It could be a week or more until New Jersey’s votes are tallied due to the huge increase in provisional ballots cast both at the polls and via the email/fax voting system that Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno announced this week to accommodate voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy.
is reporting that the vote by fax or email allowance has resulting in mass confusion and fear that thousands of votes will not be counted. Guadagno extended the deadline to apply for a ballot until 5PM today and the deadline for the ballot to be received until 8PM on Friday.
Thousands of voters are complaining that their emails applying for ballots are bouncing back from full email boxes and that phone numbers are busy or going unanswered.
In addition to the email/fax voting problems, polling places are accepting provisional ballots from displaced voters and from out of state law enforcement/recuse workers who have traveled to New Jersey to assist in the recovery efforts. Each of those provisional ballots will have to be manually verified before being counted.
Ballots cast by early voters at county election offices throughout the state will have to be checked to be sure that those who took advantage of the early voting privilege did not also go to the polls to vote.
In Middletown, approximately half the the voting districts voted exclusively by paper ballots due to a voting machine programing errors, primarily in the 6th congressional district portion of the Township, according to Mayor Tony Fiore. “Epic Fail on the part of whoever was in charge of those voting machines,” Fiore said, “the county only provided us with about 50 paper ballots. We reproduced ballots on our own at a secure location.”
There is record turnout at the polls in Asbury Park and Long Branch, according to a Democratic source.
Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal thinks President Barack Obama will do better in Monmouth County than he did four years ago.
Speaking to a Star Ledger reporter in Charlotte during the Democratic National Convention, Gopal said:
“I think President Obama has a great shot to win Monmouth County this year,” said Gopal. “He came very close four years ago. The Republicans are hoping that people have amnesia and don’t remember the eight years under George W. Bush.”
Gopal knows where his votes are:
“We want to get our votes out for the President in Democratic constituencies like Long Branch, Neptune and Asbury Park to help make sure he gets four more years.”
In 2008, Obama lost Monmouth County to John McCain by only 12,000, due to an extraordinarily high Democratic turnout in Long Branch, Neptune and Asbury Park. Obama’s coattails helped sweep Amy Mallet to victory over John Curley for freeholder, giving the Democratic Party control of the Freeholder Board for the first time in twenty years.
The Editorial Board of the Monmouth and Ocean Counties paper of record actually met with local mayors! Call that progress. MMM criticised the APP editorial board last month for sitting down with Newark Mayor Cory Booker for no reason other than to boost Booker’s statewide name ID when they, until yesterday, hardly, if ever, meet with local mayors.
Middletown Mayor Tony Fiore and Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider met with the Neptune Nudniks on Wednesday, at the behest of the League of Municipalities. The mayors’ purpose was to bring attention to the State’s decades old practice of keeping the energy receipts tax that public utilities pay.
In energy receipts tax has been in existence for decades. It was originally set up in lieu of property taxes to compensate municipalities for the utility infrastructure rights of way. The tax used to be broken out on your utility bill. It was paid by the utilities directly to the municipalities.
In 2002, during the McGreevey administration, the State started collecting to tax. We all know what happens to money when to goes to the black whole of Trenton for redistribution. Much of it disappears and the intended recipients get shafted. Think Unemployment Insurance Fund and Transportation Trust Fund.
Fiore told MMM that the League sued McGreevey to get the money but the State just turned around a reduced State Aid by a commensurate amount.
Fiore, Schneider and the League now want that money back. It’s not coming, according to what State Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff told the APP, “At this time we do not have the financial flexibility to make discretionary adjustment” to provide more from energy taxes.
Fiore told MMM that the energy receipts tax would have provided $4 million dollars to Middletown Township in 2011. That would have saved the Library surplus the Township relied on, prevented layoffs and cleaned up a few snow storms.
What burns Fiore is not just the $4 million that Middletown didn’t collect from the utilities. It’s the $1.5 million hit the Township continues to take in reduced State Aid from 2009 levels. “We wouldn’t be increasing property taxes 1.97% this year if our Aid was restored,” said Fiore, “give us our $1.5 million back and I can reduce taxes by 2%. The Board of Education got all of their Aid restored, yet they are still raising taxes.”
Schneider told the APP that not receiving the energy receipts tax is costing Long Branch “several million dollars.”
Four years ago a young software engineer from Long Branch decided to serve his country and attempt to right the wrongs of Washington by running for Congress against Frank Pallone.
Jim was shunned by the Monmouth GOP back in 2008. He wasn’t allowed into the nominating convention that awarded the 6th district line to Bob McLeod and the U.S. Senate line to Andrew Unanue.
