Kyrillos and Handlin Appeal For Monmouth County Relief
Governor Chris Christie requested that President Obama declare all of New Jersey eligible for federal disaster relief as a result of Hurricane Irene. Obama responded by declaring a “major” disaster in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morris, Passaic and Somerset counties.
Individuals affected by Hurricane Irene in those counties are eligible for grants and loans to cover temporary housing, home repairs, and other programs for individuals and businesses.
Governments and non-profits in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Salem counties can apply for cost sharing funding to repair or replace facilities damages by Irene.
Federal funding is available for hazard mitigation throughout the state.
FEMA said that damage assessments would continue throughout New Jersey and that other counties could become eligible for federal relief as the surveys are completed.
Senator Joe Kyrillos and Assemblywoman Amy Handlin both dispatched letters to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate urging that Monmouth County be added to the list of New Jersey counties eligble for federal funding.
“Last weekend’s storm wreaked havoc on the entire state, including Monmouth County, causing power outages, sever flooding and extensive property damage,” Kyrillos stated. “Public infrastructure such as roads and bridges were closed for days, families and businesses were without power and the extensive damage to trees, buildings and power lines will be a huge cost to the public. We need the same federal assistance that other New Jersey counties are receiving.
Published reports indicated that Monmouth Countysheltered 2,200 people in the Colts Neck, Holmdel and Wall high schools, and provided 4,500 meals. Governor Christie has also called on the President to declare that a major disaster area exists statewide in order to provide federal financial assistance to governments, residents and businesses.
“I urge in the strongest possible terms that the Administrator of FEMA add Monmouth County to the list of New Jersey’s disaster areas,” Kyrillos continued. “This is an accurate designation given what residents, business owners and municipalities endured during this devastating storm.”
“Hurricane Irene’s damage was not limited to five counties in New Jersey,” Handlin, R-Monmouth, said. “Communities in Monmouth County suffered extensive damage to their roads and infrastructure. And, it has been quite costly to area residents and businesses who have gone several days without power.”
County roads also sustained major damage, including a sinkhole on Hubbard Avenue in Middletown that took out a portion of the southbound lane near the Shadow Lake dam.
Governor Christie requested a federal disaster declaration for the entire state on Tuesday and on Wednesday President Obama approved the declaration, and relief, for Bergen, Essex, Morris, Passaic and Somerset counties.
“Governor Christie has shown tremendous leadership throughout this catastrophe and the federal government has been willing to work with New Jersey as we recover,” Handlin said. “Federal officials have indicated they could include more counties in the disaster declaration and I urge them to add Monmouth County because our local communities cannot fix the damage inflicted by Hurricane Irene on their own.”
This website consolidates the application process across several Federal agencies, including FEMA and the Small Business Administration. The website also reduces the number of forms you will ultimately have to fill out, shortens the time it takes to apply and allows you to check the progress of your applications online.
If you want to apply by phone rather than the Internet, you can call 1-800-621-FEMA (1-800-621-3362).
Middletown– Senator Joe Kyrillos, co-prime sponsor of the original legislation establishing New Jersey’s landmark Environmental Infrastructure Trust (EIT), is pleased to announce that special financing for the cleanup of Middletown’s Shadow Lake has been signed into law by Governor Christie this afternoon:
“The Environmental Infrastructure trust was created to help communities finance costly remediation projects just like Shadow Lake in order to improve and preserve our state’s natural treasures,” said Kyrillos. “The remediation of Shadow Lake is a project has been in the making for more than a decade. Thanks to the bill signed today authorizing the latest round of EIT financing, the residents in and around Shadow Lake and Middletown will secure the necessary resources to begin its cleanup. Middletown Township will use $2.7 million in low-interest loans to dredge the lake and deposit the spoil in a licensed facility approved by the DEP. I look forward to working together to ensure that this project is completed.”
The primary election for the Republican nomination for United States Senate in 2012 now appears to be a contest between two members of the New Jersey State Senate, Joe Kyrillos of Monmouth County and Mike Doherty of Warren County. Kyrillos served in the State Assembly from 1988 until 1991 and in the state senate since then. Doherty served in the State Assembly from 2002 until 2009 and in the State Senate from 2009 until the present.The contest has been depicted in the media and in some political quarters as a race between a conservative Doherty and a moderate Kyrillos. This is, however, a most inaccurate portrayal.
