Sounds Of The Season

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Clifton To Be Named Monmouth Freeholder Director

By Art Gallagher

Freeholder Deputy Director Rob Clifton will be chosen by his colleagues to serve as Freeholder Director when the board reorganizes in January.

Freeholder John Curley and Freeholder-elect Tom Arnone told MMM that they support Clifton for the position.  Curley said that it is his understanding that current Director Lillian Burry also is supportive of Clifton filling the position.  Clifton confirmed that he has the unanimous support of his fellow Republican Freeholders. Burry has yet to respond to MMM’s calls on the matter.

There is not yet a consensus as to who will be Deputy Director.  Curley said he he would like the position but speculated that Burry might also want it.  Arone, who will be sworn in for his first term in January, will defer to his senior colleagues to work it out.  Clifton said, “we’re still meeting on that.”

Freeholder Amy Mallet, will be the lone Democrat serving on the board next year.  As a minority party member, she would not be expected to be selected for a leadership position.

The Freeholder Director presides over meetings of the board and signs legal documents for the county.

The county budget is Clifton’s top priority. “Smaller and less expensive government is our objective, while providing residents with the services they have come to expect and that they pay for,” said Clifton, “The expansion of shared services with Monmouth County municipalities and school boards, as well as with other counties will enable us to reduce costs and improve the quality of services.”

The terms of Burry and Mallet both expire this year.  Burry is expected to seek a third term. There has been speculation that Mallet will run for Assembly, depending upon how the legislative districts are redrawn.  She a candidate for Assembly in the 12th legislative district in 2007 and sought the nomination in 2005.

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Grading the Governor

By Art Gallagher

Tom Moran is the editorial page editor of the Star Ledger and the reporter who unwittingly made Governor Chris Christie a YouTube sensation.

Moran decided that its time to grade the Governor.  In a column published on Sunday, the pernicious pundit acknowledges that independent polls indicate that the voters are rating the Governor with A’s and B’s. He spends the rest of the column telling the voters (us) why they (we) are wrong about Christie. Moran say Christie only gets a C.

It’s a good thing that New Jersey pays little heed to Moran. If we did, Chris Daggett would be Governor and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver would be taken seriously.

Moran gives Christie high marks for courage, calling the Governor a cage fighter for his cause.  Despite this A, Moran gives Christie demerits for failing to compromise.  This has been a theme of Moran’s throughout the year. Christie came to Trenton promising to turn the place upside down.  Moran wants him to be nice while breaking the furniture.

Moran even gives the Governor a B on the budget, even though he calls Christie’s claim that he plugged an $11 billion budget hole “farcical.”

On the 2% property tax cap, Moran says Christie will earn a spot on the honor roll if it works, but so far it hasn’t. Duh. It hasn’t even gone into effect yet, and the “tool kit” negotiations with the Democratic legislative leadership are ongoing. Moran criticises Christie for not caving and accepting Oliver’s and Senate President Steve Sweeney’s first offer.

Moran takes Christie to task for calling Oliver a liar over her assertion that she tried to meet with Christie over the “tool kit.”

Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver was shocked when she learned that the governor had accused her of lying.

“That has irreparably affected my ability to work with this governor,” she says. “For him to cast aspersions on my integrity and say I would lie? That did it. That showed me I really cannot have a trusting relationship with this governor. Because he will distort the truth. He will stand up and lie.

“It was a game changer for me, a total game changer.”

Will Oliver’s resignation as Speaker be forthcoming?  If she can’t or won’t work with the Governor she has no business being Speaker.   Oliver should be grateful that the Governor and most of the media gave her (and Moran) a pass when she called the Governor racist in an earlier Moran column.

Moran seems to think it is a problem for Christie that Oliver and U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg “hate his guts.” 

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg felt this sting as well. After he criticized the governor for killing the Hudson River tunnel project, the governor lashed out.

“All he knows how to do is blow hot air,” Christie said. “So I don’t really care what Frank Lautenberg has to say about much of anything.”

This is the downside of the governor’s straight talk. He has to work with Oliver and Lautenberg, like it or not. And now they both seem to hate his guts.

“Look, I worked with Tom Kean and Christie Whitman, and had no problems,” Lautenberg says. “This is really unusual. There’s been hardly any communication from his office, and I’m on the Appropriations Committee. I put my heart and soul into this, and to have someone calling me names and trying to shame me? It’s incomprehensible.”

