“These facilities will provide no more of a threat to communities than a CVS, I would have no problem with one being located near my home.” ~ Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon
Saying, “It’s the right thing to do,” Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon told MMM that he will introduce legislation that will prevent municipalities from from using zoning ordinances to thwart state approved medical marijuana farms and dispensaries from being located within their boundaries.
“Communities fears about medical marijuana facilities are not justified by the facts,” said O’Scanlon, ” as a result, many patients are continuing to suffer needlessly. It’s time for that nonsense to stop.”
O’Scanlon’s bill will empower municipalities to approve the facilities safety plan, including a requirement of 27/7 manned security.
A video disseminated by American Traffic Solutions (“ATS”) depicts a series of crashes and near misses at intersections chosen to participate in New Jerseys five-year red-light camera pilot program. The mission of the five-year pilot program is to determine the effectiveness of the installation and utilization of traffic control signal monitoring systems. Under the program, a traffic control signal monitoring system utilizes cameras and vehicle sensors, which work in conjunction with a traffic control signal to produce images of vehicles disregarding a red signal and running a red light”. Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon thinks the ATS video is proof positive of the resounding failure of the program.
“Red-light cameras are intended to deter drivers from running red lights, or so goes the argument from supporters of the cameras,” explained O’Scanlon (R Monmouth/Mercer). This video showed what I have always believed, red-light cameras do not stop people from running red lights because most drivers do not make a conscience decision to run a red light.
“Drivers who run red lights are distracted by a bad day at work, a sick child, or a bad nights sleep,” O’Scanlon continued. “No camera or fine, regardless of the amount, is going to change this. What really stops people from running red lights is the same thing that has stopped them for as long as cars have been on the road -the fear of serious injury or death!
“If one looks at the video objectively it is easy to see that virtually all of the incidents depict the situation I outline above. These people are not likely reckless scofflaws playing Russian roulette with their lives and those of others. These people simply weren’t aware they were going through a red light. Laws and fines won’t stop these momentary lapses in peoples’ awareness if fear of death hasn’t done so already” said O’Scanlon. “We need to increase safety as much as possible through sound engineering of intersections and proper light timing. This will give us a demonstrable increase in safety. Of course it will mean a lot less revenue for the towns currently participating in the demonstration project, but these are ill-gotten gains to begin with.”
New Jersey‘s red-light camera pilot program began in 2008, since then 25 municipalities have signed on to the program.
A tongue in cheek post about who the Democrats could get to challenge Senator Joe Kyrillos when their endorsed candidate failed to submit his nominating petitions, generated more calls from Trenton than any other post of the year.
The worst joke of the month has consequences that will last at least a decade. “Continuity of representation,” a political value in the mind of Rutgers professor Alan Rosenthal, trumped competitiveness and the state constitution in determining the lines of the new gerrymandered legislative map.
The stakes were so high that Governor Christie got personally involved in the negotiations regarding the map. But Rosenthal’s was the only vote that counted. The professor was not persuaded by the governor.
The map was so gerrymandered for the Democrats that Christie and the Republicans did not even try to win control of the legislature. The governor, who came into office vowing to “turn Trenton upside down” transformed into the “compromiser in chief” in order to salvage what he could of his reform agenda.
While Rosenthal preserved the status quo for the Trenton trough swilling class, he unwittingly contributed to the creatation of a national Republican rock star, as Christie, freed up from having to work to win control of the legislature transferred his political attentions to the national stage.
Ocean County Republican Chairman George Gilmore told MMM that the Democrats put Singer and Kean in the same district in the hopes that the GOP would waste resources on a contentious primary in a safe district. The real reason was that the Democrats were horrified at the prospect of Dan Jacobson returning to the legislature in the upper house.
Jacobson was preparing a fanatasy Republican primary challenge to Kean for Senate should Wall and Asbury Park remain in the same district. The Democrats, who have never understood Monmouth County, didn’t realize the futility of such an endeavor. But they knew Jacobson and they weren’t taking any chances. So they put Senator Jennifer Beck in the same district as Jacobson, knowing that he would never challenge her in a primary. Jacobson, through his newspaper, created Jennifer Beck. Just ask him.
