Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/category/roundups/page/9/)
Amy Rosenberg reports on Twitter that Federal Agents are unloading boxes at Mayor Gilliam’s house. Presumably they don’t contain Girl Scout cookies. Lynda Cohen says the ACPD are on the scene too (for crowd control purposes). Ted Greenberg says special agents for the IRS are there.
ICE Order
State A.G. Gurbir Gurwal announced those new rules on how/when local law enforcement should work with ICE, directing law enforcement, “not to enter into so-called 287(g) partnerships that essentially deputize local law enforcement as immigration agents or detain immigrants for ICE without a warrant signed by a judge,” as the Spotlight puts it. Gurwal said the new directive drew a “bright line” between immigration authorities and local law enforcement and was a signal to “our friends and our neighbors who have been living in fear” that they could trust state law enforcement. St. Joe’s-Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit and St. Joe’s play for the state championship (in the football) tonight at the Meadowlands, which seems a bit odd to me but I’m an old fogie.
Mayor Fight
Prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges against Mayor Gilliam and Councilman Fauntleroy over the fight outside the Golden Nugget, but there’s still a municipal court matter, scheduled for December 11 in Wildwood. Meanwhile a 9+ minute surveillance tape of the incident(s) was released, so you can parse that if you want. I’m old enough to remember the Spinks-Tyson fight from Convention Hall that kept people trying to figure how who hit whom, when, for weeks, and that only lasted 91 seconds. Maybe we can get Jim Lampley and Sugar Ray Leonard to call this one for old time’s sake. AC Monies
Developer Bart Blatstein and the owner of the Claridge and the Atlantic Club are behind on their taxes, according to the city’s tax sale list.
Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver told Chris Franklin at NJ.com that she won’t be intervening to remove Mayor Gilliam and Councilman Jeffree Fauntleroy as the ACDC requested.
The recreational marijuana bill moved out of committee yesterday and heads to a full vote in the state legislature, which could come as early as December 17, the valuable Spotlight reports, adding that the bill’s proponents don’t quite have the votes, but they’re close enough.
Lynda Cohen has an insightful link to an interview with Ray Bethea Sr. (whose son was a star player at Atlantic High) and who is at the center of the basketball program controversy over Gene Allen.
The state AG Gurbir Grewal is going to issue new guidance for ICE detainers, replacing the old directive from 2007.
This sounds a little esoteric, but this guidance spells out how local/regional law enforcement should ask questions about immigration status and how they should handle requests from the federal level. It also deals with local officers who are deputized to do immigration stuff, which happens in Cape May and Salem Counties.
Public Meetings! The DCA tweeted out a picture of a meeting yesterday of the Atlantic City Executive Council and there were lots of local heavyweights, but not a lot of laypersons, or any media, prompting Ryan Hutchins at Politico to observe it looked like a blatant violation of the NJ Open Public Meetings Act and that the Murphy admin was essentially bragging about it. I don’t get invited to those things. Nor do I know the law, but here’s the pic. Who else used to watch Romper Room?
In national news, Amazon picked Long Island City and Crystal City, Virginia, for its new headquarters HQ2.
Am I crazy, or did they just string along a few hundred American cities for two years pretending to care about “development” or somesuch before plopping down in maybe the last two places that need development?
Everybody’s reporting that City of Atlantic City Mayor Frank Gilliam and Councilman Jeffree Fauntleroy scuffled with some unidentified persons outside the Golden Nugget over the weekend.
Well, not everyone is reporting that. Harry Hurley’s reporting that the mayor punched a female security guard.