The Morning Briefing - August 18, 2015
** The Morning Briefing hits the beach on Monday, August 24, returning after Labor Day
NEWARK – Big meeting in Brick City today between Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, as officials talk about who pays for a second tunnel under the Hudson River and much-needed repairs. It’s a $14 billion project and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has little interest, considering it a Jersey problem. It would be a huge, but necessary project, adding new tracks between Newark and Secaucus, expanding New York Penn Station and shutting down the current, 105-year-old tunnels for two years, at least. What a clustermuck; a regional problem that planners should have addressed during the Baby Boom.
SECAUCUS – Congrats to Wal-mart, which has figured out another way to use a small donation to earn big media coverage. Today, Wal-mart will be having a school supplies “open house” in Secaucus where one lucky Hudson County teacher will get a gift card for $513 from this international conglomerate with $500 billion in annual sales. The reason for the $513? It’s the average that teachers spend out-of-pocket each year for school supplies. A great point, with precious little investment for Wal-mart. PR brilliance here.
AT HOME – Must be tough being a millennial. After getting all those trophies as kids for just showing up, people named “Tyler” and “Ashley” are finally learning the game of life doesn’t come with gold stars for all. They are now saddled with more college debt than any generation, entered the job market during a long recession and are now learning the impossibilities of home ownership. Millennials – adults up to 34 or so – are finally able to scrape together the down payment by age 33, on average, Zillow reports, and forced to rent an average of six years, up from 2.6 years in the 1970s. Take heed, though: There’s still your room waiting at your parent’s home in Montclair, where someone is always happy to drive you to soccer practice.
CAPE MAY – The local brewing company that has gotten national headlines for its plan to brew “Pope Beer” to honor next month’s visit from Pope Francis will be getting its own visitor today: State Sen. Tom Kean, Jr. The Westfield senator has hit the road to promote legislation that makes it easier for craft breweries to sell in New Jersey. The laws would allow the breweries to sell beer at farmers markets, as well as distribute up to 1,000 barrels each year. Also, Kean thinks the breweries should be allowed to sell food at their locations, creating a better experience for those who take the tour. All makes sense, although we’re sure that someone, somewhere, has a big problem with all this, for some reason.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – The Record has pointed out a glaring contradiction in Gov. Chris Christie’s “war on drugs.” In liberal leaning New Jersey, our governor thinks that nonviolent drug offenders shouldn’t be treated like hardened criminals rotting in our jails. Yet, as a presidential candidate desperate to woo the conservative base, Christie would fully enforce federal marijuana laws because, he says, “that’s the law and the Christie administration will enforce it.” Make sense to you?
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
LONGMONT, CO. – He is being called the “literary litterbug,” charged with throwing more than 600 books onto a busy Colorado highway. The Longmont Times-Call says the man, a former online book retailer, must now do 30 hours of community service and pay $1,725 in fines. It took more than 20 hours for road crews to find all the books. The man’s lame excuse? He couldn’t figure any other way to dispose of excess inventory.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1988 that the largest house in Long Island – with 130 rooms – sells for $22 million. The search immediately commences for all those missing cleaning ladies.
WORD OF THE DAY
Gubbins – noun
Definition: An object that has little or no value
Example: One man’s gubbins is another man’s lost car keys.