Joel Brooks

Nonpartisan

As we face more fare hikes, we need to build local power to make NJ Transit listen to working people. Joel will agitate and fight for greater frequency and reliability of service. Let's form a Municipal Transit Council made up of riders and residents that works with our Transportation Planning Division, organizes the community around transit needs, and fights for the statewide changes necessary to win mobility for all.

Organizing for more state funding is necessary to ensure Jersey City gets the resources we need to provide quality education for all of our students. As a city council member, Joel will not only fight to have big corporations pay their fair share and fund the BOE budget, he will also organize residents to win changes in Trenton - funding schools based on the number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, as opposed to tax brackets, could bring in the money we need and our kids deserve.

Joel proposes we take this policy all the way and offer childcare for children 0-2 as well. Together we can fight for greater pay and staffing for childcare workers, for a program that provides high-quality early childhood education, for a city where families work to support each other and provide the care needed for our children and our future.

Working with local advocacy groups is key to creating safe and complete streets, Joel will collaborate with Hudson County Complete Streets and ensure swift and effective implementation of the city and county Vision Zero Plans.

Joel will review every redevelopment plan that touches Ward B to see if we need better guarantees of community benefits like open space and affordable housing. Joel will help residents organize to fight for real community benefits in any new redevelopment plan or zoning change.

Joel will work with the West Side Partnership to protect and nurture small business, and in new developments to ensure women and minority owned businesses can grow.

Many renters are monolingual Non-english speakers and the applications for rent control and failure to provide services (and many others) are English only and online only. Joel will fight to ensure all Jersey City residents can access these resources to ensure their rights are protected.

Joel will fight to bring working people into the process through participatory budgeting, and will organize the community's active involvement through mass meetings. Our city council should not just get elected and then tell the people what they did.

Joel will fight for a plan to phase out private contracts from our municipal utilities like Veolia, and from trash pick-up, and to bring utilities decisions to transparent, public participation.

We need to fully fund JC’s new Office of the Right to Counsel, which was recently won by a DSA-led campaign to make sure that every renter has access to legal defense in housing court against unfair evictions.

To ensure the housing crisis never hits our city again, we must aim our sights higher than 10-20% affordable units for renters earning 80% Area Median Income. The social housing model provides us the path forward, ensuring equitable distribution and affordability through two tiers of mixed-income housing: (1) city-owned units built and staffed by public workers, and (2) city subsidized buildings built in collaboration with non-profit developers, heavily regulated for sustainability, tenant protection and higher affordability requirements.

Together we can collaborate with the County government and improve bus speeds and performance by implementing dedicated bus lanes on JFK and Bergen Ave, operating during peak periods.

Joel was at the meetings where residents were promised access to the replacement for Casino in the Park. Working with county officials, we need to open the View to the public for more community use.