Year End Review

How successful is Aberdeener? That question may sound pre-mature considering the blog’s short life but asking forces us to define success. So, to quote Mayor Koch, how am I doing? To be generous, I’d say fair.

Aberdeener’s mission is to effect positive change through the promotion of ideas and information. Has there been any change? No.

The top three articles, Plato’s Disciples being number one, were all related to the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District. Yet, I’ve not seen any change. For example, our school administration, with the board’s consent, remains intent on using our most learning-challenged students as an opportunity to featherbed the teacher rolls. Despite widespread evidence that under-performing students often benefit from learning in a group environment, our school district won’t countenance any special program that doesn’t involve one-on-one instruction.

Surprisingly, the fourth leading article was Merge Aberdeen and Matawan. I believe most residents instinctively recognize the advantages of combining the two municipalities but the two councils are strongly opposed. There’s no chance of seeing a re-unification while the old guard is in charge.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, two of the least read articles were Affordable Housing in Aberdeen and Legislating Against Pay to Play. I don’t think people understand that for every five new residential units, the town is obligated to build an “affordable housing” unit as well. When you consider Aberdeen Forge, the proposed Transit Village, and the Anchor Glass area, that’s a lot of affordable housing we’ll need to build.

As for Pay to Play, I can only assume most people don’t care that Aberdeen’s township engineer, CME Associates, not only oversees about 25% of the budget, but is also the single largest political donor to the Aberdeen Democratic Party.

Why then do I rate my success as fair? Site traffic and the “water-cooler-multiplier”. To date, Aberdeener has attracted a little over 400 unique visitors and nearly 4000 pageviews. The number of unique visitors, though small, is certainly more than enough to impact any of the local elections. Plus, I happen to know that many of my posts have been discussed around the “water cooler”. Nearly 150 visitors arrived at the blog after specifically searching for “Aberdeener”.

In summary, no success yet but there’s reason to be hopeful.

As a footnote, I’d like to thank the other local blogs for their strong support – Matawan Advocate, Matawan Aberdeen Observer, and Truth In Matawan. Without their support, my blog would still be largely unknown.

I wish everyone a happy, healthy, successful, and blessed year. >>> Read more!