Drivers From Elsewhere Are Taking Over Parking Spots In Jersey City Heights, Neighbors Say

June 7, 2017 6:59 PM

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (CBSNewYork) ? Spillover parking into a neighborhood in Jersey City is frustrating people who live and work there, and adding to congestion in one of the most densely-populated areas in the Tri-State.

As CBS2?s Meg Baker reported, the parking situation in Jersey City Heights from Route 139 to Patterson Plank Road is so bad that some residents are even moving out of the area.

?I get tickets quite often because it?s not that easy, as you see, to find parking,? said business owner Gloria Salazar.

Councilman Michael Yun (Ward D) says many drivers from out of town park in the heights because a parking permit is not needed.

They park on our street and they get in the bus, they go to New York City, so they hold our parking spaces eight to nine hours per day,? Yun said.

The Jersey City Heights neighborhood is on the boundary of Union City, Hoboken, and North Bergen.

?And those towns have their own parking restrictions which ultimately affect living here,? said David Diaz, district manager for the Central Avenue Special Improvements District.

Workers in the area said most days, they can only find a spot with a time limit, and if they are too busy to move their car, that means they are getting a ticket.

?We estimate that there?s about 300 people that come to work on a daily basis to the shopping district, between the police, the teachers in the area, and the merchants and the employees. We?re trying to get those folks that are parking for eight or more hours a day into an area that?ll create some turnover in the on-street parking,? Diaz said.

To combat the issue, the Jersey City Council just passed a permit parking ordinance. It will cost residents $15 a year.

As for workers, a parking deck is planned for Central Avenue to free up spaces for shoppers. There is no estimated timetable for the groundbreaking.

The new parking ordinance will start in 2018, once signs in the area are updated.

Video:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/06/0 ... sey-city-heights-parking/

Kushners Hunting Hard for a Loan to Pay Back Chinese Investors

by Sarah Mulholland and Caleb Melby
June 5, 2017, 5:00 AM EDT

The Kushner family real estate company is seeking a $250 million loan to pay back Chinese investors in a New Jersey luxury tower but finding some major U.S. banks wary of the controversies around its White House links and the visa program used to attract the investors.

Kushner Cos. is sending out feelers for the loan against its 50-story Trump Bay Street in Jersey City. It would keep $50 million and use the rest to repay the investors and pay off a mortgage on the building, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

The company, which belongs to the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump?s son-in-law and senior adviser, funded about a quarter of the $194-million development through the EB-5 visa program that grants wealthy foreigners green cards in exchange for investing in U.S. projects.

Some large U.S. banks are shying away from the transaction because of the property?s connection to Kushner and the visa program, the person said. Unregulated lenders and non-U.S. banks will probably step into the breach. A Kushner Cos. spokesman declined to comment.

The EB-5 program requires a foreigner to invest at least $500,000 in a project that helps an area with high unemployment or in need of development in exchange for a permanent resident visa. Lawmakers in Washington have been pushing for EB-5 changes for several years, calling for stricter oversight to guard against fraud and provide better access to economically strapped regions. Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has introduced bipartisan legislation to end the program. Last month, Trump renewed the program through September.

Congressional Concern

The Kushners? reliance on EB-5 has come under criticism. Last week, three Democratic congressmen sent a letter to Kushner Cos. asking for information about how it has used EB-5. The letter raised concerns that the company?s participation in the program, including recent investor pitches in China, could pose conflicts for Jared Kushner?s policy-making role in the White House. Last month, Kushner Cos. was forced to pull out of an EB-5 presentation following criticism that Kushner?s sister invoked the company?s links to Trump as a selling point for investors in their deals.

The U.S. lender skepticism follows a rough period of deal making for Kushner Cos. Over the past five months, the real estate company has seen talks for three major projects quashed, including negotiations with China?s Anbang Insurance Group Co. to refinance the family?s marquee Manhattan office tower.

