The Ridge Nightfly

According to this study, NJ has the highest cost per highway mile of any state in the Nation. Waaaay higher.

North Dakota, South Carolina have nation’s most cost-effective road systems; New Jersey is home to nation’s worst overall road system for eighth straight year.

We also tie with California, Minnesota and North Carolina for most congestion.

New Jersey has 2,906 miles of state-owned highway. Overall, the state ranked 50th in the overall performance ratings in 2005. This compares to 50th in 2000. It scored best on rural primary pavements narrow (1st) and fatality rate (5th). Its lowest rankings were for receipts per mile of responsibility (50th), capital/bridge disbursements per mile of responsibility (50th), administrative disbursements per mile of responsibility (50th), maintenance disbursements per mile of responsibility (50th), total disbursements per mile of responsibility (50th), urban interstate congestion (48th), rural interstate pavement condition (47th) and urban interstate condition (43rd). Very high unit costs relative to other states, in combination with traffic, more than offset low accident rates and rural pavement condition.

By way of comparison, we are talking orders of magnitude. South Carolina spends $31K and change per mile. We spend over $2.2 million per mile.

Keep voting Democrat, folks!

At last. The Democrat candidates for Bernards Township Committee (Bill Allen and MiniBill) finally activated their website.

Sort of.

Thus far the content is a bit shy on political issues. Yes, they blame the current township committee for the mess at the Millington Quarry (as opposed to the Quarry, which lied about its fill policy until it was revealed by an investigation started by… the current township committee). But the rest of the posts seem to be about things like clinical depression, the power of motivated people and other matters having nothing to do with running a town.

Even the title has a vauge, Obama-esque quality: “Shape Our Future”.

Of course, in a town that leads the state in its reduction in municipal taxes, reduced its debt and still managed to preserve hundreds of acres of farmland and open space, it is difficult to find real issues to latch on to. And with state Dems trying to impose mandatory affordable housing while cutting school aid and increasing contributions to workmans comp and state pension funds, is there anyone in Bernards who wants more Democrats in a position of power?

The cat is out of the bag. In a bylined story by Paula Saha the Star Ledger finally reports on the fact that “Fair” Housing Act and the Highlands Act cannot co-exist in the same state.¹

Highlands Executive Director Eileen Swan is now beginning to sound a bit desperate as she invokes the language of the Highlands Act that states agencies like COAH need to take the act “into consideration”. DCA chief Joe Doria, whose department includes COAH, will consider it all right, then ignore it.

The article reports that the Sierra Club and other enviro groups have written the Governor, asking him to veto the recently-adapted Highlands Regional Master Plan on the grounds it ignores the threat of COAH. Not much chance of that, since it would require an act of courage he no longer seems capable of, any more than he would pick up the gauntlet and call for a constitutional convention to overturn the court decisions mandating affordable housing in the first place.

In fact, rumor has it that the Governor will be showing up at the Highlands Council meeting on August 21st. We doubt he’ll be there to announce a veto. There will instead be brave words all around and then a nice photo op.

Over the next ten years the last great source of drinking water in northern New Jersey will be gradually paved over, the rural and suburban communities that comprise the Highlands will become increasingly urbanized (and, more important, increasingly Democrat) and the middle class will flee to other states where economics and environmental policy still makes sense.

Corzine, of course, will be long gone, either to a position in the Obama Politburo or on to the lucrative lecture and consultant circuit.

1. The seemingly-doomed Ledger newsroom is the last to catch on. Columnist Paul Mulshine has been talking about it for months. The Sunday Op-Ed feature with former governors Kean and Byrne nattered away about it this past weekend.

The Star Ledger is not just going to lose a third of its local news reporters (see here). Word is that the Newhouse Washington News Bureau, which provides the national news for the paper (and 15 other regional dailies owned by the same corporation), will close down after the November election.

What this means is that, while you will still have many other places to get broad national events, readers of the Star Ledger will no longer get the Washington news that affects New Jersey on a local level, whether it’s legislation, regulation, NJ Congressional news or what have you.

The Democrats’ attack on small town New Jersey continues. Not satisfied with slashing state aid to towns under 10,000 people, or with hammering rural townships with draconian affordable housing quotas, this week the state sent bills to 89 municipalities that use state troopers to cover some or all of their policing needs.

Upper Township in Cape May County, population 12,000, got an invoice for $657,889, the highest in the state. This would result in a 50% increase in local property taxes.

More interesting are the towns that did not get billed. Despite making large use of state police (predominantly Democrat) cities such as Camden and Irvington were not charged anything at all.

Meanwhile Governor Corzine travelled down to Washington to give candidate Barack Obama the benefit of his economic wisdom. That does not bode well for the rest of the country.

