2/16/16 Protestors at Christie's Budget Propsal Arrive With Mops in Hand, Cydney Long, NBC10 Philadelphia
2/16/16 Advocacy Groups Band Together Ahead of Budget Address, Alyana Alfaro, PolitickerNJ
TRENTON – Ahead of Governor Chris Christie’s annual budget address, New Jersey advocacy groups gathered in the State House Annex to express their hopes for the coming fiscal year, the issues they feel need to be addressed and what they believe Governor Chris Christie will discuss. Representatives from New Jersey Working Families Alliance, the Anti-Poverty network, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), Planned Parenthood Action Fund of NJ, Environment NJ, the Sierra Club and more were present. They spoke on issues as varied as lead contamination and it’s impacts on NJ’s children, child poverty, education cuts, Medicaid cuts to family planning, ongoing Hurricane Sandy relief, transit issues, empowering Main Street above corporations, clean energy and the state’s settlement with ExxonMobil (many criticize the $225 million accepted due to valuations that damages near the nine billion dollar mark). According to Working Families NJ Director Analilia Mejia, the diverse group, known as Better Choices for New Jersey, demonstrates the changes that need to be made in Governor Chris Christie’s approach to the budget across the spectrum. She said that the main thing the coalition is focused on is putting the people of New Jersey ahead of tax breaks for millionaires and corporations, leading to better use of state funds in the budget. “Budgets are moral documents,” Mejia said. “Through this administration our Governor has shown that he prioritizes the wealthy and the well-connected rather than working families.” Mejia said that, because the budget shapes the flow of all of the state’s dollars, wide representation from groups in the coalition is critical. “The impact on working families is broad and, therefore, we have a broad range of advocates here,” she said. “[Governor Christie] is going to focus again on his theory that trickle-down works. Under this administration we have given away billions of dollars to the wealthy. He is trying to give away more of it and then tell us all there is not enough.” Like Mejia, the other advocates were pessimistic about what Governor Christie’s 2 p.m. address would hold. NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer, discussed how priorities like making sure public workers received their due and protecting public employees were critical. “They won’t be the priorities you are going to hear at 2 o’clock,” Steinhauer said. “You may wonder why he has put his needs ahead of New Jerseys. The fact is very clear, he has turned his back on federal funding. The reason he is doing that is because he is appealing to the people of Iowa and New Hampshire. Well, his candidacy for the presidency is dead. But do you think his priorities will suddenly change?” The CWA’s Hetty Rosenstein expressed similar expectations for the budget address. “I think we know what we are going to hear today from the Governor about what choices there are,” Rosenstein said. “The real choices are about funding services and meeting our promises. We know that if we pass a constitutional amendment that makes these payments be made, that if we don’t give 700 million in fees from the pension to Wall Street, we could meet all the needs.” Joe Karcz of the New Jersey Organizing Project represented those who are still struggling with the aftereffects of Hurricane Sandy, the colossal 2012 storm that wreaked havoc on much of the Jersey Shore and the surrounding area. “I am not a politician, I am not a speaker, I am a union construction worker. I am a single dad trying to support two teenage boys,” he said. “These are all decisions by Mr. Christie that effect the people who pay his salary and put him in those chambers.” Governor Christie’s budget address will be at 2 p.m. at the State House in Trenton. Despite the dwindling Transportation Trust Fund, Governor Christie’s remarks are not expected to provide a plan to solve the TTF issue. The address will be Governor Christie’s first public appearance since the end of his presidential run. Read more at Advocacy Groups Band Together Ahead of Budget Address | New Jersey News, Politics, Opinion, and Analysis Follow us: @politickernj on Twitter | PolitickerNJ on Facebook 2/16/2106 The Record: Jersey was shorted , Editorial Board, The Bergen Record
