Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger, PhD, (R-Monmouth) is forgoing his legislative salary until the unemployment insurance claims of his LD-13 constituents are fulfilled.
Vin Gopal resigned as Monmouth County Chairman in an email to Monmouth Democrats on Sunday night and announced that he is running for NJ State Senate against Senator Jennifer Beck in the 11th Legislative District.
In his email, Gopal, who was reelected Chairman last June, took credit for making Monmouth County politically competitive in the 4 1/2 years he’s been chairman. He cited the victories of Assembly Members Joann Downey and Eric Houghtailing in the 11th district last year. He claimed credit for increasing the number of Democrat mayors in the county from 14 to 23, over the last three years.
In this statement to the press which was published on Observer-PolitickerNJ, Gopal said, “Monmouth County needs a Senator who will battle with the insiders in Trenton, not just show up and act like a puppet.” Read the rest of this entry »
New Jersey’s “legacy media” is so desperate to remain dependent on government subsidies in the form of mandated legal advertisements that their trade association, the New Jersey Press Association, offered to cut the advertising rates for taxpayer funded ads in half so long as they could increase the fees for legal ads paid for by private parties.
The newspaper industry was caught off guard earlier this week when legislation to allow New Jersey’s governments to publish meeting dates, proposed ordinances, zoning applications, sheriff sales, etc., online rather than in daily or weekly newspapers was introduced and fast tracked for approval before the end of the year. Since then they papers been editorializing to rally their readers to put pressure on the legislature to scrap the bill and save their revenue. Their arguments have been unseemly; Governor Chris Christie is pushing the bill as revenge on newspapers for their coverage of the Bridgegate scandal, that the elimination of legal ads would lead to less transparency and chicanery on the part of government officials who might not publish the ads as the law requires and that municipal and county governments publishing their own legal notices on the web won’t lead to savings.
TRENTON — With unusual lightning speed, a state Senate committee advanced a bill on Thursday that would give the state Department of Environmental Protection the authority to regulate waterfront access. The quick action by the Senate Environment and Energy Committee comes two weeks after a state appellate court panel concluded the DEP does not have the… Read the rest of this entry »
Bakke Says Politico “Reporter” is Democratic Mouth Piece
“A mouth for the moth lover”
Press Release
East Brunswick, NJ- Synnove Bakke, a Republican candidate for New Jersey Assembly from Middlesex County responded to a recent hit piece on her by Politico-New Jersey reporter Matt Friedman with the following statement:
“The Columbia School of Journalism should demand it’s diploma back from Matt Friedman,” Bakke said. “He is not reporting, but rather is regurgitating opposition research paid for by Trenton Democrats and my opponent Nancy Pinkin. The PC nonsense that Friedman is posting on Poltico-NJ is worthy of a partisan blog, not a journalistic news site and I am shocked Assemblywoman Pinkin would condone this nonsense.”
“Friendman’s recent garbage never would have gotten past the editors of his former employers, the Star Ledger and PolitickerNJ, and that says a lot”, Bakke continued. “I’m not the only Republican he’s gone after. Friedman has been reporting Democratic opposition research as if it was original reporting for weeks.”
“I have issued 33,000 tweets in the two years I have had that twitter account. That the Trenton Democrats paid someone to go through my tweets and come up with three politically incorrect entries is a sign that my true message is resonating with the voters of the 18th Legislative District.”
TRENTON — Republican members of the state Assembly Budget Committee on Wednesday criticized New Jersey’s largest public worker union of taking the easy road by shutting down pension talks and demanding full funding without offering any alternatives. The assemblymen, in a brief news conference following a budget hearing on Department of Education funding, leveled accusations of… Read the rest of this entry »
TRENTON — Minutes after being sworn in for his ninth term in January 2014, Assembly Majority Lou Greenwald pledged that the time had come for real property tax reform. “Let us join together. Let us do the unthinkable and prove the cynics wrong. Let us attack New Jersey’s property tax crisis once and for all,” Greenwald… Read the rest of this entry »
Monmouth County Democratic insiders tell MMM that all Monmouth County and Legislative Republicans except Assemblywomen Caroline Casagrande and Mary Pat Angelini will essentially get a free pass to election this year as Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal has been unable to recruit candidates or raise money for the legislative races in legislative districts 12, 13 and 30, or the County Offices of Freeholder and Clerk.
Gopal is expected to leave the candidate recruitment in LDs 12 and 30 to the other counties included in those districts. The 30th district, currently represented in the Assembly by Republicans Dave Rible and Sean Kean, has 12 towns in Monmouth County and two in Ocean County. Seven of the fourteen towns in the 12th district are on Monmouth County. The other seven are split between Burlington, Ocean and Middlesex Counties. The 12th district is represented by Republicans Ron Dancer and Rob Clifton.
Gopal’s trial balloon last December of making a second run for Assembly in the 11th himself( he ran in 2011) went over like the Hindenburg with State Democrats, other County Chairs and Special Interest donors who he had convinced that the money they invested in Monmouth County last year would lead to a pick up of Freeholder seats.
In a press statement, New Jersey Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto of Secaucus blasts New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for vetoing legislation aimed at reforming the Port Authority. “These vetoes are terribly disappointing news for the people of New Jersey and New York, especially the commuters who get stung by toll… Read the rest of this entry »
A bill fast-tracking sale of public water systems into private hands was approved by the state Senate Thursday, and will now head to the governor’s desk. About an hour of debate preceded the vote on the Water Infrastructure Protection Act, which was approved 21-16 and would allow local governments to sell public water systems without a… Read the rest of this entry »
