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. We have the details here.
Coach Allen
Elsewhere in Atlantic City, Gene Allen got his job back at least for the time being, when Judge Michael Blee ruled the Board of Ed. had to show cause for its decision to not renew his contract. A court date is set for December 10.
Force Report
Stephen Stirling and S.P. Sullivan published a gigantic story/database on the use of force by New Jersey police officers, which collected 72,607 use-of-force reports and took them 16 months.
“Nearly two decades ago, state officials envisioned a centralized system to track police force and flag bad policies and bad actors. Instead, paper records detailing tens of thousands of violent encounters between police and the public now collect dust in filing cabinets.”
It is fascinating to see how some departments – eg, Margate – are increasingly using force (which can be anything from a “compliance hold” for resisting arrest to a punch or a kick or firing a gun). The numbers for Atlantic City are skewed by the shrinking size of the department over the last five years but they show that dozens of ACPD officers would have been flagged for investigation under use-of-force monitoring systems employed by cities such as Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
Pelosi
Andy Kim and Jeff Van Drew voted no on Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, as did Mikie Sherrill.
There’s a full House vote January 3.
For more feats of journalism from across the region, see below:
POLL: IS MARIJUANA MEASURE GOOD TO GO OR DOES IT NEED TO BE TWEAKED?–With a vote on marijuana legalization set to be heard as early as December 17, recreational adult-use cannabis could become a reality in New Jersey sooner rather than later. www.njspotlight.com
Atlantic City spending $1.3M to give workers raises next year–Atlantic City Council President Marty Small Sr. announced Wednesday a three-year plan to give raises to city employees beginning in 2019. www.nj.com
Crime Rates Plunge in New Jersey, And Bail Reform Advocates Are Gloating–Crime in New Jersey has plummeted over the past two years. Violent offences like homicide and robbery are down more than thirty percent through September, compared to state data from 2016, and the numbers have advocates of bail reform cheering. www.wnyc.org
N.J. lawmakers push to allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses–Undocumented immigrants are already driving on New Jersey's roads, so why not give them a chance to get a driver's license so they can insure and register their vehicles? www.nj.com