Governor Chris Christie held his 15th Town Hall meeting since September in Parispanny yesterday afternoon.
NJ’s mainstream media was anticipating a good show and YouTube moments because the Governor had dubbed Parispanny School Superintendent Leroy Seitz “the poster boy for greed and arrogance” at an earlier Town Hall meeting. Seitz had renegotiated his contract with the Parsipanny Board of Education in order to avoid the pay cap that Christie is imposing effective in February.
The following are excerpts of his prepared remarks:
Excerpted Remarks of Governor Chris Christie
to the Foundation for Excellence in Education
November 30, 2010
…
I know this…I would not be standing here today if it wasn’t for the fact that my parents had the opportunity to send me to the public schools that gave me the best possible education I could have.
In each one of us, there is a certain God-given ability, but that God-given ability will only take us so far.
We need someone to nurture it and draw it out of us. We see this happening today in the best schools, in the best homes and with the best teachers and parents.
But it also has to happen each and every day in what are now the worst schools by nurturing children who do not come from the best homes. We have to draw out and empower parents. And we have to demand that the teachers, the principals and the administrators put these children first.
Not themselves.
If we do not do this…If we do not change what is happening in our mediocre and poor performing schools, then we are failing our children. And continuing to play the blame game and to make excuses only makes the adults feel better.
It does nothing for our children.
…
I’m going to fight as hard as I can against those who believe that what we’re fighting for is the status quo.
Because it is not acceptable to let a teacher who can’t teach stay in the classroom. It is not acceptable that a child who is neglected in one of our schools must just accept it because of their zip code. It is not acceptable that parents who can’t afford to send their children to a private school, or aren’t lucky enough to draw a good lottery number, have no choice but to be resigned to the fact that the difference between a successful future for their child and prison has already been predetermined.
No parent should ever have to stand up in that awful moment, with their child’s future on the line, and be powerless to change the outcome. It is the terrible complacency of those who defend the status quo, those who accept these choices and circumstances for our children, that we must stand against.
This is the fight. It is not a Democratic fight. It is not a Republican fight.
This is a fight where Republicans and Democrats can stand united. One where President Obama, Mayor Booker, Bill Gates and I can all stand in agreement.
It is a fight for our children.
And yes, sometimes the fight will be angry. Sometimes the fight will be loud. Sometimes the fight will draw tears. And still, sometimes the fight will require embrace.
There is nothing more important to the future of our country than this fight, because this is the fight that will define all of the other fights. This is why we all must have the stomach and the strength to take it on.
…
We cannot let this moment pass us by. We cannot let the enthusiasm and the intensity with which our leaders have been discussing education reform diminish.
…
Failure is not an option. Which is why I would rather lose an election and lose my career, rather than look back and realize that I did not do enough, or that I put myself and my career ahead of the future lives of the children of New Jersey.
Written for the first Small Business Saturday in 2010 and reposted
By Art Gallagher
American Express has created a self serving campaign to support small businesses by encouraging shoppers to patronize such establishments tomorrow. Today is known as Black Friday. Monday has become known as Cyber Monday. The two days are the busiest shopping days of the year. Amex wants to make the Saturday after Thanksgiving a new shopping day.
While the goal is laudable, this campaign will serve American Express at the expense of the small businesses they are purporting to support. As most small business owners know, the fees that American Express charge businesses that accept their card are often 50-150% higher than the fees other credit card companies charge.
Governor Chris Chrisite dissed former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last night during his appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Asked by Fallon if he thought Palin could be President, Christie shook his head and said, “It’s an amazing world.” Fallon followed up with “Crazier things have happened?” Christie said, “I don’t know, it’s an amazing world.”
Christie’s dislike of Palin has been well known in Republican circles for quite some time. He did not invite her to participate in his successful gubernatorial campaign last year and he instructed New Jersey’s Republican congressional candidates this year that his support was contingent upon Palin not being invited to New Jersey. Palin cancelled an appearance in Ocean County for Jon Runyan during the last week of the 2010 campaign.
His slight of Palin during the Fallon show was the first public show of dislike between the national Republcian “rock stars.”
School Superintendents who stand to take pay cuts and loss of generous perks when Governor Chris Christie’s pay caps take effect are starting to squeal like pigs in the press.
Bloomberg must be sharing their headline writers with the Asbury Park Press. The article doesn’t report on enraged Republican towns. It quotes a superintendent that will take a pay cut, McGreevey’s education commissioner, and a school board member from Franklin Lakes. Senator Ray Lesniak was quoted as saying that superintendents will “convey the message to the families and to the students. They are going to be very upset.”
Why are these superintendents upset? I thought we had to pay them $200,000 + because that is what the market is for good superintendents. If that is what they can get elsewhere, why don’t they shut up and go get it? Because they are really love to the kids they are superindenting now and don’t want to leave them? They love them all right. They love they lifestyle the kids provide that the supers could never earn in the competitive private sector and will not be found in school districts in other states.
The market has changed. Superintendents are going to have to deal with that like the rest of us.
