or email the editor at MiaBell@fairsharehousing.org. We will see you at lunch!

I am continually astounded by the power of individual people to make a difference.

After seeing Google’s “Censor Google Campaign” that encouraged people to “tell congress don’t censor the web”, a campaign for Americans who oppose bills like SOPA and PIPA because they would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S, I was immediately inspired.

The power of individuals to change the world has been a theme in our culture over the last year. It was a single person who thought of the “Censor Google” campaign, a campaign that caused more than nine other websites to follow suit and join the campaign. This caused me to wonder “am I doing all that I can to promote my mission to ensure that all families have a safe and warm place to come home to?”

Then I thought about what we do here at Fair Share Housing Center. As an organization, we empower, educate and inspire communities to defend the rights of New Jersey’s residents through the Mount Laurel Doctrine.

However, each and every person plays their own role in molding the mission. We are comprised of attorneys, coordinators, interns and every day volunteers like you — that just want to make a difference.

As the new Outreach Coordinator at Fair Share Housing Center, I believe that every person has the potential to empower, educate and advocate. It is my responsibility to assist the community in tapping into that potential. I can only accomplish this goal with your help.

You can help by writing letters to the legislature, educating your neighbors, attending rallies and more, because we want your world to open up to new ways to impact change in your local communities, in your state and in your world. For more information on how you can get involved, email miabell@fairsharehousing.org

In addition, you can help by making a donation that will help us make a difference in the lives of people right next door. To donate to make a difference, visit our donation page.

However you help, just ensure that you are making your mark.

Being an advocate for New Jersey families is a bold move. We know it. But what would life be without taking a risk.

So it’s not out of the question to imagine Dr. King being a force in today’s debates about fair housing – a topic that, in the last few years of his life, consumed a considerable amount of his time. Indeed, there are hundreds of people still alive in New Jersey who marched alongside Dr. King or otherwise had the honor of meeting the man. And we have heard from many of them over the past two years. The dominant theme of their words – and likely what Dr. King himself would say – is that Governor Christie is trying to turn back the clock to the pre-civil rights era in letting municipalities choose to keep out whomever they want.

One pastor who marched with Dr. King recently told us that when he heard Christie’s rhetoric on local rights to ban certain people from their community, it sounded a lot like the states rights rhetoric of Southern politicians who resisted Dr. King. Let’s take a look:

“I’ve always believed municipalities should be able to make their own decisions on affordable housing, without being micromanaged and second-guessed from Trenton,” Chris Christie, on transferring the Council on Affordable Housing’s duties to the Department of Community Affairs (which we are currently challenging in court).

“Let the poll tax be repealed, if it should be, at the proper place. We have not yet come to the state of affairs in Georgia where we need the advice of those who would occupy the position of the carpetbagger and the scalawag of the days of Reconstruction to tell us how to handle our internal affairs,” Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, opposing federal legislation on voting rights.

Dr. King recognized, most famously in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, that his most dangerous opponents were not the George Wallaces who militantly declared “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever.” They were the Richard Russells – the people and politicians who claimed to agree with King’s ends, but argued for means that did nothing to advance them and in fact opposed them.

Russell understood this quite well. Robert Caro, in his masterful biography of Lyndon Johnson, Master of the Senate, which focuses heavily on Johnson’s relationship with Russell, describes a meeting of all southern Senators in the late 1940s. There, Russell successfully convinced all of his colleagues to stop using blatantly offensive terms on the floor of the Senate and instead “keep our speeches restrained and not inflammatory.” He knew that a majority of the country was opposed to him on segregation – but thought that if he could tone down that rhetoric, and focus instead on states’ rights and images of federal bureaucrats, he could keep African-Americans off the voter rolls and out of the lunch counters of the South. And he succeeded, for another decade and a half, until in the words of Isaiah that Dr. King was so fond of quoting, justice rolled down like a mighty stream, flowing too fast for Russell to stop.

Governor Christie similarly knows that most New Jerseyans won’t tolerate bald-faced statements of discrimination such as “We don’t want mentally ill people living here” (Raritan Township, Hunterdon County) or go along with neighbors who mobilize to shut down a Habitat for Humanity development (Summit City, Union County). So, like Russell, Christie talks about local control. But by doing so he can also play to those who simply don’t want “those people” living nearby – as he sometimes does in unscripted moments like telling a town hall questioner that his town simply doesn’t need any apartments and that the Mount Laurel decision was an “abomination.”