The NY Times is reporting that the Star Ledger and its smaller partner the Trenton Times must cut non-union staff and get concessions from union workers or else face being sold and probably having the latter paper go out of business.

At the Ledger the owners want 100 buyouts out of a staff of 350 in the news department.¹ Assuming this were to happen the effect on the ability of the Ledger to maintain current news coverage would be severely hampered. The paper has the fifteenth largest circulation in the country.

All of this follows rumors on the precarious fate of the Bergen Record, northeast New Jersey’s other main regional paper.

According to its owners, the Ledger and Times lost over $30 million last year as ad revenues continue to migrate away from print publications to the Internet, cable TV and other media.

1. The paper itself is reporting a request for 200 buyouts, but from the entire staff of 1,400 non-union employees.

Less than 2 years¹ & $100K.

Not a bad price to pay for 25 years of looting the public treasury, destroying the credibility of an entire city and running rough shod over state, county and local government.

Where did Judge Martini think all that swag came from: the yacht, the Rolls, the millions in the bank? Prudent personal finances? Of course, there are probably thousands of his admirers who are livid that he received any jail time at all. They are so sunk in their own illusions or their prejudices that nothing will change their minds. But they need not concern us. We need to make sure that this decision is overturned in Federal Appeals Court. It goes without saying that the state of New Jersey is useless in that regard. The justice system is rotten with political appointments and bagmen for Trenton and the county bosses.

US Attorney Chris Christie has vowed to appeal the decision, hopefully to a Federal judge with a brain and a backbone. In the meantime Sharpe James will thumb his nose at the rest of us, while enjoying a well-earned rest in a minimum security prison.

1. There is no parole in the Federal prison system, but if you follow the rules you get out after serving 85% of your time. In James’ case, that’s just under 23 months.

It was a year ago that Morristown had rallies for and against illegal immigrants. (See here.) Last year the gatherings were across the street from one another and, as you might expect, soon devolved into confrontation.

This year the pro-illegal forces led by local group Wind In the Spirit held a prayer vigil on the Green and the antis did nothing. The signs were out again declaring that “No human being is illegal”, a statement whose meaning remains unclear 12 months later. After all, human beings can commit illegal acts, such as entering a country without proper permission.

Mayor Don Cresitello was nowhere to be seen. Last year he attended the ProAmerica (AKA “AntIIlegal”) rally and called the people in the rally across the street “socialists and communists”. This year’s group railed against Cresitello’s attempts to get Morristown police deputized as special INS agents. They aren’t the only ones. The Motown police chief came out against that idea and soon after became embroiled in a discrimination suit that may or may not have been connected to his criticism of the mayor. That’s still pending.

Senator Ray “Did I Say $30M, I Meant $10M” Lesniak has an Op-Ed piece in the Star Ledger this AM in which he thinks it’s OK to have paid Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano an extra $250K a year without telling anybody.

In the case of Schiano’s contract, not only should the terms have been disclosed, but they should have been touted by an administration seeking to find cost-effective ways to increase the national profile of Rutgers football.

Of course, it isn’t his money we’re talking about; it’s our money. And he doesn’t even begin to consider whether or not a state bankrupted by people like him can and should spend millions on turning the state university into a Division I football power when it involves cuts in academics and other, non-high profile, sports?

We would rather see the university spend the money on more varsity sports and more student involvement in sports and fitness over all. That $250K could have been spent re-establishing most if not all of the varsity sports recently cut. Coach Schiano, no offense, but you aren’t a better alternative than that.

Bob Braun, the Star Ledger columnist in charge of tear jerk stories about widows, orphans and the handicapped, has decided that Sharpe James committed “victimless crimes” and should therefore be granted leniency.

Seriously.

If, with the jury, you believe he helped his reputed lover, Tamika Riley, buy city property and resell it without rehabilitating it for resale to end buyers, who was hurt?

Not the city or its taxpayers… The city got the $2,000 per unit the city council set as the price to all buyers and deserves no more now.

Not the residential buyers, who paid market price no matter who refurbished the property. And it should be remembered all properties sold by Riley were rehabilitated before they were sold at market rates.

Not the middlemen, the developers who repaired the houses. They knew all they needed to know about these transactions and chose to participate. They knew what Riley paid. They knew what they paid. And they knew the cost to refurbish the properties and how much they would realize in the market.

Are we really to believe that the residents of Newark suffered no harm from this scam? True, perhaps the real crime was the “$2,000 per unit” skim as absurdly low. And then there are the campaign contributions generated by such largesse, the favors, the trips, the perqs ad infinitum.

We suggest Mr. Braun go back to writing sob stories. Surely somewhere out there is a cat stuck in a tree.