Wall Township Mayor Anne Marie Conte and Atlantic Highlands Councilman Peter Doyle are candidates to fill the Freeholder seat being vacated by Freeholder Director Rob Clifton upon his swearing in to the State Assembly.
Conte and Doyle join Holmdel Deputy Mayor Serena DiMaso and Howell Mayor Bob Walsh as candidates in the Republican County Committee election which will take place on January 14th. Both Conte and Doyle were reelected to their current offices earlier this month.
Atlantic Highlands Councilman Peter Doyle
Doyle confirmed to MMM that he is throwing his hat in the ring, saying, “I think I can do a lot for Monmouth County.” Conte was not immediately available. Multiple reliable sources told MMM that she is “definitely” running. The sources said that Conte was running for the vacant seat at the urging of Freeholder Lillian Burry.
Burry confirmed her support of Conte. “Anne Marie is exceptionally competent and intelligent. I’ve been impressed with her enthusiasm and the job she has done in Wall,” said Burry, “she would make an outstanding Freeholder, but must first get through the process of the convention.”
The Monmouth County Affilated Republican Club’s website mentions Manalapan Deputy Mayor Ryan Green, Manalapan businessman Joe Ficalora, Keyport Chairman Bob Burlew, Hazlet Mayor Scott Aagre, and former Freeholder Bill Barham as possible candidates.
The County GOP’s official website has an announcement urging potential candidates to call Chairman Joe Oxley as soon as possible at 732-431-6664.
GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain is reassessing his candidacy in the wake of allegations of a 13 year extra-marital affair, according to a story broken by National Review Online. NRO reports that they had a writer on Cain’s five minute conference call with his senior staff wherein he discussed his campaign’s latest setback.
Cain has denied the affair, as he has denied allegations of sexual harassment while he was the CEO of the National Restaurant Association.
Cain attempted shore up his weak foreign policy credentials by issuing his denials in German, “nine, nine, nine.”
Locally, Bayshore Tea Party Group leader Barbara Gonzalez told Politickernj that her group continues to support Cain, “Until they can prove something, we continue to support him….it’s a smear campaign….no one is buying it.”
Now Pascrell, 74, should announce his retirement and save the New Jersey Congressional Redistricting Commission a lot of work. Doing so would eliminate all controversy over naming a state highway after him.
Barney Frank, 71, the Massachusetts Congressman from Bayonne, announced his retirement after the Bay State announced their new congressional districts. Frank said he didn’t want to raise the money or do the electioneering necessary to get elected in his new district.
Pascrell announcing his retirement prior to the new congressional districts being determined would be a selfless act of public service. The rest of New Jersey’s congressional delegation would want to name a more prominent road after him. The Resdistricting Commission’s work would become easy and appropriate, as the district to be eliminated should be from North Jersey where the population has declined vis-a-vis the rest of the state.
If Pascrell announced his retirement, the bill to name Route 19 after him could be fast tracked in the lame duck legislative session. Governor Christie might even sign it, despite the fact that Pascrell was a Corzine caddy, second only to Frank Pallone, during the 2009 gubernatorial campaign.
If Pascrell does not take this opportunity to retire, the question of the appropriateness of naming public facilities after sitting office holders should be hotly debated. Every member of the Assembly Transportation committee except Burlington County Assemblyman Scott Rudder voted to release the Pascrell naming bill to the full Assembly. Rudder said that naming a road after a sitting office holder was hypocritical and that the state has more pressing issues.
Rudder is right, but there is a stronger argument against giving away the names of public facilities. In these difficult economic times, we should sell and resell the names of our roads, bridges and buildings, with all of the proceeds going to either retire debt or build new facilities, thereby avoiding new debt.
There is precedent for this type of revenue generation. Former Governor Brendan Byrne’s name was taken off the Meadowlands Arena in favor of Continental Airlines and later Izod who both paid handsomely for the naming rights.
Glassboro State College was renamed Rowan University after Mr. Rowan donated $100 million.
The State and New Jersey’s counties and municipalities could benefit greatly by selling naming rights to businesses and philanthropists.
Governor’s Recidivism Initiative Builds on State’s Strong Record with Expansion of Successful Drug Court Program, Improved Program Management and Coordination and Accountability for Results
Trenton, NJ – Taking action to build on the nationally recognized success of New Jersey’s prisoner re-entry, rehabilitation and prevention programs, Governor Chris Christie today outlined an initiative to help even more offenders get the support they need to successfully re-enter society, break the cycle of criminality and lead productive lives.
Governor Christie outlined this cross-departmental Administration initiative at Cathedral Kitchen, a community service organization that serves meals to those in need in Camden. Cathedral Kitchen operates a culinary arts program which gives job training to unemployed, unskilled, homeless citizens, re-entering prisoners and parolees, helping them transition to a successful, productive life once they are out of prison.
