South Jersey Storm Surges and Which Towns Flipped to Trump – Friday’s Roundup

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We know the northern end of the state fared worse during Superstorm Sandy than the southern end – but the U.S. Geological Survey and FEMA have a new report out that looks specifically at how storm tides caused flooding during Sandy. It’s complicated and wonkish but the bottom line seems to be that South Jersey’s future flood risks may be underestimated right now, since Sandy down here did not cause storm surges that would have been classified as having a one-in-100 years chance of happening. That one-in-100 chance is the federal flood insurance program’s latest “base flood”. NJ Spotlight has the details on the report. It’s been over a week but polling results are still trickling in.

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Advice On Difficult Decisions and PennEast Pipeline Problems – Wednesday’s Roundup

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“If we make the difficult decisions now and do the difficult things, there is no limit to Atlantic City’s future,” Governor Chris Christie told radio host Harry Hurley yesterday, when discussing his appointment of Jeff Chiesa as Atlantic City’s new man in charge amid the state takeover. It remains to be seen what difficult things the state will actually do. One nice tidbit from this Press of Atlantic City piece on Chiesa is that he and his staff now have an office in City Hall – and they are squeezed in with their government colleague, the state monitor of the city. Which goes some way to illustrating how big a change this iteration of Atlantic City’s state takeover really is. The $1 billion gas pipeline project that investors – including South Jersey Gas – say will bring cheaper gas to South Jersey has been slammed by a state official.

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Declining Atlantic City Train Draws Loyal Commuter Crowd

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More people than you might guess get up every weekday at the crack of dawn and drive, walk or take a bus to the Atlantic City rail terminal to wait for the 6:40 am train to Philadelphia. At the station, they greet fellow commuters and ask them about their weekend plans or chat about what they watched last night. On the train, they welcome kindred commuters who board at Absecon or Egg Harbor City and share their day-in, day-out slog to work and back. Ridership on the Atlantic City-Philadelphia train line – one of the nation’s oldest – has been steadily declining in line with casino closures in Atlantic City that mean fewer visitors are coming to the faded resort town. But passenger numbers on the rail line are not down as much as bus-passenger numbers, according to South Jersey Transportation Authority data, and that may reflect the small but loyal commuter train crowd. Train passenger numbers have fallen 5.1 percent through August this year, compared to a decline of 10.4 percent in bus passengers, according to SJTA’s numbers.

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AC’s New Overlord and Bleak Budget News For All Of NJ – Tuesday’s Roundup

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Atlantic City has a new overlord: Jeff Chiesi. The Press of Atlantic City says he is a close ally of Governor Chris Christie. Chiesi will be the man tasked with disappearing the city’s $100 million budget hole by wielding his not-insignificant powers to cut jobs and union contracts. Oh, and maybe to sell the water authority. The outlook on the budget for the entire state of New Jersey took a turn for the worse too yesterday after credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s lowered its rating for the garden state, citing worries over its ballooning pensions and planned tax cuts.

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Ride-Sharing and Healthcare – Monday’s Roundup

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What happens when ride-sharing services move in to cash-strapped South Jersey municipalities? A whole lot of fines, drivers for Uber told the Press of Atlantic City. The drivers say they are being unfairly targeted by Atlantic City and other towns that need to offset diminished revenues. Meanwhile, NJ Spotlight has a look into something that is called ‘value-based’ healthcare. Apparently, more and more doctors in New Jersey are having their payments tied to the long-term health of their patients – sounds too sensible to be true, but since the Garden State has one of the most expensive healthcare systems in the country, here’s hoping it works.

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South Jersey Images of the Week, Nov. 12

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It was a big week in national and local news, with a general election and a state takeover of Atlantic City. While there was a lot of relief that the campaign period ended, we wrote about some of the interesting ballot questions and the results from referenda that include everything from changing the way of choosing a school board (Linwood) to introducing liquor licenses (Ventnor). The following day the state decided to take over Atlantic City and we wrote about the – still up-in-the-air – consequences of that decision. The weather, meanwhile, was mostly fantastic and there were some great photos taken of fall foliage and wintry sunsets. Maybe next week we’ll have some amazing shots of the super moon.

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Liquor Licenses, Longport Libary and Trouble in Trenton – Wednesday’s Roundup

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It’s been a bat*hit crazy 24 hours around here – leaving aside the presidential election, there will be some major changes as a result of ballot questions locally and there are a lot of questions to ask about local races that were much closer than anyone anticipated. The biggest onshore news was that Ventnor said YES to liquor licenses and Longport said NO to being part of the county library system. And Atlantic City almost voted in favor of school vouchers. You can see some of our election coverage here. The other big news was of course the state’s decision to take over Atlantic City.

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State Takeover Means Higher Taxes & Who Knows What Else?

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We were in Trenton today to follow what went down at the meeting of state officials tasked with deciding whether or not to take over Atlantic City. Two things were decided in quick succession – so quick, in fact, that most people in the room missed them – and that may or may not have been deliberate, you decide:
1. The state approved Atlantic City’s 2016 budget with one change
2. The change was to raise property taxes in the city (which as we know is already gasping after the tax rate has doubled in five years)

The state’s local finance board then voted unanimously to execute the state’s power to take the reins in Atlantic City, but took the option of bankruptcy off the table, meaning that the state has to turn the city around without filing for court protection from its creditors. When pressed by the press, the bureaucrat now in charge of Atlantic City, Tim Cunningham, said that he wasn’t sure exactly what new powers he has or what he will do.

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South Jersey 2016 Election Results Live Blog

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We will be live blogging and covering election results in South Jersey as they come in – with a particular focus on Atlantic County and our local ballot questions. (function() {
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New York Outguns New Jersey in Casino Expansion Campaign

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The campaign to oppose the expansion of casino gaming in the north of New Jersey was entirely funded by New York-based people and organizations, data analyzed by Route 40 shows. Even though a small chunk of the campaign’s funding came from an individual and company with ties to Atlantic City’s Resorts, the data suggests that it was New York interests that felt most threatened by the possible arrival of casinos to the north of New Jersey. You can download – for a small fee – here our full electronic database of expenses and contributions for both sides of the Public Question #1 campaigns. The Trenton’s Bad Bet campaign – which raised about $14.5 million in total – received $9 million from Genting Group, a Malaysian company that operates the Resorts World Casino NYC. A further $3.5 million came from Yonkers Racing, which operates the Empire City Casino, and Empire Resorts which operates the Monticello Raceway, according to data obtained from filings made to date with the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC).

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