Asbury Park 2030: What’s Your Plan, Amy?
Ten questions about the future of our city. An invitation to a community conversation.
An open letter to Deputy Mayor and mayoral candidate Amy Quinn
Asbury Park's next mayor will help shape our city's future at a consequential time. Housing affordability, redevelopment, education, economic opportunity, infrastructure, and preserving our community's unique character all demand thoughtful leadership and clear plans.
As an Asbury Park resident and homeowner for over three years, I want to understand what Amy Quinn proposes to do over the next four years.
I've reviewed her campaign website, social media posts, interviews, and remarks at both candidate forums. While I've heard plenty of discussion about past accomplishments and the challenges facing our city, I'm still looking for a clear, detailed vision for what comes next.
A record of what you've done is not a plan for what you'll do next.
When discussing difficult issues, Amy often emphasizes their complexity, the limitations of government, and the obstacles to finding solutions. Those realities deserve acknowledgment. But Asbury Park residents understand that governing is complicated. We don't need the challenges explained to us over and over. We need to understand what our elected leaders propose to do about them.
Recognizing limitations should start a conversation about solutions, not end it.
This is not a demand for easy answers or unrealistic promises. It's a request for specific priorities, practical proposals, timelines, and measurable commitments.
Why Am I Asking Amy Quinn Specifically?
Some may reasonably ask why I'm directing these questions at Amy Quinn rather than both mayoral candidates.
The answer is straightforward: I've made the same effort to understand both candidates' visions for Asbury Park's future, but my experiences have been very different.
In researching Amy's opponent, I've found answers to these questions through publicly available information and direct conversations. My questions have been welcomed, and those exchanges have led to additional discussions about specific ideas, priorities, and plans for our city.
I've approached Amy's candidacy with the same interest and effort. I've reviewed her website, scoured her social media, read and watched interviews, and attended/listened to both candidate forums. Yet I continue to have questions about the specific new initiatives she would pursue and what she hopes to accomplish over the next four years.
This isn't about expecting one candidate to answer questions that I'm unwilling to ask of the other. It's about seeking the same level of clarity from both.
I'm not asking Amy to agree with her opponent's ideas or offer the same solutions. I'm asking her to articulate her own vision so residents can understand and compare their choices.
My questions are sincere, and I would welcome the same opportunity for a substantive conversation with Amy that I've had with her opponent.
Ten Questions for Amy Quinn
1. What's Your Vision for Asbury Park in 2030?
What are the three most important new initiatives you would introduce as mayor? What would be meaningfully different about Asbury Park at the end of your first term?
Beyond continuing existing policies and programs, what new ideas would define your administration?
2. How Will You Make Asbury Park More Affordable?
Housing costs and property taxes are significant concerns for residents.
What specific new actions would you propose to improve housing affordability, address property tax pressures, and help longtime residents remain in their homes?
Which actions could the city take directly, which would require cooperation from other levels of government, and what would your priorities be?
3. How Will You Ensure Development Benefits the Entire Community?
Redevelopment continues to transform Asbury Park.
What changes, if any, would you make to the city's approach to redevelopment to ensure that future projects benefit existing residents and neighborhoods?
What new initiatives would you introduce to support small businesses, create year-round jobs, strengthen commercial corridors, and expand economic opportunity throughout the city?
How would you measure whether growth is benefiting residents across Asbury Park?
4. What Is Your Plan for Public Education?
Asbury Park's public schools face important questions about their future, including the future of Asbury Park High School.
What specific actions, within the mayor's authority, would you take to support students, families, and public education?
How would you work with the school district, state officials, and community stakeholders to address these challenges while respecting the independence of the Board of Education?
5. How Will You Preserve Asbury Park's Diversity, Culture, and Character?
Asbury Park's identity is rooted in its racial, economic, cultural, and LGBTQ+ diversity, its creative spirit, its music and arts communities, and its history as a place where people from different backgrounds have built a shared community.
As the city continues to change, how will you help preserve the qualities that make Asbury Park distinctive?
What specific policies would you pursue to prevent displacement, protect cultural institutions, support artists and local businesses, and ensure that the people and communities who helped build Asbury Park can continue to call it home?