The Governor’s re-entry initiative includes the expansion of the state’s successful Drug Court Program, the appointment of a Governor’s Office Re-entry Coordinator, the creation of a Governor’s Task Force on Recidivism Reduction, an ongoing program assessment, and the development of a real time recidivism database. These changes will allow New Jersey’s re-entry and rehabilitation efforts and programs to work together, to be guided and properly resourced based on results, and to ensure effective programs are expanded to serve as many individuals as possible.
“New Jersey has a strong record of helping rehabilitate offenders and providing the services they need to be successful in society, significantly decreasing their likelihood of reoffending and improving public safety,” said Governor Christie. “But we can do better to make our re-entry programs more efficient, successful and effective – helping even more individuals get the support they need to change their lives for the better and break the cycle of offending and reoffending.”
Today, New Jersey is widely recognized as a national leader in reducing incidents of recidivism and reducing its prison population. The Pew Center on the States’ State of Recidivism report, “The Revolving Door of America’s Prisons,” identified New Jersey’s 11 percent recidivism decline as among the steepest declines for any state during the report’s study period, from 1999-2002 and 2004-2007. Since 1999, New Jersey’s prison population has declined more than 20 percent.
New Jersey spends over $225 million, not including over $40 million for the Drug Court Program, on its system of various re-entry and prevention programs across state government, but it is done in a decentralized manner with no mechanism to implement these resources strategically or measure program performance. The Governor’s initiative builds on the relative success of New Jersey’s existing system of re-entry programs in breaking the cycle of criminality and helping offenders lead successful lives after prison by addressing existing shortcomings and expanding those programs that are getting results.
Existing programs like the Drug Court Program, which serves as an alternative to incarceration for drug-addicted, nonviolent offenders, have already been effective in reducing recidivism rates among those they serve.
According to their October 2010 Drug Court Report, the rate at which drug court graduates are re-arrested for a new indictable offense is 16% and the reconviction rate is 8%. This is compared to re-arrest rates for drug offenders released from prison that stands at 54% with a re-conviction rate of 43%. According to that report, an average institutional cost per inmate is approximately $38,900, whereas the cost for an active drug court participant is roughly $11,379.
The Governor’s initiative will focus additional resources on this successful, demonstrably effective program and allow others to be similarly identified and prioritized to further reduce recidivism with programs that work.
Connecting offenders with the services they need to be successful back in society, whether it is recovery from substance abuse or the need for official identification, is critical to ending the cycle of crime. At present, a joint program between the state Department of Corrections and Motor Vehicles Commission (MVC) identifies qualified offenders on a quarterly basis, who are taken to MVC offices to obtain a driver’s license or non-driver identification card prior to the completion of their sentence. This program takes down impediments to successful re-entry resulting from the lack of official identification, which is often necessary to apply for a job, obtain housing, or connect with critical services like Medicare or food assistance.
“This initiative will build on our strengths by expanding highly successful programs like the Drug Court Program to get addicted offenders the underlying help they need, while also measuring and reforming or eliminating ineffective programs, and directing our resources in a smart, strategic and coordinated way to those programs that are making a positive difference in changing lives,” said Governor Christie.
First Lady Mary Pat Christie has made re-entry and prevention programs that help ex-offenders and recovering addicts return to normal life a priority. New Jersey’s innovative prevention and re-entry programs aimed towards at-risk populations have been highlighted by Mrs. Christie for their work in providing the building blocks to self-sufficiency and a pathway to achieve life success. Several of the initiatives have brought recognition to the Garden State as a national model for the progress made in this area. An overview of Mrs. Christie’s efforts in this area can be foundhere.
The Governor’s initiative includes the following components:
Expansion of the Drug Court Program
The drug courts presently accept approximately 1,400 new participants per year. Those new participants must volunteer for a sentence of drug court as opposed to incarceration. The Christie Administration initiative seeks to expand the drug court program by identifying eligible drug addicted non-violent offenders, providing them with clinical assessments to determine their suitability for drug court and sentencing those offenders to the drug court program regardless of their desire to enter the program.
This approach recognizes that one of the main impediments to treatment for addiction is the denial of addiction. Treatment systems that address the denial issue can ultimately be successful in treating a larger population of appropriate offenders. The Governor’s Re-entry Task Force will be tasked with working with the judiciary to facilitate a suitable expansion of this program beginning with two vicinages to be determined through this effort.
Governor’s Office Coordinator for Prisoner Reentry
A collaborative vision is necessary to improve what is a comparatively successful system of re-entry services. That vision includes, as a first phase, centralizing and providing a formal management structure on the current, decentralized system.