WHEN NEW Jersey gets the short end of the stick in a $1 billion federal grant competition to combat future storms, officials have to find out why. Democrats, who control the Legislature, sought to do that last week with a committee hearing into why the state received only $15 million, the smallest of 13 grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to prepare for weather emergencies similar to Superstorm Sandy. The state had sought $300 million, mostly to control flooding by building berms in the Meadowlands. In comparison with the $15 million awarded to New Jersey, New York City received a $176 million grant and Minot, N.D., a city of around 50,000, got $74.3 million. Rather than testify before the committee, Christie administration officials and GOP legislators dismissed the proceedings as a political stunt and said the committee should seek answers from HUD. A spokeswoman for the Republican governor said HUD's assessment of the state's application was "questionable." The federal government is always an easy target, and HUD's criteria may need examination. However, HUD officials already have said that the state's application was lacking. In fact, Julian Castro, the HUD secretary, said last month that "New Jersey submitted a weaker application on several measures" and that its overall score was at the cutoff to receive funding. Before questioning HUD, the administration should explain why it submitted the application it did. On the surface, there are obvious concerns here. While Sandy devastated large swaths of Monmouth and Ocean counties, the state's application for what is called the Meadowlands Regional Resilience Pilot Project focused primarily on Bergen County. Berm construction was projected to start along the Hackensack River near Route 80 and travel south to Route 3 and then a bit west to Route 17. Oddly, the application also included a proposal for a bus depot in the Meadowlands area. The application suggests that more mass transit will be needed because the flood protection measures will spur economic revitalization. That may be true, but should a plan to build a bus station be part of an application seeking money to prevent flooding? That's something for the administration, not HUD, to explain. And as a representative of an advocacy group founded by residents whose homes were damaged by Sandy told the committee, state officials also should explain why their application neglected to request funds for flood control for southern New Jersey. Democrats are talking about using subpoena power to force administration officials to testify. That is certainly an option. Yet there should be bipartisan unhappiness in Trenton that New Jersey's grant was so meager. The HUD evaluation process may have been faulty, but before anyone blames the federal government, the public needs to know why the state made the application it did. It should not take a subpoena for the administration to explain that. But if it does, so be it. An explanation is needed. 2/13/16 Christie's back home, Sandy victims are not, Mark Di Ionno, Star-Ledger
When we first met Joseph Ready, his Sandy-wrecked home in Union Beach was jacked 20 feet in the air, uninhabitable for his family, but open to feral cats and vandals. The cats left bird carcasses on his floors and the vandals clogged the toilet. He was living in a FEMA trailer, paying $850 a month in rent and the bank that held his mortgage was breathing down his neck. His state-appointed contractor was nowhere to be found and the $160,000 payment it received from the state's Rehabilitation, Reconstruction, Elevation and Mitigation (RREM) was all spent. That was last July, four months after Sandy protesters crashed a Chris Christie presidential campaign stop in Iowa with "Finish the Job" signs. Now Christie is back home and Joe Ready is not. And, after Christie's conditional veto of a bill that would have temporarily stopped foreclosure proceedings on Sandy victims, Ready may never get there. "I expect it will go up in a sheriff's sale before I get in. We're pretty far along in the process," he said. Joe Ready is one of several thousand Sandy victims still out of their primary homes. How many is hard to say. A drive through places as distant and disparate as Moonachie, Newark's Ironbound, Union Beach, Ortley Beach and the small villages along the Delaware Bay tells the story. Homes are still boarded up, lots are cleared and storage units are sitting in front of houses under construction. For some homeowners, demolition or elevation hasn't even begun. In the RREM program alone, only about one-third of homeowners are finished with construction. According to Lisa Ryan, the Department of Community Affairs spokeswoman, there are about 8,000 people in the RREM program. Of those, 6,765 have "received notices to proceed with construction. Of those, 2,631 have completed construction and are back home, and 4,134 remain 'under construction.' " Ryan said that doesn't necessarily mean those 4,134 owners are out of their homes. In DCA parlance, "under construction" means the homeowners might still be home, waiting for construction to begin. "The bottom line is this – way more than half the people are either out of their homes or going to be out of their homes soon," said Amanda Devecka-Rinear, one of the Iowa protesters. "Either way, they're not home for good. That is unacceptable this long after the storm." Devecka-Rinear heads the New Jersey Organizing Project, formed in response to the myriad problems in the government's Sandy recovery programs. "I know people are sick of hearing about it," she said. "But imagine how sick the people are of living it." Count Ready among them. "Well, at least the dead birds are gone," he said. "And