Hogan lost the primary to McLeod. Rather than go away angry, or stay around angry, Hogan volunteered for McLeod’s futile effort to unseat Pallone. He started a blog, became the ideal county committee member, and volunteered his time, talent, good humor and good nature to Monmouth County and Long Branch GOPs.
Sadly for America, but happily for his family and employer, Hogan has regained his mind and lost his motivation to change the world. He announced today that he is closing his blog and will not seek another term on the county committee from Long Branch.
I wish my friend well. He knows he is always welcome to contribute here. He has his own access to MMM. I look forward to the day when something moves him to write and he surprises me with a post that makes me laugh while exposing an infuriating circumstance of government malfeasance.
Godspeed my friend. Make money. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your life.
And I’ve been meaning to tell you, you’re not really that ugly.
Four boys under the age of 10 were bound, gagged and photographed in the bathroom of a Long Branch elementary school, according to report posted yesterday on Long Branch Patch. Patch credited The Link News with breaking the story on its facebook page.
Two Gregory Elementary School janitors were suspended with pay. An Asbury Park Press report posted this morning says the suspensions are with pay.
In a statement quoted by Long Branch Patch, Long Branch Schools Superintendent Michael Salvatore said that the acts are claimed to have been made without malice and in jest. Salvatore contacted the authorities and safeguards have been taken.
The 8th annual Sandy Hook Elves Holiday Gift Drive will be held next Sunday, December 4 from 12PM to 3pm at Bahrs Landing in Highlands.
There is no cost to attend the event. Guest are invited to bring new, unwrapped coats, jackets, sweatshirts, footballs, basketballs, skateboards, gift cards or cash. The gifts are turned over to Long Branch school administrators who distribute them to the parents and guardians of 13 through 18 year old students of the Long Branch school system, based on their needs.
All are welcome, including children of all ages.
Bahrs is providing chowder, seafood chili, and vegetarian soup free of charge. There will be a cash bar.
Entertainment will be provided by Bahrs’ best Karoke singers, who happen to be very good!
“Sandy Hook Elves” and “Coats for Kids” is the brainchild of Atlantic Highlands resident Dale Distasio. Over the years the event has grown by word of mouth as other community groups, like the American Legion posts in Highlands and Keyport, started to participate.
There’s no 501 c3 involved. No administrative costs and no tax deductions. 100% of the gifts make it to kids.
Ferraina: “I got $600,000? That’s not much,” he said. “There, you want a headline? ‘That’s not much.’
Casagrande: “Those are dollars that would be better served in the classroom”
Retired Long Branch School Superintendent Joseph Ferraina collected $616,123 in unused sick and vacation pay, not all at once in a lump sum at retirement, but over the course of course of his last ten years on the job, according to a report published at LongBranchPatch.
Go read the article. It is an outstanding piece of journalism by reporter Joe Malinconico who discovered the payments via an Open Public Records Act request and conducted a 57 minute phone interview with Ferraina.
According to LongBranchPatch, the records and Ferraina indicate that the educator only took off time from work if a close family member died; a half day for his father in 2004, a four hours when his brother died in 2005 and a partial day when his son died in 2008. On the day of his son’s funeral he went to work first thing in the mornin, left at 8:45 am, fifteen minutes before the services started, and was back at his desk by 2 pm.
Ferriana’s salary was $244,999 when he retired in June. His annual pension is $154,710.
Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande said Ferraina’s $600K was essentially taken from school children by legislative leaders who have refused to outlaw the practice of paying public employees for unused sick and vacation time.
“This is another example of a system that allows dollars to come out of the classroom and into the pockets of administrators,” Casagrande said. “We had a bipartisan compromise bill that addressed part of the problem and Governor Christie recommended a way to fix the problem, which I support.
“Legislators who agreed this practice is wrong should work with me to enact Governor Christie’s changes so we can end the payout of unused time before there is another example of wasted tax dollars,” Casagrande added.
Casagrande, R-Monmouth, sponsors a bill, A-4193, that incorporates the Governor’s recommendations to ban public employees from cashing in unused sick and vacation days. It incorporates recommendations made by Governor Christie to strengthen a legislative proposal that was approved by the Legislature last year. But Trenton Democratic legislative leaders have refused to advance an outright ban, just a cap on the amount public employees can cash in.
“Those are dollars that would be better served in the classroom,” Casagrande said. “As long as this practice is legal, public employees will continue to use it and every day legislative leaders delay, is another day accrued for public employees, which adds up to many dollars taken from taxpayers and school children.
“These golden parachutes are especially egregious in these trying economic times,” Casagrande added.
