South Jersey Wunderkinder Plan Pop-Up Dining Experience For New AC Charity

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A group of young talents from the Atlantic City area has come together to form an ambitious new charity that they will kick off with AC’s first ever pop-up restaurant – outdoors, under the stars, and for 200 to 300 people. The nonprofit is called For Atlantic City By Atlantic City and it is the brainchild of Michael Brennan, the award-winning chef of Ventnor’s Cardinal Bistro, and friends including Carl Fleck and Lenny Schafer of the Iron Room in Atlantic City. For the first pop-up extravaganza, Brennan will be the kitchen mastermind, while Fleck and Schafer will craft cocktails for the guests. There is a kickstarter to fund the project and Brennan said he hopes to send $30,000 of the fundraising proceeds to the Atlantic City Boys and Girls Club. “Basically, having grown up in this area and watching the steady decline of not only our economy but the environment around us, I wanted to be able to help,” Brennan said via Facebook.

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Pipeline Problems, Sick Pay Boat Checks, Oh CRDA – Wednesday’s Roundup

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Pipeline Problems
The perennially problematic pipeline is facing a new challenge in the form of an injunction to stay its construction while the Apellate Division of New Jersey’s Superior Court considers various pending appeals, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Each delay raises the financial costs for the companies involved in the project, which include Atlantic County’s South Jersey Industries. One company, PSE&G, sold its stake in the project March. The completion date for the 100-mile natural gas pipeline was pushed back to the second half of 2018 and further delays look likely. Sick-Pay Boat Checks
Following up on NJSpotlight’s awesome data journalism that showed which towns in New Jersey are running up the highest liabilities in the form of accumulated sick-pay checks owed to their local employees, NJ.com has this piece polling all the governor candidates on the issue.

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Christie & NAACP President #DoAC, Booming Lakewood, Tax Fraud – Tuesday’s Roundup

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Christie & NAACP President #DoAC
Governor Chris Christie and Cornell Brooks, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will be at opposite ends of Atlantic City on Thursday. Christie will be in town for a photo opportunity with the developers and construction crew at the Stockton Atlantic City campus site, while Brooks will be at a press conference in City Council Chambers (at 1.30 pm), where he will talk about the state’s takeover of the city, the potential privatization of its water authority, and the breaking of union contracts. Mary Grant, project director for Food & Water Watch, the state’s AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech, and Firefighters Local 198 President Bill DiLorenzo will also be at that meeting. The Press’ Christian Hetrick has more here. Booming Lakewood
It’s a little outside of our area, but we know our readers like development stories, so you might be interested in this Asbury Park Press piece that looks at the backlash surrounding a developer’s plan to turn a 27-hole golf course into 1,872 homes.

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A Tale of Two Drug Clinics, Sheep, Opioids – Monday’s Roundup

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A Tale of Two Drug Clinics
Pleasantville Mayor Jesse Tweedle fought hard to stop a drug-treatment clinic from coming to his city, but he said he’s heard few complaints since it opened almost a year ago. Meanwhile, as Camden officials move forward on plans to relocate a methadone clinic from the heart of the city’s downtown to a semi-industrial section of Bergen Square about a mile away, the proposal has been met with anger from those who live and work nearby. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Allison Steele takes a look at both projects. Sheep
New Jersey is enjoying a small uptick in sheep farming and the biggest sheep farm in South Jersey is in a surprising location: Moorestown, surrounded by luxury homes. The owners of Little Hooves farm lease some of their land from Burlington County under a farmland preservation project, and the business keeps going thanks in part to the area’s ethnic diversity and demand for lamb from muslim and orthodox communities.

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Polercoaster, First Responders, Seal – Friday’s Roundup

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Polercoaster
The vertical rollercoaster planned for the former Sands casino site in Atlantic City got a grant of $38.4 million from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the Press of Atlantic City reports. The developer hopes to open the attraction – which will also feature other draws such as a zip line and ninja course – in time for the 2019 summer season. First Responders
NJSpotlight has this piece on a program run by the Jersey City Medical Center that is training volunteer first responders. The program began as a way to help the medical center reduce its response times and (according to the director) it seems to have helped… But the volunteer training program is pretty intense, requiring 60 hours of training and a serious commitment, which seems to have limited the actual number of people who have completed the course.

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Free Coffee, County Taxes, Early Retirement Plans – Thursday’s Roundup

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Free Coffee
It’s Wawa Day (aka, the convenience store’s 53rd anniversary) and that means free coffee! All day, any size. Details here via Townsquare. County Taxes
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Amy Rosenberg unravels the strange turn of fortunes of county executive Dennis Levinson, who went from being Gov. Christie’s ally against Atlantic City mayor Don Guardian, to being – apparently – kicked to Christie’s curb. “This week, alliances and strategies seemed to have shifted under the odd political theater of the state’s third version of dominance in seven years of control over the struggling Atlantic City’s municipal government,” writes Rosenberg.

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Teachers vs Sweeney, Taxes Seesaw, Rehab Prison – Wednesday’s Roundup

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Teachers vs Sweeney
The state’s largest teachers’ association is committed to ousting Steve Sweeney as state Senate president (they don’t see eye-to-eye over a few issues, including Sweeney’s plan to change the school funding formula). But the NJEA’s deep pockets are no help this time since no one is challenging Sweeney on the Democratic ticket. The Philadelphia Inquirer takes a look at the union’s options and the outlook for Sweeney. In case you missed it, you might also be interested in our story from last year about how much NJEA’s spent fighting Atlantic City’s school-voucher vote. Taxes Seesaw
Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian yesterday introduced the city’s budget with a five percent tax decrease – its first tax cut in a decade.

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CRDA Board Pay, PennEast Pipeline, Atlantic City’s TV Stars – Tuesday’s Roundup

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CRDA Board Pay
Everyone knows that times are tough in Atlantic City and they have been for a while. But three board members of the state’s Atlantic City development authority, CRDA, just received thousands of dollars in pay for attending monthly meetings. Read Route 40’s story here. PennEast Pipeline
The controversial pipeline through the pines now has federal sign off, but it still needs permits from the state of New Jersey and from the Delaware River Basin Commission. NJ Spotlight has the details.

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