The new 11th district would be represented by Beck in the Senate and Mary Pat Angelini and Caroline Casagrande in the Assembly. A district represented by three women. A historic first.
Assemblyman Dave Rible, formerly of the 11th, was now in the 30th with Singer and Kean.
The new 12th district provided brief drama due to the fact that the lines created a senate vacancy. Sam Thompson of Middlesex County and Ronald Dancer of Ocean County were the incumbent Assemblymen in the predominently Western Monmouth district. The Monmouth GOP wanted to keep three senators. Thompson wanted to move up. Freeholder Director Rob Clifton had long eyed Thompson’s seat in the assembly, but the senate vacancy presented an unexpected opportunity. Always level headed and not one to needlessly rock the boat, Clifton let the Monmouth, Ocean, Middlesex and Burlington chairmen figure it out. Thompson got the senate nod and Clifton joined the ticket with Dancer running for assembly.
The 13th district became even safer for Senator Joe Kyrillos. Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon of Little Silver joined Kyrillos and Assemblywoman Amy Handlon in representing the district. Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornick, a Democrat, had his ambitions put on hold by the map makers who put Marlboro into the 13th.
The Democrats did the best they could, but only put up nominal opposition in the Monmouth legislative districts and on the county level.
Former Howell Chair Norine Kelly passed away in April.
By Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, Republican Budget Officer
It’s a simple question loaded with political appeal: “With so many people hurting, and income disparities rising, shouldn’t we ask New Jersey’s millionaires to a ‘fair share’ in taxes?”
OK. What’s a “fair” share?If the current share of state income tax paid by the top 1% of New Jersey’s taxpayers — about 37 percent — isn’t high enough, what is?Would 80 percent be fair?90 percent?Taxpayers earning $1 million pay an effective tax rate this is about four times what taxpayers earning $100,000 pay.When and how will we know when we’ve achieved “fairness”?
Unfortunately, intense partisanship feeding on visceral emotions has made it virtually impossible to have a rational conversation about taxes in America.As a senior member of the State Assembly’s Budget Committee, I think those of us in positions of leadership have a responsibility to do more than stoke emotions, and instead adopt tax policies that generate the revenue needed to support the State’s budget priorities on a fair and sustainable basis.
Piling taxes on the “rich” may be great politics, but it’s lousy public policy.New Jersey already has a “progressive” income tax system which, thanks to high-income households receiving a greater proportion of their income from investments and capital gains, has made our revenue base highly volatile.Additionally increasing our relative reliance on high-income taxpayers will increase volatility, making it more difficult to engage in prudent long-term financial planning.
Most experts believe increased volatility is a problem because fiscal stability is a condition precedent to sound policymaking.Wild fluctuations in revenues fuel an inefficient boom-and-bust approach to budget-making that mismanages popular expectations. The impact of emergent budget cuts on New Jersey residents is regressive – those at middle and lower income levels experience the pain of budget cuts disproportionately since they more often benefit from state programs.
Some editorialists have suggested Governor Cuomo’s recent decision to embrace higher rates for high income New Yorkers should serve as an example for New Jersey.Perhaps they should read the fine print.New York’s “tax increase” is no such thing.New York’s current high rate is 8.97%, the same as New Jersey’s.Instead of letting the rate go down to 6.85%, as scheduled, Cuomo is saying he’ll let the rate fall to 8.82% for taxpayers at $2 million or more, but let the rate fall to 6.85% for taxpayers between $300,000 and $2 million.Everyone in New York will get a tax cut, but folks above $2 million will get less of a tax cut than they had expected.If that’s the standard of “fairness,” maybe the editorialists are right and we should follow New York’s example!Here’s the critical point: the top marginal rate in New York will soon fall below the top rate in New Jersey; that’s not good news for our competitive position.
