As of this writing, Save Jerseyans, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is engaged in one of the most dramatic practices unique to American-style democracy: the Senate filibuster.
Typically, U.S. senators “filibuster” a nomination or legislation by refusing to provide a majority of the 60 votes required for cloture. Paul is using the much rarer one-man approach made popularly famous by Mr. Smith Goes to Washington whereby one Senator continues to speak on the floor until he decides to stop (or simply cannot carry on). The Senator’s aim? Holding up the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director; he hopes this gesture will raise awareness of a controversial new Justice Department policy that many believe would permit drone strikes on American citizens without any due process whatsoever.
By Tommy De Seno, Asbury Park Historian, proud Blue Bishop and contributor to More Monmouth Musings
[PRELIMINARY NOTE TO FREEHOLDERS: I KNOW YOU ARE BUSY. IF YOU CAN’T READ ALL OF THIS ABOUT WHY YOU SHOULDN’T BUY A PARK IN ASBURY, SKIP TO REASON #6 BELOW. BUT I HOPE YOU WILL TAKE THE TIME TO READ THE WHOLE LETTER]
Asbury Park is everyone’s business. Why? The rest of the taxpayers in the State of New Jersey spend $60 million annually on the schools. Even though the High School graduates only about 95 students, they just installed an $800,000.00 turf football field. Go Blue Bishops.
The City turns to the State of New Jersey annually for $10-12 million to close their budget gap.
So yes – the business of Asbury Park is everyone’s business. We should all closely monitor their elections, but since they hold non-partisan elections in May they get ignored.
Now I’m not here to beat up the City by the Sea, the Urban Sand, my beloved childhood home of Asbury Park. If anyone cares to know I’ll gladly regale you with lectures on how Asbury Park got to be where it is (it isn’t just their fault) and how they should get to where they need to go.
But blog space compels me to limit my words to one issue at a time, and that issue right now has to do with the Monmouth County Parks Commission possibly purchasing a piece of land on Asbury Park’s beachfront.
Whatever you do, my dear Freeholders, don’t buy it.
New April 1 Deadline Allows Additional Time for Residents to Register for FEMA Assistance
Trenton, NJ –The Christie Administration announced today that New Jersey residents impacted by Superstorm Sandy now have until April 1, 2013 to register for individual disaster assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The deadline extension applies for homeowner, renter, and business registration with the Small Business Administration (SBA) for Disaster Loan Assistance, another important step in the disaster relief process to ensure survivors obtain all relief they are eligible for.
“This 30-day extension will help us ensure that anyone who has been affected by Sandy gets the help they need and deserve,” said Governor Christie. “It’s vitally important for people to know that the process of receiving any type of federal disaster assistance – including future grant assistance for homeowners and businesses – begins with registering as a disaster survivor with FEMA and working with a coordinator to determine eligibility for relief. I encourage those who have not yet registered with FEMA and SBA to do so now to get the relief they are entitled to and to ensure their eligibility for any future relief we can offer.”
ASSEMBLY REPUBLICANS AGREE WITH GOVERNORS CALL TO
END BIG PAYOUTS FROM PROPERTY TAXPAYERS TO RETIRING PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
Assembly Republicans Caroline Casagrande, Nancy Muñoz, Donna Simon and Declan OScanlon, who sponsor legislation to end the practice of paying public employees for unused sick time, were pleased that Governor Christie remains committed to providing this vital property tax relief that has been blocked by some Trenton politicians.
We have capped property taxes and saved billions by reforming public employee benefits. Its time to finish the job and save property taxpayers from giving big checks to retiring public employees, Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, R-Monmouth, said. Anyone who is serious about winning the war against sky-high property taxes should embrace this common sense reform.
Governor Christie repeated his call for sick pay reform during yesterdays budget address as part of the items needed to further improve New Jerseys fiscal health.
The historic bipartisan reforms we supported resulted in the slowest growth of property taxes in 24 years, after a decade of crushing increases, Assemblywoman Nancy F. Muñoz, R-Union, Somerset and Morris, said. We can do even better for property taxpayers by enacting a sensible law that requires the use of sick days for what they were intended.
Assembly Bill 2495, sponsored by 23 Assembly Republicans, would prohibit payments to public employees for unused sick leave. The legislation would also prohibit sick leave for those who have been indicted and require medical documentation for absences of six or more consecutive days.
