Jaffe Morning Briefing
By JAFFE COMMUNICATIONS
August 16, 2018
ASBURY PARK - A $15 minimum wage for teenagers? C'mon, we like our teens as much as you, but the effort by "Make the Road New Jersey" yesterday to circulate petitions for a required $15 an hour for high schoolers dilutes the whole argument. A mandatory $15 an hour is designed to ensure struggling ...
PRINCETON - Perhaps the First Family has forgotten the fuss over Gov. Phil Murphy spending $27,000 to convert a Statehouse conference room into his wife's new office. Well, now Tammy Murphy is planning a makeover of the governor's 183-year-old mansion in Princeton. She tells The Record that the ...
OCEANPORT - If it weren't for recently-adopted sports betting, one could assume Monmouth Park could easily go bankrupt and become the home to the latest sprawling condo complex, with plenty of space for Phase I, Phase II and even Phase III. The Asbury Park Press reports the non-profit that owns ...
POINT PLEASANT - Excuse me, but because of the color of your skin,you are not allowed to purchase any of the useless merchandise at this store and must leave immediately. That could have been the message from an employee at an aquarium gift shop, who was apparently giving the business to some ...
OCEAN CITY - The thongs will remain. There was a moment this summer when Ocean City officials were debating the future of thongs, after a resident of this family-friendly, dry town claimed the beach is getting a little too cheeky, the Courier Post reports. But, in the end, it was decided to leave ...
LAWRENCEVILLE - Dropping nearly $60,000 a year on private college, one would assume some palatial digs. But Rider University is taking huge lumps from the Princeton Review, which has ranked the college Number One in the nation under the category of "Is that a Dorm?" School officials are quick to ...
NEWARK - So, what would you do for $1.5 million? Jump out of a plane? Attempt to scale Mount Everest? Vote for Trump? Really, there are endless challenges to chase the big bucks. But, in Newark, all a woman needed to do was slip in an icy parking lot. She broke her ankle three years ago, and now ...
ON THE RAILS - It's getting a little tiring to keep slamming NJ Transit. But the rail agency, for a myriad of reasons, keeps canceling trains this summer. Every morning rush, trains simply don't show, prompting commuters to jam on stuffy, overcrowded trains on 90-degree days, knowing they will be ...
STATEWIDE - While it feels like marijuana is virtually legal in New Jersey, you might want to keep the bong tucked quietly at home. USA Today did an "investigation," revealing that the Garden State has the highest rate of marijuana arrests in the nation. In 2016, there were 32,270 marijuana ...
GALLOWAY - For Stockton University students, it was a helluva run. For the past few years, 200 lucky students got to live in a freshly-renovated Stockton Seaview Hotel & Golf Club, featuring room service, free laundry and flat screens - all for the bargain price of a public university. Pretty ...
HILLSBOROUGH - Call him "Super Suburb Man," as he sprints from one residential bush to another, wearing only a mask and cape. Count on him to protect the hedges, the evergreens and the hydrangea from uh, whatever. While it is obviously clear that Super Suburb Man plays a tremendous public role, ...
STATEWIDE - As state officials propose an official state germ for New Jersey, now is the time to see what other official things we can get. Gannettnotes the horse is the official state animal; the blueberry is the official fruit and the common blue violet is the official flower. But, Gannett asks, ...
ONLINE - It's a downloadable gun, and law enforcement obviously wants none of it. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal has dashed off a letter to a technology company that has step-by-step directions for how people can build their own gun with a basic 3-D printer. [Gasp.] Grewal says such directions are ...
TRENTON - Sure, there's always pressure to find material to gab aboutfor four hours of daily talk radio. But, according to Gov. Phil Murphy, that doesn't mean you refer to the state's Sikh attorney general as "turban man." The head honchos at NJ 101.5 clearly agree, removing "The Dennis & Judi" ...
