Date: January 21, 2021
Interviewee: Eileen Chapman
Interviewer: Gillian Demetriou
Transcriber: Rev.Com
Editor: Gillian Demetriou
Location: Zoom meeting
Gillian Demetriou:
Okay. All right. It’s recording. Hi.
Eileen Chapman:
Hi.
Gillian Demetriou:
My name is Gillian Demetriou, and I’m a research assistant for the Paradoxical Paradise: An African American Oral History and Mapping Project on Asbury Park. Today’s Thursday, January 21st, 2021. I’m here with Asbury Park Councilwoman, Eileen Chapman. She has agreed to be interviewed for the oral history portion of this research project. This interview is being recorded with the permission of all participants, both parties. Thank you so much for joining me today, Eileen.
Eileen Chapman:
Gillian, it’s nice to be here, good to see you.
Gillian Demetriou:
Good to see you too. Again, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. I’m just going to start with a couple of basic questions, could you describe your childhood early life? And such.
Eileen Chapman:
Sure. Yep. I was born in Jersey City, and we moved to the suburbs of Newark, Forest Hill section of Newark just after I was born. I’m one of five girls. I was in a typical late 50s, early 60s home. My father was an executive at Ballantine’s, my mother was a stay at home mom. As I got older, I was one of the youngest of the children, we’re kind of all spread apart, my mother went back to substitute teaching. She was a science, English major. So we went to Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic School, and my mother started there, once we got older, once my older sisters were in high school and I was maybe 7th or 8th grade. Typical childhood, nothing out of the ordinary. We summered at the Jersey Shore, and when I was in grade school, we bought a summer house on Chadwick Island, which is on the barrier Island, by Normandy Beach near Mantoloking. And so we spent our winters in Newark, and our summers down here at the Jersey Shore.
Gillian Demetriou:
Sounds very cool.
Eileen Chapman:
It was very cool.
Gillian Demetriou:
What kind of educational experience do you have, did you go to college?
Eileen Chapman:
So we ended up moving into our summer house just after the riots in Newark. So the riots in Newark were, I believe, the summer of ’68. And we sold our house in Newark and we moved into our house on Chadwick Island, and then I went to Toms River High School. My father at that time, the company he worked for Ballantine Brewery was starting to slow down a lot of their production, and so he applied for the job as the city manager in Asbury Park, and he became city manager. And so we sold the house in Newark, and bought a house in Asbury Park. So I went to Toms River High School and then took some college courses, but got married young, had children young, and that was it. I took some business courses, some accounting courses, guitar lessons.
Gillian Demetriou:
So when did you move to Asbury Park?
Eileen Chapman:
So I actually moved to Asbury Park in 1974.
Gillian Demetriou:
So the Asbury Park riots were in 1970.
Eileen Chapman:
Yes.
Gillian Demetriou:
So how does coming in after that event and I guess living through Newark riots, which I didn’t know? How did that impact your personal experience, and then how do you think that the environment of Asbury was affected by that?
Eileen Chapman:
So growing up in a city like Newark, it’s a very diverse city. So I grew up around diversity, embraced diversity, had friends of all religions, all colors, all ages. It was that type of an environment, or that type of neighborhood. When I came to Asbury Park just after the riots, of course Springwood Avenue, the West Side of Asbury Park had pretty much been decimated. It was destroyed, it was empty shells of buildings, and rubble. It was brutal, and I had seen the same thing happen in Newark. So it was not a new experience to me, but it was just as heartbreaking to watch these neighborhoods just be completely destroyed. And Springwood Avenue in Asbury was a very diverse and thriving area of the city.
The population on the West Side, it was Black, it was Italian, it was Jewish, it was a real melting pot of people and of immigrants. And those shops were all quite unique and there was a big place for them in the community, that’s where the community shopped, that’s where the entire city went. Then when I got to Asbury, there was still a very thriving downtown, and a very lively boardwalk still. My parents actually were partners in a shop on the boardwalk. In the casino, there was a fudge and planters peanut shop that my parents were partners in with the Resnicks who have some other shops on the boardwalk. And I had the opportunity going and manage that shop at some point, which was a lot of fun. And introduced me to a lot of John Shear, a lot of people who worked with John Shear during the concerts in Convention Hall and in the casino.
