Count me in - I'm bringing my daughter, too, so she can learn about the process.

As an aside, I strongly urge anyone that hasn't read the full complaints against those involved to do so. You can find them in many of the threads on JCList or just google "complaint" and the name of the accused. They're eye opening to say the least.

Quote:

Brilliant!

Someone asked about how to do a recall. Here's a Hudson Reporter article (about JCList) discussing just this subject:

------------------------------------------------------
Hudson Reporter

While the internet is always full of angry chatter about political incumbents, in recent weeks, a downtown Jersey City website called JCList has been filled with talk of initiating a recall of the mayor and the members of the City Council.

Is this idle chatter, or an actual movement? It?s hard to tell.

Longtime city activist Yvonne Balcer is one of the people who wrote to JCList on the topic of recall, posting information and inviting other posters to join together to pursue the issue.
_____________

?I think you need a couple of issues down the road, another year or two.??Yvonne Balcer
________

Balcer, a York Street resident, conducts a public access TV show called SpeakNJ. Earlier this month, she videotaped a rally in West New York led by Dr. Felix Roque for her show. Roque is a West New York activist who is attempting to recall West New York Mayor Sal Vega because of high taxes in that town.

Balcer said that while she doesn?t see a recall of newly re-elected Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy and the council coming soon, she can picture it happening in the next few years.

?I think you need a couple of issues down the road, another year or two,? Balcer said. ?I think it?s when people are going to get upset about tax increases, especially in this economy.?

Coincidentally, the City Council voted at a special meeting on Wednesday to introduce an interim municipal tax levy that would result in a tax increase (see related brief on page 2).

The first conversations about recall on JCList started in mid-June, the day after the outgoing City Council voted 6-3 at their June 17 meeting to amend the tax abatement requested by the developers of Crystal Point, a 269-unit luxury condo tower located on Second Street.

Members of the public opposed reducing the developer?s payments, citing the 30 per cent citywide property tax increase in the past four years. Several posters took issue not just with the vote but also with the council members who voted in the affirmative, taking them to task for being ?clowns? and being part of the Healy ?machine.?

Against a recall

Dan Levin is another longtime community activist and former mayoral candidate who posted on JCList about the recall issue. However, Levin, one of the founders of the local organization Civic JC, and its political arm, One Jersey City, is against the idea.

?Mayor Healy won on the May 12 ballot, and if people didn?t like what he stood for, then they should have voted him out of office,? Levin said. ?It?s easier to pour our energies into work for reform and better government.?

Those calling for a recall have made an exception for downtown Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop, a frequent Healy critic whom they think is doing a good job.

Last week, Fulop said he understands the frustration of those calling for recall. But he said a recall will only mean another election after just getting through one.

?We just had a six-month election, and there will be more money spent and campaigning if a special election happens because of a recall,? Fulop said.

How to do it

The last recall effort in recent decades in Jersey City was in 1971, when two insurgent organizations gathered enough signatures to force recall of Mayor Thomas J. Whelan. Before a recall election could occur, however, he was convicted in federal court of conspiracy and extortion in a multi-million dollar political kickback scheme on city and county contracts, and was removed from office.

In New Jersey, a committee of three people is formed to initiate a recall drive. One of them has to file a ?notice of intention? for a recall with the municipal clerk. Once that notice is approved, the next step, within 160 days after filing the notice, is collecting signatures from at least 25 percent of the town?s registered voters as of the last general election, in this case November of 2008.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonrreporter.com.

STAR LEDGER NEWARK -- Gov. Jon Corzine announced today that Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Joseph Doria has resigned from his post after federal officials raided his Bayonne home and office amid a wide-ranging federal corruption probe.

Doria, a former state senator and assemblyman, is not among the 44 people identified as charged in the corruption investigation, but Corzine said he asked for and received Doria's resignation this afternoon after learning of the FBI search of Doria's office.

