Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/author/staff/page/7/)
Stockton University has teamed up with officials from Avalon for a project that will measure the flooding and rainfall the borough receives during coastal storms, reports the Cape May County Herald. Officials placed flood sensors around the borough (mostly under storm water grates) and data from the sensors will be collected and analysed throughout the year by Stockton.
AC Airport
Glenn Straub is onto something with his plan to revive Atlantic City’s Bader Field as an airport, according to PlayNJ. “More flights to and from Atlantic City is something the city desperately needs,” writes Steve Ruddock (emphasis his). The piece goes on to note that most people currently drive, or fly to Philly and then drive, and there are various drawbacks to all the variations on these options. We’ve been interested for a while in a data project with Uber and/or Lyft, since we think more and more people are using ride-share services to get to Newark and Philadelphia Airports – it’s not just gamblers that need a better connection between AC and its neighboring cities, it’s workers too. Sometimes I like to daydream about what could have happened if all the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority money that went on projects that never happened (the Marketplace etc) or were torn down again (Laser lighthouse, Artlantic) had instead been spent on improving the speed of the train line to Philadelphia.
Stockton Bust Saga
Stockton University has formed a volunteer committee of faculty, administrators, students and instructors to “thoughtfully and objectively” curate an exhibit – and an eventual curriculum – that will discuss the university’s slave-owning namesake’s history and legacy. University President Harvey Kesselman said the debate about removing a bust of Richard Stockton from the library had been going on for several years, prior to its removal last week amid nationwide protests over controversial historical figures, reports Jacqueline Urgo for The Philadelphia Inquirer. “It has created the opportunity to engage in a discussion of the man, his role in American history, and how we might better remember him today,” Kesselman said. Bader Field
Atlantic City received four responses from a request-for-proposals to purchase and redevelop the 143-acre former airstrip known as Bader Field, the Press of Atlantic City’s Erin Serpico reports. One of the bids was from the current owner of the Long Island Ducks minor league baseball team (Frank Boulton, who is also a former owner of Bader Field’s Surf Stadium).
NJ Advance takes a look at police salaries and finds that on average across New Jersey they’re now at over $100,000, which is up $14,400 since the last time the news company had a look in 2009. Experts said the pay raises have slowed in recent years, however.
Hamilton Township officials are opposing a plan that would give Atlantic County a single tax assessor’s office, The Current’s Charlie Pritchard reports. NJ Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo earlier this year proposed legislation that would centralize tax assessment across the county, but the state legislature is not set to take it up before early next year due to elections.
A federal class-action lawsuit alleges that several Camden-county residents developed cancer and other illnesses due to contamination from the Sherwin-William paint plant at Gibbsboro. The plant used toxic chemicals including lead, benzene and arsenic at several sites between 1930 and 1978, according to the suit.
There was a raid, an alligator and a suspicious fire at Atlantic City’s Bayview motel. Now the motel’s owner is missing. Without any action, the buildings that make up the motel will be demolished on Monday, Lynda Cohen reports for BreakingAC.
“The Garden State is on its way to becoming the Warehouse State,” according to The Record, which says that means jobs. It also seems possible that this might mean more jobs than are being lost as retail companies close down bricks-and-mortar stores. New Jersey, The Record reports, is well-suited to warehouse and logistics businesses because of its location and road networks. Amazon said earlier this year it would open a warehouse in Gloucester County.
George Norcross visited The Press of Atlantic City a couple of weeks ago for a 90-minute discussion about AC (and Camden, apparently) with the paper’s editorial board and reporters. The result was this interview published Friday, which is somewhat light on questioning of some of Norcross’ more bizarre assertions (“If we’d had casinos in Camden, you’d be looking at Las Vegas East”) but includes some interesting details, such as Norcross’s belief the state takeover of Atlantic City will continue even if Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy (who has said he would end the takeover) wins office.
We took a tour of the work being done on the beach block of Tennessee Avenue in Atlantic City last week, to check out progress on buildings that will house three new businesses and a non-profit. The so-called Tennessee Avenue Renaissance Project consists of a dozen properties on the Inlet side of the street. The developers will be opening a coffee shop, a beer hall, a non-profit yoga studio and a chocolate bar in the first phase of the project this fall. The beer hall, named ‘The Ten’, is the largest space on the block, next to two vacant lots that will be transformed into an outdoor beer garden. A back room at the beer hall will feature pinball, pool tables and other games.