The boardwalk and the downtown, I would say, for another 10 years after I lived there, were still bringing people into Asbury Park. And then, Seaview Square Mall was built. Malls were big things, they were trending, that’s where people wanted to go. You’re under one roof, you can do all your shopping. So a lot of the downtown shops left Asbury Park and went to Seaview Mall. And then in the early 80s, Asbury Park made a deal for oceanfront development with a firm that went belly up. And so, a lot of the oceanfront area was sort of kept in limbo. Well, this was fought out in court about ownership and development. And so, Asbury Park experienced some really hard times, beginning with the riots, and the exodus of shops, and then the failed development on the boardwalk. So things start looking pretty bad for a while.
Gillian Demetriou:
And what were you doing in your life at this time?
Eileen Chapman:
So I was managing my parent’s shop during the summers, staying at home with my kids during the winter, I was a teacher’s assistant in preschool when my youngest daughter was in preschool. And just got involved with the community, with my city, being assistant teachers, teacher’s aides, lunchroom aides. I got involved with Little League, and Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts, and just finding different ways to get involved, remain involved, both in the community and in the lives of my children.
Gillian Demetriou:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I read in an article that you opened a CD store?
Eileen Chapman:
Yes.
Gillian Demetriou:
Could you talk about that a little?
Eileen Chapman:
So I’m going to back up for a little minute. So after I managed that shop for my parents on the boardwalk, the son of the partners of my parents had opened… He was a manager of Mrs. Jay’s, which is a restaurant and music venue and bar on Ocean Avenue in Asbury Park. So I went to work there for a few years, which was a lot of fun. It was a beer garden, we had music, I would book music. And while I was there, I became friends with a lot of musicians that were playing at the Clearwater Festival. And Clearwater Festival was a big deal, it was out in Sandy Hook, big two day music and environmental festival. And I ended up volunteering to help out with that festival and ended up, at one point, then becoming the music coordinator for the Clearwater Festival.
At the same time as… Music was my passion since a young child. I think one of my earliest memories is sitting on the floor of our living room, looking at album covers while my parents were playing records. And we had this big radio in our living room, and each of my sisters had their own record players in the room. And we had a stage in our basement, so my sister’s boyfriend’s bands would come rehearse in our basement. So music was always a part of my fabric. And so, then I started to volunteer and help out with this Clearwater Festival.
And at one point, I found out about CDs. My nephew, actually Michael, told me about these CDs he just bought from his friend in Florida, and he just got the CD player from Florida. I found this to be very exciting. So I bought a CD player and found out that there were only, I think, four CDs on sale in the record store in the mall. And so I did a little research and decided to open an all CD shop in 1986, in Belmar. And it was the first all CD shop in New Jersey. It was really a great learning experience, it was a lot of fun. I was able to buy import CDs from all around the world, so I had unique items that nobody else had. It was a place where people gathered to listen to music, to talk about music. And I was there until the year 2000, when the people who own the building were going to sell it. They were going through a divorce, they wanted to sell the building.
And I got out of it at that point, because that was also the time that streaming music was coming into play. And there was a lot going on with streaming rather than actually purchasing CDs. But in that time, I also got involved with Bob Santelli and some others that were forming the Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Foundation. And we started to put together some concerts, mostly it’s all jazz and blues. So Bob’s thought was that, there’s all these rock stars that are getting recognition around the Jersey Shore, Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, Jon Bon Jovi. It’s got a great reputation for rock, but we really had also a really good blues and jazz scene that just wasn’t getting enough attention.
