Garden State Patriot

Check out Steve’s response to Corzine’s address earlier this week

Part I

Part II

 

Dovetailing with this, I highly recommend this terrific post by Alice Shope.

Eric Sedler has a nice piece up at MoreMonmouthMusings regarding the Lonegan campaign. The title of Eric’s piece says it all: Do Not Write Off Steve Lonegan (and His Supporters).

To me, though, the question remains: is the New Jersey media paying attention? Or will they just continue to be cheerleaders for Chris Christie?

It’s been almost 30 years since the big screen flop Xanadu polluted theaters across America. Well fast-forward some 29 years and another Xanadu is causing pollution. This time it’s right in Jerseyans very own Meadowlands where the Xanadu shopping center - scheduled to open this coming summer – has been found to be quite contaminated.

Of course, that would be bad enough in and of itself but there’s more. Guess who is going to have to foot the bill for the cleanup? You guessed it – the already strapped New Jersey taxpayer.

Reacting to a story in today’s Bergen Record that more dangerous materials were discovered at the Xanadu construction site in East Rutherford, Assemblyman John Rooney (R – Bergen ) criticized the fact that taxpayers will be required to pick up the anticipated cleanup cost, estimated at over $6 million.  The recent discoveries were detailed in a report by a project engineer who stated that the contamination at the site is widespread and will remain a concern even after the shopping center opens this summer. The report also indicates that a plan for addressing the problem is being formulated by project engineers; however, it will not be submitted for the state’s approval until after the opening of the center. 

“It is more than troubling that evidence of leaking drums and contaminated bodies of water are still being discovered at Xanadu,” stated Rooney.  “It is even worse that the cost of cleaning up the site is going to be north of $6 million and paid for by the public.  Once again, New Jersey ’s taxpayers are shouldering the burden for an expense that should be the developer’s responsibility.  The state is dealing with its own toxic fiscal crisis and cannot afford to pick up the tab for a problem that should have been discovered long before now.”

The engineering report also details that the water below the development contains elevated levels of cancer-causing organic compounds as well contamination in the soil surrounding Xanadu’s foundation.  While the project’s developers and sports authority officials maintain that the site was fully investigated prior to the commencement of construction, the report from the Elmwood Park-based engineering firm indicated that the initial study failed to detect “significant” contamination at the site, which included the presence of underground fuel tanks and pools of oily refuse. Up until 1970, Alpha Oil Refining occupied the property in question.  

“Given the history of the Meadowlands, it is disconcerting that a more thorough analysis wasn’t undertaken to address the remediation necessary from the outset of the development,” continued Rooney. “The state should be investigating what happened to Alpha Oil Refining and seeking restitution for the contamination, or from their successor.  Beyond Alpha Oil, the state should examine who else operated on the site and determine whether they, too, are culpable for polluting the property.

“Just as disturbing is the news that an action plan to remedy the issue will not be submitted until after the shopping center opens.  That is a prime example of putting the cart before the horse.

“Who will take responsibility if further evidence is discovered that people’s health is at risk if they shopped at Xanadu?  This report tells me that the taxpayers and Xanadu patrons are certainly taking one on the chin.”

There’s a joke in here somewhere but I can’t seem to come up with one. Perhaps my readers can come up with something.

According to the Bergen Record, Fair Lawn borough prosecutor Mark Fierro has violated the town’s pay-to-play-ordinance. And, like all roads leading to Rome, this one leads directly to the already tainted Bergen County Democratic Organization (BCDO). Per The Record:

The borough prosecutor violated a Fair Lawn ordinance meant to curb political donations in return for no-bid contracts when his wife gave money to the Bergen County Democratic Organization, the borough attorney said Tuesday night.

In a letter to Borough Attorney Bruce Rosenberg, Prosecutor Mark Fierro wrote that his wife made out the $2,500 check in the summer of 2006, shortly after the borough passed the ordinance and asked all contractors to sign disclosure forms stating that neither they or their family members had made donations to the BCDO, Rosenberg said.

Moreover, according to town Republicans, the Democrats have set up a PAC to get around the new pay-to-pay ordinances.

Councilwoman Jeanne Baratta and fellow Republican council member Ed Trawinski have questioned donations from about 10 companies with borough contracts to accounts registered with a political action committee called Victory, because they say the political action committee has close ties to the Bergen County Democratic Organization.

“It’s the alter-ego of the BCDO for the precise purpose of being able to avoid local pay-to-play laws,” Trawinski said.