New Jersey Treasury’s Chief Economist’s review of national IRS data confirmed a statistical connection between tax increases enacted under former Governor McGreevy and an increase of affluent taxpayers who moved out of, or never moved into, New Jersey.The Chief Economist also conducted a survey confirming a significant proportion of tax advisors had discussed moving out of New Jersey with their relatively affluent clients.Contrary to the often inaccurate summaries in the popular press, the study and the separate survey were modest in scope and merely confirmed what we already know: yes, Virginia, taxes matter.
Are they the only competitive consideration? Absolutely not. Infrastructure, regulations, climate, educational levels and other factors play a major role.But there’s no denying taxes figure into investment and location decisions.
Instead of asking “what’s fair?” we should be asking “what’s in our long-term self-interest?”I suggest it’s in New Jersey’s self-interest to pursue policies that support sustainable and growing revenue collections over time.Although New Jersey cannot expect to compete globally on the basis of low taxes alone, we should avoid negative “outlier” status and with it the kind of reputation that once prevented New Jersey from getting into the starting blocks when companies and leaders make site selections.
Since this Blog is supposed to be about local Monmouth County politics I trolled the local Patch sites for something interesting involving local politics. The best I could come up with is this article in the Eatontown/Tinton Falls Patch. http://eatontown.patch.com/articles/board-of-ed-issues-a-call-to-action-to-tinton-falls-residents#comments. Maybe tommorrow something good will pop in Marlboro. Things are usually exciting there.
Anyway some interesting comments in this article. I see popular troll (and by that I mean smelly monster that lives under a bridge and eats goats Jim Sage jumped in.
So what do you pack of Hynaes masquerading as political pundits that Art calls an audience think of this story?
New Jersey Democrats are suddenly taking an interest in the 13th legislative district according to a normally reliable source familiar with the state wide campaign.
Word is that U.S. Senator Bob Menendezis feeling a bit vulnerable with his weak showing in the FDU poll released this morning and with the possibility that Governor Chris Christie could be the Presidential candidate next year when needs Obama coattails to get reelected. He wants the Monmouth Democrats to rough up Senator Joe Kyrillos and make him spend some money.
Assembly Majority Leader Joe Cryan want to take a run at Declan O’Scanlon, if not to beat him this time, to at least weaken him for a future contest against Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornick. Cryan will be in the district raising money twice in the next two weeks.
Unless I’ve been fed misinformation, which usually doesn’t start until the last two weeks of the campaign, expect 2 or 3 negative mailers on behalf of the 13th district Democrats.
In seven weeks New Jersey voters will have the opportunity to elect an entirely new state legislature.
Patrick Murray’s Monmouth University/Neptune Nudniks poll conducted in August indicates that New Jersey voters disapprove of their legislature by a 48%-35% margin. Democrats disapprove by 45%-38%. Independents, the majority, disapprove by a whopping 50%-28%. Surprisingly, Republicans approve of the legislature by a 45%-41% margin. Public workers disapprove by 55%-26%.
Based solely on those poll results, one might expect that we’d be in the middle of a spirited campaign with Democrats and public workers rallying to throw the Republicans out of office. Obviously that is not the case. Democrats control the legislature that their base and Independents disapprove of strongly.
Due to Dr. Alan Rosenthal’s decision that New Jersey voters are better off being continuously represented by legislators they don’t know, there are only a handful of competitive legislative races. The Democrats will continue to control the legislature for the next two years. Probably the next ten years.
13th Legislative District
This district keeps the Bayshore towns of Aberdeen, Hazlet, Holmdel, Keansburg, Keyport, Middletown, and Union Beach from the old 13th, adds Atlantic Higlands, Highlands, Monmouth Beach, Rumson and Sea Bright from the old 11th and Fair Haven, Little Silver, Oceanport, Marlboro from the old 12th.
The Republican incumbents are Senator Joe Kyrillos and Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon. O’Scanlon previously represented the old 12th.