Bob Santelli was writing for the Press at the time, so he was reviewing a lot of these bands. So we created this jazz and blues foundation to get some recognition for these local bands. We started to do concerts in local clubs. So the Stone Pony, McLoone’s, T-birds, all of the clubs in and around Asbury Park in the area. So once a year we do this festival, and it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. And then at one point we hooked up with the Red Bank Food Festival in Riverview Park in Red Bank, and we became the entertainment component to their festival. And we coined the phrase Riverfest. It was called the Riverfest. And it got bigger and bigger each year, we’re now bringing in national acts, we would do a scholarship each year, we would have a student come on stage and play with major acts. And we were getting up to a hundred thousand people at this festival. It was amazing, it was huge, it was fun. It was a three-day festival at that point. And so I forgot what question you asked me in the beginning.
Gillian Demetriou:
I think we were talking about the CD-
Eileen Chapman:
Oh, so there we go, from one to the other. So the CD store ended in the year 2000, only because the building I was in was being sold.
Gillian Demetriou:
All right. And when did you begin to manage the Stone Pony?
Eileen Chapman:
So after I sold the CD store, I went on to, what did I do next? I managed the Fast Lane in Asbury Park for a little bit on weekends. So, there were new owners to the Fast Lane, and they only wanted to be open on weekends, so I went in and managed the Fast Lane. The Pony had been closed at that time for several years. The Pony faced bankruptcy, I was always very good friends with Butch and Jack, the owners. It was right next door to Mrs. Jay’s I used to manage, our office doors are right next to each other, we’d be back and forth. There were times that I went to put deposits down for bands, for national acts coming in, so we just had a really good relationship. They went bankrupt.
A gentleman by the name of Domenic Santana then came in and bought the Stone Pony and opened it. He had some different thoughts about what he wanted the Pony to become. So it’s putting out ads for jugglers and all sorts of entertainment. So I didn’t know how that was going to pan out. And so Domenic had approached me at one point and asked me if I would come work for him. And thought I wasn’t ready. It was kind of already doing my thing at the Fast Lane, I wasn’t really… I wanted to see how things worked out, it sounded a little weird to me.
And then I was in there one night, I went to see a friend of mine who was bartending. And I’m sitting there, and they have this liquor promotions supposed to be going on that nobody knew about it. So they were handing out flyers in the front door about this liquor promotion. Nobody behind the bar knew anything about this, and I’m just watching all this chaos going on in this room. And I said to Domenic, “Okay. I’ll work part-time for you. This needs a little bit of organization, it’s driving me crazy just watching it.” And so, that turned into more than 50 hour job a week, because once I got in there, there was just a lot to do. And Domenic also had a restaurant in Jersey City, and so somebody just needed to really keep their eyes on the Stone Pony, and so I did that.
And there were then some interest in developers coming into Asbury Park, and taking over that development component of the oceanfront. And in those plans, they had plans to knock the Stone Pony down, and to really demolish every building in Asbury Park, in the oceanfront area. And so with a few other people, LeAnne and Don, we created this Save the Stone Pony campaign, to keep the Stone Pony because it brought recognition to the city. There were times during the 90s, when people were not coming to Asbury Park except for music. So the downtown stores were shut for the most part, there were a few good restaurants. The boardwalk was shut. Even when the Stone Pony was closed, people would come take their pictures in front of it. So people kept coming, T-Bird was a small venue that was bringing people in, Maloneys had… There were small places for people to play, but nothing like the Stone Pony.
I went to work for Domenic, and then we did this whole Save the Stone Pony campaign with Domenic’s blessing. And then he came in and said, “I’ve sold the building for developers.” I said, “Okay.” I said, “I will be here. I will stay here until the day that the developers sign a deal and then I’m leaving.” And so, that’s what I did. These people… I never worked before for someone who I didn’t know. And in the music business, in the music industry, it’s all about your words. So, you call up a band, you’ll say, “Hey, you guys want to come play, I can give you 500 bucks, or this part of the door or whatever.” They were professional relationships, personal relationships, all built around our all working together.
Between the festivals, and the different venues, and it was all a gentleman’s agreement. And so, I didn’t know these people, I didn’t know if they would have my back, or the back of the musicians, or how they would treat those relationships. And so, I then bowed out when the developers, Asbury Partners came in. That was it, I was gone. And I came here to Monmouth University. While I was there, while I was at the Stone Pony, that’s when I became aware of the Bruce Springsteen Archives.