The spotlight grew brighter last week after reports that Jared Kushner was under scrutiny in an FBI investigation into possible links between Russia and Trump?s campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

Kushner, the husband of Ivanka Trump, has divested ownership in many projects to close relatives and has vowed to avoid policy discussions on renewing the controversial visa program.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/art ... ay-back-chinese-investors

Legal, but unethical: Jared Kushner's Jersey City gambit | Editorial

Updated on June 3, 2017 at 6:34 AM Posted on June 3, 2017 at 6:30 AM

BY STAR-LEDGER EDITORIAL BOARD eletters@starledger.com

Anyone who's ever driven through Jersey City will recognize the indecent absurdity of what Jared Kushner did to save millions on his luxury tower.

Or just read the reactions of people in its poorest neighborhoods, in the Washington Post or Jersey Journal: "It's like we're being used," one said.

These are the folks who are supposed to benefit from a federal program designed to boost development in blighted and rural areas, where jobs are scarce. Its purpose is to lure investors to needy neighborhoods where they wouldn't otherwise have built.

Not to give a multi-million-dollar discount to the presidential son-in-law's waterfront high-rise, in a booming downtown area, where monthly rent for a two-bedroom is as much as $5,300, and unemployment virtually nonexistent.

This new tower, 65 Bay Street, is located one of the New York area's hottest housing markets. Yet with a wink from state officials, Kushner and his partners availed themselves of the huge discounts provided by this federal program, by tinkering with city maps to qualify.

Like a politician gerrymandering his own district, they included far-flung, destitute areas like Greenville as supposed beneficiaries of this posh new apartment complex. And Bergen-Lafayette, where nearly 1 in 5 are jobless.

Is Kushner the first investor to do this? Of course not. But it's evidence that Trump's son-in-law and advisor is willing to exploit a loophole in a federal program to financially benefit himself - just as he's been exploiting loopholes in ethics laws to profit from his role in Trump's presidency.

Like Trump himself, Kushner has refused to divest in his family business. He's retained most of his holdings, "selling" some interests to his brother and a trust controlled by his mother, from whom he could simply get them back later.

That's a shell game, not a true blind trust, in which an independent party sells the assets and he can never retrieve them. So Kushner's still financially benefitting from his proximity to the presidency - and from Trump's policies, like his recent renewal of this EB-5 program, the benefit Kushner used in Jersey City.

It allows a wealthy foreigner who invests at least $500,000 in a project in a struggling, jobless area to get a fast-track residence visa. The developers also benefit, because the terms of the investment are better than what they'd get from a bank loan, saving them potential millions.

Kushner's now trying to pull the same thing for a pair of luxury towers in another rapidly-developing area of Jersey City, called Journal Square. To say this creates construction jobs misses the point: These fancy towers would have been built and the jobs created anyway, without any help from the EB-5 program.

Investments like Kushner's are why more deserving projects that do far more to create jobs in poor or rural areas don't get this benefit. And isn't that the America Trump's presidency was supposed to make great?

Trump called struggling Atlantic City his "cash cow," and considered his bankruptcies there a sign of success - because he came out richer. For Kushner, apparently, it's grabbing loans meant for the poorest areas in Jersey City.

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2 ... ners_jersey_city_sch.html

Yes, they were mailed to me. But why 4 in one day? I don't find these flyers well-designed. They don't entice me to read them.

Yesterday, I received 4 flyers for Nicholas Chiaravalloti in my mailbox. That is beside ones that I have already received on other days. They know how to waste money.

HOW JARED KUSHNER BUILT A LUXURY SKYSCRAPER USING LOANS MEANT FOR A JOB-STARVED AREAS

By Shawn Boburg May 31 at 6:19 PM

JERSEY CITY ? Jared Kushner and his real estate partners wanted to take advantage of a federal program in 2015 that would save them millions of dollars as they built an opulent, 50-story residential tower in this city?s booming waterfront district, just across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan.

