Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/)
On a recent afternoon, Friday before the Super Bowl, a group of workers at the Atlantic City Contact Center stood in a low-ceilinged office in a corner of The Claridge’s parking garage. The place smelled of onions and pasta salad.
The following article is a journey. It starts with The Karate Kid and its latest sequel, Cobra Kai, and delves into the life and suicide of my brother, Albert John Mallen, Jr. Along the way, I touch on his fame in youth sports, the sudden death of our father, and my brother’s multiple exposures to trauma as a first responder with the Atlantic City Fire Department. It is my hope that this journey inspires reflection and conversation.
Our goal this fiscal year is to be less sour, slightly more sweet, than the last time we all got together. To that end, we’ve obligated ourselves–like Odysseus lashed to the mast–to putting these emails out when we have a critical mass of our own content to share with you. So you can count on fewer Route 40 emails, but will they have more vim and originality? Watch this space.
Here’s a roundup of happenings from recent public documents, covering everything from sports betting and the Meadowlands to liquor licenses and new flood-related projects in the city.
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority handed out more than $200 million in tax credits to Atlantic City developers and businesses over three years.
Street flooding in Atlantic City has never been so bad, according to fire chief Scott Evans. Evans and others are working on a plan they hope will help the city tackle some flooding by raising houses, improving bulkheads and installing stormwater pumps. The “Atlantic City Floodplain Management Plan”, unveiled at a public meeting earlier this month, is designed to help city residents qualify for a bigger discount on flood insurance premiums.
An offshore wind farm planned for Atlantic City’s coast is still waiting for approval. The wind farm would be the city’s second since a pioneering onshore project in 2005 started five turbines spinning to power a county wastewater treatment plant.
Gov. Phil Murphy in January signed an executive order designed to incentivize further the development of offshore wind farms in New Jersey, but companies interested in building an offshore wind farm are waiting to hear who will be allowed to do so. The rules have yet to move on from the desk of the state’s Board of Public Utilities.
The Hispanic Association of Atlantic County wants to know why the Atlantic City Board of Education plans to transfer the city’s first Latina principal to an elementary school, according to a letter sent by the Alliance to the board.
Abdullah Anderson Sr., who is 48, cuts hair five days a week at Omar and Abdullah’s Hair Bazaar at 1208 Atlantic Avenue. He opens his shop at six a.m. two days a week (the other three days he opens at eight), and he works until six or eight p.m. every day.
You’d be hard pressed to say it was a thriving Main Street, but the barbershop, Mexican restaurant, pizza place, tobacco store, mini-mart and even the closed-looking gift store are all open on the short span of Atlantic City’s Ventnor Ave, between Harrisburg and Trenton. In an age of dying malls and online shopping, something is working here.
Laurie Egrie is walking down the hallway of Sovereign Avenue School carrying a cardboard box filled with odd little balls and popsicle sticks with notelets stuck to them, and she’s wedged an easel-sized writing pad under one arm. The corridor is half dark. School let out 15 minutes ago.
eorge Norcross has lawyered up – or his company, Conner Strong & Buckelew has – to tell us all that the task force investigating recent EDA credits and grants (many of which went to Norcross-related companies) was “unlawfully constituted” the Inquirer reports. NJ Spotlight reports the lawyers also say the process is “tainted” and political retribution.
For reasons related to my being even lazier than usual yesterday, we included in our roundup old data on the projected reopening date for AC-Philly rail line as if it were kind of new.
Ted Sherman at NJ.com reports that Phil Murphy has requested resignations from at least five EDA board members, all Christie appointees. Chairman Laurence Downes has announced his resignation.
A group of notorious rabble-rousers including the AARP of New Jersey sent letters to the governor and BPU asking why an independent report has not yet been made public when a decision on the handsome subsides for PSE&G’s power plants could be made as early as Thursday.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal is reporting that Tony Rodio will probably be named CEO of Caesars Entertainment, “due to his association with corporate raider Carl Icahn. ” (h/t to David Danzis)