Gillian Demetriou:
So what year did you leave the Stone Pony?
Eileen Chapman:
2004, I think it was.
Gillian Demetriou:
2004?
Eileen Chapman:
2003 or 2004.
Gillian Demetriou:
Okay. And did you immediately come to Monmouth University?
Eileen Chapman:
No. I managed McLoone’s Rum Runner in Sea Bright for about a year, because they were building Pier Village in Long Branch. This was a funny story, so Tim McLoone had Holiday Express play at the Pony on the Summer Stage. And while he was playing on the Summer Stage, his car got stolen from the out ujfront the Pony. So Tim and I have been talking and he said, “Look, Eddy Garcelle is going to leave,” and he said, “Would you come to work at the Run Runner where we built the restaurant at Pier Village?” The other cool part was that I bought the first Stone Pony Summer Stage. So my husband had been going to Florida and told me I needed to get a new car, “You said you need a new car. Your car shot, you need new a car.” It wasn’t shot, but I needed a new car. So, the next day I’m talking to my friend Tinker, and I think you may have met Tinker.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. I met him at the gala thing.
Eileen Chapman:
Exactly. So I was on the phone with Tinker, and Tinker said, “I have my original stage, the stage that Bruce and everybody used to play on,” and he said, “It’s been outside in a container,” he said, “I think I’m going to sell it.” And I said, “How much are you going to sell that stage for?” And so he came down, we went outside, and we looked at the outside lot outside the Stone Pony which used to be Mrs Jay’s, and decided that instead of me buying a car, I was going to buy that stage. And so I bought the stage, Tinker brought in a crew, we got the stage up, and my husband came back from Florida and one of the guys said, “Hey, come see your new car.” And we walked outside and there was a stage.
Gillian Demetriou:
That’s funny.
Eileen Chapman:
It was fun. And then, my husband after he got over a shock, he actually built the first outdoor bar on that, out there too as well.
Gillian Demetriou:
What? So cool.
Eileen Chapman:
Yeah.
Gillian Demetriou:
It’s not still the famous stage, is it?
Eileen Chapman:
It’s not, it’s probably five stages later at this point. But it was fun. And you know what, a lot of those people who were at the Pony with me also were at the Pony when I was at Mrs. Jay’s, and we had great friendships. So these are friendships that go on for many years. In fact, there’s a few people who work at Monmouth who came from that era as well. I know them from the Pony, they either worked there, or played there, or whatever.
Gillian Demetriou:
That’s so amazing. So when did you come to Monmouth?
Eileen Chapman:
I came to Monmouth in 2006. Then-
Gillian Demetriou:
So… I’m sorry.
Eileen Chapman:
No, go ahead.
Gillian Demetriou:
I was just going to ask, the Archives wasn’t here then. So what did you do?
Eileen Chapman:
So I actually went to the opening of the Archives at the Asbury Park Library when I was at the Pony. Our friends from Backstreets Magazine had felt it was time to collect Bruce Springsteen ephemera, and artifacts, and keep them in one place. And so that opened in the Asbury Park Library while I was actually at the Pony. So I had gone to the opening, I was aware of the archives, I knew the people on the library board. So I came here to Monmouth and I applied for the job as the assistant director for performing arts. And so I worked in that department. Booking music, producing music, marketing the arts on campus. It was a daytime job, which was kind of different for me and good.
And I knew that the Archives had outgrown the library, and I had gone to the dean of my department, Stan Green and said, “How do you feel about seeing if those Archives might want to come here to Monmouth University? They’ve outgrown the library, they’re going to have to go somewhere and I would hate for them to go somewhere else.” And I know somebody on the board actually taught at Rutgers. And so I was afraid that this collection was going to end up out of Monmouth County. And when I went to the library, when they first opened, I think they had 500 items, and I knew it had grown. So I knew it was going to be more than 500 items. And he told me to go for it.