"The scope of corruption is beyond anything," Corzine said. "It was outrageous. I will not tolerate this."

Corzine said he had already spoken to Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden) and both agreed that Assemblymen L. Harvey Smith (D-Hudson) and Daniel Van Pelt (R-Monmouth), who were among those charged today should also resign.

Corzine said he did not believe any other members of his administration were involved in the federal probe.

Other key politicians charged today include Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, and Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez.

Joe Doria's house in Bayonne and his office in Trenton were both raided this morning...

(Is that true about Jimmy King getting picked up, too?)

Holy cow - get a cup of coffee and read this:

http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates_impa ... or-Cammarano-Schaffer.pdf

Mark DiNardo passed away tonight at 10:35pm. Rest in peace young officer. God bless his wife Mary and their three young children.

More NYT coverage - about JC Chief of Police:

NYT Coverage about JC Chief of Police

Here's NYT coverage of the incident - good story.

New York Times Story

Quote:

Seriously...JC councilpeople get free cars? And I assume a gas allowance, too? Why?

Please enlighten me more - what other perks do they receive? This is unbelievable.

I don't have a lot of details at the moment but a two-family home on the corner of Webster & Hutton Streets (in the Heights - across from Pronti Lofts) was broken into and robbed this afternoon - no one was home at the time.

Also, my husband mentioned he heard about two thefts of bikes in the last few days from the Newport PATH station bike storage area.

I've been in the area many times in that time frame - it's really not that bad or isolated. The Egyptian restaurant on the corner up the street from the fire house is pretty good, too.

There was a murder in an apartment over the hardware store (across from the supermarket) some years ago - a dreadful domestic argument that took the life of a young mother.

There are nine different species of bats residing in New Jersey:

Learn More About NJ Bats Here

GardenersSupply.com also sells bat houses - very cool!

Criminal charges filed against Jersey City dog owner

by Michaelangelo Conte / The Jersey Journal
Monday June 15, 2009, 8:20 PM

Criminal charges have been filed against the Jersey City woman whose dogs have been tied to several Downtown attacks and she has agreed to have the South African boerboels transferred to California, officials said.

A grand jury has indicted Susan Kolb on three counts of fourth degree aggravated assault with a deadly weapon based on her alleged reckless behavior, Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Leo Hernandez said today.

"Based on all the facts and circumstances related to these three separate and distinct incidents, the grand jury found probable cause to believe there was reckless conduct on the part of the defendant," Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said.

Medical treatment was needed by all four alleged victims of the dogs that weigh a combined 160 pounds.

Jonathan L. Rodriguez, 24, of Brunswick Street, was injured on Jan. 19 at Washington Street and Christopher Columbus Drive. He said Kolb unleashed the dogs and they ran across the street and tore into his arm.

A group of construction workers tried to scare the dogs away during the attack and a driver tried to frighten them off with his car. Kolb said the dogs got spooked by trucks plowing snow and got away from her.

James Joyce, 24, said he needed six stitches after being attacked on Jan. 9 by the dogs at Warren and Morris streets. Joyce, who has also filed a lawsuit against Kolb and her husband Gary, said he was struggling to keep one dog from biting his face when the other bit him in the groin area.

Susan Kolb said Joyce was not injured and that he had approached the dogs incorrectly.

On Sept. 21, at the park at Greene and Essex streets, police said the two dogs were reportedly unleashed when they knocked down a woman who was carrying her 6-month-old granddaughter. Kolb said she thought the park was empty.

After the attacks the dogs faced possible euthanization, when Jersey City impounded them under the state Vicious Dog Law.

Kolb asked for a trial in Jersey City Municipal Court to defend them and as a result of that court process, prosecutors and Kolb came to an agreement on May 15 and the dogs were ordered transferred to another owner on the west coast, Hernandez said.

The three counts filed against Kolb in criminal court each carry a sentence from probation up to 18 months in state prison, Hernandez said.

