Posted by admin on February 25th, 2010 in Uncategorized
Mercer County Sheriff Kevin Larkin made a “mistake” when he stopped a class at Mercer County College because he didn’t like the content of the class:
[Associate Professor Michael] Glass, teaching a State and Local Polices course, said to his class that Larkin collects an $85,000 pension and a $129,000 salary as sheriff, cited published reports that Larkin needs to pay child support — which Larkin denies — and allegedly mockingly offered Larkin’s cell phone number to the women in the class, according to the report.
No matter what the Professor said in class, it is inappropriate for anyone not invited to participate in the class to interrupt it. Technically, doing so is trespassing. You see, the college has the obligation to hold that class because it is a contractual arrangement with students. The whole idea of having a classroom is that it locks the outside world away so everyone can focus on the topic of discussion.
It should be noted that Sheriff Larkin is unrepentant:
“I’ve known Mike Glass for 30 years, and I apologize for any violation of school policy,” Larkin said.
If faced with the same situation now, Larkin said, his feelings would be the same but his actions would be different.
“I certainly would defend myself, but I would not do it in violation of school policy,” Larkin said.
So it seems that the Sheriff is ignorant of school policy…except that later in that same article, he says:
Larkin, who graduated from Mercer in 1987, said it is not uncommon for visitors to arrive in the middle of class.
“I was an alumnus, and I was employed by that college for five and a half years (as a security officer) and I saw classes being interrupted all the time,” he said.
First of all, let me be the first to officially say the Sheriff is full of shit. Continue reading this post…
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 19th, 2010 in Uncategorized
If Governor Christie really wants to save New Jersey some money, I’d suggest he start with some housecleaning. The New Jersey Constitution limits the organization of the executive branch to no more than twenty departments (with the ability to have temporary departments from time to time). However, sort of alongside the normal departmental organization, there is a host of “agencies” (about 70) that are “in but not of” various departments. In my opinion, they represent an unconstitutional extension of the executive.
It isn’t that I think, for example, the State Parole Board shouldn’t exist. I just don’t think it should exist outside of the Department of Corrections. It is telling to understand why such organization might exist…and why it really does.
The theoretical purpose for independent governmental agencies is that they are supposed to insulate a regulatory body from the political process. Some things are so important, the thinking goes, that they should not face budget cuts or operational changes due to the outcome of an election. Fine. But is everything of such vital importance?
Hardly. A new study by the Office of Inspector General gives us a hint – it’s the money.
Continue reading this post…
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 12th, 2010 in Uncategorized
A writer over at Blue Jersey thinks the newly formed New Jersey Conservative Party is going to be a force to be reckoned with. I’m sure he will find an ethusiastic following…but whether or not they will be in sufficient number to truly change things in NJ politics is doubtful.
I’m not knocking Illions, whose passion I admire (even as I disagree with him on many issues). It’s just that our system is set against his success. The simplest explanation is to cite Duverger’s Law, named after the French political scientist who studied democratic and social institutions . Basically, Duverger discovered a connection between “Single member district plurality” (SMDP) systems and the existence of two party systems. A “plurality” exists when someone gets more votes than their competitors, but not enough to reach an actual majority (defined as 50% of the vote, plus one more vote). This means there is no literal minimum percentage a person needs to take office.
Continue reading this post…
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 12th, 2010 in Uncategorized
My friends over at Blue Jersey are raising the issue of what I’ll call “de facto tax hikes.” It’s a tactic that conservatives have long used to unfairly portray Democrats as “tax and spend liberals” who are just too sneaky to tax you outright. For example, when Jon Corzine tried to cut municipal aid to cities, we heard this kind of protest:
“Cutting municipal aid is really not cutting government,” said Sen. Phil Haines, R-Burlington. “It’s a tax increase.”
Now, I can’t find any direct quote From Senator Haines on the State of Fiscal Emergency, but this is what his Senate Majority Leader, Tom Kean, Jr. had to say:
“It’s also worth noting that his plan for balancing the budget, unlike proposals by other governors over the last eight years, contains no unconstitutional borrowing, tax increases or irresponsible accounting gimmicks,” Senator Kean said. “No other governor over the last eight years has proposed such a responsible and fiscally sound plan for closing a deficit.