6. What Infrastructure Improvements Will You Prioritize?
Asbury Park has ongoing infrastructure needs that affect residents' quality of life and the city's long-term financial health.
Which infrastructure improvements would you prioritize during your first two years as mayor?
How would you propose funding them, and how would you communicate project priorities, costs, and progress to residents?
7. How Will You Make City Government More Transparent and Accessible?
Residents should have meaningful opportunities to understand and influence decisions that affect their neighborhoods.
What specific changes would you introduce to improve access to city information, strengthen public participation, and make the decision-making process more transparent?
Would you commit to clearer public reporting on redevelopment decisions, municipal spending, major contracts, and progress toward city priorities?
8. What Will You Accomplish in Your First 100 Days?
Campaign promises should be accompanied by clear measures of success.
What three specific actions would you commit to taking during your first 100 days as mayor?
What measurable goals would you establish for your first term, and how frequently would you publicly report on your progress?
9. What Have You Gotten Wrong, and What Did You Learn?
I believe one of the strongest demonstrations of leadership is the willingness to acknowledge mistakes, take responsibility, learn from them, and do noticeably better the next time.
No elected official gets every decision right. What matters is how they respond when something doesn't work as intended.
Looking back at your years on City Council, what is one significant decision, policy, or approach you now believe you got wrong or would handle differently?
What did you learn from that experience? What specific changes did you make as a result? And how would those lessons influence your decisions as mayor?
Leadership isn't about never making mistakes. It's about having the humility to acknowledge them, the integrity to take responsibility, and the commitment to demonstrate that you've learned from them.
10. Will You Support an Independent Process to Fill Your City Council Seat?
If elected mayor, your current City Council seat would need to be filled through the legally applicable vacancy process.
Would you commit to supporting an open, transparent, and independent selection process rather than one conducted primarily through private political discussions?
Would you support publicly announced selection criteria, an opportunity for qualified residents to express interest, public consideration of candidates, and meaningful community input, consistent with applicable law?
What steps would you support to help ensure the process is fair and free from political favoritism?
One More Question: The League of Women Voters Questionnaire
The League of Women Voters provides voters with a nonpartisan resource, VOTE411, where candidates can communicate their positions on important issues.
Amy, what is the status of your VOTE411 candidate questionnaire? If it remains incomplete, why haven’t you submitted it, and will you commit to answering it before Election Day?
Your opponent has answered his questionnaire.
Completing candidate questionnaires gives voters an opportunity to compare candidates' positions in their own words.
Why These Questions Matter
Past accomplishments are relevant when evaluating any candidate. Experience, relationships, and a record of public service all matter.
But elections are also about the future.
Residents deserve to understand not just what a candidate has accomplished, but what they intend to accomplish next.
Residents deserve to hear not only about candidates' successes, but also about their mistakes, what they've learned, and how those experiences have made them more effective leaders.
It's reasonable for candidates to acknowledge that some problems cannot be solved by city government alone. It's equally reasonable for residents to ask what actions a mayor can take, what partnerships they would pursue, and how they would measure progress.
Explaining why change is difficult is not a substitute for explaining how you intend to pursue it.
These questions are an invitation to provide specific answers that residents can examine, discuss, and revisit over the next four years.
What Questions Do You Want Answered?
This conversation shouldn't be limited to my ten questions.
To my fellow Asbury Park residents: What do you want to know about our city's future?
What issues are most important to you and your neighborhood? What new ideas would you like to hear from the candidates? What commitments would help you evaluate their plans?
Share your questions and encourage all candidates to address them publicly.
A productive community conversation should include residents from every neighborhood, every generation, and every part of Asbury Park.
The goal is to better understand candidates' proposals, compare their priorities, and establish clear expectations for whoever serves as our next mayor.
Amy, What's Your Plan for Asbury Park in 2030?
There's still time before Election Day to give residents specific answers.
Not simply a summary of what has already been accomplished.
Not simply an explanation of why problems are difficult.
But a vision of what comes next, supported by proposals, priorities, timelines, and measurable commitments.
Asbury Park deserves a serious conversation about its future. Let's have one.
Sincerely,
Gregory Lewis
An independent, resident-led call for questions and public discussion about Asbury Park's future. Not affiliated with any candidate or campaign.
Election Day: November 3, 2026.