The Republican County convention to elect a Monmouth County Freeholder to fill the coming vacancy caused by Freeholder Director Rob Clifton’s ascension to the State Assembly will be held on Saturday January 14th, according to GOP Chairman Joe Oxley. The location and exact time has yet to be determined.
A quorum, 50% plus 1, of all Republican County Committee members, as certified by the Superintendent of Elections, must be present for the election to be to be official.
Howell Mayor Bob Walsh is a candidate. Those considering entering the race include Holmdel Deputy Mayor Serena DiMaso, former Freeholder Bill Barham, Wall Committee member George Newberry, Keyport Councilman Bob Burlew, Atlantic Highlands Councilman Peter Doyle, Manalapan Deputy Mayor Ryan Green, former Middletown Committee member Tom Wilkens and former Howell Mayor Joe DiBella.
It is oft cited, as it was again today in this column by Asbury Park Press writer Steve Falk, that the oldest shore Thanksgiving Day football rivalry is Toms River South v Lakewood, at 92 straight games.
Knowing that Asbury Park played Neptune on Thanksgiving more than 92 years ago, I asked Mr. Falk if his info was correct. He told me that there was a period of about 20 years somewhere around the 1920s to the 1940s where Asbury Park did not play Neptune on Thanksgiving, so TR v Lakewood is the oldest continuous Thanksgiving rivalry.
I was just wondering three things from you Neptune guys:
1. Any idea why Asbury Park didn’t play Neptune for 20 years (I assume it was Neptune’s fault)?
2. Any idea who Asbury beat (naturally) and Neptune lost to (naturally) during those years?
3. Will either of you Neptune Turkeys be there tomorrow when Asbury Park (9-1) carves up Neptune (9-1) by a score of 21 to 6?
This year, more than any before, I am present to the many blessing which have been bestowed upon me, for which I am grateful.
While I don’t recommend it, I am grateful that I was arrested and spent three weeks in the Monmouth County Correctional Institution.
I am grateful to have met the men and women I met while at MCCI, both inmates and staff. They gave me insights into life that will contribute to the rest of my life.
I am grateful to my friends who made sure I was safe.
I am grateful to know who loves me and has faith in me. I am grateful to know who doesn’t.
I am grateful to know who my friends are.
I am grateful to know that I am either “popular”, “powerful,” or “polarizing” enough that my arrest, incarceration and release where more newsworthy than items in the police blotter.
I am grateful that I will have the opportunity to celebrate these, and many other blessings with friends and loved ones.
Transcript From Governor Christie’s Inaugural Address On January 19, 2010
Governor Chris Christie:
The greatest thing about New Jersey has always been New Jerseyans themselves. To truly understand this, you need only look at the New Jersey heroes we have with us today.
There is Carolyn B.T. Wallace of Newark. Forty years ago, she and her late husband James founded the international youth organization as a way to help kids in Newark. She has dedicated her life to transforming lives through education and community service.
There is Dave Girgenti of Cherry Hill, who three years ago began the wish upon a hero website. Using the power of the internet, he brings wishers and granters of wishes together. In these three short years, the power of Dave’s idea has made the wishes of 48,000 people come true.
Tammy Evans-Colquitt of Pennsauken created “image and attitude” in the year 2000 to help improve the self-image of disadvantaged men and women in Camden county. She helped women transitioning from welfare to work and men from incarceration to the workplace. Tammy’s hard work has proven once again that no life is disposable and that everyone deserves a second chance.
Jim Benedict of Freehold started and runs a lunch kitchen out of St. Peter’s church, serving hot meals to 200 people, three days a week. With no formal funding from Government, Jim calls on the generosity of New Jerseyans to feed the hungry. (Benedict told him it was four days a week. Christie said his administration goal would be to make it five)
Finally, Chip Paillex of Pittstown is the founder of America’s grow-a-row, a non-profit that feeds the hungry by encouraging the donation of fresh produce to food banks all over new jersey. He started in his own garden and last year, over 700 volunteers donated 225,000 pounds of produce to area food banks.
These folks are just a few examples of what New Jerseyans are all about. When faced with tough problems, you choose hard work over giving up. You rise to the challenge, not shrink from it. For all of us on this stage we must now resolve to use all of you as our example. We in office must not shrink from the challenge, we must rise to it.