Joe Kyrillos is a solid Reaganite conservative. By contrast, Mike Doherty is a Ron Paul conservative. Doherty supported Ron Paul for President in the 2008 election.
Senator Doherty has emphasized as his defining conservative issue his Fair School Funding plan, which he has introduced in the State Senate in the form of a bill. Under this legislation, each school district would receive state aid based upon a per pupil amount, multiplied by the number of its students.
The Doherty plan would clearly be held to be unconstitutional by the New Jersey Supreme Court. Under its Abbott v. Burke line of cases, the court has shifted a disproportionate amount of state aid from suburban districts to the state urban “special needs” districts. Senator Doherty’s legislation is effective in making a point, but ineffective in making change.
By contrast, in 1992, Senator Kyrillos proposed a constitutional amendment which would have been far more effective in preserving suburban state school aid. This measure would have effectively superseded Abbott v. Burke and limited the jurisdiction of the New Jersey Supreme Court to intervene in state school funding matters.
Specifically, the Kyrillos amendment would have prohibited the New Jersey Supreme Court from requiring that any school district be funded in an amount in excess of 120 percent of the state per pupil average. The amendment was considered at a joint Assembly-Senate public hearing in July, 1992.
The liberal media in New Jersey harshly criticized the Kyrillos amendment as having an anti-minority impact. At the public hearing, urban school officials and activists denounced the amendment as racist. In the face of these attacks, the amendment failed to get the necessary support of 24 Senators and 48 Assembly members for placement on the November, 1992 ballot.
In sponsoring and advocating this amendment however, Joe Kyrillos demonstrated both his judicial conservatism and political courage. In the election of that same year of 1992, Kyrillos ran against incumbent Frank Pallone for the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet he still sponsored the amendment, refusing to sacrifice his judicial conservatism as an expediency of the election.
The judicial conservatism of Joe Kyrillos was also much in evidence on November 14, 2006. On that day, he was the only member of the State Senate to vote against granting tenure to New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Jaynee LaVecchia.
Earlier in 2011, Justice LaVecchia issued the court opinion requiring the state to give the urban 31 districts an additional $500 million. In assessing the Kyrillos vote on Justice LaVecchia’s tenure back in 2006, one must understand that he would oppose the granting of tenure to any justice he perceived to be legislating from the bench rather than strictly interpreting the law.
Joe Kyrillos has a connection to the presidency of Ronald Reagan deeper than that of any other current elected official in New Jersey. He began his career as a special assistant to the then Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel during the second term of the Reagan administration.
After the completion of the Reagan administration, Hodel later served as president of the Christian Coalition from 1997 until 1999 and as president of Focus on the Family from 2003 until 2005. The social conservatism of his mentor, Don Hodel influenced Joe Kyrillos as well. It was much in evidence during the second term of the Whitman administration, when Kyrillos sponsored a constitutional amendment banning all third trimester abortions.
The tax reduction and pro-business ideology of Ronald Reagan has constituted the core of the conservative, free market philosophy of Senator Joe Kyrillos. He was a leading advocate of the Whitman income tax cuts. Most significantly, Kyrillos made history by his authorship and sponsorship of the New Jersey Business Employment Incentive Program, which gives rebates to companies who create a substantial number of new jobs.
Kyrillos also demonstrates his appreciation of the Reagan style by his effectiveness in securing the passage of legislation. While he is loyal to his conservative principles, he works well with senators of different political parties and divergent ideologies. Joe Kyrillos has demonstrated the ability to not only talk conservative change, but make it as well.
In writing this column, I do not mean to imply in any way that Mike Doherty is not a conservative. I simply want to correct any misperceptions about Joe Kyrillos. Far from being a moderate, he is the ultimate Reaganite conservative.
I must make a full disclosure, however. Joe Kyrillos is a good friend of mine. That is something of which I am most proud.
Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush. Region 2 EPA consists of the states of New York and New Jersey, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and eight federally recognized Indian nations. Under former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, he served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. He currently serves on the political science faculty of Monmouth University.
…and special guests Senator Joe Kyrillos and Congressman Chris Smith
Despite some technical difficulties and a shortage of phone lines (sorry if you tried to call in and got a busy signal) we managed to have an informative and entertaining show.
