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JerseySmarts.com

What Does NJ’s Ethics Commission DO?

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Yesterday, a story went across America about the corruption in New Jersey’s political arena. In case you missed it, 11 New Jersey officials were arrested in a statewide corruption probe by the feds. Now, this certainly is worthy of a lot of discussion and aggravation on the part of New Jersey citizens. For my part, there is another story that I’d like to talk about (briefly) using the knowledge that most of our state’s government institutions are corrupt.

The first pertains to our state Ethics Commission. This is a commission that is charged with finding out the type of crap that the feds are finding out. You may think to yourself, “Well, if the feds found these 11 bad guys, imagine how many more must be at the mercy of the Ethics Commission!” Not so, my friends. The Ethics Commission finds nothing to the extent that the feds find. Nothing. Do you know what the Ethics Commission concerns themselves with?

In New Jersey we have a group called the Highlands Council that deals with preserving much of the beautiful open space and forest area up in North and Northwest New Jersey. The folks who serve on this council are unpaid volunteers; this is one of the few quasi-government jobs in New Jersey where there really isn’t much in terms of a financial incentive. The people who serve on this council serve because they love the look and feel of the Highlands (and I can’t blame them – it’s beautiful up in that part of the state).

So what did the Ethics Commission do to one of the councilmen? They fined him $50 because even though some paperwork he submitted was postmarked correctly, they received it a day later. THIS IS WHAT OUR ETHICS COMMISSION DOES IN NEW JERSEY!!!

To the Councilman’s credit, he paid the fine in all pennies, just to prove a point. My point is that we have the feds breaking their tails to root out the corruption in this state (they’ve arrested over 100 public officials in the last few years) and in the mean time, our Ethics Commission is fining a volunteer for sending in paperwork a day late.

Welcome to New Jersey – where things just don’t make sense most of the time!

Rutgers Football IS That Good!

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Listening to some of the losers on sports talk radio this week, you’d think that Rutgers Football is experiencing some type of flash in the pan with the success that they had last year and early this year. Hopefully their dominating victory against Navy tonight helps to prove that Ray Rice, Mike Teel, Tiquan Underwood, Eric Foster, and Coach Schiano are no joke. These guys are in it to win it and there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in the New Jersey metro area that are pulling for these guys to bring home a lot of hardware come the end of the season.

Great game tonight against Navy. It was one of those games that Rutgers should have won convincingly and they did just that. The same goes for last week’s game against Buffalo and next week’s game against Norfolk State (who the hell is Norfolk State? seriously – I’ve never heard of them).

Rutgers isn’t here to play games – just like the rest of this state. One of the interesting things about college football in New Jersey is that you have the Monmouth University Hawks, the TCNJ Lions, the William Paterson Pioneers, and a whole host of other decent football programs who all obviously want to win each week. But all of these teams at our smaller schools still root on Rutgers since they’re the flagship program in the state. And, in turn, the Rutgers crowd is always pulling for New Jersey’s smaller schools to win. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship in New Jersey – sort of like we’re all in this thing together!

Anyway, a great game by Rutgers tonight and a great effort by a decent Navy team. Can’t wait for next week!

Governor Bans Dual Office Holding…Sorta

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Governor Jon Corzine signed a bill yesterday that bans people from holding dual elected position in New Jersey. This is great! Except for one little detail…

It’s not a retroactive bill.

In other words, all of the guys and gals who are in office TODAY that are abusing the dual office clause in New Jersey will not be forced to choose one or the other. Alright, so not all of them are corrupt, but let’s think about this logically for a moment.

This ban came into place because of guys like Sharpe James and others currently in the legislature who are not doing right by both of their constituencies. An ethics battle erupts in New Jersey’s legislature (thank God – because the people really wanted this issue figured out). Reforms are suggested, ironically enough, by Sharpe James (a poor attempt to save his political career and legacy). The reforms are passed! The people celebrate…then they realize that this applies to all incoming elected officials and not the ones who are currently in office – the ones who brought about the need for these reforms in the first place!

Here are the particulars of the bill, courtesy of the Asbury Park Press:

Ban anyone from holding more than one elected office at a time. The law allows current dual-office holders to remain in place until they retire or lose an election.

Make it a crime to knowingly misuse public tax dollars or other resources. The offense would be punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $200,000.

Allow courts to impose fines for corruption cases involving state, county or municipal contracts.

Require legislative voting records to be posted online. The votes will remain online for two legislative sessions (four years).

I like the legislative voting records being posted online. Of course we all know that the biggest consumers of this information will be newspapers and political campaigns (which is a real shame). I also like the fact that misuse of public money is punishable by up to 20 years in jail or a fine of up to $200,000. Good!

