The Jaffe Briefing - October 21, 2019
STATEWIDE – Gaping potholes. Higher taxes. Senseless political squabbles. Those are all local issues that keep mayors awake at night. Throw on the pile the constant threat of state aid cuts, requirements for more affordable housing and dealing with a commuter rail station that just can’t seem to work right. Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr, president of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, is squarely in the middle of it all in her positions as a small-town mayor and the leader of the organization representing our 565 municipalities. She stopped by the Jaffe Podcast to talk about the laundry list of issues that are currently top of mind. On top of the heap at the moment? Her own reelection campaign.
EAST RUTHERORD – It has cost a couple of billion dollars or so, and now the first phase of the American Dream mall is opening on Friday. Besides the challenges of constructing the mega, mega-mall – in the works for 17 years or so and recently costing $3 million or so a day to complete – investors still have to deal with an unwavering, controversial law on the books since the 1600s. As CNBC notes, the American Dream mall sits squarely in Bergen County, which is the only county in the state with “Blue Laws” preventing all retail stores to be open on Sunday. So, when the mall is expected to opens its stores next March (or so), they will be shuttered on football Sundays when tens of thousands of extra people will be milling around the Meadowlands. Blue Laws might be a slight relief for traffic, but not for investors eager to finally turn a profit on the behemoth.
TRENTON – Getting through high school is hard enough without the recent agita and confusion over what precise tests would be used to send New Jersey high schoolers out into the world, cap and gown in hand. Today, according to NJ Spotlight, all should be revealed as members of the State Board of Education get to chew the ends of their pencils and mull over the Murphy administration’s latest proposal. Heads-up if you’re a high schooler: there could be a geometry test in your future.
TRENTON – To somehow make this City Council kinder and gentler, its seven members are getting a crash course in sensitivity. The training session, to be held this Saturday, comes after Council President Kathy McBride created a nationwide uproar in September for using the words “Jew her down” to describe settlement talks, and other council members promptly defended her use of the anti-Semitic slur. The Trentonian says McBride sang a different tune last week: “Today's culture is a lot more sensitive … it’s our job to be conscious of it.” No, duh. McBride and a city attorney arranged for a Hunterdon County sensitivity trainer to provide this lesson on how to perform like educated people in public.
WAYNE – Let’s assume this is the last time one local woman runs for public office. That’s because – if she wasn’t an elected official – it would be absolutely irrelevant that she tried to buy some marijuana products in Canada. But because she happens to be the vice president of the school board, and because it was a sleepy news cycle in New Jersey over the weekend, her arrest is a really big story, deserving of coverage from NJ.com, NorthJersey.com and NJ 101.5. So, let’s write about it, as well. The Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office busted the school official and her husband on fourth-degree marijuana possession and conspiracy to possess marijuana, akin to slap on the wrist and a tsk-tsk. Cops caught the husband picking up a package of products on Friday that his wife had purchased. Apparently, back in July, federal officials and local police started investigating the duo for this crime of the century. Anyway, if convicted of this ho-hum charge during a “trial” Nov. 4, she would be bounced from the school board, which she is likely welcoming to avoid more over-scrutiny.
GREEN BROOK – They made a federal case out of a $2.18 dispute with fast-food chain, putting a Middlesex Borough couple in line for a mouthwatering payout. It began when a hungry husband and wife saw a TV commercial in May 2018 for Taco Bell’s $5 box deal on a beef burrito, a crunchy taco, cinnamon twists and a soft drink. They dashed to a nearby Route 22 Taco Bell, but got indigestion over the $12.99 tab (including tax), insisting their box meals should only cost $10. Telling NJ.com it’s a “classic bait and switch,” and with “class action” dancing in their minds, their lawyer filed a Superior Court lawsuit. Taco Bell’s Kentucky-based parent company just had the case moved to federal court because the couple’s payout may exceed $75,000. And, a jury might super-size that, with extra cheese. Only in America.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
BAGLEY, IA – Um, sorry? That is the message from a meat processing business, which, for some reason, has a shared drainage system with a home next door. That family never had a problem with Dahl's Custom Meat Locker until now, when their basement suddenly filled with animal blood, fat and bones from slaughtered animals. The slaughterhouse owner says she bought the business about 10 years and kept right on using the same procedures, unclear that the pipes were connected, The Des Moines Register reports. She argues, “It wasn't our fault, we didn't intentionally put the blood down there. We didn't want this to happen. We feel for them. I'd be just as mad as they are, in their shoes.” Shoes, of course, covered in animal blood.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Another stellar day in the history of the Nets, as they sell Julius Winfield Erving II (Dr. J) to the Philadelphia 76ers on this day in 1976. Known for that great afro, Dr. J then had a stellar 10-year career with the Sixers. An historian later noted: “Dr. J was like Thomas Edison, he was always inventing something new every night.”
WORD OF THE DAY
WIT OF THE DAY
TODAY'S TRUMPISM
WEATHER IN A WORD
Shiny
THE NEW 60
A Jaffe Briefing Exclusive
by Andy Landorf & John Colquhoun