There was just one problem: The program was designed to benefit projects in poor, job-starved areas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investi ... 9-bac8b446820a_story.html

Jersey City mostly mum on latest chapter in Kushner saga

Updated on June 1, 2017 at 6:33 PM Posted on June 1, 2017 at 6:06 PM

BY TERRENCE T. MCDONALD tmcdonald@jjournal.com
The Jersey Journal

JERSEY CITY -- City Hall was mostly silent today about the news that high unemployment in the city's south side was used to help Jared Kushner and the developers of Trump Bay Street win critical financing for the luxury high-rise.

City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said the city was not involved in the bit of so-called "gerrymandering" that allowed Kushner to cite the jobless rate in the city's impoverished areas to obtain federal approval for the 50-story tower.

Morrill did not respond when asked if the administration had any comment on the practice. Council President Rolando Lavarro said he wasn't aware of the details of the story.

"This is the first I've heard," Lavarro said. "I would have to do a little independent research on that."

Lavarro is also chair of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, which in April 2013 designated an LLC controlled in part by Kushner as the developer of Trump Bay Street, located at 65 Bay St. near the waterfront.

more:
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... pter_in_kushner_saga.html

The sample ballots are here. New website.

http://www.hudsoncountyclerk.org/sample-ballots/

Carrier Plant Trump ?Rescued? Will Lay Off Hundreds by Christmas
http://www.snopes.com/2017/05/24/carr ... trump-lay-offs-christmas/


Ford Deepens Motown's Slowdown, Contradicting Trump's Growth Claims
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/article ... touting-automotive-growth

Kushner deal shines spotlight on Jersey City's struggling inner city

Updated on May 31, 2017 at 10:06 PM Posted on May 31, 2017 at 7:37 PM

BY TERRENCE T. MCDONALD tmcdonald@jjournal.com
The Jersey Journal

JERSEY CITY -- Oak Street is less than a three-mile drive from the Trump Bay Street luxury high-rise but it feels like another world entirely.

Daytime shootings are not uncommon here. Bags of garbage sit beside overflowing sidewalk trashcans. The street signs at Oak and Martin Luther King Drive is so faded you can't read the letters. Residents say the signs have been that way for two years.

But this neighborhood and similarly economically struggling areas nearby have an improbable link to Trump Bay Street, a 50-story high-rise developed in part by Kushner Companies, run by the family of presidential son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. Documents show state officials allowed developers to cite the high unemployment in the city's southern areas like Oak Street to obtain foreign investment through a program intended to help rural areas and places with high unemployment.

More:
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... on_jersey_citys_stru.html

Jared Kushner Once Allegedly Admitted That Donald Trump Lies to His Base Because He Thinks They?re Stupid

http://www.gq.com/story/jared-kushner-trump-base-ny-observer

Touting Ties to Trump Is the Only Thing That Unites the Feuding Kushners

David Kocieniewski, Wenxin Fan and David M. Levitt
May 31, 2017, 4:00 AM EDT

?Work hand-in-hand with Trump son-in-law Kushner,? said the pitch, which hasn?t previously been reported. It told the investors that by putting $500,000 in the planned apartment tower at 235 Grand Street, they could qualify for a U.S. resident visa through a program known as EB-5, aimed at attracting foreign funds to help develop neglected areas and promote jobs.


Read more here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/art ... se-white-house-trump-link

Oculus is still leaking despite Port Authority saying it isn?t

By Danielle Furfaro and Stephanie Pagones
May 29, 2017 | 4:43pm

The Oculus is still leaking.

The rain this past week caused puddles and slick floors near the balconies and elevators on both sides of Ground Zero?s $4 billion transit hub, and, at this point, the problem is considered chronic.

?There are leaks on this side and that side, those two balconies, by the elevators, and then the back also. It?s a mess,? said one maintenance worker. ?We soak it up and drain it. It?s a lot of work. It?s nonstop.?