So, as always in New Jersey, we’ll settle for a bill that has some good parts and some bad parts. The saving grace here is that the bad parts will eventually expire as either the bad officeholders die out, retire, or lose an election.

While we wait for that, though, check out New Jersey Carpet Cleaning for the best carpet cleaning in the Garden State!

Another Reason to Hate the Bennies in Deal

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So, I’m boarding a pug dog for my Mom this week because she’s on vacation. This means, obviously, that I have to walk the little guy which is fine with me. I actually like the dog and I think he likes me, so it’s a win-win relationship here!

Now I have a large, 95% unused CVS parking lot next to my building. As one would imagine, this is where I walk my dog. And, as anyone who lives here year-round knows, this is also on Roosevelt Avenue which seems to turn into the Tourist Speedway in the summer months. In other words, once the end of June comes, these ratty brats from New York come and use our local roads racetracks.

I guess that most of you see where this outrage is going…

I was just outside walking the dog and as we’re crossing over the entrance to this largely unused parking lot, two bastard little bitches come speeding into the entranceway in a little woman-colored gold piece of shit car. They stop short to avoid hitting me and – more importantly – the dog. I really didn’t move and the dog could have cared less, but the high school-aged scumbag driver had to be a tough guy and yell, “Get the fuck out of the way!” As he yells this I see a look of dread in his friend’s eye – turns out that the teenage, idiot 120-pound punk bitch driver forgot that his window was cracked and I could hear him. So I stop, turn and look at the little bitch and say, “What the fuck did you say?”

Bear in mind, folks, that I’m on the plus size of 300 pounds and that most of these little bitches who “summer” in Deal are afraid of us locals who are larger than the front end of their car. I know this for a fact – I’ve lived and/or worked in Deal for almost a decade. There are two things that are certain about these idiot tourists. One, they fear large people with a bit of a whacked out look in their eye. Two, they fear dogs. I don’t get the second one, but I’ve seen young idiot tourist children jump from the side of a building, across the sidewalk, and into the street to get away from a dachshund. Really. And I won’t even get into how the tough-guy teenagers react when they see rottweilers and even bigger dogs – let’s just say that the tough- guy bullshit seems to end when they’re out of their safe zone!

Anyway, after I asked the kid, “What the fuck did you say,” in a calm, yet seemingly maniac tone, he just sort of whimpered, “Uhhh, move…” Poor little bitch was scared. So as I walked away, he honked his horn, I gave him the one-finger salute, and continued to walk away.

As fast as the little pugs’ legs could take him across the street and up to my apartment, I got the pug upstairs and ran back downstairs and back over to the CVS parking lot. Unfortunately, the big tough guy in his beat-up piece of shit car that was too scared to step out of it when he actually looked me in the eye and his boyfriend were gone. Too bad, I wouldn’t have minded putting them through the pavement for a while.

The moral of the story here (other than my rage) is that if you’re a summer-time tourist somewhere, has some fucking respect for the place that you shit on 3 months out of the year. Don’t go bitching about how your summer dollars sustain our local economies because that’s patented bullshit and anyone who knows anything about rental markets can tell you such. And if you see a big dude walking a dog…slow the fuck down! Because that big dude might be me and I might just not be too fucking pleased with two guys who, combined, weigh less than left leg telling me to get the fuck out of the way. Not smart, benny…not smart.

Non-functioning School Districts in New Jersey

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The Asbury Park Press ran an article this morning talking about how Governor Money Bags signed a provision into law that can lead to the elimination of non-functioning school districts. What is a non-functioning school district? These are districts where a school board exists, but there are no schools.

For you non-New Jerseyans out there: Yes, we have school districts and school boards with no schools for them to “district” or “board” over. Welcome to another example of New Jersey’s fiefdom mindset.

The newspaper presented a case where there is a school district with 5 or 6 kids, all who are placed in local schools outside of their district. The most interesting quotes that I found in this article are as follows:

“They want to shut down the nonoperating school districts because they don’t realize how efficient we are,” a borough resident said. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

and

“Keep your hands off,” said the president of the Lake Como school board. “It sounds good in the newspaper (to cut nonoperating districts). In reality, it’s ridiculous.”

I would never take anything away from the arguments that these fine citizens are making, but in reference to the first quote – did it ever occur to this resident that the school boards are running efficiently because there is NO SCHOOL for them to preside over? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” How can something be broken when it doesn’t even fulfill its primary goal to begin with!?

And with respect to the Lake Como school board President, I’m sorry but it is not ridiculous to eliminate egregious expansion of government bodies in New Jersey. It’s just not, period.

So as this battle seems ready to rage in New Jersey, I wonder what the rest of the nation is like with their school boards. Anyone with any information is more than welcome to add their thoughts.