Former Middlesex County Republican Chairman Joe Leo passed away on Saturday, August 21. He was 73 years old.
Leo served as a public administrator, manager and public safety director for many municipalities over a 45 year career, including Holmdel, Marlboro, Jackson, Monore, Delran, Brick, Middletown, Matawan and his home town of 54 years, Old Bridge.
During the summer months, Leo could often be found taking in the sunset at the Seagull’s Nest at Sandy Hook.
Funeral Arrangements as follows: Wake: Thursday, 25 August 2011 2:00 – 4:00 and 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Michael Hegarty Funeral Home, 3377 Route 9 North, Old Bridge, NJ 08857, 732-679-4422. Mass: Friday, 26 August 2011 at 10:00 a.m. at Most Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Church, 133 Amboy Road, Matawan, NJ 07747-6816.
Ian Linker is the only declared candidate for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate race against Senator Robert Menendez next year. If Linker gets enough signatures to get on the primary ballot he is likely to face State Senators Joe Kyrillos and Mike Doherty in a race for the nomination. Former Roxbury Mayor Tim Smith is also acting like a potential candidate.
We had a good conversation with Ian, challenging him on why he is starting his political career at such a high level and on his fund raising ability. I’ll say this for Linker, the $3950 he’s raised so far is more money than Anna Little has raised in her fledgling quest for a rematch against Frank Pallone.
I don’t believe that Linker has a remote chance to be the nominee, and I told him so. I even bet him dinner at any restaurant in the country, including travel expenses, that he would not win the party line from any county in the state for the primary. He took the bet (after the show via facebook), which proves to me he’s gotten in over his head. I’m looking forward to dinner at Latitudes in Sunset Key on Linker.
Yet, I give Ian a great deal of credit for entering the arena and fighting to make a difference. I hope his passion survives the ordeal he has chosen.
Listen to the first half hour of the show. Maybe I’m wrong about Linker.
During the second half hour Oceanport Councilman Joe Irace joined us with an enlightening and informative conservation that included comments on the utter lack of representation Monmouth County gets in the House of Representation from Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, the difference Irace and his colleagues on the Oceanport governing body were able to make, with the help of Senator Jennifer Beck, regarding the establishment of the Fort Monmouth Redevelopment Authority, and the predicament New Jersey’s Horse Racing Industry and Monmouth Park in particular face in these challenging economic times.
Irace makes a compelling case for VLT’s, slots, in the Meadowlands.
Enjoy the show.
Next week, Tuesday the 30th between 5PM and 6PM, our guest will be political strategist Mike DuHaime. DuHaime is to Governor Christie as Karl Rove was to President George W. Bush and David Axlerod is to President Barack Obama.
We’ll be talking about the 2012 presidential race. You won’t want to miss that show which will be broadcast on WIFI AM 1460 and on the Internet here.
The LaRossa and Gallagher: Real Jersey Guys On The Radio Show featuring former Senator Dick LaRossa and Art Gallagher is sponsored by Repatriot Radio.
45 km (27 miles) E of Charlottesville, Virginia
55 km (34 miles) SW of Fredericksburg, Virginia
64 km (39 miles) NW of RICHMOND, Virginia
82 km (50 miles) NNE of Farmville, Virginia
Ian Linker is the only declared Republican candidate for the nomination to challenge U.S. Senator Robert Menendez in the 2012 election. The attorney who resides in Bergen County wrote an Op-Ed piece on education reform that goes a step further than State Senator Mike Doherty’s proposal in bringing equality to New Jersey’s education funding.
Linker is embracing the the New Jersey Parental Rights Act, legislation sponsored by Morris County Assemblymen Anthony Bucco and Michael Patrick Carroll which would grant scholarships or vouchers directly to parents of school age children to use at the school of their choice. Linker is also calling for the elimination of teacher tenure and wasteful duplication is school administration.
Former Senator Dick LaRossa and I will be talking to Linker about his proposal and his candidacy for U.S. Senate.
Oceanport Councilman Joe Irace is probably the best known councilman in Monmouth County, if not all of New Jersey. Without a doubt he is the best know councilman in Trenton. Unlike many politicians, the media savy Irace does not use his social media and public relations skills to promote himself. He uses the media to generate support for and interest in the multitude of challenges that the small Borough of Oecanport has faced since he has been an elected official. From Fort Monmouth to Monmouth Park and the Horse Racing Industry, Irace is an effective and outspoken leader for the interests of Oceanport. He has stood up to and often frustrated powerful special interests and Trenton insiders.
Irace will be joining us at 5:30 for the second half hour of the show.