On paper this should be a competitive district. Democrats actually have a voter registration edge. According to Labels and Lists Inc there are 34,193 registered Democrats, 33,758 registered Republicans and 74,492 unaffiliated (Independent) voters in the district.
Despite the slight registration edge for Democrats, the district generally votes Republican. John McCain won the district in 2008, Chris Christie beat Jon Corzine here by a wide margin, and Anna Little beat Frank Pallone here in 2010.
Of the 16 municipalities in the 13th, 9 of the are comfortably controlled by Republicans. 6 are competitive towns with a local governing body that shifts from R to D on occasion. Aberdeen is the only reliably Democratic town on the municpal level.
With 31% of the registered voters in the district, Middletown dominates. Even though their registration edge is less than 2000 voters, Republicans dominate Middletown. Middletown voters love their hometown office holders, Joe Kyrillos and Amy Handlin who they have elected time after time over the last two decades plus; Kyrillos served two terms in the Assembly from 1988 through 1991 and has been a Senator since 1992. Handlin was a Monmouth County Freeholder from 1990 through 2006 when she entered the Assembly.
Roughly 73% of the district is new for O’Scanlon. Yet, that 27% from his old district, Fair Haven, Little Silver, Oceanport and Marlboro knows O’Scanlon well. They elected him to two terms in the Assembly after he lost to Michael Panter by only 73 votes in 2005.
The Democrats are running two former Hazlet mayors and a former Middletown township committee member.
Christopher Cullen is the former Hazlet Mayor challenging Kyrillos for Senate. Cullen, who served one term on the Hazlet Township Committee, won the nomination for Senate as a write-in candidate in the primary after failing to submit his petitions after being tabbed at the nominating convention in the spring. He is the director of facilities maintenance and custodial services at MAST High School. He is a member of Operating Engineers Local 68 and was previously a member of the teamsters.
Hazlet’s Community Center is named for Cullen’s father, James J. Cullen, who served the community for many years as a Republican office holder.
Both Democratic Assembly candidates won their first municipal elections in the wake of Operation Bid Rig. Lavan was elected to the Hazlet Township Committee in 2005 and served through 2010 when he lost his reelection bid. Like Cullen, his union roots are deep. He has been a member of the International Longshoreman’s Association for 46 years. He is making his support of unions, and the Right to Work legislation that Handlin and O’Scanlon have sponsored, the center piece of his campaign.
Short, a former Republican and a West Point graduate was the first Democrat elected to the Middletown Township Committee in 2006 in the wake of Bid Rig. He was swept out of office with Jon Corzine in 2009 as Chris Christie and the GOP swept Middletownoverwhelmingly. Short was ambivalent about seeking a second term, but ultimately ignored MMM’s advise that he take the plaque.
Based on the early inactivity of the campaign, I was wondering if the feisty Constitution Party slate of Steve Boracchia for Senate, Bill Lawton and Frank Cottone might actually garner more votes than the Democrats in this race. However, a volunteer from the Democratic campaign reached out to me to optimistic declare that the Democrats will produce a shocking victory on election day. The volunteer said that Cullen, Lavan and Short are going in 20 different directions knocking on doors and that they are marshalling their scare resources for a last minute sprint into office.
While the 13th districts candidates don’t have the state Democratic support that the 11th district candidates have enjoyed….a paid staff and high profile fund raisers hosted by Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Senate President Stephen Sweeney…the volunteer said that the campaign is expecting an influx of union money and that Assembly Majority Leader Joe Cryan is coming to the district next week to raise money for the slate.
I usually agree with InTheLobby and Declan O’Scanlon, but in the case of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority granting a $420,000 tax credit to MTV for the 2009 production of Jersey Shore, I’m not so sure.
I’m not fan of the show. I never watched it. The promotions and buzz about it are enough for me to know that I’d rather see a Law and Order re-run. Yet, there is no denying that the show has generated quite a bit of economic activity. That’s what tax credits are supposed to do.
