Five years ago, my husband and I sat down with an expert at a much-touted business assistance program to ask for advice on improving our new Cookman Avenue gallery. We spent an hour happily flipping through our business plan, our marketing materials, our pile of press clippings, our photos of the gallery and its merchandise.

Looking at our hopeful faces, the expert had only one observation. "I live in Rumson," he told us, "and it doesn't matter how nice your gallery is or what kind of merchandise you sell. I would never let my wife or daughter drive into Asbury Park to shop."

End of session.

Owning an Asbury Park business is not a life-choice for sissies, as this former business owner (and current downtown building owner) can testify. And, as someone who spent five years actively promoting the downtown, I can also testify that I often felt that business development was not high on the list of city hall priorities.

Now that beachfront redevelopment is taking shape and the downtown is beginning to boom, how can we develop a business/city partnership that will touch every business district in Asbury Park, despite our on-going budget woes?

One great cause for optimism, in my opinion, was the hiring last week of Tom Gilmour as the city's joint Economic Development and Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) Director.

As you may know, the state UEZ program helps distressed cities attract, keep, and expand local businesses. UEZ retailers charge their customers only 3% sales tax on purchases (rather than 6%), and those tax revenues go into a local trust fund to pay for city business initiatives like street improvements and low-cost loans.

Thriving UEZ businesses, in turn, create new jobs, and at least 20% of those jobs must go to city residents. Impressively, over 100 new jobs were created in Asbury Park by UEZ businesses between December 2000 and February 2002, including 26 jobs at Icon Imaging, a plastics injection molding company that hired many city residents.

Until last week, our new UEZ Director worked as one of two field managers for the state Commerce and Economic Development Commission, and assisted 16 UEZ districts around New Jersey.

In April, 2001 - when Asbury Park and Camden were the only two under-performing UEZ cities in the state - Tom began spending extra time here to help us enroll more businesses and fund more economic development projects.

The results are impressive.

With Tom's part-time help, the number of city businesses in our UEZ program grew from 43 to 120 since last April, and the revenues generated by the program increased from $12,000 a month in March, 2001 to almost $28,000 a month now - money that will benefit Asbury Park's business community.

Why would city businesses want to join the UEZ? In addition to charging only 3% sales tax to their customers, UEZ members themselves are exempt from paying sales tax on building materials, office equipment and office supplies - a significant savings for someone who is starting or upgrading a business.

Also, the 3% sales tax revenues that flow into our city's trust fund directly support our merchants. For example, Asbury Park's UEZ program offers facade improvement grants of up to $15,000 to help members upgrade their buildings with new paint, awnings, windows, and more.

And a new loan program - that will hopefully be available by July - will offer business loans of up to $25,000 at a low 4.5% interest.

The UEZ program has paid for trash receptacles, holiday lights, and foot patrol officers in Asbury Park, and it will help the city purchase a Geographic Information System to track key business information. Currently under study are proposals to purchase a police car and sidewalk sweeping equipment, and to underwrite job training for city residents.

An expanded outdoor farmers and antiques market is also planned for summer to lure new shoppers into town - and hopefully into city shops.

Ironically, UEZ funds can't be used to directly market and advertise our businesses, although they can be used to market the UEZ program itself.)

All UEZ projects are initiated by the city's UEZ Board of Directors, with Tom's assistance, and must be approved by the state.

The UEZ Board itself has been re-energized this year - thanks to strong leadership from President Ed Johnson - and current members are George Cooke, Karen Escobedo, Al Giobbie, John Hamilton, Wali Muhammad, Louis Navarrete, Sara Anne Towery, Ahmad Varasteh, Danny Yim, and me.

Public meetings are typically held at 6 p.m. on the first Monday of each month, in the City Manager's Conference Room on the second floor of city hall, and you can contact Tom at 732-502-5749 for more information about UEZ membership and programs.

But improving the UEZ program is only half of Tom's job. In his dual role as Economic Development Director, Tom is also responsible for attracting the right mix of businesses to the city, with their accompanying jobs and tax revenues.

"Good economic development requires a good business mix," he said. "We want attractive retailers, but we also want banks, brokerage firms, technology firms, light industry, and other companies that will provide jobs and support our retailers during the day."

Of special interest are Asbury and Springwood Avenues, two major thoroughfares that will see increasing traffic as beachfront redevelopment begins.

"I also see the Economic Development Director as an ambassador for the city, representing our interests at business forums, promoting tourism, and developing a marketing kit for the city," he said.

For example, Tom said that he'll use his connections at the NJ Division of Tourism to help Asbury Park take advantage of free marketing programs that the city has never tapped. He also plans to work with NJ Transit to identify grants for station-area projects like streetscape improvements, visitor kiosks, or even a station visitor's center.

Of course, even with Tom's considerable energy and extensive state connections, it will take much more than one pair of hands to turn Asbury Park's business prospects around.

But Tom's hiring is a bright sign for local business people, and I hope that city merchants, building owners, and groups like the Greater Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce will find new ways to partner with Tom and the city.

And, as for that business expert from Rumson, I hope he saw Sunday's New York Times.

According to Cynthia Weber Cleary, fashion director of In-Style magazine, and other New York trend-setters, Asbury Park is a new cutting-edge place for "a very groovy crowd of people discovering the Jersey Shore".

Hey, we knew it all along.