The LaRossa and Gallagher: Real Jersey Guys On The Radio Show is broadcast every Tuesday from 5PM till 6PM on WIFI 1460 AM and on the Internet here. The show is sponsored by Repatriot Radio.
You are welcome to join the show with your questions and comments. The numbers to call in our 609-447-0236 and 609-447-0237.
Despite his repeated and colorful denials of interest, the Republican calls for and media speculation about Governor Chris Christie entering the 2012 Presidential race is not going away.
In large measure that is because Christie doesn’t seem as though he wants it to go away.
“No, I’m not running. I don’t know what to do short of suicide to convince you that I’m not running. Oh, and thanks for asking, I’m really flattered that you are asking, again and again and again, and that you’re willing to raise hundreds of millions of dollars if I change my mind, but I’m not changing my mind.” That’s an invitation to keep asking. It’s a tease. “No, I won’t do it under any circumstances. I’m not ready. But ask me again.”
By most accounts, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels really wanted to run for president. Yet, when he announced that he wasn’t running because he didn’t want to put his family through a presidential campaign, Republican rain makers and the media stopped asking him to run or if there was any chance that he would reconsider.
That’s obviously not the case with Christie.
As I said in my radio conversation with Bob Ingle last week, the only way I can see Christie running is if his wife Mary Pat becomes convinced that another four years of President Obama would have a more detrimental impact on the lives of the Christie children than a Christie presidency would have, and if New Jersey’s First Lady became convinced that Obama was likely to be reelected if her husband didn’t run against him.
As rehearsed and coached as the Christie family appeared in their Piers Morgan interview, after viewing it I was convinced they had made a family decision that Christie wouldn’t run in 2012. I admired their family unity. I admired a marriage that puts the children first.
Yet, why do an interview like that if you’re not running for national office?
I stopped taking the Christie for President buzz seriously after the Morgan interview. Karl Rove’s vibrations about Christie after Texas Governor Rick Perry stole the limelight from Michele Bachman didn’t make me think Christie was running. Ross Douthat’s New York Times columns, here and here didn’t make me think Christie would run. The Daily Caller and Weekly Standard reports that Christie and Congressman Paul Ryan made an pact that one of them would run made me wonder just a bit.
Something happened today that made me wonder if Christie isn’t getting ready to run. It wasn’t the news that Ryan’s not running, according to The Weekly Standard.
Four times today the Christie’s press office sent out email announcements to the press about something Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno is doing, including a video. Usually Guadagno’s public appearances are included in the daily itinerary for the Governor that the press office sends out with little additional mention, if any. Today’s activity was unusual.
The Governor and his team are extraordinarily disciplined. It’s rare that something happens for no reason. If the Governor’s office is intentionally raising Guadagno’s public profile, there is a reason for it.
It makes me wonder if Mary Pat is getting concerned about the Republican field of presidential candidates, our country, and her children’s future.
Charles Measley, the 21 year-old Brookdale grad and Rumson GOP committeeman, who created a media storm last week with his “We must eliminate the rich” graphics on a YouTube video of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg’s remarks in Belmar, issued the following statement this afternoon:
On August 14th I filmed and uploaded a video of Senator Frank Lautenberg speaking on the boardwalk in Belmar, NJ. The video, which was uploaded to YouTube, featured the Senator calling on “the rich” to pay more taxes. The Senator stated that “there’s another place to getyour money, and it’s to get it from people like me.” This argument has become an all-too-familiar refrain from the super-elite worth more than $50 million, as is Senator Lautenberg.
Towards the end of the video I misunderstood what the senator was saying. I thought the Senator at one point said “eliminate the rich.” However, after others brought up concerns regarding the video, I examined the footage more carefully and have since determined that the Senator did not say “eliminate the rich.” Rather, he muddled what sounds like a mix of the words “ways” and “waste.”
I would like to formally apologize for misunderstanding and misquoting the senator.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg is not against the presently rich; he is against people becoming rich, lest they become part of his exclusive club. Those who are super-rich, like the senator, are worth millions of dollars. The Senator can afford to live off the $50 Million he has amassed over his 50-year political career and doesn’t need any new income streams. Raising income taxes on the super-rich like Senator Lautenberg would not affect people like the Senator because they have already accumulated their wealth.
Rather, raising the income tax rate prevents individuals in the middle class from becoming rich like Senator Lautenberg. It does this by taking away their means to become rich and that is bytaxing their income.
Senator Lautenberg has been an unfailing member of the class warfare party (i.e. Democrats) for half a century and in that time he has become extremely wealthy on the backs of the middle class. Yet his policies and those of his party have resulted in nothing but the near-complete prevention of middle class Americans achieving the American Dream.