If Dr. King were alive today, he would call out Governor Christie, for acting against the fair housing principles he fought so hard for. He would note that — as the Courier-Post reminds us in an editorial today — our state is “among the most segregated in the country,” and Governor Christie’s actions further that segregation. And Dr. King would transcend racial lines – pointing out that while the Governor’s actions to maintain segregation do fall particularly hard on African-American and Latino communities, they also impact working-class white families, people with special needs, and struggling seniors.

But Dr. King is no longer with us. And so it’s up to you. Can you commemorate Dr. King’s birthday today by doing one or more of these things?

1. Share this blog posting with five friends;
2. Post a link to this post with a comment on your Facebook page;
3. Write a letter to the editor to your local newspaper — if you are in South Jersey you may want to respond to the Courier Post’s excellent editorial;
4. Donate $10, $20, or more to Fair Share Housing Center, or another civil rights organization of your choice, to continue the struggle for civil rights in New Jersey.

Because at the end of the day, Dr. King’s legacy is in all of our hands.

• Misappropriating nearly $1 million in funds from a trust fund required by state law to be used only for housing families, people with disabilities and seniors. Any use of the funds is required to be approved by the court, but the Township frequently spent trust funds without court approval.

• Illegally commingling trust funds with other municipal funds in violation of state law.

• Illegally using at least $511,000 on general municipal expenses, which is expressly prohibited by state law.

• Failing to maintain bank statements for the account in violation of state law.

• Failing to collect interest on the account in violation of state law.

• Misrepresenting how much was collected in order to cover-up its illegal misappropriation of trust funds.

The Township has acknowledged misappropriating funds, but has demanded that it not be required to return the funds to the trust fund. The NAACP Branches and FSHC have asked the Court to take control of the fund, order an audit, and order the Township to reimburse the trust fund for misappropriated funds and missing interest. The NAACP Branches and FSHC have been litigating to force Cherry Hill to comply with the Mount Laurel doctrine since the 1980s, most recently through litigation filed in 2001.

The hearing will occur in Judge Millenky’s courtroom at the Superior Court courthouse in Camden located at 101 South 5th Street, Camden, NJ 08103.

To request copies of the briefs and appendices filed in this matter, please send an email to fairshare@fairsharehousing.org.

We note that these are the third set of rules in six weeks to come out of DCA since it took over COAH’s responsibilities. The Christie Administration promised to make the COAH system simpler, and “end the COAH nightmare.” Instead, they are creating a new DCA nightmare — a dysfunctional system with ever-changing rules that undermines the creation of homes and jobs in New Jersey and threatens both non-profit and for-profit developers of modestly priced housing. This system, with no standards, no public process, and no accountability, doesn’t work for anyone but a select few town officials who are politically connected enough to get the outcome they want out of a closed door process.

The proposed rules themselves do not explicitly acknowledge that they are intended to further Governor Christie’s political goal of dismantling the Mount Laurel doctrine, but one does not have to dig too deep to see that is the case. Most of the amendments are intended to reduce the transparency of the process while giving local officials that the administration politically favors the power to do what they want. Likewise, the rules play into the propensity of some public officials to use public funds for their own purposes.

For instance, a proposed new rule involving economic feasibility provides a process for developers looking to reduce their housing obligations to “submit a request for determination of economic feasibility to the Department in a form to be prescribed by the Commissioner.” The rule requires developers and municipalities to submit extensive information and then provides that “the Department shall make a determination on the economic feasibility of providing the required set-aside.” It is not clear what that “determination” will be based on though because there are no standards included in the proposed rules. What good is a regulation if it doesn’t tell you what the law is? DCA has claimed that its goal is to “foster greater predictability for all players in the affordable housing arena,” but a standardless rule is anything but predictable. And the absence of standards also makes the process ripe for politicking. Do friends of the Governor get a better deal? Perhaps municipalities that want to sink a development can advocate for developers to get a higher, infeasible set aside. In New Jersey, these are not just possibilities; they are probabilities.

Similarly, under the proposed rules, spending plans are not required to be approved by the governing body through a resolution, but rather can be approved upon the submission of a letter from the municipality. With hundreds of millions of dollars sitting in municipal trust funds, how could anyone think it is a good idea to authorize a single person to approve expenditures for a municipality? Why would the administration adopt such a relaxed procedure when governing bodies otherwise approve municipal budgets and municipal expenditures? In a state with as much corruption as New Jersey, this proposal is a recipe for indictments, not an effective approach to spending trust funds.

