Porchfest
Have you heard about Porchfest? It’s going to be a big party made up of a lot of little parties, on porches, with live bands, in Ventnor, on June 11. It’s a little different to your average shore town entertainment. We sat down with Michael Einwechter (of Ventnor Coffee) to find out more.
Looking up, downstairs at The Claridge.
PILOT Fight
Are you sitting comfortably? Do you have some popcorn ready? Well, Atlantic County residents, your county taxes (which are likely going up this year) are going to be used to buy some lawyers to fight the reason those taxes are probably going up this year. Something like that. Yesterday, the county put out a request for legal help and said it could bring an injunction against the state law that reduced the casinos’ share of county-wide property taxes (aka the casino PILOT law). We wrote about it here.
Legal Bills
Speaking of legal bills, Amy Rosenberg of The Philadelphia Inquirer did some muckraking of the cost of the state’s Atlantic City takeover so far. We’re at $1.1 million in invoices from the Christie-friendly law firm of Jeffrey Chiesa. The lawyers are trying to break the contracts of police and firefighters in Atlantic City but they also appear to be looking at the city’s water authority, the MUA. It’s not clear exactly how, though. “One invoice labeled “MUA” that was released by the state was initially sent blank. It was later resent by the state attorney general’s records office to include bills totaling $13,734.92, split among seven partners of the law firm,” Rosenberg reports.
Remembering Tyler Quinter, 13, of Oaklyn.
In the rest of the day’s news, there were four overdose deaths in Atlantic County in one week, despite two massive drug seizures, a panel of experts expects this summer season to be a big one for the tourism industry and the newly renovated Brown’s Park in Atlantic City will reopen for Memorial Day. All that and more below:
South Jersey Teen’s Love of Science Leads Him to Build Nuclear Fusor…In His Basement–At the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, not far from the campus of the Ivy League university, physicist and Princeton professor Andrew Zwicker recently showed Steven Udotong a professional version of the project the youth is working on at home. Newsworks.org
10 Blazes Keep Pemberton Firefighters Busy, Dept. Looking to Recruit–It has been a busy time for the Pemberton Township Volunteer Fire Department. pinebarrenstribune.com
Adding It Up: Economic Impact of New Jersey’s Private Colleges–New Jersey’s independent colleges and universities generate an estimated $3.5 billion in economic impact for the state, according to a new study released by a group that represents the 14 nonprofit schools. www.njspotlight.com
Lawmakers Grill State Officials on Plans to Dip into Horizon Reserves–New Jersey lawmakers tried in vain to pry from state officials more details on Gov. Chris Christie’s proposal to make Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield pay for certain public healthcare needs, a plan that has sparked nearly unanimous opposition from legislators, business leaders, and public advocates of all kinds. www.njspotlight.com
Stockton Tech Park executive director resigns days before groundbreaking–The executive director of the Stockton Aviation Research and Technology Park has resigned just days before Atlantic County is set to break ground on the project, officials said Thursday. Press of Atlantic City