Thanks to Mike Halfacre who kept the show going when I got flustered with the technical glitches.
For those who missed the live show or would like to hear it again, here is a recording:
Highlights: Kyrillos referring to a Chris Christie presidential candidacy as “when” not “if” (though it won’t be in 2012) and Smith speaking about the budget negotiations going on in Washington as a fiscal conservative, overriding his reputation as a fiscal moderate.
Majority’s Rhetoric Ignores Increased Funding for Vulnerable New Jerseyans
Trenton– At the close of Day Two of the Senate Majority’s attempt to hoodwink New Jersey taxpayers ahead of the November elections, Senator Joe Kyrillos (R- Monmouth/Middlesex) said that only to a Trenton Democrat could funding increases in key programs for vulnerable and needy New Jerseyans constitute “cruel” funding reductions:
Democrats still have not given us a source of funding for all of the added spending they’ve voted on in the last two days that doesn’t require taxpayers to close their eyes and make believe.
After all, it’s far more effective on the campaign trail for the Democrats to make outlandish promises the taxpayers cannot possibly keep, pass a budget that is nearly $1 billion in the red, and then all anyone who dare be responsible and support balancing that budget cruel and mean-spirited.
Despite having to clean up the Democrats’ mess, Governor Christie increased funding over Governor Corzine’s last budget for schools by $804 million, Medicaid by $982 million, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families by $47 million, hospitals by $31 million, senior property tax relief by $58 million, adoption subsidies by $16 million, and the list goes on and on.
The only people who put funding for those in need in jeopardy were the members of the Majority by supporting a budget that spent hundreds of millions of dollars more than the state takes in. A fantasy budget that promises the world but cannot deliver is the cruelest act of all.
Middletown- Trenton Democrats’ empty budgetary promises and political rhetoric just more of the same.Senator Joe Kyrillos released the following statement demanding that Trenton Democrats take a moment to understand that their election year games have real consequences.
“Trenton Democrats are using an election year to play on the emotions and real issues of our neediest citizens. By passing a budget filled with empty promises – but no funding – Trenton Democrats have crossed the line into the dangerous and disingenuous. Not only are they playing election year politics, they are doing so in a manner that misleads the public about specific programs, as well as the state’s finances. Democrats overstate the surplus while ignoring that education funding has gone up $850 million over last year, funding for the AIDS Drug Distribution Program has been protected at the same level as last year, and hospital funding has gone up by $20 million.
“If these Democrats have any sense of decency they will be honest with the people they claim they want to help, instead of continuing to put forward myths, lies and distortions about what we can really afford.”
Middletown—Senator Joe Kyrillos, co-prime sponsor of legislation establishing New Jersey’s landmark Environmental Infrastructure Trust (EIT), is pleased to announce that special financing for the cleanup of Middletown’s Shadow Lake has cleared the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee today:
“It has been a very long fight for the residents of this community,” said Kyrillos. “I am thrilled that the financing for this project is finally nearing approval. The Environmental Infrastructure Trust was established for just this purpose- to restore contaminated natural treasures and improve the environmental quality of our communities.”
If approved by the Legislature, the bill appropriates $2.7 million in low interest financing for the Township of Middletown to dredge the Shadow Lake in order to remove contaminated sediments at the bottom of the lake. The dredge spoils will be transported to a properly licensed facility off site.
“Thanks to the efforts of Senator Kyrillos the residents of the communities surrounding Shadow Lake can rest easier knowing that a project more than a decade in the making is nearing reality,” said Middletown Mayor Tony Fiore. “In addition to the Senator’s efforts in helping secure financing for this project, he has assisted the Township with the NJDEP to find a qualified site outside of Middletown for disposal of the dredge spoils.”
The legislation now heads to the full Senate for consideration.
From the getting way ahead of ourselves department, what impact would Joe Kyrillos’ election to the U.S. Senate next year have on the Monmouth County political landscape?
Kyrillos’ entry into the U.S. Senate field is probably an indication that bio-tech entrepreneur John Crowley will not be a candidate. As a former State GOP Chairman and Christie confidant, Kyrillos would not announce an exploratory committee if he had not already explored the level of support he would have with the GOP power and fundraising establishment. Should Kyrillos seek the nomination to challenge Senator Robert Menendez, he will probably get it.