Governor Christie today announced that Lisa Puglisi, an attorney with more than a decade of experience with the Attorney General’s Office representing the Department of Corrections and later the State Parole Board, as his Coordinator for Prisoner Re-entry to convey and implement the Governor’s vision for an improved prisoner re-entry scheme. The Governor’s Coordinator for Prisoner Re-entry will co-chair the Task Force for Recidivism Reduction and serve as the principle policy adviser to the Governor on re-entry and recidivism reduction policy.
The Governor’s Task Force for Recidivism Reduction
There are more than just Corrections and Parole pieces to maintain and improve on the state’s public safety and prisoner re-entry mission. To address the current lack of coordination among the many treatment and reentry programs across state government, Governor Christie today signed Executive Order 83, creating the Governor’s Task Force for Recidivism Reduction.
The Task Force will be led by both the Chairman of the State Parole Board, James Plousis, and the Governor’s Coordinator for Prisoner Re-entry. Its members will include representatives from:
·Department of Corrections
·State Parole Board
·Motor Vehicle Commission
·Department of Human Services
·Department of Health and Senior Services
·Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
·Department of Law & Public Safety
·Juvenile Justice Commission
·Department of Community Affairs
The Task Force will develop recommendations for the Governor regarding how best to ensure the effectiveness and success of New Jersey’s efforts towards recidivism reduction, including an initial benchmarking study of existing program effectiveness and performance, and the development and implementation of a system to measure program effectiveness in an ongoing, real-time way.
Day-to-day implementation of the Governor’s initiative will be led by the State Parole Board Chairman Plousis, including the ongoing elements of the proposal such as collecting and analyzing performance data from various state departments for budgeting, programming and procurement purposes.
Ongoing Program Assessment and Measurement
The Governor’s Re-entry Coordinator and Task Force will work to facilitate a professional benchmarking assessment that will evaluate the effectiveness of all re-entry programs offered. The path forward to improve prisoner re-entry requires the Administration to gauge the successes, failures and the depth of gaps in program delivery – inside and outside of prison.
Programming gaps will be rectified by expanding existing, successful programs and hitting capacity thresholds, particularly relating to program delivery within prison. With the parallel development of the real-time recidivism database, this assessment will remain an ongoing accountability tool, allowing the Administration to identify and remediate or eliminate poor performing programs, ensuring that resources are directed to the most effective and successful programs.
Real-Time Recidivism Database
After the program assessment is completed, that data will be used to populate a database, which will allow the Administration to track outcomes for individuals and trends and level of effectiveness in programs in a real-time manner.
This project is currently in development through the efforts of the State Parole Board, Department of Corrections, the Juvenile Justice Commission, Department of Law & Public Safety, the Office of Information Technology and Rutgers University.
Governor Chris Christie: I believe that the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement come — their genesis — is from the same feeling, which is an anger that government can’t get things done. And so, now, that is the last similarity between the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement. But I believe that the cause for their anger comes from the same place. They look at Washington D.C. and they look at a president who is a bystander in the Oval Office. You know, I was angry this weekend, listening to the spin coming out of the administration about the failure of the Supercommittee. And that the President knew that it was doomed for failure so he didn’t get involved. Well then what the hell are we paying you for? It’s doomed for failure so I’m not getting involved? Well, what have you been doing exactly? I mean, I will tell you that I think both parties deserve blame for what’s going on in Washington D.C., both parties do. They’re spending more time talking at each other than talking with each other. We all know what the solutions to these problems are, we’ve done them in New Jersey in many areas, but we don’t have the political will to get them done. And in New Jersey, the reason why they got things done is because I called people into a room and said we’re going to solve this problem and I had people of good will on the other side who said they believed it was their obligation, regardless of party, to get done things like pension and benefit reform. That Mayor Redd can tell you personally how it’s helping her and her budget situation in Camden. Why the President of the United States refuses to do this is astonishing to me. I mean, you know, if he wanted to run for Senate again and just be 1 of 100, I’m sure he could have gotten reelected over and over again in Illinois. When you’re president, it’s kind of what I was talking about before, you know 41, 21 and 1, well he’s the one in Washington. And he’s got to get something done here. And it’s not good enough just to say well, I’ll get it done after the election.
In a must read column at InTheLobby, Jim Morford traces the historical roots of the Occupy movement to the French Revolution and issues a warning of post election violence in 2012 should the movement continue to grow.
The 8th annual Sandy Hook Elves Holiday Gift Drive will be held next Sunday, December 4 from 12PM to 3pm at Bahrs Landing in Highlands.