So I reached out to the Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Collection, which was an organization formed around the collection, and asked if they would consider bringing their Archives to Monmouth. First they told me no, they wanted to really explore other options. And then they called back about a year later and said, “Let’s talk about this.” And so, we worked out. It took a few years, about where this might go, or how it might tie into university, so on, and so forth. And also, it was now 15,000 items. So it went from the 500 items in my head to actually 15,000 items that would need to be stored, cared for, preserved, archived. So there was a lot of work around it.
So the Friends agreed that initially it would be a long-term loan, and they would help to manage the collection, they would continue to update the website, and collect artifacts. And they did a lot of the work around keeping the collections safe. In the meantime, I’ve been talking to Bob Santelli who had a huge collection of interviews that he wanted to put somewhere, and Pete Fornatale, who was a DJ from WNEW that also had a huge collection. And there was always this talk about, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we had this hub of music here at Monmouth.” and it could be great learning tools and academic courses and on and on. And so, Bob Santelli then went to Bruce Springsteen and asked him if he would consider bringing his collection here. And he did.
In 2017, we had the conversation with Bruce Springsteen in the Pollak Theater at Monmouth, and he agreed that his items would come here to Monmouth. And so, I got moved over here now full time. In the meantime I was also working on the shows, which is now the OceanFirst Bank Center, it was called the MAC. And we started to have concerts there up to 4,000 people. And so I was the point person for those concerts as well. Which I think began in 2009 or 2010.
Gillian Demetriou:
Obviously now with the pandemic no concerts are happening, but do you still do those concerts?
Eileen Chapman:
So I did the last one at the OceanFirst Bank Center. Yeah. There haven’t been now in a couple of years. And it’s hard because our athletics had changed their schedule, they’re part of a new conference. And so the weekends were no longer available, and it’s hard to find parking on campus during the week. So it made the concerts more and more difficult to produce.
Gillian Demetriou:
Okay. I have a follow up question, I’m trying to think of how to word it.
Eileen Chapman:
Okay.
Gillian Demetriou:
Actually, nevermind, I’ll come back to that later. So how did you come to be on the council of Asbury Park?
Eileen Chapman:
So way back during the days, when the developers were interested in the oceanfront, I would go to council meetings often. I didn’t feel it was good for the city to give all the rights to one developer, especially knowing that the one developer they had before that failed and he kept the city dark for such a long time. I was trying to encourage the council to maybe go with two or three developers so there’s an urgency to develop, and create housing, and so there’s a little bit of competition there, and get things moving on. I also didn’t feel that the company that was applying for the development rights had enough of a background to really create a successful environment. And so I went to council meetings all the time, they would go to sometimes midnight. It was brutal. And the council ended up giving that developer the rights, they ended up failing at some point.
But, it just got me really involved with the city on a deeper level. And so I would occasionally once these… Councils come and go. And some councils you feel you’re worried about, so you go to more council meetings, and other ones, you feel like, “Hey, I think these people get it.” And you don’t have to go to as many councils, you kind of trust their judgment. And so I was kind of at that point, so I wasn’t going to those many council meetings as I had been. And, and one night, and I don’t know why I did this, one of the council members had to leave because he had a child who was ill and I didn’t know that.
But I said, I’m going to go to council meetings so I haven’t been in a long time. And I went and the next day the mayor called me and he said, “I saw you at the council meeting, are you going to put in a resume to take the empty seat on the council?” And I said, “No. Absolutely not.” And he said, “Well, I saw you at the council meeting, I thought maybe that’s why you were there.” And I said, “No.” And he said, “I think you should do it.” I said, “I think you’re very kind, but I don’t think I’m qualified.” And he said, “You’ve been here forever, you have a good sense of what’s going on in the city. I think you should do it and the deadline’s in two hours.”