Politickernj has a poll running, “Who is the Democrats’ best 2013 candidate for governor?” that includes Congressman Frank Pallone.
Governor is probably the only higher office that Pallone would run for because can run in an odd-year election and not risk his congressional seat. He declined to risk his seat to take Senator Robert Torricelli’s place on the ballot in 2002.
The only way Pallone could win the Democratic nomination for Governor in 2013 is if no one else wanted to run against Chris Christie.
Jason Zengerle’s in depth piece on Governor Chris Christie in New York Magazine.
Christie speaking at the Republican Governors Association about his meeting with NJEA President Barbara Keshishian after the head of the Bergen County Teachers Association sent out the email praying for Christie’s death.
Christie will be live on NJ 101.5 with Eric Scott this evening at 7 for the month Ask The Governor program. Scott has taken a critical tone towards the Governor lately. The show should be classic. Listen on the radio or watch it here.
Got a question for the Governor? Submit it to NJ101.5 here.
On Wednesday I made the casethat the Neptune Nudniks are unfair, biased, dishonest and incompetent based upon the amount of ink that gave the news of Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger’s job as Director of the Office for Planning Advocacy and the fact that he did not want his job to be an issue in his reelection campaign, vis-à-vis other stories of more consequence that they chose to ignore or bury.
Today I make the case that the APP’s coverage of the Scharfenberger story itself is unfair, biased, dishonest and incompetent.
In Kevin Penton’s article, Planners question credentials of Middletown committeeman coordinating N.J. policy, and in the editorial the same daythe nudniks question Scharfenberger’s qualifications for the Director of the Office of Planning Advocacy job because he is not a certified planner. Had they done their homework, rather than go out and seek quotes from representatives of special interests, they would know that the job is an executive/administrative job, not a planning job. ” Says who?,” you might ask. Governor Jim Florio’s Attorney General’s Office. If I can find that information, why didn’t the Asbury Park Press, you should ask.
Not in the job three months yet, Scharfenberger has already saved the State $386,000, more that his annual salary X 4, according to the APP’s own account. Why are they questioning Gerry’s qualifications?
In their editorial on the matter, the nudniks argue that Governor Christie is not serious about eliminate double dipping. They use Scharfenberger’s appointment and Jackson Mayor Mike Reina’s appointment to a job at the Department of Transportation as examples. To use the APP’s own words, they are being “disingenuous at best and downright dishonest at worst.” It is also possible that they are just plain incompetent. I don’t know which is worse, disingenuousness or incompetent…you decide.
Christie’s proposed reforms call for the end of dual office holding, i.e. the same person holding two elected offices AND prohibition of one person earning more than one government salary. Christie was clear on the campaign trail last year and has been clear in town hall meetings this year that he has no problem with government employees serving their communities in elected office, so long as they do so as volunteers. Scharfenberger was a volunteer as a member of the Middletown Township Committee before he got his new appointment. Reina gave up his salary as Mayor of Jackson after he was appointed to his job at DOT. (Though, to the APP’s credit, Reina did not give up his Jackson salary until after the nudniks brought it up…more on that and the culture of trough swillers in a soon to follow post about “greed and arrogance”).
There is no question that Scharfenberger did not want his new job to be an issue in the Middletown campaign. The APP say their reporter asked Gerry about his employer and he didn’t mention it. Scharfenberger denies this and Penton, the APP reporter who wrote two articles about the job since the election has not responded to inquiries from MMM. I believe Gerry because he was honest with me when I asked him specifically about the job over the summer. Penton either asked the wrong question or is being disingenuous at best in his reporting.
The APP says Scharfenberger not announcing the job with great fanfare was mendacity. I say it was clever and good politics. The APP’s coverage of the story and the Middletown Democrats reaction to it, since I broke it, demonstrates that Scharfenberger’s political instincts were spot on. The Dems, and the APP at their behest, have distorted the issue and misreported the facts. To his credit, Sean Byrnes, Scharfenberger’s opponent in the election told The Independent that the issue of Gerry’s job would not have changed the outcome of the election, “its not a 2000 vote issue,” Byrnes said. However, as we have seen since I broke the news of the job, the issue would have changed the tenor of the Middletown campaign. The Dems and the APP would have very likely distorted the issue, like they have since, and made the campaign about Gerry’s job, rather than about the issues pertinent to Middletown.
The nudniks conclude their editorial with a call for Scharfenberger to resign one of his positions or for Christie to either insist upon a resignation or explain why he has changed his thinking on public servants holding more than one job. That was never Christie’s thinking, and the nudniks call for Gerry’s resignation from one of the jobs is thoughtless and irresponsible given his record in Middletown and his performance in the new job so far.
