Firefighters are still working Monday morning to contain a major forest fire in Ocean County that destroyed commercial buildings in Lakewood, damaged more than two dozens homes in neighboring Brick and left one firefighter critically injured.
2021 will be a wild year in New Jersey politics, especially in Monmouth and Ocean Counties this spring. Here are some the probable and improbable things that we think will happen.
Joe Biden will be inaugurated President of the United States.
The US Census Bureau will release reapportionment numbers to the States in January, triggering the redistricting of New Jersey’s legislative districts and delaying Democrat and Republican nominating conventions until after the new district lines are drawn.
The pre-primary for the GOP nomination CD-3 has gotten ugly. Rightfully so.
David Richter, the former international construction executive who is vying for the 3rd district GOP nomination to take on Congressman Andy Kim, released an ad on facebook and youtube this afternoon that highlights his opponents’s arrest record and compares her, Kate Gibbs, to Snooki. The ad is hard hitting. Just like Andy Kim’s ads will be in October if Gibbs wins the primary on June 2.
Tonight in New Jersey, children will go to bed hungry. Contrary to popular notions about hunger in America, most are not homeless. In fact, most New Jersey families that struggle to put food on the table live in households that have at least one working adult.
In Monmouth County, where I live, and in neighboring Ocean County, one in ten residents don’t know where their next meal will come from, let alone whether if it will be nutritious. One in seven of those ten are children. The anxiety and fear of not knowing is what social services agencies call “food insecurity.”
That is why I am beginning a new chapter in my life this week: leading the effort to end hunger in our community as Chief Executive Officer of Fulfill, formerly the Food Bank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties. Fulfill aims to not only help our neighbors experiencing food insecurity today, but to provide them with the resources to become self-sufficient for tomorrow. I am excited join a team of 50 employees and 1,400 volunteers whose mission is to “shorten the line” of those in our communities who are hungry.
On Wednesday, March 6th, I attended the SDA monthly board meeting in Trenton after being contacted by several Jackson residents and veterans who were unfairly terminated by Rob Nixon’s School Development Authority, for which is serves as board chairman.
I asked them what I could do and they said “Find the truth”. I asked them if they had reached out to our council president here in Jackson as he sits on that board and they said yes, but to no avail.
These people have told me that for months they have reached out to Mr. Nixon, but he has ignored them. They are veterans, single moms and individuals who have worked with this agency through multiple political administrations, just as Mr. Nixon has somehow weathered the political storms that sweep through during administration changes.
George Gilmore, the Ocean County Republican Chairman and Board of Elections Chairman who was indicted on federal tax evasion and bank fraud charges last week, didn’t pay his taxes and omitted tax debt from a loan application because he has a hoarding disorder, his lawyer told the Asbury Park Press.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office was aware of Gilmore’s disability before it sought an indictment, his lawyer, Kevin Marino told app.
Hoarding disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them. A person with hoarding disorder experiences distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. Excessive accumulation of items, regardless of actual value, occurs, according to the Mayo Clinic.
George Gilmore, the long time chairman of the Ocean County Republican Party, was indicted by a federal grand jury, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced this afternoon.
Gilmore, 69, is an attorney, lobbyist and one of the most powerful Republicans in New Jersey. He was was charged in a six-count indictment with one count of income tax evasion for calendar years 2013, 2014, and 2015; two counts of filing false tax returns for calendar years 2013 and 2014; failing to collect, account for, and pay over payroll taxes for two quarters in 2016, and making false statements on a 2015 loan application submitted to Ocean First Bank N.A.
According to Honig’s announcement, documents file in the case indicate:
Holocaust memorial vandalized, anti-Jewish flyers placed on cars in Lakewood, as incidents seen tied to recent arrest of Jewish couples; authorities offer reward, call vandalism ‘sickening’ By Times of Israel staff An anti-Semitic banner draped over a Holocaust memorial in Lakewood, New Jersey, July 2, 2017. Courtesy ADL) A Holocaust memorial outside a synagogue in Lakewood,… Read the rest of this entry »
Rick Rosenberg, Jr, 32, was found deceased in his Lakehurst home this morning, according to an Ocean County law enforcement source.
Rosenberg was a well respected Republican political operative who started working on campaigns while a college student at Rutgers in 2004. Most recently he re-joined the Chris Russell Consulting firm after managing the GOP gubernatorial primary campaign of Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli.
