Ex-mayor spearheads childhood literacy initiative
TRENTON » For a city that closed four local libraries over fiscal woes, Trenton may soon foster an urban reading renaissance.
Former Trenton mayor Doug Palmer says urban enclaves like Trenton are facing a “literacy crisis” where an estimated 70 percent of third-graders are not reading on grade level, “But here we want to do something about it,” he said.
Palmer, speaking as Trenton Literacy Movement chairman, announced Thursday that he, in collaboration with various community organizations, is developing a “Read All Day, Read All Night” initiative.
“We are going to be a city that reads,” Palmer said. “We are going to change the paradigm.”
Current Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson was a noshow at Palmer’s gathering, which featured multiple community leaders at the Artworks facility that unveiled the popular Art All Night annual program in 2007. Jackson’s mayoral aide Andrew Bobbitt, however, did attend the press event.
Palmer revealed that the first-term mayor had back surgery last week and said Jackson “is with us in spirit,” which suggests Jackson fully supports an initiative that would unleash a full day of reading to promote childhood literacy.
Michael Walker, city spokesman under Mayor Jackson, issued a media advisory informing the press corps about the Palmerled initiative. Palmer on Thursday thanked Walker for issuing the press advisory and then made a joke about it.
Wayne Griffith, pastor of Trenton’s Lighthouse Outreach Ministry, said he had “a dream” that it “would be nice to have Read All Night” and that he had shared that vision with Palmer, who took the idea and ran with it.
“We all made it happen,” said Palmer, who will release more details about the proposed “Read All Day, Read All Night” initiative at the 5 p.m. Jan. 29 Trenton Board of Education meeting. 2010 amid a budget crisis under then-Mayor Tony Mack’s watch. The city’s free public library system since then has concentrated its resources in operating only the main library on Academy Street as a standard library.
Mack for a brief period re-opened the shuttered library branches as so-called learning centers. Former state librarian Norma Blake, before retiring from her post, said Mack’s learning centers were being operated in violation of state law.
Jackson became mayor in July 2014 and inherited the library closures. The city’s four branch libraries remain closed while the city’s main library continues to operate.
“We are going to be successful in literacy and turning it around,” Palmer said at Thursday’s press gathering. “We are not letting this go. You are going to see results a year from now.”