The proposed rules include numerous other changes, such as shortening the time for the public to oppose actions taken by municipal governments; eliminating the requirement for decisions to be made at public meetings and instead allowing them to be made behind closed doors whenever the DCA Commissioner desires; and welcoming waivers of regulations with the goal being to give municipalities whatever they want.

“The only thing worse than a dysfunctional COAH is Chris Christie running the show,” we told the Star-Ledger when the first of the now three versions of rules were proposed. So far, our statement has proven right. The hyper-politicization of every housing decision and ever-changing rules may work for the well-connected, but it doesn’t work for New Jersey.

The good news is that because of our court victory last week, these rules will have to go through a public notice and comment process instead of being implemented without public involvement like the last two sets of rules were. We anticipate that the rules will be published for comment on November 21, 2011. Assuming that is the case, comments will be received for 60 days, through January 20, 2011. They will thus not go into effect until February or March 2011 at the earliest.

In the meantime, our court challenge to the reorganization and the prior set of rules continues, with briefing this fall and winter and oral argument scheduled for February 15, 2012. We also expect the Supreme Court to take up the pending case on growth share and the Third Round rules sometime in the next few months. Only these court decisions will resolve the DCA nightmare that has descended on our state. We will continue to keep this list posted as we have more information on any of these developments.

For those interested in reading the proposed rules, they are available here.

“New Jersey needs a fair process for building and rehabilitating homes that will create much-needed jobs - not more barriers that exclude working families, lower-income seniors, and people with special needs,” FSHC attorney Kevin D. Walsh said. “Fortunately, the courts have enjoined Governor Christie’s plan, preventing him from replacing the rule of law with special treatment for exclusionary communities.”

The Court’s ruling bars DCA Commissioner Lori Grifa from implementing new procedures that would have “encouraged” municipalities to seek any waivers they want of law from her directly. The procedures and waivers, FSHC argued, violated the New Jersey Administrative Procedures Act, which requires all changes to law to go through a public process that allows public comment.

Christie’s plan, if it had been upheld, would have circumvented the Fair Housing Act’s requirement that housing decisions balance economic development, the needs of lower-income families and people with special needs, and municipal planning. By the administration’s own admission, the plan’s intention was to allow municipalities to impose new regulations on economic development to keep out working families, seniors, and people with special needs. Instead, the court ordered the administration to follow current rules while the appeal is fully litigated.

Last year, a State Department of Transportation study showed that, despite the economic downturn and need for economic development, the use of exclusionary zoning in New Jersey prevents the housing market from functioning properly. The Department of Transportation study, released by the Governor’s own administration, found that the Route One corridor provides zoning for 13 times as many jobs as houses. The CEO of Princeton-based Educational Testing Services to tell the Star-Ledger that, as a result, he is considering expanding in Pennsylvania instead of New Jersey due to the imbalance in the housing market. The results were further reinforced by a Rowan University study of Monmouth and Somerset Counties earlier this year, which found similar zoning disparities in those two counties.

“Unfortunately, the Governor has ignored his own administration’s findings that exclusionary communities pose a threat to New Jersey’s economic growth,” Walsh added. “New Jersey cannot afford the red tape that Governor Christie wants to impose, especially when our private sector job growth lags behind the nation as a whole.”

This is the second time the administration has been enjoined by the courts for overreaching in giving municipalities more powers to impose exclusionary red tape on starter homes. In February 2010, the governor issued an executive order that shut down COAH. That action was likewise enjoined, and the governor withdrew it a month later to avoid defending it in court.

The full appeals involving the rules and the overall plan, which was not stayed pending argument, will be heard by the Appellate Division in Trenton on February 15, 2012.

The NJ Department of Transportation study is available here; the Star-Ledger article is available here; and the Rowan University study is available here.

Read the Los Angeles Times article on the study here.

Click here to review The New England Journal of Medicine article.

The panel features Herb Levine, the Executive Director of Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness, Connie Mercer, the President/CEO of HomeFront, and Sandra Persichetti, the Executive Director of Princeton Community Housing. It will be moderated by Adam Gordon, Esq., staff attorney for Fair Share Housing Center.

The Jewish Center is a Conservative Jewish congregation serving the greater-Princeton area and providing members with opportunities for spiritual, intellectual, social and Jewish growth. This event is open to the entire community. RSVPs are appreciated but not required to suki_matt@yahoo.com.