Scharfenberger won re-election by a large plurality in a year with strong anti-incumbent sentiment and the local Democrats conducting a yearlong smear campaign that included stealing, smashing and defacing his campaign signs. The reason he won so big? He is clearly one of the best, most effective elected officials in the state. The residents admire his down to earth, no nonsense style and his reputation for personally contacting people who call or write to his office. Under his leadership, Middletown has one of the lowest municipal tax rates in the region, one of the smallest work forces per capita and most importantly, one of the lowest spending per capita in the state. Middletown has also been named one of the top 100 places to live in the country by Money Magazine for three years in a row of eligibility. His innovative ideas include devising one of the first municipal Green Initiatives in the state and the first municipal Veterans Affairs Committee in the state. He was also the first mayor in the state to sign his town up for the Adopt-A-Unit program, which collected tons of supplies and well wishes to our troops overseas. He has also been a tireless advocate on behalf of Middletown in fighting COAH, unfunded mandates, and excessive union contracts, among other harmful policies.
Scharfenberger is also a career volunteer who currently serves on the Middletown Landmarks Commission, the Open Space Committee, the Middletown Drug and Alcohol Alliance, and the Monmouth County Greenhouse Gas Reduction Committee. He even serves on the Township Committee as a volunteer, foregoing his salary out of respect for the taxpayers. He was recognized for his service by the Northern Monmouth Chamber of Commerce with the Public Servant of the Year award in 2009, an honor given to Governor Christie in 2008 and Lt. Governor Guadagno in 2010.
His appointment to the position of Director of the Office For Planning Advocacy (OPA) was a brilliant move on the part of the Christie Administration. Scharfenberger brings a unique combination of municipal and professional experience to the position. Prior to serving on the Township Committee, he served on the Zoning Board of Adjustment and has served as a Landmarks Commissioner for over 14 years. As mayor, he has been involved in several major redevelopment, brownfields mitigation and development projects. He was also integral in the aquaculture study to revitalize the Bayshore and the NPP grant to revitalize North Middletown. Professionally, he is a Ph.D. with numerous professional publications who has worked on hundreds of land use projects in every county in the state for such diverse entities as the NJDOT, NPS, NJDEP, SCC, NJ Transit and dozens of private organizations. Of the past 10 directors of the OPA, Scharfenberger’s overall credentials put him at or near the top. Even with his state position, he has shown his consideration for the taxpayers of New Jersey by waiving taxpayer funded health benefits and retaining his own at a cost of $6,000 per year. He has also enrolled in the deferred compensation program, the state’s 401K which he contributes to himself.
This is who the APP wants to drive out of public service.
Governor Chris Christie is on the receiving end of some Chicago style political payback from the Obama administration machine.
With his rising national star power, and his “put up or shut up” message to the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives, Christie has become the strong spine of the Republican Party. Obama needs to tarnish Christie’s image and weaken his spine if he is to co-opt the House Republicans into compromise.
Christie is clearly in the Obama machine’s opposition radar. We saw that in August when they quickly released a video of NJ’s education delegation’s testimony defending the flawed “Race to the top” application as a rebuke to Christie placing the blame on the failed application on the U.S. Education Department. That was Obama injecting himself into local politics and creating turmoil for the Governor. Christie came out of the controversy stronger by launching his Reform tour throughout the State, with the facebook/Oprah splash and by hitting the campaign trail for Republicans nationally and locally with a back breaking schedule.
Yesterday we saw the news of a Justice Department audit that criticised Christie for overspending on travel, by $2,176 over 14 trips, while U.S. Attorney. Today we see the news that the U.S Transporation Department sent cash strapped New Jersey a bill for $271 million, plus penalities and interest and an audit to follow looking for more, for federal money spent on the ARC project that Christie terminated last month.
Also today, we see a new Quinnipiac poll showing Christie’s approval ratings in NJ holding steady at 51%, while Obama’s disapproval ratings hit 50% for the first time.
The Quinnipiac poll also said that 61% of respondents said that Christie would not make a good President,that 60% say he will not run for President in 2012 and 67% think the Christie for President talk is political gossip. With polls like these it is all in how word the question. I interpret this poll to mean that over 60% of New Jersey voters are taking Christie at his word that he is not running in 2012 and his own assessment that he is not ready to be President. I take the responses to mean that New Jersey wants Christie to finish the job he started here before moving on.
I would love to see the results of a poll that asked “Who is more qualified to be President? A 2008 Barack Obama or a 2010 Chris Christie?
Christie will likely get stronger as a result of the latest Obama machine strike. Keep an eye out for more anti-Christie news coming out of Washington, especially in the days following Christie appearances on national TV.
In a reprise of an issue from last year’s gubernatorial campaign, Governor Chris Christie’s travel expenses while U.S. Attorney have been criticised in a Justice Department Audit.
The audit says Christie over spent by a total of $2,176 over 14 trips. 12 of those trips involved cases that earned the government $311 million in civil penalties.
I wonder how much the audit cost.
The Asbury Park Press has the story. The APP gives the story much more prominent coverage than they did the ReGen story that involved Senators Robert Menendex, Frank Lautenberg and Congressmen Frank Pallone and Steve Rothman pressuring the FDA to approve an unsafe medical device in exchange for campaign contributions.