Bringing governments workplace policies in line with those in the private sector should be a no-brainer, Assemblywoman Donna Simon, R-Hunterdon, Somerset, Mercer and Middlesex, said. In the public sector, the taxpayer is the boss and we can improve the bottom line for both property taxpayers and our states finances with this logical reform.
A few recent examples have highlighted how much money unused sick time costs property taxpayers:
Governor Christie has proposed a budget with the highest level of school aid and largest debt payment in state history, while we have achieved the smallest property tax growth in state history, Assembly Republican Budget Officer Declan OScanlon, R-Monmouth, said. Governments throughout New Jersey could deliver even more for taxpayers if Democrats in the Legislature agreed to work with us to eliminate these grotesque payments that have no practical purpose other than personal profit.
Non-profit to collect furniture for those affected by Sandy
Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon today announced that a local non-profit, Love INC, has been awarded $50,000 in gift cards for furniture through the Robin Hood Foundation to help in the Bayshore area. Additionally, Love INC’s used furniture store “Furnished With Love” located in Long Branch will be having a sale of high quality used furniture on Saturday, March 2 and Sunday March 3 in the Highlands at Our Lady Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church from 10 AM to 3PM.. The Assemblyman asked that local residents donate any furniture that is in good shape.
“This is another step in stabilizing this area that has suffered so much,” said O’Scanlon (Love INC’s chairman). “Now that families are being stabilized with reconstruction the next step is making them livable by meeting their very basic furniture needs. We all recall the masses of debris on the curbside of many homes with the devastation being particularly immense up and down the Bayshore area. Love INC has been in existence for 18 years helping families in Monmouth County and continues to make a mark where it’s needed the most.”
Carolyn Eyerman, the executive director also added “that in 2012 over $20,000 worth of free furniture was given to qualified and screened clients in Monmouth County.”
Brand new mattresses and box springs as well as new bunk beds are also available with free delivery to all Bayshore residents with purchases made on March 2nd and 3rd. Love INC’s role in the community is not only to provide furniture, but acts as a community clearinghouse for local area churches to help with a variety of needs from rent assistance, elder care, used cars for transportation, free haircuts and haul out services.
“I really hope that our neighbors fortunate enough to make it through the storm unscathed will reach into their hearts to help out those who may have lost everything,” O’Scanlon stated. “Let’s be honest, we all have some extra furniture that’s just taking up space – this way, not only will it get used, but it will go to a family who really needs it.”
Furniture donations are especially needed right now with the needs so overwhelming. Free pickup and tax receipts issued from “Furnished with Love” trucks. Please call 732-222-1923 and find out how you can help. For those looking to contact Love INC directly, please call 732-542-7012.
Back in 2004, Save Jerseyans, your Blogger-in-Chief was an undergraduate at Washington, D.C.’s Catholic University of America when a couple other friends and I interned at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
It was an amazing experience for a wide-eyed young conservative nerd to interact with so many distinguished politicians, media personalities and career activists in one place.
It was also a very different time in the Republican Party, and I discovered a healthy level of intellectual diversity on display from the right-of-center CPAC attendees. Libertarians, neocons, paleocons, fiscal conservatives and social conservatives from across the country mixed, drank, shared cabs, and downed hot dogs while discussing equally hot races in long book signing queques.
The common thread among the CPAC patrons? A healthy disdain for large, active, expensive and intrusive federal governance.
Lt. Governor Guadagno, Madam Speaker, Mr. President, members of the Legislature, fellow New Jerseyans:
I am pleased to present to you my budget for Fiscal Year 2014.
The budget continues a journey you began with me three years ago – to get New Jersey’s house in order; to turn Trenton upside down; to make hard but better choices so that we could put our state back on a path to growth.
For the fourth year in a row, the budget maintains the fiscal discipline we need to restore New Jersey. Fiscal sanity has indeed returned to Trenton.
For the fourth year in a row, this budget is balanced and imposes no tax increases on the people of New Jersey. I want every New Jersey citizen to remember just how different things were before we arrived. 115 tax and fee increases in eight years. Skyrocketing spending. $13 billion in deficits left on our doorstep by the irresponsibility of the past.
We must never take for granted what we have already achieved. Reduced spending. New jobs. Balanced budgets four years in a row. And lower taxes. It is truly a new day for New Jersey.
Asbury Park is everyone’s business. Why? The rest of the taxpayers in the State of New Jersey spend $60 million annually on the schools. Even though the High School graduates only about 95 students, they just installed an $800,000.00 turf football field. Go Blue Bishops.