Posted: November 23rd, 2011 | Author:Art Gallagher | Filed under:Chris Christie | Tags:Chris Christie | Comments Off on Governor Christie: Service Is What Makes NJ Great
The 16th legislative district Assembly vacancy caused by the untimely death of Assemblyman Peter Biondi is resulting in yet another NJ Republican grassroots vs. establishment, conservative vs. moderate, battle.
The new LD 16 is comprised of parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex and Somerset Counties. Somerset dominates the district. The Somerset GOP is dominated by Princeton Public Affairs Group, perhaps the most powerful lobbying firm in Trenton. The current Somerset GOP Chairman, Alfred Gaburo, is a senior executive at PPAG. The former Somerset GOP Chair, Dale Florio, founded PPAG.
PPAG’s Republican members have deep roots in the NJ GOP establishment dating back to the Whitman-DiFranceso-Haytaian era. PPAG’s Democrats have equally deep roots in their party. PPAG and their clients are prominent among the “Who’s Who” of New Jersey. It doesn’t get more establishment than PPAG.
The Somerset GOP has lined up behind Hunterdon County Freeholder William Mennen to fill Biondi’s Assembly seat, according to Politickernj. Mennen lives in Tewskbury, part of the new 23rd legislative district. He will move into the 16th. Most probably he will move into a Hunterdon County town in the 16th, as his Somerset County support is very likely the result of a deal between the Hunterdon and Somerset GOP chairs. The other LD 16 legislators, Senator Christopher “Kip” Bateman and newly elected Jack Ciattarelli hail from Somerset. Ciattarelli is a Somerset County Freeholder. He was nominated for Assembly after incumbent Denise Coyle was redistricted out of the district and decided to retire rather than move.
You really need a score card to keep track of the players in this district. Biondi’s death and Coyle’s decision not to move really messed up Dr. Alan Rosenthal’s theory of continuity of representation, at least as it applies to LD 16.
Mennen is an heir of the deodorant company that was founded in Newark in 1878 and moved to Morristown in 1953. He is the great-great grandson of company founder Gerhard H. Mennen.
The company, which was sold to Colgate-Palmolive in 1992, donated the land for the William G. Mennen Sports Arena to Morris County in 1973. G. Mennan “Soapy” Williams, grandson Mennen’s founder, was the Democratic governor of Michigan from January 1, 1949 through January 1, 1961. You don’t get much more establishment than Mennen.
Challenging Mennen and the establishment will be grassroots activist Bill Spadea of Princeton. Princeton is in the Mercer County part of LD 16, but the Mercer and Middlesex GOP organizations have little say in the race. They are minority portions of the district and the counties are Democratic strongholds.
Spadea was the 2004 GOP nominee for Congress against Rush Holt. In 2008, Spadea and his friend, biotech executive John Crowley, founded Building a New Majority, who’s stated mission is to develop Republican candidates for local, county and state offices through direct financial contributions and grassroots support. The organization’s pragmatic mission was widely considered to be the building of a network to support Crowley’s political ambitions to be a U.S. Senator, which have waned in recent years.
Spadea sent an email to Building a New Majority members last night announcing that he was stepping down as President to prepare for the LD 16 Assembly race.
While an activist with strong conservative credentials and relationships, Spadea is not a fire breathing RINO hunter in the Lonegan tradition. Through Building a New Majority he has sought to be a bridge between to the establishment and the more conservative grassroots Republicans. His bridge building could work against him in a primary. Establishment voters will automatically support Mennen. Conservatives may hold Spadea’s support of Rudy Guiliani in the 2008 presidential primary against him.
Spadea’s conservative supporters are already positioning him as the real conservative over the moderate Mennan. However that could prove to be a tough sell. Mennen’s record of fiscal conservatism as a Hunterdon County Freeholder is solid.
Spadea has little hope of winning at a convention to replace Biondi. If he is able to raise money to fund a competitive primary against likely incumbent Mennen, he will face a very uphill battle in a presidential year where Mennen will likely be sharing the line with the Mitt Romney, another heir of a Michigan governor, who will have likely have already locked up the GOP presidential nomination.