If Kyrillos beats Menendez we will probably also have a new President on January 20, 2013. For Menendez to be beat in 2012, Obama’s showing in New Jersey will have to be weak and without coat tails.
Should that happen, the Monmouth County Republican Committee would elect a 13th district Senator who would serve until a special election in November of 2013. Assembly members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon would likely seek to move up into Kyrillos’ seat. If one of the Assembly members moves up, the committee would then be charged with filling an Assembly vacancy.
The field for the Assembly seat could be crowded, as there is a deep bench of GOP talent residing in the new 13th district.
Middletown is the largest town in the district and has a wealth of electable talent. Freeholder John Curley, Mayor Tony Fiore and former Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger would all be strong candidates. Scharfenberger would face giving up his job in the Christie administration. Curley, who will probably be Freeholder Director in 2012 with Rob Clifton moving to the Assembly in the 12th district, would have a tough choice between Freehold and Trenton.
If Curley sought and won the Assembly seat, it would set off a county wide race for his replacement on the Freeholder Board, assuming he is reelected next year.
Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre, the only Mayor in history to lower property taxes four years in a row, would be a formidable candidate.
Marlboro, the second largest town in the district would probably be the source of Democratic candidates. Mayor Jon Hornick would have his shot to move up. He would be a strong Senate candidate against Handlin or O’Sanlon. Jeff Cantor could be a Democratic candidate for Assembly. The Marlboro GOP has yet to recover from the splits that contributed to Hornik defeating former Mayor Robert Kleinberg in 2007 or Cantor’s switch to the Democratic party in 2009. Cantor was a GOP candidate for Freeholder in 2007.
Hazlet Mayor Scott Aagre would deserve consideration should he have aspirations for higher office. Union Beach Councilman Charlie Cocuzza is popular and ambitious.
Keyport Mayor Robert McCleod, a former municipal judge who took one for the team to run against Frank Pallone in 2008 could decide that he is better suited to serve in the Assembly than to preside over the rough and tumble of Keyport politics.
Former Highlands Mayor and former Freeholder Anna Little could be a contender depending upon how her 2012 congressional ambitions work out.
If Little doesn’t run, her close ally, Atlantic Highlands Mayor Fred Rast could be a contender.
From the southern part of the new 13th, Oceanport Councilman Joe Irace has made a good name for himself as a strong advocate of Oceanport’s interests with Fort Monmouth and Monmouth Park. However, Irace’s advocacy for Oceanport has ruffled feathers with Republicans in the County, the Legislature and the Christie administration. He would need a strong grassroots organization to move up.
From the Monmouth GOP should have conventions department, if Freeholder Director Rob Clifton is elected to the Assembly this November, the Monmouth Republican Committee will be required to have a Title 19 convention to choose his replacement on the Freeholder Board in early 2012. Should Kyrillos go to Washington in early 2013, the Monmouth GOP could potentially have three Title 19 conventions in early 2013; one to elect Kyrillos’ replacement in the State Senate, one to choose a 13th district Assembly member assuming either Handlin or O’Scanlon moves up to the Senate and one to elect a Freeholder should Curley seek and win the vacant Assembly seat.
It will all be enough to turn Chairman Joe Oxley grey, assuming he is reelected Chairman next June.
America is in trouble. We have a massive debt hanging over us, a tax and regulatory burden stifling job creation and innovation, and a government we can no longer afford but cannot seem to rein in. There is a growing sense that our children’s future prosperity is slipping away.
It is time to prove again what a free and enterprising people are capable of doing. I know we can reverse the precipitous course America is on because we are doing it here in New Jersey today. I have been proud to stand with the Governor to motivate conservative reforms that will make our state stronger and more competitive. We need the same honest, tough-love approach in Washington.
I have formed an exploratory committee to seek out ways to help our great country which may include running for the United States Senate. As the son and grandson of immigrants who moved to this country in search of freedom and opportunity, I know and believe in the power of the American dream. And as a father with a young family, I also know we must put our country back on the path to future strength and opportunity. In the months ahead, I look forward to traveling the state to learn and discuss how we can work together to put America back on track.
