Garden State Equality, the gay rights advocacy group, announced that they were close to having enough votes in the legislature to override Governor Christie’s veto of the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act. The announcement was bullshit.
Rachel Alintoff,a former Long Branch resident with ongoing divorce litigation in Monmouth County, aired her grievances about Judge Paul X. Escandonto Governor Christie at a Town Hall Meeting in Garfield. Since then, over 30 additional women have come forward with complaints against Escandon, a investigation has been initiated by the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct and Escandon’s assignment has been changed twice.
Republicans were buoyed by a Quinnipiac Poll and New York Times article indicating that Joe Kyrillos had a path to defeating Bob Menendez in the U.S. Senate race.
The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee rejected the nomination of the first openly homosexual man nominated to the State Supreme Court. Bruce Harris, an African-American and the Republican Mayor of Chatham Borough, was rejected by the Democratically controlled committee in a party-line vote.
On April 1MMM reported that Anna Little was quitting politics to launch her musical career. On April 2 a Star Ledger reporter asked Little’s CD-6 GOP primary opponent Ernesto Cullari for comment on Little’s career change.
Conservative Columnist and media pioneer Andrew Breitbart died unexpectedly of natural causes at 43 years old.
Former Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre was confirmed Director of the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control by the State Senate.
Star Ledger photo
Former Acting Governor Richard Codey got professionally made up as a homeless man and went “undercover” to investigate a Newark homeless shelter. The publicity stunt brought plenty of attention to Codey but did nothing to help the plight of the homeless.
Governor Chris Christie got into a shouting match at a Town Hall meeting with a former Navy Seal over the Rutgers-Camden-Rowan merger. Christie called William Brown an idiot. Brown later issued a public apology to Christie.
Anna Little abandoned her fight against Joe Kyrillos for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination and set her sights back on the GOP 6th District Congressional nomination. Newcomer Ernesto Cullari scored a stunning upset against Little, a former Monmouth County Freeholder and former Highlands Mayor, for the Monmouth GOP screening committee’s endorsement in CD-6. Little won the Middlesex County endorsement and went on to win the nomination in the June primary.
A New Jersey Superior Court Judge sued the State over his contributions to the State Pension fund, arguing that the 2011 reforms that required higher pension contributions of all State employees was a violation of the State Constitution.
Governor Christie’s nomination of Judge David F. Bauman to the State Supreme Court has prompted a mid-term reassignment of the Superior Court Judges in Monmouth County.
Assignment Judge Lawrence M. Lawson told MMM that effective January 2, 2013 Judge Paul Escandon is transfered from Family Court to Civil Court, Judge Honora O’Brien Kilgallen will move from Civil Court to Criminal Court, Judge Linda Grasso-Jones will switch from hearing Civil matters to Family matters, and Judge James J. McGann will transfer from Civil Court to Criminal Court hearing Juvenile cases. Judge Leslie-Ann M. Justus will remain in Family Court and take over Escandon’s calendar.
MMM called Lawson for comment on a New York Post story over the weekend that said Escandon would not be hearing divorce cases “after a months-long campaign by women who say he systematically cheated them from the bench.” Lawson said the Post story was a “rehash.” Escandon has not been hearing new divorces, rather, he has been presiding over non-matrimonial cases and post-Judgment matters in Family Court, since July.
Escandon’s July reassignment was caused by Judge Michael Guadagno’s elevation to the Appellate Court and these recent reassignments are the result of Bauman’s anticipated elevation to the Supreme Court, according to Lawson.
Lawson said that the Monmouth County Vicinage currently has six vacancies with a seventh coming if Bauman is confirmed a Supreme Court Associate Justice by the State Senate. There are four pending Judicial nominations for Monmouth County pending before the Senate.
Escandon’s tenure on the Family Court bench has been a subject of controversy since May when former Long Branch resident Rachel Alintoff complained to Governor Christie at at Town Hall Meeting in Garfield about Escandon’s rulings, one of which had been overturned on appeal, in her divorce case. Since then, a group of divorce litigants, mostly women, have been holding periodic protests about Escandon at the Monmouth County Court House and the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct has initiated an investigation into Escandon based upon Alintoff’s complaints.
Marlboro Township Council President Frank LaRocca issued the following statement on facebook regard his township’s decision to assign armed police officers at the community’s schools on Januaray 3:
“If you saw an armed man walking towards a school would you call 911? Of course you would, and maybe you would do even more. We have had police in our schools since 1999. This move is simply to put full time police in each school until the assessment is complete on revamping our school security. This is not armed teachers or lunch ladies. These are trained police officers. There is a need for gun control. The assulat weapons have no place in our society at all. But until the school security is brought forward, the police will be in the schools.”
Marlboro High School, part of the Freehold Regional High School District, has had a School Resource Officer assigned to it since 1999, according to Mayor Jon Hornick.