Well, different people are entitled to different opinions on what is and isn’t a tax increase. But this is just a matter of the cuts being wielded by the other hand. How else can we explain this partisan flop as well as Democrats who voted for municipal cuts in 2008 now decrying Christie for “raising taxes?”
Continue reading this post…
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 9th, 2010 in Uncategorized
Pension reform is afoot:
The proposals would require workers and retirees at all levels of government and local school districts to contribute to their own health care costs, ban part-time workers at the state and local levels from participating in the underfunded state pension system, cap sick leave payouts for all public employees and constitutionally require the state to fully fund its pension obligations each year. They would also eliminate multiple pensions and change how pensions are calculated, including for police and fire personnel.
While most of the reforms would apply to future workers, current employees would have to contribute at least 1.5 percent of their base salary towards their health care costs.
In other words…the pensions system is going to be changed to something that looks like you’d find in a private company. Of course, the Unions are going to fight it – as they should because it would represent a loss of cash from their members. But I think the end of this is that reform is badly needed, and it’s better to do it now rather than wait for the inevitable collapse.
Also, lobbyists should be thrown out of the system:
Legislators at one time granted taxpayer-paid pensions and health insurance to lobbyists from the League of Municipalities, School Boards Association, the Association of Counties and others.
Taxpayers are paying $1.3 million a year to 62 nongovernment retirees.
It’s a drop in the bucket, but it’s a drop that doesn’t need to be dripping.
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 9th, 2010 in Uncategorized
Senator Bob Menendez is caught again. Not that he did anything illegal, but writing a federal regulator to take favorable action on a business owned by a contributor is still a shady bit of pool:
Sen. Robert Menendez, (D-N.J.) pressed federal regulators to approve the acquisition of a doomed Elizabeth bank whose officers included contributers to his campaigns, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (Subscription required).
The report said the July 21 letter from Menendez to the Federal Reserve asked the agency to approve the sale of First BankAmericano to JJR Bank Holding Co. of Brick. BankAmericano’s chairman was attorney Joseph Ginarte, who has contributed $30,000 to Menendez since 1999 and the bank’s vice chairman was state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, (D-Union).
From the WSJ article:
While lawmakers routinely forward requests from constituents to government agencies, it is rare for them to make specific requests along the lines of this letter asking specific actions, bank attorneys and congressional aides said. One reason is to avoid any appearance of trying to influence the regulatory process for political ends.
snip
When the bank failed, the shareholders, many of them board members, lost their investments. Had the acquisition been approved, Messrs. Ginarte and Lesniak still would have lost a large chunk of their investment but not all, according to First BankAmericano’s former chief executive, Holly Bakke. The size and value of their investments couldn’t be learned.
Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey urged the Fed to save a struggling bank in his state. But he didn’t disclose his link to campaign contributors who were on the bank’s board. The Fed didn’t act on the request.
William Black, a federal bank regulator during the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago, and like Mr. Menendez a Democrat, called the senator’s letter “grotesquely inappropriate,” given his ties to the two directors. Mr. Black, now a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said the letter crossed an unofficial line by asking regulators to approve an application instead of simply asking that it be given consideration.
The article goes on to say that Menendez claims: “If any New Jersey constituent—regardless if it is a family or a local community bank—comes to me seeking assistance with a legitimate federal matter, not only is it important to help, I was elected to help. Telling them ‘no’ would be abdicating my responsibility.”
Agreed. So where are the identical letters for the other banks in NJ that failed?
I’m not denying that the benefits to not letting the bank fail would have been spread throughout entire communities. But why should a bank have to “serve mostly Hispanics” to get attention? Honestly, our community banks, in every community, needed help. It shouldn’t come at the cost of political support…or even the appearance of such support.
Menendez should know better. The fact he got caught up in this shows that he simply doesn’t care about ethical rules.
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 7th, 2010 in Uncategorized
Sorry, this is going to be a long one. So I’m breaking it into sections.