they're back working on the house – when they feel like it. There's been no steady work, but they say it will be another three or four months. I'll believe it when I see it." By then, he may not own it. No one knows how many homeowners are trying to juggle rent and mortgage payments on their wrecked homes after years of endless paperwork, well-documented insurance fraud and an overwhelmed recovery program that can't meet every need quickly. For people like Ready, it's the mortgage ball that usually hits the ground first. "You have to make an awful choice," he said. "Become homeless (for not paying rent) or lose your house." Ryan said the state has expanded its rental assistance program and is still taking applicants, but that only 1,240 RREM homeowners remain in the program. But that doesn't count the people not in RREM. "We held two meetings recently in Keansburg and Manahawkin, and plenty of people were talking about how they can't pay their mortgages and the banks aren't willing to give modifications," she said. "This idea of people losing their homes is super, super real." Real enough for legislators from places as distant and disparate as Hudson and Cumberland counties to sponsor bills to stop foreclosure on Sandy victims, provided they weren't in foreclosure before the storm. Assembly bill A4139 and Senate bill S2577, which were introduced in late 2014 and passed by both houses last December, demanded that banks halt foreclosure on homes in the state RREM program and the LMI (low- and moderate-income) rebuilding program until 60 days after they were reoccupied. On Jan. 11, Christie conditionally vetoed the bill, meaning he sent it back, rewritten. Christie said he was worried the state might somehow be liable for unpaid payments. "He eviscerated it. He made it meaningless. His CV (conditional veto) effectively destroys the intent of the bill," said Assemblyman Gary Schaer, whose 36th District includes Bergen and Passaic counties. Christie's rewrite doesn't change the foreclosure process for Sandy victims, or give them any latitude. It returns the proceedings to state Superior Court, just as always. "This wasn't a handout," said Schaer, who chairs the Assembly budget committee. "It gave people who were behind on their mortgages – through no fault of their own – a chance to recover. It didn't subsidize them. It simply postponed the process until they got themselves in better stead. "It's been fairly obvious that we, as a state, have failed these people," Schaer said. "Two things have been absolutely clear (during the recovery): These people have not received the aid they were promised in a timely manner and the state has done little to correct it." Those living it call it the disaster after the disaster, and the hits – like the foreclosure relief veto – just keep coming. "At some point, you ask yourself how much you can take," Ready said. "You really do." Mark Di Ionno may be reached at [email protected]. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook. 2/11/16 Christie administration not answering questions on lack of federal aid for flood protection2/11/2016 2/11/16 Christie administration not answering questions on lack of federal aid for flood protection, John Ensslin, The Record
Democratic lawmakers — questioning why New Jersey received only $15 million from a $1 billion federal competition intended to help protect states from disasters like Superstorm Sandy — said Thursday that they will seek subpoena power to get answers if the Christie administration isn’t more forthcoming. That’s the same process lawmakers used when they investigated the George Washington Bridge scandal, a method that produced thousands of pages of documents and resulted in court challenges over subpoenas that sought testimony from those involved. Administration officials declined an invitation to testify at a hearing held Thursday by the Legislative Oversight Committee, calling the move by lawmakers “political.” Thursday was the first day after Governor Christie ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Sen. Robert Gordon, D-Fair Lawn, the committee chairman, said he doesn’t want the proceedings to become adversarial. “But if the administration continues to maintain radio silence and in effect thumbs its nose at the legislative branch, we will certainly exercise our constitutional responsibility,” he added. “I will go to the full Senate and request subpoena authority.” The committee wants to find out what went wrong with a grant application that resulted in New Jersey winning the smallest amount of money in the competition for disaster resiliency funds — an application the U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary called “weaker” than the others when he detailed the funding last month. New Jersey was among 40 finalists that made the final cut in the HUD competition last June. The state had asked for $300 million, with most of it proposed for flood control in the Meadowlands. They received just $15 million, compared with $176 million for New York City and another $35.8 million for New York State. HUD