STATEWIDE - There's a new school aid formula in New Jersey, and everyone is a winner! Um, probably not. But, Gov. Phil Murphy still vows every school district will get their full amount of state aid by 2025. School aid has been a mess for years, as any school official will tell you, with wealthy ...
ON THE ROADS - Go before you go. That's the polite suggestion of state highway officials, with word that two rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike will be closing for huge renovations after the Labor Day weekend. No longer will you be able to make pit stops at the service areas in Woodbridge and ...
TOTOWA - We may never know what kind of dead rodent was discovered in this can of iced tea. But it really doesn't matter for a local woman who says she is now plagued with psychiatric and psychological issues after making the gruesome discovery at the bottom of an Arizona iced tea she bought at a ...
LONG BRANCH - You can build beautiful seaside restaurants, hotels and condos to attract big spenders to the shore. But no matter how much money is at play, you can't control what crap washes up. Just ask officials in Long Branch and Deal, now dealing with closed beaches when icky stuff flushed down ...
TRENTON - Once the state budget is adopted June 30, you'd think the governor gets a break from scrutiny. Unless you are former Gov. Chris Christie, sitting in that beach chair. Or, now, Gov. Phil Murphy, getting wacked for having the players on his Sky Blue FC pro women's soccer team living in ...
STATEWIDE - One business in Pleasantville has flooded 32 different times since the early 1990s, and rebuilt each time with taxpayer money. A single-family home in North Wildwood has been flooded and rebuilt 23 times, again, on your dime. NJ.com reports that New Jersey is filled with 3,330 ...
CAPE MAY - Call it a slow news day, nationwide, as the story of a lost dog somehow hit all the news wires. The pug named "Bean" escaped its owner's rental house over the weekend and wandered around backyards before police scooped it up on New Jersey Avenue. Cape May cops, likely not overrun with ...
STATEWIDE - No one really wants to talk about it. But every time you turn on a household faucet for tap water, its likely messing with a centuries-old system that's possibly leaching lead. And, because of so many World War I-era systems, some parts of the state have an over-abundance of water, ...
WAYNE - Honey! Cancel our Aug. 9th anniversary dinner! I've got other plans! That's the night you can join this bozo and scores of others at "Lace," a Wayne "gentleman's club" where America's favorite tramp - Stormy Daniels - will strip live and in person. Stop at the bank, trade in your wad of 20s ...
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL - There's a Democratic primary in New York between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and "Sex in the City" star Cynthia Nixon. And why do we care? Because our governor is not blindly throwing his support behind Cuomo in the race, reports New Jersey Globe. "We're not getting involved in that," ...
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL - It looks like Republicans aspiring for federal office have found a talking point to slam Democrats with: the new, $37.4 billion state budget under Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. It has millions in tax increases, NJ.com reports, and those Republicans running for Congress want ...
BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP - It's big. It's ugly. And you haven't been there in years. No, we're not talking about a Trump casino. This morning, it is time to shed a tear over the steady demise of the Burlington Center mall, now gasping with an outdated Sears on the brink of closure. Philly.com offers an ...
The Jaffe Briefing will be on break beginning Monday, July 2, returning Monday, July 9 STATEWIDE - Fourth of July is almost here, so get those flags out. Yet, a report from one of those online clickbait companies makes the wild claim that New Jerseyans aren't ...
TRENTON - Let's make a deal. That's the word from the governor's office, with Gov. Phil Murphy offering the state Legislature some concessions to get the fiscal '19 state budget adopted by June 30. So, he says, how about we reduce the proposed corporate business tax? And how about we phase in that ...
TRENTON - One of the perks of the state Legislature adopting a state budget is that we no longer have to write about the state budget. But, now, as time is ticking down to an adopted budget by June 30, there's all this "drama" unfolding. The latest: Gov. Phil Murphy is now vowing to slash $855 ...
SUMMIT - Residents refuse to get their heads out of their phones, a big concern for city cops who are worried they are going to get run over in the downtown. And, so, as Summit is desperate to educate pedestrians to stay focused on the task at hand, city officials are also trying to slow down ...