Tax credits are not subsidies in the sense that the government is writing a check. They are promised tax reductions given to induce investment that will, hopefully, generate economic activity and more overall tax revenue than the amount of the credit. Since Governor Christie has taken office, New Jersey has granted much larger tax credits to spur investment in Atlantic City and the Meadowlands.
Is the Jersey Shore tax credit a good deal for New Jersey? I don’t know. The Treasury Department would have to calculate the increased tax revenue that resulted from the show. It would take $6,000,000 in increased sales of hair gel, contraceptives and alcohol to generate $420,000 in sales tax to “break even” on the tax credit. I don’t buy hair gel or contraceptives. I don’t watch the show, so it hasn’t driven me to drink more. We’d have to rely on Treasury data to judge if increase sales taxes paid for the tax credit.
But we’d also have to include increased income taxes in the analysis. How much do Snooki, the Situation and the rest of the cast pay to New Jersey in income taxes? What about the rest of the crew? What about the increased income, and taxes for Seaside Heights businesses and their employees?
Is MTV paying any taxes to New Jersey as a result of the show at all? If they hadn’t produced the show, they certainly would not have paid any taxes. If the tax credit induced them to produce the show, that is what it was designed to do.
“I can’t believe we are paying for fake tanning for ‘Snooki’ and ‘The Situation’, and I am not even sure $420,000 covers that,” said Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth). “This is a great investment for the taxpayers, as if they can make a show called ‘Jersey Shore’ anywhere else.”
Declan obviously doesn’t watch the show either. They can make a show called ‘Jersey Shore’ in Italy.
Boardwalk Empire, the HBO hit series about the history of Atlantic City is not shot in New Jersey. The beach scenes are shot in Coney Island, New York.
The Jersey Shore tax credit made headlines because State Senator Joe Vitale and the Italian American ONE Voice Coalition’s moral sensibilities are offended by how Italian Americans are depicted on the show. They called for Governor Christie to veto the tax credit. Christie doesn’t have the authority to veto the tax credit. Vitale should have known that. He probably did know that and just wanted to get his name in the papers. What he did instead was generate more free publicity for the show he says offends him.
Vitale and ONE VOICE might have better luck in the courts. Earlier this week the Appeals Court set public moral sensibilities as a standard for what is legal in New Jersey. If Vitale can convince a judge that the public’s moral sensibilities are offended by Jersey Shore, maybe he can get the show shut down, or get it moved, along with all the economic activity it is generating, to Italy or New York.
Legislators Say Fort’s Closure is Great Loss to the Community
Senator Jennifer Beck, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (all R-12) said that the closure of Fort Monmouth represents a great loss to the community, but also a great opportunity for new economic growth. The base will be officially closed in a formal retreat ceremony this afternoon.
“Fort Monmouth served our nation for nearly a century developing innovative new technologies that people around the world depend on today,” said Beck. “The great concentration of knowledge and technical ability that surrounded Fort Monmouth helped New Jersey become an economic powerhouse. We are certainly saddened that the Fort is closing, but we are also determined to ensure that redevelopment efforts fill the void to keep Monmouth County a leader in technological innovation.”
Fort Monmouth, which opened in 1917, was a global leader in the development of communications technologies, including FM radio and radar. During its decades of operation, the base served as a foundation for the local economy and local communities.
“The jobs of more than 20,000 people were directly or indirectly tied to Fort Monmouth,” said O’Scanlon. “An entire community of businesses supported the operation of the base, and local residents provided much of the talent and brainpower that fueled cutting edge research and development within the Fort’s walls. While a void has been created by the closing of Fort Monmouth, any successors will have a first-rate infrastructure, both physical and intellectual, ready to assume.”
“It certainly is sad to watch a pillar of the community be pulled out from under us,” added Casagrande. “In change, however, there is also opportunity. Looking to the past, we praise the many people who served at Fort Monmouth for their invaluable contributions to our nation. Looking to the future, we must seize this once in a lifetime opportunity to transform this central element of our community into something greater.”