And so I spoke to my husband and… It was a Friday, and I said, you know what, I could put in this cover letter, and I could think about it over the weekend. I can pull it on Monday. And so I put in the cover letter and then thought about it over the weekend and figured, it was only four months, this guy only had four months left in his term, so I said I could do anything for four months. So I got interviewed. I did it. And then as soon as I got in, the other council people were talking about re-election. I’m like, I’m not running. I’m here for four months. And I took a couple of weeks off of work, and really dug deep into how the city runs, and what’s going on, and all the projects. And I said, “Okay.” I said I’ll try it, I doubt that I would win, but I’ll try to run. And I did, and I was elected. And that was it.
I mean, it was never anything I aspired to do, it was never anything that I had ever even thought about, it just kind of happened organically and naturally. And I’m now in for a second term.
Gillian Demetriou:
Congratulations on that, by the way.
Eileen Chapman:
Thank you. I love my team, and I love my city. If I could do any good, then I’m serving a purpose. If not, I’ll leave.
Gillian Demetriou:
So, what do you think that you have accomplished while being on council, and what was your biggest concern prior to the pandemic?
Eileen Chapman:
There’s so much that goes on in Asbury Park. I think, when I got on council, people always talk about the East Side and the West Side, and I just wanted to be one Asbury Park. I don’t want there to be that dividing line, I want everybody to come together as a community. And so, that was one of my thoughts going into this, what can we do to try to make that happen. And part of that was bringing development to the West Side. We opened Springwood Park on the West Side, and on the Asbury Park Music Foundation, we do free concerts there every Monday. There’s so many events now that happen there. I think housing is important. I also think making sure that we have affordable housing is important, we don’t want to lose the people who want to be there. And we don’t want to lose our artists, and musicians, and we don’t want to lose the families who have been there for decades. And so keeping affordable housing in the city, to me, was really important.
I think one of my goals now, is that I want to see retail again on Springwood Avenue, on the West Side, in that area that was decimated by riots. And now there’s housing going back in, but there’s no retail establishments. And I think in order for that section of town to thrive and to grow, I think it needs a retail component. So, it was really a whole lot on my mind going in to it, road work wasn’t done in years and now road work’s being done. And we’re doing water testing in all our lakes, because the lakes were suffering from pollution, because there was no storm water management. And so having that be a part of development is also important.
Working on environmental issues, we did a plastic bag ban which helps to cut down on pollution and plastic in our waters. I’m on the recreation department, so making sure there’s things for our kids to do, Asbury’s got a great recreation program. So making sure that there’s great programs, summer camps, the Boys and Girls club is there, and they really do a lot for our kids. Or just making sure there’s programs and things for kids to do is another thing.
Gillian Demetriou:
You should come be a councilwoman in my town, it’d be great.
Eileen Chapman:
There’s always a lot to do. And then of course the pandemic hit, and the projects that we’re working on, we just had to pause because we didn’t know how long this was going to go on. And we wanted to make sure that we could afford to take care of all our pandemic needs, before we could commit funding to anything else. And so the parking garage that we had designed, that’s got a of pin in it for now. But there was a lot to do in the pandemic between making sure we had masks and hand sanitizer, not only for staff, but for all our residents. I mean, I was driving around handing out masks and sanitizer to people, as were others as well. Getting masks was hard.
So trying to reach out to the community to see who needed what. Identifying how we could help our businesses survive, doing road closures, and outdoor seating, and waiving fees for outdoor seating. That used to be a big part of our revenue, parking was a big corner revenue. So parking revenue was down, beach revenue was down, because we needed to really limit the amount of people on our beaches. So coming up with plans for each of these pandemic related issues was something that was 24/7, it was never stopping. Our fire department actually ended up working out of two different locations instead of the one firehouse, because we’re afraid if someone got COVID, it would then stop the whole fire EMT department. So we split our fire department into two, they were great with it.
Making sure that the students who were getting all their meals at school or at afterschool programs, still could pick up meals. We got laptops for students who didn’t have laptops. We found a company who repurposes laptops that they get from colleges, such as this. Repurposes them and makes them available for kids. And just being able to answer questions to our residents. So one of my concerns was that we were not seeing any areas for COVID testing. So I worked with the county and with my local doctor, Dr. Chinnici, who then brought in doctors from urgent care to figure out how we could set up a testing site in our city, and make it accessible to everyone. And also put it in an area where it was accessible to most of the town. So we created this whole program and it took months to do this, where we had a testing site put in the transportation center. And the county administered the testing through the health department, and the Greenham Foundation helped to fund that as well.
