Mature discourse continued to characterize discussions over the Atlantic City fiscal crisis, with Steve Sweeney labeling Mayor Don Guardian’s warning/threat about a possible bankruptcy, “idiotic” and Gov. Christie telling Guardian he should, “do his job.”
Christie, btw, is in New Hampshire, running for president, as a winter storm bears down on the state where his job is located. The Howler notes our guvnor has a peculiar gift for selecting rhetorical zingers that seem to refer back, in some weird subliminal way, to himself.
FWIW, Sweeney, a little over a week ago, said he would support a bankruptcy filing for the city, but that was during a different hand of the poker game.
Elsewhere, Mayor Guardian said the city made 300 job cuts and millions in budget cuts last year, and if Christie didn’t know about those, he should fire his chief of staff. “She knows 300 families are no longer working for the city, and that we cut $25 million from the budget.”
Our Crumbling Infrastructure
The likely carcinogen perfluorooctanoic acid has been found in twelve New Jersey water systems at levels at or above the “guidance level” set by the state as the upper limit for safe consumption, NJSpotlight writes. The Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority is on the list, as are systems in Greenwich Township and Paulsboro.
The Spotlight also reports New Jersey “won” (the ‘light’s word, I can’t think of a better one) a slim $15 million in disaster readiness funds—out of $1 billion awarded by the federal government yesterday. New York, by comparison, collected $176 million and Virginia $120 million. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro said NJ submitted a “weak application.” Meaning it failed to leverage other capital and be scalable, and several other buzzwords.
Snow, Snow, Snow…
Barnegat police advised residents around Bayshore Drive to evacuate by six p.m. Friday as the storm bore down on the state. The evacuation is not mandatory.
“Snowstorm totals could vary,” the New Jersey Herald reports, in what could be the very first winner of our Noncommittal Headline of the Week award.
The Press of A.C.’s Diane D’Amico has details on the latest Stockton campus project on Albany Avenue. Spoiler: It’s way more expensive than refitting the Showboat. But the school only pays part. The Atlantic City Development Corp. (ACDevCo, watch this space) also contributes funding.
Shore News Today’s David Benson has an excellent piece on how delays in medical examiner reports are hampering investigations and leading to rampant rumor-mongering after suspicious deaths. The Southern Regional office, which covers Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic Counties, has been without a chief medical examiner for two years.
DUNE WATCH
Homeowners in Point Pleasant Beach, Brick and Mantoloking are challenging the state’s use of eminent domain to seize their land to build dunes. “The homeowners are part of a coastal rebellion going on in several pockets of the Jersey shore,” the Associated Press reports.
12,500!
It’s the number of private sector jobs created in the state in December, Politico reports. You did it!