Dear Norwood Residents:

 

I often wonder what motivates individuals to run for a political office. Norwood Council gets no compensation; It drains so much from personal resources; most people at times don’t know, let alone appreciate, your hard work; and you and your family would have to make so many sacrifices.

 

I am running for a Norwood Council seat because Norwood has been my home for the past 10 years; because my family’s welfare and safety are important to me; and because I feel that my knowledge, experience, and connections can better our town, and thereby my family. I plan to introduce and advocate for the following objectives to enhance and improve our town:  

 

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Safety

First and foremost, I feel that our town can become more tech savvy and use modern technology to benefit and protect our Norwood residents. Installing CCTVs around town with an Artificial Intelligence (“A.I.”) monitoring program will benefit the town greatly by providing surveillance to those areas of town that need extra care and attention.   An A.I. capable CCTV system placed strategically within the town will be able to not only deter, but prevent many types of undesirable conduct by people and further increase the safety of our neighborhood, which is already regarded among the safest in New Jersey.   

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Communication

In order to provide information about our town and encourage communication amongst our neighbors, we will develop an exciting new Norwood website to deliver essential information, news, events and alerts. The website will additionally alert residents as to emergency situations, relay critical conditions like road closing, as well as providing useful information about our town, its residents, and its infrastructure. “What you always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask” about Norwood will be provided. It will advance life in Norwood into the future and provide a more functional venue for our residents to communicate in town.  It can also serve as a virtual office that you can visit anytime, from anyplace, and do anything in without the need of visiting the Town Hall for minor businesses. Through this website, my vision is to elevate and distinguish Norwood from our neighboring towns and to perhaps inspire companies and individuals to invest, move, or work in Norwood. This project will be funded partially through donations by corporations which I will be introducing to Norwood.

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Increased Revenue

Once elected, I plan to utilize my connections and resources from my legal practice to get in touch with companies and people and encourage them to open or relocate their businesses to Norwood.  I have been speaking with a number of global companies to this end, and they have shown genuine interest in working with me in doing this.  The presence of any one of such a business in Norwood will appreciably increase revenue for the town, enhance our town’s image, increase property value and provide a better place to live.  I believe that in the long run, such development will positively impact and stabilize our property taxes as well. 

 

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Other Essential Topics

But, all this is just the beginning, I will also work relentlessly on: 

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1) The Green Way Project, improving the use of properties around the now defunct railroad tracks; 

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2) When the time is ripe, coordinating with other senior centers in the vicinity to increase and create programs for our senior citizens that are safe and manageable under the current Executive Order and increase the public’s awareness of senior programs and obtain more volunteers from different sections of the community such as the Asian community;

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3) Our youth programs will be enhanced to tailor toward the ever-changing COVID requirements.  We will not deprive our youth of their recreational opportunities or jeopardize their safety.  If needed, we will purchase special youth and activity friendly masks from overseas that could be worn throughout the day without discomfort while they are in school and activities.  We will naturally coordinate and assist the Norwood Public School with ideas from other parts of the world, and support them in manners befitting our renowned school.  

 

Paul and I, as lawyers, lecturers, fathers, husbands, and residents of Norwood, will not stop working for all the families of Norwood, including ours, to the best of our abilities until we are satisfied that all is well and safe.  

 

Sincerely yours,

Bong June Kim   

 

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