Media
Coronavirus, Students & Veterans: A Time for Relief
I’ve talked in recent blogs about my efforts to assist our citizens who have felt the lash of the coronavirus – businesses, employees, homeowners, renters, and more. Two groups in particular are also in need of a boost now: our students and our veterans.
College students are generally young, eager for experience, and are preparing to start their career. However, they face obstacles — temporarily, I hope — that we never encountered because of the coronavirus pandemic. College alone can be a boulder. But the pandemic has tipped the boulder downhill. Students are struggling with loans and graduating without the joyful ceremony they earned. Most are facing gloomy employment prospects. And while students confront this dismal job market, they need some help, because the payments and interest on their college loans are not disappearing. The clock keeps ticking on those financial demands.
Another Reopening Dilemma For NJ Schools: Students, Teachers Afraid To Come Back
School districts struggling to balance in-school/virtual instruction face another problem — educators, students unwilling to return to brick-and-mortar classrooms
First Detailed Look At Murphy’s Revamped $10B Emergency-Borrowing Bill
Now that administration has done a major reworking of earlier legislation based on deal between Murphy and Sweeney, new bill is expected to sail through both houses of the Legislature
NJ Could Face ‘Tidal Wave’ Of Evictions If Rent Relief Stalls
There is a moratorium on evictions during the pandemic, but landlords have continued to file cases. Housing advocates fear a surge of evictions when the moratorium lifts
Plan To Publicly Name Fired N.J. Cops Derailed By Police Union Lawsuits
A plan by New Jersey’s attorney general to identify state troopers and other police officers accused of serious misconduct has been put on hold amid legal challenges from the state’s most powerful police unions.
Tropical Storm Fay No Match For Kickoff Of Food Truck Fridays
The lunch series is part of a broader effort by the senator to fight food insecurity across the region and the state.
Yale Poll Finds Most New Jerseyans Support Proposals Included In Clean Energy Equity Act
A new poll from Yale University, George Mason University and Climate Nexus found that at least 7 in 10 New Jerseyans support the proposals included in the New Jersey Clean Energy Equity Act currently on the agenda for the Senate Environment Committee meeting on July 16. The bill aims to help low-income New Jersey families benefit from solar, storage and energy efficiency.
Helping The Food Banks Address Food Insecurity
Recently, I sponsored a food distribution event in partnership with my legislative colleagues, Assemblyman Herb Conaway and Assemblywoman Carol Murphy. Even though we practiced social distancing, it provided me with a front-row view of one of the difficult and unintended consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been food insecurity resulting from the closures of schools and staggering unemployment rates.
Court Rules N.J. Can’t Release Names Of Disciplined Police Officers, At Least For Now
A New Jersey appeals court has temporarily blocked the public disclosure of the names of state police troopers and local and county police officers sanctioned for disciplinary violations, placing in limbo a reform sought by New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.