The Morning Briefing - June 6, 2016
JACKSON – Looking for the wake? Or the wedding? Look no further than New Jersey's very first funeral home-banquet hall combo, coming to Jackson. An Ocean County judge has cleared the way for Manchester-based Oliverie Funeral Home to build it, the Jackson Times reports. The McMansion-sized undertaking will sit on six acres, wedged between two sprawling senior citizen communities. The judge upheld zoning approvals, unfazed by neighbors' tired objections: Blah-blah traffic; blah-blah variances; blah-blah size. Weirdness aside, the National Funeral Directors Association says funeral homes elsewhere have morphed into wedding chapels as well as catering and banquet halls, feeling pinched by people who want bargain-priced wakes, and opt for cremations over casket burials. New vows: “Until death do us part, uh, here.”
PATERSON – This cash-strapped city may lose $617,400 in new federal Community Development Block Grant money because it still has millions of CDBG dollars sitting in a bank account. The federal aid was supposed to be used for streets, parks, playgrounds or job training, or to fix up housing for lower-income families and seniors. Because it wasn't, feds are warning Paterson its 2016-17 allocation may be slashed to $1.7 million. Councilman Kenneth Morris told the Paterson Press: “It’s not as if the city can’t use that money.” Paterson could easily pick any city street and throw money at it. Quickly.
JERSEY CITY – Send cash … cold hard cash. That's the birthday gift former Councilman Khemraj “Chico” Ramchal really needs to pay down his big legal bills before he gets sentenced next month. Ramchal resigned his council seat May 12th after striking a plea deal on assault-by-auto and theft-by-deception charges. Now, ex-Councilman Phil Kenny – who also resigned and did federal prison time for his role in a bribery-extortion conspiracy – is throwing Ramchal a birthday fundraiser to pay down his legal debt, the Jersey Journal reports. Invitations to the June 14th bash ask for only “monetary gifts,” misspelled as “monitary.” But, at this point, does it really matter?
HOWELL – If you have any thought of adopting a dog, now is the time. It looks like there are more than 350 Chihuahuas, pugs and Yorkies that will soon be available, after authorities were able to find all these dogs stuffed into a house – the worst case of pet hoarding that Monmouth County has ever seen. There were 276 dogs taken from the house on Friday in what authorities are calling “deplorable conditions.” When you count all the pregnant dogs, the total take will be 350 pups saved from this stench-filled hellhole. Some people are unexplainable.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – This may be your last time to yuk it up with a Clinton for a while, as Chelsea hits a couple of campaign stops today on behalf of mom, with the polls opening in less than 24 hours. Chelsea will be with Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker at the Renaissance Building in North Bergen this morning before heading to Fair Bridge Inn & Suites in East Hanover. Expect this message: Go out and vote (for Hillary)!
TRENTON – Gov. Chris Christie has scored a dubious distinction – somehow scoring lower in the polls than the state Legislature for the first time in his six years in office. Monmouth University shows the governor is at a record low of 27 percent, likely, in part, because of his support of a particularly orange Presidential candidate, NJ 101.5 reports. Meanwhile, state lawmakers fared marginally better, at 29 percent. Says pollster Patrick Murray: “That is really saying something when the Legislature is seen as being more effective than the governor.”
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
DEBRECEN, Hungary – It looks like anything can be considered a sport when you live in the thriving metropolis of Debrechen, which just finished its competition to decide who are the best gravediggers in the land. Competitors, centering on Plot 37A at the public cemetery, were judged on speed, grace and, of course, style, as they finished their grave mounds. The winner, sponsored by the Hungarian Association of Cemetery Maintainers and Operators, moves on to the finals in Slovakia later this year. Assume this year’s theme is “Dig the Action!”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
For a fleeting moment, New Jersey actually had a Republican in the U.S. Senate. It was this day in 2013 that Gov. Chris Christie named Jeffrey Chiesa to fill the seat of the late Frank Lautenberg. No one did – or still does – know how to pronounce “Chiesa.” (Our guess: Key-AY-zuh)
WORD OF THE DAY
Ablution - noun
Definition: Washing myself
Example: I’ll be out in a minute! Just finishing up my ablution!
WEATHER IN A WORD
Linen.