Lautenberg is old and has been very sick for most of the year. He can be forgiven for not noticing that Christie is not Tom Kean or Christie Whitman.  Now that he’s woken up, he’ll start comprehending, if his heart and soul are really in his job.  How effective has he been for us on the Appropriations Committee anyway?

Moran is right about one thing.  Christie hasn’t delivered yet.  But that is not the measure by which to grade a Governor 11 months into his term.  Moran is a liberal ideologue masquerading as a moderate.  Like ideologues on the right who are critical of Christie because he hasn’t fixed all the inequities of New Jersey government in 11 months, he is driven only by his own narrow agenda.

The NJEA is having a news conference in Trenton today to propose education reforms including “significant reform of the tenure system.”   That is remarkable.  Even if the proposed reforms are full of loop holes, which as a Jersey cynic I suspect they will be, the fact that the NJEA has entered the reform conversation is truly remarkable.  Chris Christie made that happen.

Civil Service and binding arbitration is going to be reformed.  Mayors and councils are going to be unbound from the ties that have driven property taxes to catastrophic levels and be empowered to truly manage their communities rather than rubber stamp state mandates. That is unbelievable. Chris Christie made that happen.

The 2% property tax cap, even with its exceptions, will truly force a reduction in the size of government, especially when inflation kicks in. Share services will become a reality out of necessity, rather than something community leaders pay lip service to during elections.

Chris Christie has changed the tone and transformed the direction of government in New Jersey. “Changed has arrived” he declared in his inaugural address.  He is deliverying change.  Trenton is not quite upside down yet, but it is surely tilted.  He can’t be graded by the old score card, because he has changed the game in New Jersey and given Governors throughout the nation, and our leaders in Washington new rules.

Rather than a report card, lets judge Christie with a scorecard.

Christie is leading by a wide margin as the first quarter of his term comes to a close.  Yet, the opposition of special interests and trough swillers have been studying the films and making adjustments.  The final minutes of the quarter are critical as the effectiveness of the tool kit will be determined.  Next year, the second quarter, is when the real heavy lifitng will start. Legislative redistricting, the budget and the legislative election will dominate the agenda.  Municipal budgets drawn under the 2% cap will dominate the news.  As the economy improves, if it does, “we don’t have the money” will not work as well in forcing reforms.

Christie gets an A for his first year.  Next year will be the real test.  Mid-terms will be in November.  If the voters give Christie and A or B in the form of a Republican legislature, we’ll find out what “turning Trenton upside down” really means.

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Sad Story Continues At Fort Hancock

Pallone, Lautenberg and Menendez should put up. The Asbury Park Press should shut up

By Art Gallagher

In their editorial today, Sad chapter ends at fort, the Asbury Park Press editorial board demonstrates that their grasp of reality is insufficient for a newspaper of record for the Monmouth-Ocean region.

The press rehashes the sorry history of  Sandy Hook Partners’ failed plans to redevelop Fort Hancock. They fault the National Park Service for granting the developer nine years of extensions to obtain financing for the redevelopment plans.  They fail to mention that SHP’s ability to finance the project was thwarted by litigation and grassroots opposition to the commercialization of the park.  The litigation and opposition was supported by the APP and by Congressman Frank Pallone.

Now the APP says,

Fort Hancock must be preserved for future generations. In order for that to happen, a developer or developers with both the money and sound plans need to be found. The park service would do well to heed the suggestion by Reps. Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, both D-N.J., that the historic buildings be leased to entities one by one, rather than as a package.

Clearly, neither the Neptune Nudniks nor the Congressmen have even an elementary understanding of how development works.

Where does Pallone, Holt and the APP think the Park Service will find a developer, or developers, with an extra $60-$100 million sitting in the bank who would be willing to commit it to Fort Hancock after what Sandy Hook Partners went through? James Wassel, the head of SHP is no slouch.  His experience and personal committment to our community made him the right developer, if a public-private partnership was the best method to redevelop the fort.

Private partners were, and apparently still are, sought because federal dollars are not available to rehabilitate the park.  Said another way, Frank Pallone, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez (and Jon Corzine, as U.S. Senator before Menedez) either did not have the clout or commiment to secure federal funding to rehabilitate Fort Hancock.

The Pallone/Holt/APP idea of leasing the 36 buildings of the fort one by one, to non-profits, rather than as a package, is crazy.  Even if 36 organizations “with both money and sound plans” on hand could be found, managing 36 separate projects with 36 separate project managers is not feasible.