Earlier this month, Port Authority officials put the blame for the leak on a nearby construction project and promised to fix it. On Friday, the agency issued an astonishing statement denying that the Oculus is still leaking.

?There were no leaks in the Oculus this week,? spokesman Steve Coleman said, even though a Post reporter saw the leaks firsthand. The water often leaves the marble floor feeling more like an impromptu ice skating rink, making it dangerous for visitors.

?People do have accidents. Like the last rainy day, somebody almost broke their neck here on the marble,? said the maintenance worker. The woman was walking down the stairs when she slid on a puddle, he said. ?They slipped and they really hurt themselves because, you know, these are marble floors.?

Workers at the site say the construction of the ambitious building was a rush job that left many loose ends. Even thought the Oculus opened in August, construction workers are still putting the finishing touches on it because there was so much left undone, they said.

?Everything is not done so you?ve have to come back and do it,? said construction worker Shawn Cumberbatch, 41, who was caulking a seam in the main room that had been left unsealed for months. ?They just wasted a lot of cash over here. This should have been done. If they just took their time and got it right the first time, we wouldn?t have this problem.?

The Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH terminal, which also houses several luxury retailers, opened in March 2016 ? seven years behind schedule and $2 billion over budget. The mall portion of the building opened in August.

Not only is the building still suffering from leaks and holes, but the design of the building makes the interior weather very uncomfortable, say retail workers who have to spend all day on the floor.

?They didn?t put much thought into the construction itself. It?s half-assed,? said Stephany Rivera, 23, an assistant manager at children?s clothing and toy store Kingkow. ?It?s frustrating. It?s heat. You feel heat in here, you feel nothing out there. You expected this place to be cool with so many vents like that, but nothing. There?s just no wind. You just feet hot.?

Even the new escalators are also already perpetually breaking, say workers.

?The escalators constantly mess up,? said the maintenance man. ?Sometimes they just get stuck.?

http://nypost.com/2017/05/29/oculus-i ... authority-saying-it-isnt/

U.S. Senator calls for probe into promotion of Kushner Cos deal

Mon May 29, 2017 | 3:07am EDT

By Alexandra Harney | SHANGHAI

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has called for an investigation into "potentially fraudulent statements and misrepresentations" made by companies promoting investment in a property development involving the family company of White House advisor Jared Kushner.

Citing a May 12 report by Reuters, Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa, requested a review of claims made by Chinese migration agency Qiaowai and the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF) in the marketing of the One Journal Square project in Jersey City, New Jersey to potential investors in China.
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Criticism of the program has centered on instances of fraud and the fact that most of the funds in a program originally intended to help impoverished areas have instead gone to wealthy urban districts.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-chi ... ner-qiaowai-idUSKBN18P0J9

US Navy SEAL dies in parachuting accident during Fleet Week event in Jersey City

POSTED 3:44 PM, MAY 28, 2017, BY ASHLEY SOLEY-CERRO, UPDATED AT 04:29PM, MAY 28, 2017

JERSEY CITY, N.J. ?A US Navy SEAL died in a parachuting incident Sunday after his parachute failed to open, causing him to fall into the Hudson River, officials said.

Multiple agencies responded to the incident at a Fleet Week event in Jersey City. The man?s parachute failed to open properly, he fell into the Hudson River and later died at the Jersey City Medical Center.

Palisades Interstate Parkway police are assisting New Jersey State police in a ?parachute incident? at Liberty State Park, local police tweeted around 1 p.m.

The U.S. Coast Guard also confirms they have taken part in a rescue operation in the vicinity of the Hudson River.

The incident involved U.S. Navy personnel and occurred at a Fleet Week event, military sources say.

The Navy is aware of the incident, a spokesman said.

An image of the scene shared on social media shows a parachute in a parking lot. The photographer says several emergency vehicles responded.

The chute landed in the parking lot when a parachutist realized it would not open, and detached it so he would land in the Hudson River, NJ.com reports.