Secretary Julian Castro told reporters in a conference call in January that “New Jersey submitted a weaker application on several measures.” On Thursday, witnesses that did appear before the committee called the state’s application “crazy,” “astonishing,” “disappointing” and “obscene.” One of them was Amanda Devecka Rinear, of the New Jersey Organizing Project, an advocacy group founded by residents whose homes were damaged by Superstorm Sandy. “I find it incredible that an application for disaster resiliency didn’t include the four counties that were hardest hit,” she said, referring to Atlantic, Ocean, Monmouth and Cape May counties. She later called the application “an epic fail.” Brief partisan tussle The 90-minute hearing began with a brief partisan skirmish over who was not in attendance. Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, questioned why no one from the state Department of Environmental Protection, which submitted the grant application, had accepted the committee’s invitation to speak. She also suggested the committee seek subpoena power from the entire Senate to compel their testimony. “We need those very same people who have that [information] to give us the courtesy to come here,” she said. But Republican members of the committee questioned why no federal officials were called to the hearing. “I think it’s fine to have department heads from the state government come here,” said Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, R-Monmouth. “But we should ask HUD to come here and explain to us why they didn’t think New Jersey’s application was sufficient.” When asked about the DEP’s absence from the hearing, a Christie spokeswoman said the committee should be seeking answers from HUD officials. “It’s hard to view this hearing as anything but political, given the lack of information from HUD on their questionable treatment of New Jersey,” Christie spokeswoman Joelle Farrell wrote in an email. She called HUD’s scoring process and criteria “highly subjective” and questioned why the agency put the $1 billion in grant money up for a national competition rather than apply it to the areas hardest hit by Sandy. “HUD’s explanation makes no sense whatsoever and only raises more questions that demand answers and an investigation by Congress or the inspector general,” Farrell added. “Rather than conduct political committee hearings, the legislative Democrats should be seeking answers from HUD.” Application content Several witnesses, however, raised questions about what New Jersey chose to include and not include in its application, including a bus station in the Meadowlands. “One of the things about this application that really astonished me and I still don’t understand and I just wished someone could explain it to me in a way that makes sense, is how building a bus station in the Meadowlands protects anybody from flooding?” said Bill Sheehan of the Hackensack Riverkeeper environmental group. Sheehan, after the hearing, questioned whether requests like that had less to do with flood control and more to do with the fact that the state’s Transportation Trust Fund is nearly out of money. He also questioned if a spate of retirements from the ranks of the DEP in recent years might have hurt the agency’s ability to draft a highly technical application. Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, questioned whether New Jersey’s application lost points for not addressing issues such as sea level rise and climate change. He also said the application suffered by not presenting an overall climate resiliency plan. “It can’t be done town by town, it has to be done regionally,” he said. Robert Freudenberg, director of energy and environment at the Regional Plan Association, said some of New Jersey’s competitors have done better on that score. “New York City is ahead of the curve on resiliency,” he said. Gordon said he plans to continue the hearings and hopes to have representatives of both the DEP and HUD testify. 2/11/2016 Christie administration not answering question on lack of federal aid for flood insurance.2/11/2016 2/11/16 Christie administration not answering questions on lack of federal aid for flood protection, John Ensslin, The Bergen Record
Democratic lawmakers — questioning why New Jersey received only $15 million from a $1 billion federal competition intended to help protect states from disasters like Superstorm Sandy — said Thursday that they will seek subpoena power to get answers if the Christie administration isn’t more forthcoming. That’s the same process lawmakers used when they investigated the George Washington Bridge scandal, a method that produced thousands of pages of documents and resulted in court challenges over subpoenas that sought testimony from those involved. Administration officials declined an invitation to testify at a hearing held Thursday by the Legislative Oversight Committee, calling the move by lawmakers “political.” Thursday was the first day after Governor Christie ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Sen. Robert Gordon, D-Fair Lawn, the committee