Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/page/4/)
Local 54 head Bob McDevitt went before the Casino Control Commission yesterday to talk about the hedge funds and private equity funds that have been buying up big stakes in casino companies, and every other company in god’s green America for that matter, and the threat they pose to local wage-earners.
Matt Friedman at Politico has an amazing story on “phantom candidates” in Camden County, an old practice where people who aren’t interested in holding office filed to run for election just to make the ballot more confusing and protect incumbents, in this case the Norcross Dem machine.
Everybody reports the news that Bruce Deifik, the former owner of the casino formerly known as the Revel, died in a car crash in Denver on Sunday.
Deifik bought the casino in early 2018 but lost it to a hedge fund this year. He was scheduled to go before casino regulators tomorrow over allegations of sexual harassment from employees at the casino, Amy Rosenberg reports.
It is still possible to buy discounted tickets to Atlantic City from the Port Authority bus terminal in New York. But you have to know where to look. Greyhound ended its discounted first-come, first-served policy for the Atlantic City-New York route on April 1. Now tourists and commuters using Greyhound buses have to buy tickets for specific departure times and dates, and the minimum cost of a round trip between the Port Authority and the Atlantic City bus terminal is $26. It is, however, still possible to get a discounted ticket if you select a specific casino to travel to and from.
In realer news, politicians in lab coats were photographed touring a marijuana factory in Nevada because New Jersey hasn’t even legalized marijuana yet and already robots are coming for the marijuana jobs. #innovation.
Claire Lowe at the Press has fun details on Stockton’s expansion plans in Atlantic City, which include converting the old Eldridge building into dorms to create a true university feel.
I live in the neighborhood and it doesn’t feel too university-ish now, for what it’s worth. I mean I’ve yet to see a professor in a bow-tie, or a flying Model T go warbling and gurgling overhead, which is what I’d been trained to expect university life to look like from the movies. But it’s early days.
The state Medicaid program removed prior-authorization requirements for “medication-assisted treatment” for opioid addiction, everyone reports. “When someone with an opioid addiction is ready for treatment, we shouldn’t be losing them to care while they wait for approval,” the Human Services Commissioner, Carole Johnson, said.
Steve Sweeney told a conference of school principals and supervisors he wants to move New Jersey school teachers off the School Employees Health Benefits Plan to the State Health Benefits Plan and that doing so would save $300 million annually, the valuable Spotlight reports.
A high-ranking official at the tax-prep firm Jackson Hewitt said, in testimony before a task force on the EDA, that a top executive at the company lied to get a $2.7 million tax incentive to keep them from moving to Florida or New York even though they already had a deal for a site in Jersey City, the Spotlight reports.
The Division of Rate Counsel said it opposed PSE&G’s petition to spend $2.78 billion on energy-efficient upgrades, which they do before passing those costs on to customers. Rate Counsel “experts argued the utility overstated how cost effective the proposed six-year program would be,” the valuable Spotlight reports.
Phil Murphy withdrew the nomination of Kelly Mooij to the Pinelands Commission for reasons unspecified, though the Burlington County Times, citing “multiple sources,” says Mooij is expected to join the BPU instead.
Everybody reports on the decision to pull the bill on legal marijuana for lack of votes in the senate.
NJ.com’s story points out the governor, the “state’s legislative leaders” and 60% of New Jerseyans support the idea but that is not the way this operates. Politico reports four South Jersey Democrats in the Senate were no’s and one was a “soft” yes.
Human Trafficking
Avalon Zoppo and Molly Bilinski have a very good and tough story on human trafficking in Atlantic County, which had nearly the same number of indictments as Bergen County between 2005 and 2018, even though Bergen County has 3.5 times the population. “She kept saying she deserves this,” the mother of one of the victims says. “I know that’s not true.”
Fireworks
Elsewhere in crimes, the case of the missing fireworks drags on as Jack May, a managing director at Keystone Novelties, tells Lynda Cohen he will not be doing business in Atlantic City this year. Readers may recall the video of ACPD officers nonchalantly removing boxes of fireworks from a tent behind the Ducktown Tavern last summer. May said the detective tasked with investigating his colleagues never got back to him and his emails to the county prosecutor, DOJ and ACPD chief have not been returned.
Council President Marty Small said he spoke with Phil Murphy, who assured him the city would absolutely get the maximum local revenue allowed under the legislation.
Small also said he asked Murphy if Atlantic City would be allowed to make rules to favor local ownership of marijuana dispensaries and Murphy told him that the city would be allowed to do so.
The New Jersey Tree Recovery Program will be handing out free trees around the state over the next few weeks. The program, a joint venture between the state’s Forestry Service and the Arbor Day Foundation, aims to provide trees to communities that lost urban canopies after Superstorm Sandy. To date, more than 300,000 trees have been handed out.