The parachutist, who was participating in a Fleet Week show, was recovered from the river and is in unknown condition, NJ.com reports.

http://pix11.com/2017/05/28/agencies- ... t-in-jersey-city-sources/


http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/ ... leet-Week--424960734.html

Most Chipotle restaurants hacked with credit card stealing malware

May 28, 2017: 12:07 PM ET

A cybersecurity attack that hit most Chipotle restaurants allowed hackers to steal credit card information from customers, the burrito chain confirmed.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/28/techn ... edit-card-hack/index.html

----------------------------------------------------

RESTAURANTS AND TIMEFRAMES THAT RELATE TO THIS NOTIFICATION

SELECT THE STATE YOUR PAYMENT CARD WAS USED: NJ
SELECT THE CITY YOUR PAYMENT CARD WAS USED:Jersey City

ADDRESS ZIP DATES
525 Washington Blvd Suite G 07310 3/27/2017?4/18/2017


https://www.chipotle.com/security#security

Parachute fails to open during Fleet Week show off Jersey City


Updated on May 28, 2017 at 3:37 PM Posted on May 28, 2017 at 1:04 PM

BY MARGARET SCHMIDT mschmidt@jjournal.com
The Jersey Journal
A parachutist has been taken to the Jersey City Medical Center after his chute failed to open and he plunged into the Hudson River during a Fleet Week show on the Jersey City waterfront, according to a witness at the scene.

Freelance photographer Joe Shine said the parachutist apparently realized he was in trouble and detached the chute so he would land in the Hudson River.

The parachute landed in the parking lot for 30 Hudson St., which is across the street from the Liberty Towers, 35 Morris St., and is being photographed by Jersey City police officers, Shine said.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... _fleet_week_show_off.html


-------------------------------------------------

At least 1 parachutist seriously hurt in accident at Fleet Week event in Jersey City

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (WABC) -- At least one parachutist was seriously injured Sunday in an accident at a Fleet Week event in Jersey City.

The Coast Guard confirms that at 12:18 p.m., they responded to a person in the water off Liberty State Park.

The person was removed from the water with a rescue boat and taken to Jersey City Medical Center.

There is no further information on their condition.

Video showed a piece of the parachute coming down after the parachutist separated from his chute and landed in the water.

http://abc7ny.com/news/at-least-1-par ... leet-week-event-/2047521/

Good luck! What kind of visa did you get? How long can you live there?

Jared Kushner?s life as a predatory capitalist

By Jamelle Bouie

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_an ... predatory_capitalist.html

How the jobless rate in poor Jersey City areas helped the Kushners

Updated on May 25, 2017 at 12:14 PM Posted on May 25, 2017 at 12:02 PM


BY TERRENCE T. MCDONALD tmcdonald@jjournal.com
The Jersey Journal

Higher unemployment rates in Jersey City's southern neighborhoods helped Kushner Companies use a controversial visa program to obtain overseas investment for their luxury high-rise projects, according to a longtime observer of the visa program.

Norman Oder, writing for City & State, reports that Kushner Companies, run by the family of presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, was able to use the higher unemployment rates in Greenville and Bergen-Lafayette to qualify for a $500,000-a-visa federal program intended to help projects in "target employment areas," places with high unemployment.

The EB-5 investor visa system allows investors seeking green cards to get one if they put $500,000 into a project in an area of high unemployment. The locations of two Kushner Companies projects -- Trump Bay Street and One Journal Square -- only qualify when jobless rates in neighborhoods as far south as the Curries Woods public-housing complex are included, Oder reports.

"This gerrymandering makes a mockery of the philosophy behind the targeted employment areas: to direct jobs to those who need them," Oder says. "However, most states welcome EB-5 investments; with no direct local cost, there's little incentive for integrity."