Wassel’s plan to “commercialise” Sandy Hook would not have turned the park into Times Square or the Monmouth Mall.  He would have developed the fort into an educational and cultural campus.

As a neighbor of and frequent visitor to Sandy Hook, I never understood how Wassel’s plans would have been commercially viable or returned the investment required for the rehabilitation, given the location and climate of the site.  Yet, I supported the plan because the proposed usage would have been an enhancement of the park.  If private investors or lenders were willing to risk their capital on a project that enhanced the park while giving the National Park Service control of what could be done with the site in the event of failure, there was no downside for the public.  Yes, I read the master lease.  The public was protected from turning Fort Hancock into an amusement park or shopping mall.

Now that Wassel’s is out of the picture, it is incumbent upon our federal representitives to secure funding to preserve the fort.  Failing that, the Park Service should fence it off and install Keep Out-Hazardous signs like there has been for most of the fort’s ruins for decades. 

Alternatively, the Park Service should either level the buildings and convert the land to a recreational use like a marina and camp ground.

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Rumson-Fair Haven Bulldogs Defeat Matawan Huskies For Central Jersey Group 2 Championship

The Star Ledger is reporting that the Rumson-Fair Haven Bulldogs have defeated the defending champion Matawan Huskies for the 2010 Central Jersey Group 2 High School football championship, the first championship for the Bulldogs in the history of the Regional High School.

Matawan Mayor Paul Buccellato and his colleagues on the borough’s council will be donating $200 to the Food Bank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties to payoff a friendly wager with Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre and the Fair Haven Council.  Halfacre told MMM that he and his colleagues will donate $200 to to the St. Mark’s Food Kitchen at Trinity Episcopal Church in Matawan, as a goodwill gesture, despite winning the wager.

Anyone wishing to make a donation of food to the Foodbank of Monmouth and Ocean can call 732-918-2600 or email [email protected]. Donations to St. Mark’s Food Kitchen can be arranged by calling 732-591-9210 or emailing [email protected].

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Fireworks, Standing Ovation at Christie’s Parispanny Town Hall Meeting

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.

Christie delivered.  NJ.com , Politickernj, and the Daily Record each have reports.

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Hanson Report: No Benefit for Monmouth Park, Horse Owners, Race Fans

By Joe Irace

The latest version of The Hanson Commission’s Report on gaming does nothing for the long term benefit of Oceanport and/or Monmouth Park and puts the Standardbred and Thoroughbred owners and trainers at odds with each other.  The report calls for bringing Harness Racing to Monmouth Park to run at night in the winter months.  The estimated costs to the State of New Jersey for the winterization of part of the grandstand, changing track surfaces and reconfiguring some of the barns for Standardbred Horses is $4.6 million.  Winter harness racing would necessitate the installation of lights at our “historic” track right in center of a residential neighborhood.  While we as a Council would love to do whatever it takes to protect Monmouth Park and help it not only survive, but thrive, this Commission’s proposed plan ignores the most obvious socially and fiscally responsible solution: allowing for the installation of video lottery terminals, slot machines or a gaming casino at the Meadowlands.

Both the Standardbred owners and the thoroughbred owners are united in their opposition to a dual meet at Monmouth.  The Standardbred owners have perhaps the best track in the country, at the Meadowlands, located in an industrial area off of Route 3, 7 miles from midtown Manhattan.  It is foolhardy to expect their loyal patrons to travel 1 hour South of East Rutherford to Oceanport to enjoy Harness Racing when Yonkers Raceway, 30 minutes away from East Rutherford, offers the same product AND a casino.  The thoroughbred owners have enjoyed Monmouth Park for years and would much rather race on the surface that currently exists. Let’s not forget that   the two most interested parties, the horsemen and the general public, are clamoring for a racino at the Meadowlands facility, the Commission dismisses the idea out of hand in favor of a proposal that provides neither party with what it wants.

Two reports by Christiansen Capital Advisors, commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Treasury, recommended the installation of slot machines at the Meadowlands. The reports stated that 5,000 machines at the Meadowlands would produce $750 million annually and that 10,000 machines would produce $1.5 billion annually. The same study suggested that 2,100 slots at the Meadowlands would reduce Atlantic City gross gaming revenue by a mere .01 percent.

Senator Sean Kean recently said on the New Jersey Senate floor “if it (a Racino at the Meadowlands) were put to a vote we’d probably get a majority, if not a super-majority (in support), to save horse racing in the state of New Jersey.”  Despite the overwhelming financial benefits flowing from such an arrangement, the Hanson Report summarily dismisses the installation of Video Lottery Terminals, slot machines or a gaming casino in the Meadowlands.