I challenge Senator Lautenberg to write a check to the U.S. Treasury for $50 million dollars. His Senate salary, together with the Social Security he collects, should be plenty off of which to live. Millions of less fortunate Americans do it every single day.
In closing, while Senator Lautenberg may not have actually said “eliminate the rich”, by his policies he has prevented untold numbers of hard-working Americans from becoming rich like him. “Preventing” and “eliminating” in this sense, are one and the same.
When John Shoonejongen of Gannett’s Captial Quickieslistened to the video of Senator Frank Lautenberg’s remarks in Belmar on Wednesday he heard the senator say “we need to eliminate the waste,” not, “we need to eliminate the rich.”
By the time Shoonejongen got second and third opinons and talked to the Asbury Park Press reporter who was at the Belmar event and told him “Lautenberg definately said waste,” the video had gone viral. In addition to MMM, Save Jersey, Real Clear Politics and FoxNews.com had picked it up.
Shoonejongen posted on Captial Quickies that the type, “We need to eliminate the rich,” was inaccurate and that Lautenberg said, “we need to eliminate the waste.” Throughout the electronic media, websites started issuing corrections and pulling the video. It’s my turn.
Upon a second listening, Lautenberg said “we need to eliminate the waste, we got to eliminate the fraudulent practice. I didn’t listen closely enough the first time.
MMM has pulled the video and the post it appeared in. We’re not doing so to hide our mistake which we freely admit to, but to prevent a future reader from going directly to the post through search and thereby not seeing this correction.
Charles Measley, the Rumson GOP Committeeman, Bayshore Tea Party activist and MMM advertiser who shot and edited the video told MMM, “I heard him (Lautenberg) say rich and that was consistent with the context of his remarks, but I’m not 100% sure now that I got it right.”
Lautenberg’s communications director Caley Gray said, “It is very clear that the Senator said waste. Do you really think he would say ‘eliminate the rich?’ It is pathetic that someone tried to mislead the public over something so obvious.”
By Joe Irace, Oceanport Councilman, delivered as remarks at a council meeting on August 18th
Yesterday’s announcement by Perretti Farms, the largest standardbred
breeder in New Jersey, that they are putting up the “for sale” sign and
closing shop in the state is the latest blow to our racing industry. Mr.
Perretti had made it clear in the past that Trenton needed to change their
way of thinking in order to allow our farms a chance to compete with the
surrounding states. Once again, slot machines, VLT’s or a gaming casino in
the Meadowlands would have been the answer to keep Perretti Farms not only
viable, but successful. What becomes of Peretti Farms one can only wonder,
Mc Mansions, condos, strip malls?
Yesterday’s news led Assemblywoman Connie Wagner of Bergen County to become the latest member of Trenton to call for VLT’s in the Meadowlands.
Assemblyman Ralph Caputo was quoted in the paper a day earlier calling for
the same. Our District 12 Representatives Senator Jennifer Beck, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande have been vocal for years on this yet it continues to be held up by parochial politics and not common sense.
More Monmouth Musings blog says that over 100 farms are listed as for
sale at bargain basement prices in New Jersey. Where does it end? As Perretti closes and takes 30 fulltime jobs and countless ancillary jobs away from the state what more does it take for Trenton to move on VLT”s?
As we know from our own experience with Fort Monmouth, the last thing New
Jersey needs is additional strip malls and more housing. I urge all our
elected representatives to bring this issue up for a vote in the Assembly
and Senate. Every day we waste hurts our farms, race tracks, horsemen and
most importantly the taxpayers of New Jersey.
Prolific Reporter Is Joining The Asbury Park Press
Dustin Racioppi is taking his considerable talent to The Asbury Park Press. Hopefully the creative and entrepreneurial scribe will not be stifled by the suits at Gannett.
“Hopefully I won’t become a “Nudnik'”, said Dustin when confirming his move.
In his two years at RedBankGreen Dustin demonstrated an enviable ability to report local events from car accidents to council meetings with a compelling flair that kept readers coming back for more. He contributed mightly to the impressive growth of RBG and to the emergence of the “hyber-local” news business that the corporate media giants are now unwittingly attempting to homogenize.
Focus is a key to Dustin’s success. He lived and breathed his beat of Red Bank, Fair Haven, Rumson and Middletown. Last year while preparing to cover Congressman Frank Pallone’s office hours in Long Branch, I reached out to Dustin to see if he was going to cover it. “Long Branch is Jupiter to us,” was his response.
I was surprised when I first heard that Dustin was leaving RBG. While preparing to move MMM to this domain from the old blogspot site I sent a feeler out to Dustin about joining me. “I love working for John Ward,” was his immediate response. That was obvious from the quality of his work.
