Arizona law comes to Morristown

Sort of … A protest is planned on the Green tomorrow to condemn the new immigration law in Arizona. Good for the demonstrators.

In essence, the Arizona law allows police to stop people and check out their citizenship, or immigraton status. Immigration is an emotional issue, but let’s step back a minute and think. Is the notion of police randomly checking the status of people in the street sound constitutional to you? It sure doesn’t to me.

Drill baby, drill?

Remember those chanting souls at the last GOP national convention and subsequently, other forums, who screamed, Drill, baby, drill?

The recent catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico surely makes that goal a little suspect, don’t you think?  And it shows why off-shore drilling off of the Jersey Coast is a bad idea.  

One would not be surprised if the president alters his previous endorsement of off-shore drilling.

Christie and the White House

Governors answer a variety of questions, and so the governor responded to a question about him running for president. Really now, that was a dumb question.

This is no reflection on the governor’s ability, but he’s been governor for less than four months, and if he was interested in the White House, he would have to start campaigning now.

Good for Christie for rejecting the idea out of hand.

Once upon a time, then Freeholder Christie ran for the state Assembly early in his freeholder tenure. He finished sixth out of six. That was in 1995. He now realizes, one assumes, that you have to concentrate on the job you have before setting your sights on higher office.

Then again, Christie is 100 times more qualified to seek the GOP presidential nomination than some of those interested _ like Sarah Palin. .

Support for Cabana

Doug Cabana seeks renomination as a Morris County freeholder in the June primary. He is running on a slate with fellow incumbents James Murray and Jack Schrier.

But he is also being endorsed by challengers Jason Cullen and Gary Steele in an 11-person race.  Cullen and Steele have literature that urges a vote for them and a vote for Cabana.

The funny thing is that the brochure condemns the freeholders for increasing taxes by $9 million and for allowing county debt to balloon to $428 million.

“We deserve a break _ today,” it says.

But apparently not from Cabana.

What happened to zero tolerance?

Yep, zero tolerance, the policy that seems to govern school life these days . As the name implies, there isn’t much leeway here. If a student messes up, he pays the price. Except, of course when the transgression is something school administrators support …

Take, for instance, the student walk out today in schools around New Jersey to protest cuts in state aid.

In some districts, Roxbury comes to mind, administrators treated the walkout like a field trip. The super, in fact, released a statement that seemed to support the idea. Here it is:

I knew the students were planning to express their feelings about state aid cuts and our goal was to keep them safe.  We had a plan to do just that, and they were peaceful, and came back to class after they had made their point.  Obviously, we never want kids to miss any class time but it is an American right to express opinions, emanating from the Founding Fathers.  With that many kids involved, giving them an outlet is better than trying to keep them bottled up, or even worse, trying to restrain them, which could have been disastrous. 

Students need to have a voice and we have a school full of bright, motivated, sincere young adults.  I believe they feel have a voice and think we will at least listen to them; perhaps not always agree, but at least listen. 

They were up front with us, honest, peaceful and cooperative.  Our goal was to keep them safe, give them a voice and then get them back to class.  They did their part and we did ours.  It was peaceful, participatory democracy in action.

A Lt. governor all the time

You may have seen a little dustup last week involving Kim Guadagno, the lieutenant governor, and state Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen.

It seems as if Guadagno was testifying before Sarlo’s committee as secretary of state (another job she holds) when the senator asked a general question about the state budget. She said she was NOT testifying as lieutenant governor,only as secretary of state. Sigh.
One realizes that we are in a new world here when it comes to lieutenant governors. Still, one can not be the lieutenant governor only when you want to be. You hold that position 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I am reminded of an incident years ago when a sitting state senator was representing a client before a town planning board. He tried to say that he was not representing him as state senator. Maybe not, but the man WAS a state senator, and you can not pretend that title does not exist.

Same principle here: Guadagno should have answered a general question on the budget.

Really Bob

DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said during a visit to the Passaic River basin today that this year’s spring floods were caused by a  “high volume of water.”

Budget fails — blame the mailman

It may not work, but at least they can try that in Roxbury, which is where I live.

As we all know, the school election was Tuesday;’ on Thursday, I got a brochure in the mail telling me why I should support the budget.  Oh well, it was only two days late.

You've got to love "disposable income"

Yep, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for 40 Park Place, the residential complex that is replacing Epstein’s, officials spoke of the need to bring people to Morristown who have “disposable income.”

Oh well, in an era when waiters and waitresses are called servers and when auto mechanics are called technicians, I guess it’s OK to use “disposable income” instead of saying, “Rich people.”

Grossi could have brought balloons

Yep, that was Ann Grossi’s only regret today when her team pulled the top three ballot positions in the 11-candidate race for three Republican Morris County freeholder nominations in the June 8 primary.  Grossi is running with John Krickus and Tom Mastrangelo. Those three, who “bracketed” themselves, will be in ballot positions one, two and three on the ballot.

The three incumbents, Doug Cabana, Jack Schrier and James Murray, who are also bracketed, will be in slots eight, nine and 10.

“I’m thrilled,” said Grossi, a Parsippany councilmember.

It’s always debatable what ballot position means, but it definitely means something. Three years ago, Murray, who is now an incumbent, was unknown politically, but after getting the number one position, he won an upset victory.
 
Filling out the ballot, Gary Steele got the fourth position and his runningmate, Jason Cullen, the fifth.

Charles A. Germershausen got the sixth spot, Joe Sirvent Jr., the seventh and  Christine Myers the 11th.

“Last is good,” Myers said, optimistically.

In the race for sheriff, challenger Steven Olimpio got the number one position over incumbent Ed Rochford.

.