So it was a few months work to get that done, but we’re doing the same thing now with vaccinations. We have a VNA in Asbury park who’s been doing vaccinations out of the VNA on Main Street, but we wanted to get them into a bigger environment and somewhere closer to the residents who don’t walk. Yeah, I mean don’t drive. And so, they’re now going to our senior center on Springwood Avenue to do vaccinations. And that was the other thing, our senior center had to close down. So somebody had to still do outreach to the seniors, and Karen Murphy who’s our director has been great at that. So much changed in the pandemic.
It’s just amazing how many people came together as a community to work together. An organization formed that would help distribute meals, and actually got funding to purchase some of those meals from restaurants. They also gave out masks and hand sanitizer. We did other Mask Up events, Twitter came in and did Mask Up events with us. On the boardwalk, when the boardwalk first reopened, we did one lane walking, one side walking north, one I walking south and sectioned that off. And, we had to stop our bike share, and we had to stop our scooter share. And so it really changed so much for everyone, but it’s really been a community effort.
Gillian Demetriou:
Would you say that some parts of the community have been hit harder by the pandemic than others?
Eileen Chapman:
So we’re not able to get that information. So one of the things that I fought with initially with the county, was why can’t we have that information. I felt it was good to know where the hotspots were, so we could have that information for our police, for our first responders. I asked that question three different ways, and got three different responses from the lawyers from the county saying that it’s HIPAA, and they cannot share that information with us. I’m in touch with Tom Sahlin, who’s a director of the housing authority, so I know how his buildings are doing, and also the other senior buildings. So they’ve not been hit hard as we would have expected. So a lot of what we’re hearing, we’re just hearing word of mouth. I did hear at some point from one of the doctors, that early on that the Haitian community had been affected initially because they have several generations living at home, and many of them were healthcare workers. But other than that, no, I don’t think any part of the city has been hit harder than anyone else.
Gillian Demetriou:
Okay. Based on what you just said, what has the working relationship with the city as a whole, the county, the state, and the federal government been throughout all this?
Eileen Chapman:
So the federal government has been non-existent, the state set up calls, they were weekly for a while. I think they’re monthly now calls with the governor. There’s county, the county sets up calls. So there’s different calls. They have a business committee set up, so people with businesses could get on county calls, there’s health calls that were set up, there’s reopening calls that were set up. So the county has been amazing not only in the response, but in dissemination of materials and communication. County’s been awesome, the state’s been fairly good. Our freeholders and senators would be completely responsive, I could text them right now and get a response back in 15 minutes. It’s been a great working relationship.
Gillian Demetriou:
With a new administration in office, do you think maybe, hopefully, some federal help might come soon or no? Just in your opinion.
Eileen Chapman:
I think the new administration recognizes that the federal government probably didn’t do a great job up until now, and that changes need to be made. So I’m looking forward to see what they are. As I said, it all trickles down. What we’re getting with the county, and with the state are great, but they’re probably not getting what they need from the federal government, which means it’s not trickling down to us and to residents.
Gillian Demetriou:
Can you think of any COVID success stories out of all this? Kind of a silver lining in all this.
Eileen Chapman:
COVID success story. So I think the city on a whole has been safe and healthy through this. We only had one business closed and that was early on. I think the fact that residents are supporting the local businesses, that businesses are doing everything they can for the health and safety of the residents, and residents in return supporting these businesses. But also these community organizations that are distributing food, and masks, and hand sanitizer, and everything it needed. I think we’re a success story. I think we’re making it through it, we’re making it through the best we can. I can’t think of anything that we could have done differently. We’re keeping people safe and healthy and taking care of our kids, and working with the schools to make sure they get what they need as well. That’s it.