Chairman Hanson, through his Commission, which, interestingly, includes no horsemen, refuses to acknowledge the viability of the racino model and, instead, continues to dump on our horse racing industry and the 7,000 jobs, $110 million in federal, state and local taxes, and 57,000 acres of working agricultural landscape which come along with it. Racinos around the country employ nearly 30,000 people. Bringing racinos to New Jersey will create thousands of new jobs. Additionally, it will solidify many jobs that may be in danger of leaving our state in favour of states that have already authorized racino legislation. Racinos are a proven model that states around the country are turning to for gaming. Twelve states have already implemented racinos and many more are debating proposals to allow them in the near future. In 2009, racinos around the country generated $2.6 billion dollars in tax revenue for state and local governments. Additionally, they strengthen the state’s agricultural industry. Racinos allow existing racetracks to grow their purses, spurring new investments in breeding racehorse ownership throughout the state. Additional racehorses will create more jobs and improve the overall economic impact. As Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and the nine other racino states can attest – racinos improve the rural economy.

Racinos that have reinvested their windfalls into racing, such as Sunland Park in New Mexico which hosts the Grade 3 Sunland Park Derby, which Mine That Bird used as a launching pad to his Kentucky Derby victory, and Prairie Meadows in Iowa, which hosts the Iowa Festival of Racing, with three graded stakes that attracted full fields of competitive, quality horses in 2010 are just two examples of the proven business model.

Let’s do everything we can to get this matter to a vote of the New Jersey legislature as soon as possible!

Joe Irace is the Council President of Oceanport, NJ

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Little Addresses The Highlands PBA Deal

By Art Gallagher

Highlands Mayor Anna Little issued the following statement on her facebook page and in an email to MMM this morning:

Highlands Borough Budget and the PBA Agreement

The following is an explanation of the facts regarding a decision of the Highlands Borough Council on December 1, 2010.  

The Borough Council asked the Highlands PBA to agree to a wage freeze to allow the Borough to evaluate our budgetary circumstances in light of the 2.0 cap imposed by the State of NJ upon Municipal budgets.  After analysis of the Borough’s budget, the Borough Council asked the PBA to find $420,000 in savings.   The Highlands PBA contract had already been finalized and there was no obligation on the part of the Highlands PBA to negotiate.   The Highlands PBA reviewed the State Health Benefits Plan recommended by the Borough and agreed to accept it.   The Highlands PBA and the Highlands Chief of Police have regularly reduced overtime during my tenure as Mayor.   Younger officers were hired in order to reduce exorbitant overtime costs necessary to cover State mandated shifts round the clock in the Borough.  As of December 1, 2001 the Highlands PBA has agreed to forego overtime completely in exchange for compensatory time.   This will guarantee over $100,000 permanent savings to the Borough per year.

 

The Agreement with the Highlands PBA for which I voted on December 1, 2010 includes:

1.  Highlands PBA concession to accept the State Health Benefit Plan, amounting to $320,000 in savings to the Borough of Highlands.

2.  Overtime savings in this budget of $66,668.

3.  Court time savings in this budget of $8,140.

4.  Overtime savings in 2011-2012 budget $106,205.

5.  Court time savings in 2011-2012 budget $13,000.

6.  Waiver of Retroactive contractual wages that the Borough owed the PBA from July 1, 2010 to December 1, 2010, a savings in this budget of $140,000.

7.   The single raise of 4.25% for a six month period from January 1, 2011 until June 30, 2011 allows retirement eligible officers to retire at a wage level less than but nearer to what they would have received under the contract to which the Borough was obligated.   This concession also produced a savings to the Borough in the 2011-2012 budget.   If retirements which have been mentioned actually occur as verbally represented, substantial savings to the Borough will result.

 

In conclusion, we must support Governor Christie’s tool kit.   Toward that end we must ensure that in the 2011 election cycle, WE THE PEOPLE deliver to Governor Christie a State Legislature that will work with him on the Tool Kit and other tax saving initiatives.   Until the Tool Kit is in place, agreements with bargaining units are the ONLY way to ensure savings to municipalities.   Layoffs of three police officers in the Borough of Highlands surely would have resulted in additional overtime costs to the Borough because of State mandates.  Initial calculations indicated that the Borough might have been charged up to $18,000 per month in overtime.

