(TRENTON) – Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer/Hunterdon) released the following statement Wednesday after Gov. Chris Christie declined an invitation to tour the decaying, unhealthy and dangerous Trenton Central High School facility:
“In declining the invitation to tour Trenton Central High School, Gov. Christie might as well have just quoted former Governor Spiro Agnew’s indifference toward the urban poor. Gov. Christie has himself become a nattering nabob of negativism when it comes to Trenton’s school children.
“The bottom line is that Gov. Christie’s indifference to Trenton and its children is more shocking and appalling each day school children have to return to a building that is substandard and an unsafe educational environment.
“His confidence in SDA CEO Larkins is equally hard to fathom. The SDA has only promised undefined ‘pre-design services’ at some distant time in the future, when a walk through the building would indicate that time is NOW.
“I have politely asked Gov. Christie to come see the conditions himself, and I know that if he saw the conditions of the capital city high school, he would shut it down in a heartbeat. I’m at a loss as to why he has given such oversight to an agency that is lost in institutional inertia and has a poor track record in rebuilding public schools.
“While we all applaud the governor for readily committing state funds to planks on a boardwalk, he should do the same for a generation of students who are eager to have a safe and secure environment like other school children in the state.”