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Several community stakeholders will meet at Asbury Park’s St. Stephen AME Zion Church Saturday to engage in a discussion of long- and short-term solutions to mitigate the issue of violence on the city’s Westside.

George Corbin and St. Stephen’s Pastor Derinzer Johnson have organized the “Summit to End the Violence in Asbury Park.” The summit will provide an overview of the problem of violence in Asbury and highlight the need to prioritize it, along with possible solutions, within the larger community.

Corbin, a retired Asbury Park Police lieutenant, was born and raised on the Westside of Asbury Park and recalls the race riots of the 1970s. Right before the riots, black leaders within the community approached members of the municipal government with a list issues that needed to be tackled on the city’s Westside, and interestingly enough, those same matters are what Corbin and Derinzer seek to bring to the light during tomorrow’s panel discussion, he said.

“They are the same issues that are being tackled today in our so-called ‘rejected’ portion of town,” he said.

Those issues fall into five areas of concern: Mental health, law enforcement, jobs, housing and education.

A panel discussion led by Adrienne Sanders, president of the Asbury Park and Neptune NAACP, will see representatives with expertise from those five areas provide their background knowledge and proffer ideas with those in attendance.

Members of the Asbury Park City Council, nonprofit agency Interfaith Neighbors, Asbury Park Board of Education, various local churches and civic groups, boardwalk redeveloper Madison Marquette, the Asbury Park Unit of the Boys and Girls Club and several local business owners, among other community stakeholders are expected to be in attendance.

Panelists include Mary Pat Angelini, assemblywoman and executive director of Prevention First; Thomas Huth, director of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Bureau and head of their Asbury Park satellite office; Heather Schulz, community outreach coordinator for Interfaith Neighbors; and Rev. Kevin Williams, an Asbury Park School District second-grade teacher and pastor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Presbyterian Church in Neptune.

“It’s the first time we are getting all the major stakeholders in one room together,” Corbin said. “There’s going to be synergy, energy— it’s going to be a beautiful thing,” he said.

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