Governor Chris Christie held a press conference this afternoon in Trenton to announce DCA Commissioner Lori Grifa’s resignation, effective January 2, and his nomination of Richard Constable, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development as Grifa’s replacement.
During the Q&A with reporters, Christie discussed fracking, telecommunications regulations, Newark’s concerns about the merger of UMDNJ and Rutgers and the politics of the state budget.
Tent City has been in the news lately as the Lakewood and Ocean County governments are seeking to shut it down, and homeless advocates are seeking to compel those governments to provide shelter to the homeless.
Tent City would be a fascinating case study and debate of the role of big government in addressing social problems. Minister Steve Brigham, a high voltage electrical contractor, started the camp some six years ago on publicly owned land. He never asked anything of the government, including permission. He just started the camp to help people. Over time it grew.
Now, six years later there are suits and counter suits, media coverage and spin which will inevitably lead to more government and less freedom for the homeless and the taxpayers who will end up supporting them.
My friend Ed has gotten a headstart over his community members in receiving taxpayer funded food and shelter against his will.
Ed was brought into the Monmouth County Correctional Institution an hour or so after I was on Saturday morning October 15. While sitting in a holding cell wondering what was going to happen next, I couldn’t help but notice Ed come in. His white hair, orange T-shirt and ripped blue jeans stood out in the parade of men being brought into to the jail by police officers from throughout the county.
I could hear Ed being interviewed by the corrections officer and the nurse who were processing the parade. He was born in 1936. 75 years old. He looked older than my father who will be 80 next month.
I must have lead the parade that morning. I was the only one in the holding cell when the corrections officer and nurse finished processing me. As others arrived, they immediately started talking. Pleading their cases. Why they shouldn’t be there. How the police had violated their rights, etc. For the most part I just listened. By the time Ed was brought into the cell there will several of us there. The other men were pleading their cases to each other. Ed sat next to me and started his pleading.
He was arrested in his tent earlier that morning on a child support warrant! I wouldn’t have guessed that. His bail was set at some $42,000, the amount of his past due child support. “I’m going to be here for three years,” Ed exclaimed.
Over the next few hours Ed told me about his life in Tent City. He would start every day before dawn by bicycling to grocery stores in Lakewood where he had befriended employees who would give him food to bring back to the camp for himself and other residents. He managed to get a copy of the New York Post everyday. He told me about the chickens and his friends, the other residents of the camp.
He wondered if he would be able to get in touch with his sister and if she would bail him out. How much money would he need to get out? He wanted out. Would a judge let him pay off his child support debt at the rate of $100 per month? He receives $140 per month in general assistance, he said. He could manage on $40. I didn’t have it in my heart to point out to him that at $100 per month it would take 35 years to pay off the $42,000 he owed to the mother of his child. If it was going to take $42,000 for Ed to get out of jail, he may have just received a life sentence.
A few hours later Ed and I were both transferred from the holding area to A-1, one of two pods where most all inmates go to be classified before they are moved to other pods in the jail. For the rest of the weekend I got to know Ed a bit. He was a career horse trainer. He was a big fan of the San Francisco Forty Niners. The Forty Niners had a big game against the Detroit Lions that he was looking forward to watching on Sunday. Ed couldn’t see very well. He had glasses but usually didn’t wear them. He was always squinting.
On Monday I was transferred out of A-1 and lost track of Ed for most of the next three weeks. As others from A-1 came into the worker pod where I had been transferred, I asked about him. I also asked about him while at medical and was waiting with other inmates from throughout the jail to see a doctor or nurse. No one recognised him by my description. Maybe he somehow managed to get out. Maybe a judge or other authority realized the futility of incarcerating him.
The day before my release I was walking to visitation and saw Ed. He was in a dormitory type pod without cells that was mostly used to house illegal immigrants who were waiting to be deported. He didn’t look happy. I couldn’t get his attention. On my way back from visitation I waved to Ed who was squinting in my direction. He waved back. I couldn’t tell if he recognized me or remembered me.
He didn’t look happy, even though he had shelter and was in a safe place, getting three meals a day and free medical care.
I don’t know what will become of Ed. It seems as though he will spend the rest of his life in jail and that the mother of his child will never see her $42,000.
Be it for Christmas or not until next Thanksgiving, consider deep frying the turkey for your next feast.