Opioid Doc
Dr. Alan Faustino, who pled guilty and was sentenced to four years for running an opioid ring out of his doctor’s office, has been released from prison after serving less than seven months, the tireless Lynda Cohen reports.
Tax Men
The Press has a story on two bills from Vince Mazzeo that would replace Atlantic County’s system of municipal tax assessors with a countywide system, including a casino specialist.
Critics of the Mazzeo bill say the current municipal model is, “working well, except for in Atlantic City, where successful casino appeals sent the city into hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and near bankruptcy.”
Isn’t that like the captain of the Titanic saying, “The ship’s swimming beautifully, folks, except for the big hole in the side where the iceberg hit it?”
AirBnB Money
Atlantic, Ocean and Cape May Counties took in $8 million, $9 million and $24 million in host income through AirBnB rentals, according to this NJ.com story. That’s #2, 3 and 4 in the state.
Unaffordable
In (I’m sure) unrelated news, the Atlantic City metro area is one of the most unaffordable places in the country, according to this story from Joe Atmonavage, which is based on a report from Realtor.com that looked at the gap between what people earn and what they spend on housing.
On top of that, unlike other cities on the list–Miami or New York for instance–people don’t earn that much to begin with. So we have that going for us.
Norcross Dems
This is an amazing story from Matt Friedman at Politico about the people who run all of South Jersey, most of New Jersey, and are terrifying, terrifying children…
For more feats of journalism…
12 Reasons to Love New Jersey History–Explore the Garden State’s history—from the creation of the Jersey jughandle to the birth of the blueberry business and South Jersey’s Underground Railroad. njmonthly.com
Cat’s leg amputated after being saved from grip of deathly, illegal leghold trap–Shore Animal Control received the call around 9 a.m. Wednesday morning from a resident of the Brandywood Townhomes/Condominium complex in Hamilton Township, Atlantic County. www.nj.com
1,200 CHILDREN HAVE BEEN SHOT AND KILLED SINCE PARKLAND, 13 FROM NJ–Yesterday was the first anniversary of the Parkland, Florida shootings, in which 17 teenagers and staff were shot and killed at a local high school. The tragedy precipitated a nationwide campaign by student survivors in favor of gun control. www.njspotlight.com
PSEG: WE’RE NOT BLUFFING ABOUT SHUTTING DOWN NUKE PLANTS–PSEG Nuclear yesterday rebuked opponents of its bid for lucrative subsidies from ratepayers to keep its three nuclear power plants open, vowing to close the units unless each is awarded financial incentives, beginning as soon as this fall. www.njspotlight.com