The Jaffe Briefing - February 11, 2022

TRENTON – Assemblyman John McKeon is telling Politico the story of how he ordered a “Baby on Board” magnet for his daughter. That little magnet arrived a few days later in a box that could fit an item 20 times larger. We’ve all been there, muttering to ourselves when an overwhelmingly large box arrives, containing, say, a toothbrush. So he has introduced a proposed law – fining Amazon and other big retailers for shipping products in boxes more than twice their size. There’s an easy solution: using those bubble mailing envelopes. Anyway, the law is pretty stiff – when you think of all the online volume. Violators would be smacked with fines of $250 to $500 per offense and focuses on all the mega-retailers, with more than $1 million in gross sales in New Jersey every year.

CAMDEN – The talk at the beginning of the week was Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to lift the school mask mandate by March 7. And the discussion at the end of the week is about all the school districts choosing to ignore the decision, keeping the mask requirement going. TAPInto reports that school officials in both Newark and Camden will be extending the mask mandate, despite the fact the infection rates continue to drop in New Jersey and kids haven’t breathed freely in schools since September 2020. Expect the policy to be all over the place, as the governor left it to school districts to make the ultimate decision. But, hey, this unpopular issue is no longer in his hands, right? Everyone wins.

OFF THE RAILS – Every once in a while, it’s refreshing to see a bureaucratic board member be the lone “no” vote on an expenditure. And that’s why the Record is writing about James D. Adams, serving on the NJ Transit board of directors for three years. He has been the single ‘no’ vote on the agency’s budgets, after continually asking that the board have a bigger say in preparation so issues can be hashed out. Adams also is making such crazy demands as asking for budget options, identifying new and innovative ways to cope with financial struggles. He even wants to end the practice of cannibalizing the capital fund – a tried-and-true transit tradition. In voting “no” against this $2.65 billion spending plan, Adams said that “the biggest culprit of NJ Transit's faulty budgeting is a more than 30-year habit of annually moving hundreds of millions of dollars from the capital fund to balance the operating budget,” adding it has become “a glaring addiction the agency can’t seem to quit.” Wow. Maybe Adams has some friends willing to serve.

BRIEFING BREATHER

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

RANDOLPH – The local school board needs to stop tinkering with the school calendar. Last year, the board made statewide news by trying to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Person’s Day and then trying to eliminate all holiday names from the school calendar. That prompted packed board meetings, with people waving signs and calling for heads on spikes. So, lesson learned, right? Not at all. Meetings are again packed, with the school board trying to take away one of the two Rosh Hashana holidays. Jewish people, in particular, are rightfully ticked. One community member tells the Daily Record: "Imagine if somebody said to you, 'We're going to give you Christmas off, but we're only going to give you a half a day.'" A plea to the Randolph school board: Just stop. Of course, there’s a petition against the school board’s decision.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

TITTENSOR, UK – Uh, let’s get it on? A UK animal park is hoping for some sexual healing this Valentine’s Day, hiring a Marvin Gaye tribute artist to serenade monkeys so they could spring into mating season. There is really no time to monkey around here, as births are vital for the critically-endangered Barbary Macaques from Morocco and Algeria. It’s all on Instagram; the singer performing Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” while wearing a flamboyant white suit in front of some very unimpressed monkeys. Officials at the Trentham Monkey Forest also say he sang “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” hoping that might spark the mood. And, yep, we have the clip.

INGLEWOOD, CA. – Even though the Rams are the tops in the NFC, their balance sheet has more holes than the Giants offensive line. The team owes a boatload of cash after moving to LA and privately financing SoFi Stadium – the most expensive football stadium in history – for $5.5 billion. And last year, the team’s operating income was only $37 million. And no one cares. Why? The real cash for Rams ownership is all the land surrounding the stadium in Hollywood Park, which they are eagerly redeveloping into fancy homes, offices, retail and other expensive goodies. So the Rams – in fact – are the loss leader in a gigantic real estate deal. The Rams won’t make any real money under that stadium debt. But the redeveloped properties surrounding the place – more than three times the size of Disneyland – will rake in cash, over and over.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

It was this day in 1979 that Billy Joel won a Grammy for “Just the Way You Are.” Don’t go changing…

WORD OF THE DAY

Somnambulant – [sämˈnambyələnt] – adjective

Definition: Resembling or characteristic of a sleepwalker; sluggish.

Example: Courtesy of The New York Times: “Mr. Castor, the first to speak, delivered a rambling, almost somnambulant defense of the former president for nearly an hour.”

WIT OF THE DAY

“Our goal here is to go around the outrageous Iron Curtain of censorship and get facts to the American people."

-Rudy Giuliani

BIDEN BLURB

“There's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

- Joe Biden, referring to Giuliani

WEATHER IN A WORD

50s!