There is no cost to attend the event. Guest are invited to bring new, unwrapped coats, jackets, sweatshirts, footballs, basketballs, skateboards, gift cards or cash. The gifts are turned over to Long Branch school administrators who distribute them to the parents and guardians of 13 through 18 year old students of the Long Branch school system, based on their needs.
All are welcome, including children of all ages.
Bahrs is providing chowder, seafood chili, and vegetarian soup free of charge. There will be a cash bar.
Entertainment will be provided by Bahrs’ best Karoke singers, who happen to be very good!
“Sandy Hook Elves” and “Coats for Kids” is the brainchild of Atlantic Highlands resident Dale Distasio. Over the years the event has grown by word of mouth as other community groups, like the American Legion posts in Highlands and Keyport, started to participate.
There’s no 501 c3 involved. No administrative costs and no tax deductions. 100% of the gifts make it to kids.
Former Howell Mayor Joe DiBella said that he will not be a candidate for Freeholder and that he strongly supports current Howell Mayor Bob Walsh for the post. DiBella said that he and Walsh, formerly political adversaries, have become close friends.
Walsh and Holmdel Deputy Mayor Serena DiMaso are the currently declared candidates to fill the vacancy caused by Freeholder Director Rob Clifton’s election to the State Assembly. A new Freeholder will be elected at a Republican County Committee convention on January 14, 2012. The winner will take office immediately and will have to defend the seat in the 2012 and 2013 general elections.
Other candidates mentioned by party leaders or said to be considering a bid include Atlantic Highlands Councilman Peter Doyle, Affiliated Republican Club Vice President Bob Burlew of Keyport, former Middletown Committeeman Tom Wilkens, Manalapan Deputy Mayor Ryan Green, Freehold Township Deputy Mayor Anthony Ammiano and Wall Committeeman George Newberry.
Holmdel Mayor Patrick Impreveduto, Deputy Mayor Serena DiMaso and Senator Joe Kyrillos at a June 2010 fundraiser. Photo credit: livingmedia.com
Holmdel Deputy Mayor told MMM that she intends to inform GOP Chairman Joe Oxley that she will be a candidate for Rob Clifton’s seat on the Monmouth County Freeholder Board this week.
DiMaso said she has garnered the support of many Monmouth County Republican leaders, including Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, and that she is 100% committed to becoming a Freeholder in this, her third attempt at seeking the office.
DiMaso lost the 2005 nomination to Lillian Burry and the 2008 nomination to John Curley. She said she is excited about the prospect of being Curley’s running mate in November and hopes to have his support at the January 14th Monmouth GOP convention which will elect Clifton’s successor. Clifton, the current Freeholder Director, is vacating his seat in order to be sworn into the State Assembly, which he was elected to on November 8.
2011 GOP Freeholder contenders: Manalapan Mayor Andrew Lucas, Howell Mayor Bob Walsh, Wall Committeeman George Newberry and Freeholder-elect Gary Rich. Photo credit Rhoda Chodosh
In what is sure to be an interesting undercurrent of the race to fill the vacancy, DiMaso says she has the support of Howell Municipal Chairman John Costigan. Howell Mayor Bob Walsh, who has won his races in Howell as an Independent, is the other declared candidate in the Freeholder race. Walsh sought the nomination in 2011, losing to now Freeholder-elect Gary Rich.
Monmouth County Senator asserting her independence from Christie’s party discipline
Senator Jennifer Beck, R-11, is set to co-sponsor a new gay marriage bill, according to the Star Ledger’s Auditor.
Beck, who was elected in her new 11th legislative district by a comfortable 13% margin earlier this month, made gay marriage an issue in the 11th district race when she told Jane Roh of the Courier Post that she would reverse her earlier party line vote against gay marriage and when she told Garden State Equality that she would vote to override Governor Christie’s anticipated veto of such a bill.
Beck, who was on the short list to be Christie’s Lt. Governor during the 2009 gubernatorial campaign, has also bucked the Governor’s legendary party discipline over Republicans in the legislature with her support of spending on womens’ healthcare.
In a fluff piece about Senate President Stephen Sweeney published in today’s Asbury Park Press, Beck had nice things to say about Christie’s potential 2013 rival:
Some are immune to what state Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth, calls Sweeney’s “charisma.” Beck, though on the other side of the political aisle, is not one of his detractors.
“I trust him,” Beck says. “When he gives his word on an issue, you can rely on that. It’s easy for the Senate president to be dismissive. Steve is not.”
Christie’s success compromising with Democrats during his first two years in office was due in large measure to the fact that he didn’t have to compromise with compliant Republicans. Beck’s independence is worth watching. If other Republican legislators believe it is safe for them to stray from the Christie corral, the Governor may have a tougher time advancing his agenda in 2012 and 2013.
