By David Cruz
Correspondent
These were actually the second first 100 days for Mayor Jose Torres. He served as mayor of Paterson from 2002 to 2010, but Torres says he’s a different kind of mayor in this third term.
“I think that the three-and-a-half year stint that I took as a business administrator has helped me professionally as an administrator and mayors are administrators,” he said today.
Before most of the members of his administration and police brass, Torres rattled off a series of accomplishments from his first 100 days ranging from the most basic — like a $35 million plan to repave 170 primary roads, “more than half of the streets in the city of Paterson, will be rebuilt. This is one of the biggest infrastructure projects ever in the city” — to the most potentially impactful, like the $90 million of new development, including a 14-story, 145-room hotel and conference center.
Even in a speech filled with such positivity, Mayor Torres was forced to acknowledge Paterson’s stubborn penchant for taking one step forward and two steps back. Specifically during his first 100 days, the death of two young girls, innocent victims of stray gunfire in a city too flush with guns and too short on police.
“It’s very disheartening,” admitted the mayor.
The city has brought on 43 new police officers this year and approved the hiring of 50 new Class I officers to bolster the force’s quality of life efforts, but some residents say Paterson — and the mayor — will need to do more to regain the public’s confidence.
“Every time I open the paper, the kids are killing kids,” said Patricia Kelly, adding that the mayor needs to be more present. “He [doesn’t] ever go see what’s going on. All he does is sit in that office. I don’t even run into him downtown, nowhere [in] Paterson.”
Paterson resident Patricia Foreman said it’s not only the mayor’s job to fight crime; parents need to be more involved. “There’s a bunch of kids on a corner and they’re after some other kid and your kid’s going to the store and they come by shooting and your kid happens to get shot,” she said. “You know, if these people just get their kids back on their front porch, then maybe we can alleviate some of this.”
Torres says his first 100 days have not gone exactly as planned but he said he recognizes that this city’s problems will not be solved in 100 days or even over the course of one administration. It will take time, he said, but this city and its residents are up to the task.