The Jaffe Briefing - November 18, 2021

MONTCLAIR – The best business slogan of the day: “Parking in Montclair Sucks, But Our Gelato Doesn't.” The Record reports about a downtown ice cream shop owner fed up with the thousands of dollars paid in parking tickets for himself and his staff. And now that most of the town's meters are busted because of a technical glitch, the parking tickets just keep on coming—even when people pay on the parking app. The shop’s staff now wear purple T-shirts with the new slogan, as a local salon and an auto parts store have ordered similar ones. The shop owner even got a ticket when he was loading dairy items to be donated to a local food pantry. Of course, this iron grip on the parking spots has also been terrible for business, as shoppers need to magically find a legal place to park and then still anticipate a ticket for the effort. It appears more than half the meters on Bloomfield Avenue in the central business district aren't working, along with about 80% on Walnut Street between Grove and Label, when Verizon unceremoniously discontinued 2G service to Montclair, forcing the meters to continually search for a signal and draining their batteries. Perhaps some leniency during this transition?

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – As New Jerseyans don’t have the patience to wait for a cup of coffee, you can imagine how ticked off many people were awaiting the election results from Nov. 2. State lawmakers are looking for more instantaneous results and are now wondering why there is a ban against counting mail-in ballots before Election Day, as well as the need to wait days before the arrival of some votes. The longer it takes for the final tally, the more suspicious of the system. For sheer credibility, why can’t vote-by-mail ballots have a deadline of Election Day, as opposed to this strange, lingering trickle? Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) sums it well: “You can drop off your vote by mail to a drop box. We have them. They’re not going away. Don’t drop them in the mail Election Day.” Meanwhile, overworked election officials had to miss the state-imposed deadline of Nov. 15 to audit, a red flag that shows stuff needs fixing.

MIDDLETOWN – You may recall the famous “flag ban,” in which the New Jersey Turnpike Authority wanted all those tattered, discolored American flags hanging from the overpasses to be removed. NJ.com reports there are now, finally, “permitted” flags hanging, as the Middletown Veterans Affairs Committee became the first in the state to secure a permit. They were out there yesterday, restoring the flags. The original flags put up by the VFW Post were taken down in November 2020, prompting the vets to file a police report. It was learned the VFW’s flags were ensnared in the Turnpike Authority’s September 2020 ban of all flags and banners from overpasses because of safety or whatever. The vets were furious, and now, like anything in New Jersey, there is a clear protocol to follow.

BRIEFING BREATHER

The blob of toothpaste on your toothbrush is called a nurdle.

ATLANTIC CITY – The revenue from sports betting appears beyond all dreams for New Jersey. In September, no one could imagine there were more than $1 billion in bets placed through the state’s nine casinos and three horse tracks, mostly online. But then the October figures were released, showing the monthly business has exploded to more than $1.3 billion. And this can’t last forever. No way. And it won’t, because New York is getting into the game, with mobile sports betting expected to be running in the Empire State before the Super Bowl in February. So, in this amazing blip of time, let’s see what kind of cash windfall can be raked in for November with the NFL season careening toward the height of interest: Playoff time.

STATEWIDE – “No SALT, no dice.” That phrase may mean absolutely nothing to you, but it’s the heart of federal property tax relief for New Jerseyans. NJ Globe reports the House could be restoring the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction today, after Reps. Josh Gottheimer, Mikie Sherrill  and other members of the New Jersey delegation demanded that property tax relief be the key to their support of the Build Back Better Act. New Jersey’s delegation has been grousing about the GOP-led bill in 2017 that limited the SALT deduction to $10,000 annually, hiking our federal taxes. Gottheimer blamed “moocher states” for gutting SALT four years ago and “stealing from New Jersey.” He said the median property tax in Bergen County is about $15,000, as compared to $4,000 in Vermont and $550 in Mississippi, a state Gottheimer contends “doesn’t invest in schools.” Whatever the case, many Jersey taxpayers will be getting more refunds from the feds. And that’s news.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

MIAMI – At the moment, a $32 million Tuscan-style villa on the Biscayne Bay is owned by a dog. That would be “Gunther the German Shepherd,” or better known as “Gunther VI,” who inherited Madonna’s old estate, an eight-bedroom waterfront home, from his grandfather, “Gunther IV.” Yeah, this is weird. The dog’s lineage dates back to when Gunther III inherited a multimillion-dollar trust from his late owner, German countess Karlotta Liebenstein when she died in 1992. Since then, a group of handlers have maintained a jet-setting lifestyle for a succession of dogs. There are trips to Milan and the Bahamas, where the latest Gunther recently dined out at restaurants every evening, the AP reports. It’s even crazier: A chef cooks his breakfast each morning made of the finest meat, fresh vegetables and rice. He travels by private jet, works on obedience skills daily with his trainer and naps in an Italian-made red velvet bed with amazing bay views. The trust is now worth $500 million, with Gunther’s handlers now thinking it’s time to sell his villa for around $25 million more than Madonna paid. Gunther, apparently, is a Material dog.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

It was this day in 1990 that Giants fans were downright euphoric, beginning the NFL season at 10-0, after thrashing the Lions, 20-0.

WORD OF THE DAY

Amity – [AM-uh-tee] – noun

Definition: friendly relations between nations, or friendship

Example: Who, if anyone, has a deep, long-lasting amity with Donald Trump?

WIT OF THE DAY

“Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.”

-Hal Holbrook

BIDEN BLURB

“We have stared into an abyss of insurrection and autocracy — of pandemic and pain — and ‘We the People’ did not flinch.”

-Joe Biden

WEATHER IN A WORD

70!