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... areas_of_jersey_city.html

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HOW JERSEY CITY UNEMPLOYMENT WAS GERRYMANDERED TO HELP KUSHNER PITCH INVESTOR VISAS

BY NORMAN ODER | MAY 24, 2017 |

http://cityandstateny.com/articles/op ... shner-investor-visas.html

Kushners know it helps to have friends in the oval office | Editorial

Updated on May 24, 2017 at 11:10 AM Posted on May 24, 2017 at 11:00 AM

BY STAR-LEDGER EDITORIAL BOARD eletters@starledger.com

President Trump kept the government open recently by signing a $1.1 trillion appropriations bill, and tucked into that 1,665-page monstrosity was one paragraph that enables wealthy foreigners to buy American citizenship.

The next day, Nicole Kushner Meyer addressed an audience in a Ritz-Carlton ballroom in Beijing, where she used that wee item in the spending bill - which extends the controversial EB-5 visa program through September - to help rich Chinese investors obtain green cards and fast-track their American dream.

All it takes was a half-million bucks, which Ms. Kushner Meyer would plunge in her company's luxury apartment towers in Jersey City.

Remember how Trump said we'd never have to worry about whether his family's global business interests would influence how he governs?

This isn't one of those cases.

More:
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2 ... al.html#incart_river_home

It might be a good idea to add this to the calendar.

Trump's son-in-law is a Baltimore slumlord, and that's not even the worst of it

By Edward Ericson Jr.

Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, sues his Baltimore tenants for thousands of dollars in bogus debts, on which he also gets judgments allowing him to garnish their wages and drain their bank accounts.

This according to Pro Publica's Alec MacGillis, who reports in a story for this Sunday's New York Times Magazine that Kushner quietly bought-up thousands of modest and run-down apartment units in Essex and other Baltimore suburbs, whose tenants complain of poor maintenance, harsh rent collection techniques, and relentless pursuit of old and sometimes dubious debts generated after tenants moved out.

http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-ne ... of-it-20170523-story.html


Jared Kushner?s Other Real Estate Empire

Baltimore-area renters complain about a property owner they say is neglectful and litigious. Few know their landlord is the president?s son-in-law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/mag ... r-real-estate-empire.html

Green card 'guaranteed' for Journal Square investment: report

Posted on May 20, 2017 at 2:38 PM
BY MARGARET SCHMIDT
The Jersey Journal

Green cards were "guaranteed" for potential mega-investors in a Kushner project in Jersey City's Journal Square, but the "green'' had nothing to do with solar energy, according to a new report on the project.

Rather, it referred to $500,000 from Chinese investors looking to get visas through the controversial EB-5 visa program, The New York Times reports.

Potential investors were told it was a virtual certainty to work, the newspaper said, because of the project's ties to President Trump and the first family.

"They said the president would make sure it came through," the Times quoted Lu Ling, a technology executive in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, as saying. "They said there was no chance it could fail."


http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... en.html#incart_river_home

How one author got to the bottom of dark family musings about her great-grandmother on a trip to Southern Italy

BY
LARRY MCSHANE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, May 20, 2017, 2:07 PM

Helene Stapinski, after examining the crooked branches of her family tree, decided to dig into its roots.

Turns out those were a bit twisted, too.

The result is ?Murder in Matera,? a true crime tale with two origins: One in Southern Italy, home to her maternal kin. And the other in a Jersey City kitchen, where Stapinski?s mom regaled her with tales of her great-great grandmother Vita Gallitelli.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/a ... s-italy-article-1.3181708

What do the Kushners own in Jersey City?

Since 2012, Kushner Companies, formerly run by presidential adviser Jared Kushner, has been scooping up properties in Jersey City. So what does the firm own?

Trump Bay Street
The old Jersey Journal building
One Journal Square
Downtown warehouse
Journal Square office building

And just to clear things up ...
A project that isn't a Kushner Companies venture is the three-tower Journal Squared, located on the north side of the PATH hub. KRE Group, headed by another branch of the Kushner family, is the developer of that project.

More:
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... s_own_in_jersey_city.html