Democrats, of course, deny the charges yet somehow donations somehow ‘mistakenly’ have wound up in BCDO coffers.

But Rosenberg said he found that the Victory accounts were opened to raise money for county freeholder candidates, not borough candidates, and are therefore allowed under the ordinance. All the companies disclosed their donations to Victory before they were given contracts in the borough, he said.

In addition to the 10, Baratta has singled out the borough auditor, Ferraioli Weilkotz, Cerulla & Cuva, which she says violated the ordinance when one of its partners made a donation to the BCDO.

The firm — along with Rosenberg — says it did not violate the ordinance because a $1,750 check from partner Charles Ferraioli was made out to the Victory PAC, but was mistakenly deposited in a BCDO account. The two political organizations share an address and account administrator. 

At this point one wonders just how long Bergen County residents will continue to tolerate the rampant corruption of Bergen County Democrats. And one wonders, too, if Bergen Republicans can actually begin to make this a salient issue for voters.

The final installment of Matt Rooney’s interview is up at The Save Jersey Blog. In this last part, Matt asks Steve about public financing of campaigns, paid family leave and more. Check it out here.

The second installment of The Save Jersey Blog’s interview with Gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan is now up. In this part of the interview, Matt Rooney askes Steve his views on school choice, corruption in politics, his infamous arrest last MLK Day, among other topics. Click here to read the entire interview.

The first installment of Matt Rooney’s interview is up at The Save Jersey Blog. The discussion is wide-ranging, touching upon the state of New Jersey’s economy, why the GOP has become the minority party in this state and why Steve decided to run after losing in 2005.

Check it out - and check out the second installment on Wednesday.

COAH means ex-prisoners and sex offenders in your community. Nice.

From Americans for Prosperity:

Who’s This Housing Really For?

Proponents of the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) mandates claim this housing proposal will provide for police officers and teachers who want to live in their communities.   They claim it is for our young people who want to stay in the New Jersey.  This sounds nice–if you want your child graduating college and moving into a government housing unit, alongside those described on page 15 of the 2006 Housing Report.   A careful examination of this Report  reveals that police and teachers are never mentioned except in a paragraph that references below market mortgages available through the Police and Firefighters Retirement System (PFRS), mainly because police and teachers earn well above the median average for their communities. .  No where does this report call for the provision of such housing.  

The report does, however, outline who is eligible…

Ex-offenders leaving Northern State Prison will be “mainstreamed” into your neighborhood.  Youth aging out of juvenile detention are another targeted market.  But the most unsettling group eligible to live here are persons called “hard to house.”  What does this mean? The state places sex offenders and pedophiles in housing units.  Visit the State police Web site at http://www.state.nj.us/njsp/info/reg_sexoffend.html and find out how many of these individuals are in your community.  

Under this mandate, there are lots more to come. Toms River, for example, currently is home to 102 known sex offenders. Hoboken, the home of Governor Jon Corzine and one of New Jersey’s largest cities, is home to five.  Toms River is mandated to build 4,386 low income units.  The number of convicted sex offenders moving into Toms River and other suburban communities can be expected to rise significantly. The Trenton planners will be experimenting with our neighborhoods to find out if their social engineering schemes work. You and I will suffer the consequences, but they don’t care. We are just guinea pigs.

In 1911, when “Trenton Makes-the World Takes” was adopted as Trenton’s official slogan and the famous sign built on the approach to Trenton, 10% of America’s population lived within 75 miles of Trenton. The free market met the demands of a growing and diverse population with innovations like Sears’s homes, row housing, mansions, Cape Cod homes and more.  Now, with New Jersey experiencing increased outward migration, the Trenton planners want to step in and second guess our needs and wants, replacing the success that made New Jersey an economic powerhouse with massive entitlement housing projects.

Please call your legislator, and tell him to stop threatening our neighborhoods with Trenton’s radical experiments.

To see where COAH units are going up in your neighborhood click here.

And we couldn’t agree more. Check out their post here and also continue on to The Cranbury Conservative to learn just how this experiment in social engineering is helping damage New Jersey. 

As a big Mets fan, it’s always interesting to follow former players in their post-baseball career. Of course, it makes it even more interesting when a player is a Republican, has interest in running for office and resides in your state! So it is for former Mets hurler Al “Big Game” Leiter. 

 However, it looks like Al’s desire to run for office - and challenge newly elected John Adler - in New Jersey will be put on hold for now. According to politckernj.com, Al has joined the MLB Network and  won’t run in 2010. When Leiter does decide to run, it is one ‘lefty’ that the Right can get behind.