chairman, said he doesn’t want the proceedings to become adversarial. “But if the administration continues to maintain radio silence and in effect thumbs its nose at the legislative branch, we will certainly exercise our constitutional responsibility,” he added. “I will go to the full Senate and request subpoena authority.” The committee wants to find out what went wrong with a grant application that resulted in New Jersey winning the smallest amount of money in the competition for disaster resiliency funds — an application the U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary called “weaker” than the others when he detailed the funding last month. New Jersey was among 40 finalists that made the final cut in the HUD competition last June. The state had asked for $300 million, with most of it proposed for flood control in the Meadowlands. They received just $15 million, compared with $176 million for New York City and another $35.8 million for New York State. HUD Secretary Julian Castro told reporters in a conference call in January that “New Jersey submitted a weaker application on several measures.” On Thursday, witnesses that did appear before the committee called the state’s application “crazy,” “astonishing,” “disappointing” and “obscene.” One of them was Amanda Devecka Rinear, of the New Jersey Organizing Project, an advocacy group founded by residents whose homes were damaged by Superstorm Sandy. “I find it incredible that an application for disaster resiliency didn’t include the four counties that were hardest hit,” she said, referring to Atlantic, Ocean, Monmouth and Cape May counties. She later called the application “an epic fail.” Brief partisan tussle The 90-minute hearing began with a brief partisan skirmish over who was not in attendance. Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, questioned why no one from the state Department of Environmental Protection, which submitted the grant application, had accepted the committee’s invitation to speak. She also suggested the committee seek subpoena power from the entire Senate to compel their testimony. “We need those very same people who have that [information] to give us the courtesy to come here,” she said. But Republican members of the committee questioned why no federal officials were called to the hearing. “I think it’s fine to have department heads from the state government come here,” said Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, R-Monmouth. “But we should ask HUD to come here and explain to us why they didn’t think New Jersey’s application was sufficient.” When asked about the DEP’s absence from the hearing, a Christie spokeswoman said the committee should be seeking answers from HUD officials. “It’s hard to view this hearing as anything but political, given the lack of information from HUD on their questionable treatment of New Jersey,” Christie spokeswoman Joelle Farrell wrote in an email. She called HUD’s scoring process and criteria “highly subjective” and questioned why the agency put the $1 billion in grant money up for a national competition rather than apply it to the areas hardest hit by Sandy. “HUD’s explanation makes no sense whatsoever and only raises more questions that demand answers and an investigation by Congress or the inspector general,” Farrell added. “Rather than conduct political committee hearings, the legislative Democrats should be seeking answers from HUD.” Application content Several witnesses, however, raised questions about what New Jersey chose to include and not include in its application, including a bus station in the Meadowlands. “One of the things about this application that really astonished me and I still don’t understand and I just wished someone could explain it to me in a way that makes sense, is how building a bus station in the Meadowlands protects anybody from flooding?” said Bill Sheehan of the Hackensack Riverkeeper environmental group. Sheehan, after the hearing, questioned whether requests like that had less to do with flood control and more to do with the fact that the state’s Transportation Trust Fund is nearly out of money. He also questioned if a spate of retirements from the ranks of the DEP in recent years might have hurt the agency’s ability to draft a highly technical application. Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, questioned whether New Jersey’s application lost points for not addressing issues such as sea level rise and climate change. He also said the application suffered by not presenting an overall climate resiliency plan. “It can’t be done town by town, it has to be done regionally,” he said. Robert Freudenberg, director of energy and environment at the Regional Plan Association, said some of New Jersey’s competitors have done better on that score. “New York City is ahead of the curve on resiliency,” he said. Gordon said he plans to continue the hearings and hopes to have representatives of both the DEP and HUD testify. |
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January 2020
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