Section 1: The News
The Star-Ledger offers us competing opinions on taxes and the Great Exodus from New Jersey. First up, conservative commentator, Paul Mulshine:
The reaction to McGreevey’s class warfare [note: income tax increase on high wage earners] was similar. The wealthy fled New Jersey or just declined to move here. New Jersey’s net drop in wealth between 2004 and 2008 was $70 billion, the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy stated.
Mulshine makes a direct connection between the increase in income tax and the loss of wealth. His fellow columnist, Tom Moran, however, isn’t so sure:
For a careful academic like John Havens, a specialist on wealth at Boston College, these are trying times.
He finished a study last week that showed New Jersey lost nearly $70 billion in net wealth from 2004 to 2008 because we lost more wealthy people than we gained.
Then the politicians got a hold of it. And suddenly the report was twisted out of shape, presented as proof that New Jersey must rush to cut income taxes on the rich by $1 billion in the midst of our worst budget shortfall ever.
“I didn’t say that,” Havens says. “Taxes are just one possiblity.”
In fact, Havens thinks the causes of this trend may lie elsewhere. But no matter. His study now has the status of a rotten tomato in Trenton’s latest food fight. It’s going to be used as the combatants see fit.
Moran goes on to say that the State Treasury Department shows the number of families earning more than $500,000 has actually increased during the time McGreevey’s and Corzine’s income tax hikes were in effect – and then quotes State Senator Joe Pennacchio’s disbelief in those numbers.
Continue reading this post…
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 5th, 2010 in Uncategorized
You could almost see it coming:
Mayor Dana Redd has added at least five former aides to former Gov. Jon Corzine to her staff.
Redd, who was sworn in last month, has faced criticism from Republicans for pushing to increase the maximum salaries for some top staff positions.
Redd said she needed the higher guidelines to be able to hire the former state employees at their former salaries.
So she didn’t need higher pay to get qualified people. She just wanted to make sure her buddies didn’t have to take a reasonable pay cut. You know, it’s the old “friends-and-family” theory of hiring. Given that the new mayor is starting out with a rash of budget busting patronage moves, should we perhaps start wondering how long it will be until the state takes over (again) and the new mayor has to join the old one?
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 5th, 2010 in Uncategorized
Trenton lawmakers are falling all over themselves to make it look like they are outraged by the excesses of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) and unwilling to let it continue – so Scott Rumana wants the state to take over the patronage mill.
But it isn’t as if the PVSC is alone in its problems. Two months ago, I tried shining a spotlight on the Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority. And, it should be pointed out, the RVSA’s Board of Commissioners is no less politically connected than the PVSC’s Board. That, in itself, is neither surprising nor alarming. After all, these are appointed positions, so you’d expect them to have some political connections.
Beyond that, it is not impossible that a group of political appointees, with no real knowledge of how sewerage works, could still manage to do a decent job in managing a sewerage authority. All that is needed is an appointee who wants to serve honorably and well and will do whatever study is needed to get up to speed on the ins and outs of sewerage. Technical knowledge can always be borrowed from in-house engineers or consultants.
The problem is that we have probably hundreds of these hidden governments in New Jersey. Authorities and Commissions and Boards and whatnot that wield considerable power and influence our daily lives in ways that we aren’t even aware. Every decision they make impacts our property taxes…but we never know it because they don’t send a bill to us, the consumer. They send the bill to the municipality, who passes it along to us as part of a unified tax bill.
It’s as close to a law of human behavior as is possible to determine – if you give people power and money and never institute oversight; then you are going to have problems, in one way or another. Nepotism, patronage, extravagance, and outright corruption are only symptoms. If any improvement is ever to be made; then we have to get out of the idea that we just need more hidden government to watch hidden government.
Sphere: Related Content
Posted by admin on February 4th, 2010 in Uncategorized
I think Wally has it wrong. Shirley Turner doesn’t fear a primary challenge at all. She simply believes that gay people should have the right to be sacrificed to protect a country that denies them the right to consensual marriage.
See? Nothing cynical here. Move along. Continue reading this post…
Sphere: Related Content