And Ward, owner/publisher of RBG, obviously loved having Dustin work for him. In an “Help Wanted” ad for reporters on RBG, Ward says:
We’re interested in teaming up with people who can quickly gather information and shape it into brief stories that are factually solid and fair, yet more than mere stenography. A distinctive and confident writer’s voice, or a desire to develop one, is a must. So is a broad range of interests, from the arts to public policy to business. The ability to take a decent photograph is a big plus. Wannabes, whiners and prima donnas: please don’t waste our time. We’re interested in working only with those who demonstrate entrepreneurial energy and focus on what needs to be done. Yeah, they sound boring, but they’re the most fun to be around. And we do have fun here.
In other words, John is looking to clone Dustin. Not an easy person to find, as I have learned over the last year. If you’re out there and love politics more than sprinkling fire hydrants or fireworks shows, call me first, or last.
Dustin’s move comes at a difficult time for RBG as it faces competition for advertising dollars from the patch.com sites and perhaps The Two River Times. Two weeks ago, Dan Jacobson reported in the triCityNews that TRT’s new publisher Ellen McCarthy was planning to convert the weekly paper’s website to an active news site with daily updates. If McCarthy has started doing so, I haven’t noticed. It’s probably still in the planning stages. Diane Gooch is still listed as publisher on the TRT site, an indication that they haven’t gotten to working on the website yet.
MMM wishes the best for Dustin at APP, and for Ward and RBG. While we’re at it, we wish the best for McCarthy and TRT and we pray the Neptune Nudniks learn from Dustin rather than trying to train him into a dead tree scribe. The more quality sources of local information available the better for all of us in this Internet age. I’m pretty sure Ward knows that. Maybe the Nudni’s are beginning to figure that out, but probably not. Jacobson doesn’t care. Only Dan knows how to make dead trees sing.
We don’t wish Patch well so much. We’d love them if they put out a consistently quality product, but that’s difficult if not impossible to do with part-time writers working for an extra $50-$100 per week. In the mean time they’re only mucking up the revenue side of the business. Patch’s only hope long term is for AOL/Ariann Huffington to pay Ward, Jacobson or me hundreds of millions of dollars and then leave us alone to do what we want to do.
Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo of New York sent a joint letter to Port Authority Chairman David Samson and Vice Chairman Stanley Grayson today directing that the toll and fare increases the authority proposed two weeks ago be scaled back and that a comprehensive audit of the capital plan and operations take place.
A copy of the governors’ letter can be found here.
Christie and Cuomo said that their commissioners were able to identify $5 billion in savings within the capital plan over the last two weeks.
Imagine what they could have found if they weren’t in a hurry.
Tolls for cars on the Hudson River crossings will increase by $1.50 in September and then $.75 in December in each year from 2012-2015. The Port Authority’s proposal would have raised these tolls by $4.00 in September. Overall tolls on cars will increase by $4.50 over the next five years rather than the $6.00 PANYNJ proposed over four years.
Drivers paying cash rather than using EZ Pass will pay a $2.00 penalty.
Tolls on trucks using EZ Pass will increase by $2.00 per axle in September, and then an additional $2.00 per year per axle starting in December, 2012-2015.
Trucks paying cash will pay the same increases, plus $3.00 per axle.
Fares on the PATH trains will increase $.25 per year for the next four years.
The governors said that these increases would stop the fiscal crisis at Port Authority and allow for the completion of the World Trade Center and hundreds of other projects that “will ensure the safety and economic viability of a transportation system that millions of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans rely on.”
This toll deal, since the Port Authority’s initial announcement through today’s joint letter by the governors is just too cute for my liking.
Why institute five years worth of toll increases before the comprehensive audit is completed? What happens if the audit reveals another $5 billion in savings? Will tolls be reduced by another $2.50 like the governors were able to reduce the proposed increases with $5 billion in savings discovered in two weeks? Who will conduct the audit? Is prevailing wage on the table for reform? Will the audit be made public? How long will the audit take to complete?
If there is a real fiscal crisis at PANYNJ with a possibility of defaulting on bonds, a more reasonable alternative would have been to grant temporary toll and fare increases, for six months to a year, until the audit could be completed, studied and money saving reforms implemented.
The fact that this fiasco happened during two weeks in August while so many people are vacationing before the back to school rush increases my cynicism and disappointment. It makes me fear what might be in store for us during the last two weeks of December and during the lame duck session of the legislature.
Former Middlesex County Republican Chairman Joe Leo passed away on Saturday, August 21. He was 73 years old.