 

Therefore, the PBA Agreement for which I voted on December 1, 2010 and which secured savings to the Borough of $654,000 (not including the contractual reduction in raises and expected retirement of senior officers) was in the best interests of the People of the Borough of Highlands.   It is the People and only the People whom I serve during my tenure in elected office.

 

Little’s statement begs scrutiny.

She says the Highlands Borough Council requested the PBA come up with budget savings in light of the 2% cap imposed upon municipal budgets by the State.  However, Highlands fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. The first Highlands budget governed by the cap will not take effect until July 1, 2011.  The deal Little joined her Democratic colleagues on the Council in approving impacts the current budget, retroactive to July 1, 2010.  It would seem that the PBA deal impacts deficits in the current budget.

Highlands Mayor-elect Frank Nolan, the Republican Council President, told MMM that the PBA negotiations were part of an effort to plug a $400,000 hole in the current budget.  Nolan said he proposed a no layoff pledge through the current fiscal year in exchange for the PBA foresaking their 4.25% salary increase and switching health insurance plans.  He said Little and Democrats Chris Francy and Rebecca Kane approved the PBA’s counteroffer which carries into the 2011-2012 budget that is subject to the 2% cap and includes retroactive penalities that would benefit all union members should even one officer need to be laid off.

Nolan said that Little was absent from 40% of the Council’s meeting since March when she started running for Congress and is not up to speed on all that has gone on during the negotiations with the PBA.

Little’s statement does not address the penalties to the Borough should layoffs be necessary. 

Nolan said that Highlands CFO Steve Pfeffer is on record advising the Council that there is a 60% chance that additional layoffs will be required in the current fiscal year.  Nolan does not understand why Little, Francy and Kane would approve an agreement that imposes penalties for layoffs when they know such layoffs will be necessary.

Nolan said that Highlands fiscal crisis has been caused in large measure by the fact that the Borough has spent its entire surplus of $1.2 million since Little became Mayor.  Nolan was on the Council during Little’s first year as Mayor, 2008.  He was defeated in his reelection bid in the Obama wave of 2008 and elected again in November of 2009.  He has been Council President since taking office again in January of this year and will be sworn in as Mayor on January 1st.

The Highlands deal with the PBA will not take effect until approved by the Mayor and Council at their December 15, 2010 meeting or a subsequent meeting.

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Brian Aitken serving seven years for transporting guns, perhaps legally

Brian Aitkin, photo from Free Brian Aitkin facebook page

By Art Gallagher

Brain Aitken was sentenced to seven years in prison for transporting unloaded and disassembled guns in the trunk of his car. The arresting officer suggested that Aitken store the guns in his father’s safe, but they wouldn’t fit, so he was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to seven years in state prison.

According to the reports brought to my attention by MMM readers, here, here and here, Aitken had purchased the firearms legally while residing in Colorado. He had sought and followed guidance from the New Jersey State Police on how to legally transport the guns during his move back to New Jersey.

Aitken turned down pleas bargain offers from the Burlington County prosecutors office because he believed he had carefully followed the law. 

The judge presiding over Aitken’s case, James Morely, declined to instruct the jury about exemptions to the concealed carry law for transporting guns during a move between residences.  Aitken’s attorney raised the issue during closing arguments but not during the evidentiary phase of the trail.  The jury requested the exemption information multiple times during deliberations.  Morely declined to provide the information.

Morely did not issue Aitken’s sentence.  He was removed from the bench after the verdict was delivered and before the sentencing because Governor Chris Christie declined to reappoint him, reportedly because of his judgement in a case involving a Moorestown NJ police officer having sex with cows.  Judge Michael J. Haas issued Aitken’s sentence.

Evan Nappen of Eatontown is Aitken’s attorney. Nappen’s summary of the facts of the case can be found here.

Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll has written Governor Christie asking for an immediate pardon or commutation of Aitken’s sentence.  Carroll’s letter can be found here.

Reports are that Governor Christie is reviewing the pardon/commutation request.  The media campaign that Aitken’s family is waging is so compelling that the questions, “how could this happen?” and “what facts are missing from this story?” must be addressed.   Christie’s office should conduct a thorough and expeditious review.

For more information, see the Free Brain Aitken facebook page and BrianDAitken.com.

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Two years in jail for killing cats?

That seems a bit extreme to me.

A former Monmouth SPCA worker was sentenced to two years prison plus 360 hours of community service for animal cruelty charges that he plead guilty to in August, according to a report in the Star Ledger.

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