Gillian Demetriou:
My next question was going to be, do you wish you would have done anything differently? Since you answered that-
Eileen Chapman:
I can’t think of anything that we could have done differently.
Gillian Demetriou:
It sounds like you had a very well thought out and supportive response. That literally just sounds amazing.
Eileen Chapman:
It definitely was amazing. I think, between the rest of the council, and the mayor, and our city manager, and all the staff at City Hall, and in and around the city. And then, the support we get from the county and the state, it couldn’t have gone any better.
Gillian Demetriou:
I’m literally a little jealous, I’m sorry.
Eileen Chapman:
As I said, it never leaves our minds as 24/7, what can we do, can we talk to… Between the testing and now the vaccine, it still doesn’t stopped. And eventually we’re going to pick up these projects where we left off, and continue on with our lives when this gets better. But, it’s made us all communicate better, and I think it’s brought us all closer as a community.
Gillian Demetriou:
On Tuesday, January 19th I believe, there was a town-wide vigil. Did you play any part in planning that or anything?
Eileen Chapman:
No. Actually, it was not only a town-wide, it was a national initiative. And so, we all just spread the word and really, again that happened organically, we spread the word, the downtown businesses kind of picked up what they were going to do. Japanese TV came in to interview Taka, and so he was able to provide them with information. The police and fire department had agreed to ride around town with their lights on. Dr. Chinnici, who was very involved with the early testing, had the Japanese TV people at his house. But really, it was an organic effort. We’re good at coming together and just doing things like this.
Gillian Demetriou:
It sounds like it. It sounds like a very well closely knit community.
Eileen Chapman:
Yeah. We’ve got a lot of committees that everybody’s on, and we’ve got Nextdoor Asbury park, which is a way to spread the word, and Nixle Alerts, and we’re only a mile by a mile. So we’re a small city. So it’s easy to spread the word. Social media, you name it, people are out chatting it up.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. On a little bit of a lighter note, what are you looking forward to doing, when this is all over, things sort of return back to normalcy?
Eileen Chapman:
Just pick up where we left off, putting some projects back on track. Here at work, things kind of got slowed down because students were now working from home. And a couple of volunteers didn’t feel like coming in because they just didn’t feel that they wanted to be around anyone. So, things at work here… We’ll pick up the pace, open our exhibit in the fall. And in Asbury, just continue to move forward with our projects. Continue to listen to people.
We do these things, coffee with a councilperson once a month. We do them at different little coffee shops around the city, gives us the opportunity to sit down with people. People come out, we’ll have a cup of coffee, they’ll talk about what they hope to see, or what they hope not to say. They’ll give us their complaints, their thoughts, their ideas, and it always gives us a little bit of inspiration. They may come up with things that we don’t see, it’s always good to have eyes and ears from the outside. And so I’m looking forward to some new creative thoughts on moving forward and upward. Looking forward to the beaches being open, and businesses getting back on track. I mean, they’ve been struggling, limping along for so long that I think if this goes too much farther, we may see more closed and we don’t want that to happen.
Kind of getting businesses back in business, and getting people out of their houses. And it’s the stress of people living sometimes alone. So getting people out back into the parks, back listening to music, getting the kids outside to play again. That was a concern of ours, with kids and parents cooped up for so long, who’s going to annoy who more and how’s that going to end up. But it’s been really okay. It’s been okay.
Gillian Demetriou:
Yeah. Well, that’s it for my questions.
Eileen Chapman:
Okay.
Gillian Demetriou:
Is there anything that you want to discuss that we didn’t talk about? Do you have any final closing statements, if you will?
Eileen Chapman:
I don’t think so.
Gillian Demetriou:
Okay.
Eileen Chapman:
Think I’ve rattled off for too long.
Gillian Demetriou:
Please, that’s almost the entire point of this.
Eileen Chapman:
Okay.
Gillian Demetriou:
So, okay. I’m going to stop recording.
Eileen Chapman:
All right. Thanks Gilian.
Gillian Demetriou:
Thank you so much for joining me today. All right.