The Jaffe Briefing - January 25, 2019
STATEWIDE - Not to stress you out, but you are also suffering from "micro-stresses." Sigh. And what exactly is that? NJ 101.5 reports on a new study that claims New Jerseyans waste 30 minutes a day - equal to 24 days a year - worrying about the little things. Did I do a crappy job shaving this morning? Did I remember to wave to Martha? Why is one of my socks pulled higher than the other? Yeah, all this nonsense is just eating our brains. Moreover, 60 percent of respondents claimed that all these micro-stresses are messing with our sleep as we stress over the fact that we are not sleeping and how that will affect all our other micro-stresses tomorrow. No wonder New Jersey is filled with road rage.
TRENTON - New Jersey has been dishing out billions of dollars in tax incentives to businesses for years and few lawmakers have raised a peep. But with the scathing, heavily-publicized audit from the State Comptroller, officials are suddenly demanding action. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal is engaged, and Gov. Phil Murphy spent time in his State of the State address to hammer these apparent sweetheart deals. And, just yesterday, NJ Spotlight reports, the governor announced a task force to "conduct an in-depth examination of the deficiencies in the design, implementation, and oversight" of this thing. We're talking subpoena power, as well as an all-star legal team featuring an expert investigator in New York public corruption. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders in the Assembly and Senate - never to play second fiddle - are calling for their own legislative hearings in February. Read NJ Spotlight to keep it all straight.
ATLANTIC CITY - What? Could it be that local politicians attend the League of Municipalities conference just to party? No! Can't be! But, wait. The Record is reporting that, of the 1,092 municipal officials with badges who went to November's three-day conference from the NorthJersey.com coverage area, only 37.6 percent used them to attend a class. One reporter noted that hundreds of people milled around the exhibitor floor, yet few classes were filled to capacity. Except for one: a standing-room-only crowd on the topic of legalizing pot. This is where we insert a "Hmm." Hmm.
UNION TOWNSHIP - Kean University to its seniors: Get out. The school is now dangling a carrot to students to graduate in four years, handing out $1,000 in cold, hard cash to help offset the cost of taking summer classes. Through the new "Graduate Incentive Program," the extra money is an enticement to shepherd these young academics through their classes and into a glorious graduation gown. In the first year, school officials said, 65 students took advantage, boosting Kean's four-year graduation rate by nearly 5 percent. School officials says they are doing "everything we can to provide students with support," such as this gentle, yet swift, bump in the rear.
TRENTON - Federal workers aren't the only ones wondering when they will be paid - city workers are also sweating out this week's paychecks. The Trentonianis reporting a snafu with the payroll company, with a "flaw" in the computer system that processes the checks for 1,200 city workers. The company downplayed this "costly blunder," saying, if anything, that workers will see more money in their checks, (also an obvious concern.) It appears this "glitch" is messing with employee tax withholdings. That means a 24-hour delay, or longer, for the depositing of funds into workers' bank accounts. But at least the money is coming. Eventually.
STATEWIDE - Don't have a cow that's pregnant brought to slaughter. That's the gist of proposed legislation from Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly. He calls it "Brianna's Law," named for a pregnant cow that jumped off a cattle trailer on Route 80 in Paterson to escape a slaughterhouse. She gave birth days later at a Wantage sanctuary. Wimberly's measure would make it illegal to kill or transport pregnant livestock for slaughter, with fines of up to $10,000 and 18 months in prison plus civil penalties. Wimberly tells The Record: "It's the right thing to do. It's the moral thing to do... protecting something that really can't protect itself."
IN THE MEDIA
Just when you think New Jersey newsrooms can't get any emptier,Gannett strikes again. The newspaper giant, owner of such former journalistic juggernauts as the Record and the Asbury Park Press, is announcing yet another round of staff cutting, if that could be feasible. Locally, that includes six layoffs at the Record, after nine staffers took a retirement buyout earlier this month, Poynter reports. Why the latest hit? Gannett is financially struggling and appears to be trimming down to be an attractive product, after Digital First Media submitted an unsolicited offer to buy USA Today and 109 media companies that Gannett owns. But, with all these layoffs, after two decades of consolidation and draconian belt-tightening, is there anything really left to buy?
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1908 that the first Boy Scout troop was organized by Robert Baden-Powell in England, creating a whole new use for Pinewood.
WORD OF THE DAY
Cumulate - [KYOO-myə-layt] - verb
Definition: To gather in a pile or heap
Example: "I am going to cumulate all votes and get into the Baseball Hall of Fame," says Mariano Rivera.
WIT OF THE DAY
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"If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead."
- Johnny Carson
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WEATHER IN A WORD
Plunging
THE NEW 60
A Jaffe Briefing exclusive
by Andy Landorf & John Colquhoun
