View the video of Governor Christie's speech on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6sV-eV3lI8
Transcript of Governor Christie's speech:
"This is going to be a great thing for the senior citizens of Belleville and what we know is that in today’s society with the expenses of things being so high that we need to be able to provide affordable housing and affordable activities for our seniors. And that it shouldn’t be that they have to leave their own hometown to be able to do that.
This is where many of you have raised your families, where you’ve lived your lives and you shouldn’t have to leave the place where you raised your children and lived your lives in order to be able to have affordable housing for yourself as you get older. And so when Joe and the mayor and the council came to the state, came to Commissioner Constable, came to the HMFA and said 'can we help?' This project was so worthy and to be honest so overdue that I felt like there was no time to wait.
We needed to do this and do it quickly so you know when Joe’s calling me every day asking me about this, that helps to motivate you. And then I start calling Rich Constable and Anthony Marchetta every day and we get on them and things get done and I think that’s what people expect of government now.
So I want to thank all of you for giving me the chance to come home to Essex County to be able to announce some good news, to be able to continue to work with my partners in Essex county government in terms of making this county even better than it is today. It was a great place to grow up for myself, my brother and my sister, Essex County was a great place to grow up. And New Jersey is still a great place and getting to be even a better place to raise our children and our grandchildren.
The only way we’ll keep that going is if we work together, work together to get things done, work together to make sure that we use the tax money we get in as effective and efficient way as possible and make sure that each and every one of us remembers in public office that our obligation is to serve the people who put us here in the first place, not to serve ourselves. Thank you all very much."