Kolb and her attorney, Gerald Miller of Jersey City, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

She will be arraigned on the charges in the next few weeks, officials said.

Quote:

Despite all the tax dollars that go to funding local school security, this is what we hear from common thieves. Someone should debrief this guy and find out where identifiable breaches in security lie - and fix them!

McNair rated as the top High School in New Jersey, however it dropped from 30 last year to 85 in overall ranking this year according to Newsweek's list.

Newsweek's Top 1500 Schools

Nice response from JClisters. Thank you for being there to care and give of your hearts.

Erin - You did everything you could for the poor cat - I hope that brings comfort to you.

See below for some good background info about Mosquito Park (did you also know that JC had a championship minor league baseball team known as The Jersey City Skeeters)?

Mosquito Park Overview:
The Dr. Leonard J. Gordon Park at Jersey City Heights is best known for the sculptures of Buffalo and Bears (c. 1907) that one sees when passing on Kennedy Boulevard as well as for its nickname "mosquito park" after the pesky New Jersey insect.

Its development took place at the time of the "City Beautiful" movement in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The movement's purpose was to revitalize industrialized communities with public spaces for recreational purposes. The Jersey City Charter Company owned the undeveloped hillside woodland site with stone boulders and sold it to Jersey City for $46,000 on September 19, 1907.

The 5.7 acre park was designed by the landscape architect John T. Withers who left much of the rocky terrain as he found it. Appointed by Mayor H. Otto Wittpenn as the municipal landscaper, Withers was also responsible for the Mary Benson Park on Newark Avenue and the Bayside Park in the Greenville section of Jersey City. According to local historian J. Owen Grundy, "Withers had made quite a reputation in Jersey City at the turn of the century by giving illustrated lectures before various organizations showing how attractive a city could be if the citizens and public officials cared" (Grundy).

The larger-than-life stone statues of the buffalo and bear were the work of sculptor Solon Hannibal Borglum (1868-1922). As an artist he was influence by the many years he spent on the Western plains of Utah and later Nebraska, where his father owned a ranch. It allowed him to foster an appreciation for the peoples and animals of the land. He visited the Sioux, who revere the buffalo, at their South Dakota reservation; it resulted in his work Sioux Indian Buffalo Dance (1899).

Art commentator Meredith Bzkakm remarks that "Borglum's Buffalo and Bears are unusual works for their time. The animals are depicted in a naturalistic fashion, lying directly on the grass and therefore completely within the space of the viewer; they are unencumbered by a base or pedestal. These works . . . typify his spontaneous style. Forgoing strict anatomical illustration, Borglum preferred to simply suggest an animal's form and to infuse the work with a sense of movement" (Bzdak 57). Among his other works are Lassoing Wild Horses (1898) and On the Border of the White Man's Land (1899); they represent his theme of frontier life recurrent in his work. Borglum's brother, Gutzon, is the noted sculptor of Mount Rushmore and the statue of Abraham Lincoln in front of the Essex County Court House in Newark.

According to Grundy the naming of the new park came from the opinion of William H. Richardson. He was a member of the city's Board of Shade Tree Commission and "believed that all city parks should be named to honor distinguished citizens" (Grundy). Two years prior to the founding of the park, Dr. Leonard J. Gordon (1844-1905) had died, and city leaders agreed that his legacy to the city merited the park naming. Mayor Mark M. Fagan said at a memorial for Dr. Gordon, "No better man or more useful citizen ever lived in this city" (Quoted in Grundy).

Dr. Gordon, a New York native, served in the Union army during the Civil War. After moving to Jersey City, he obtained his medical degree from Bellevue in 1875 and completed his internship at the Jersey City Charity Hospital that predated the Medical Center. His contributions to his adopted city were the placement of the sculpture Soldiers and Sailors Memorial by Philip Martiny in front of City Hall and the advancement of the Free Public Library of Jersey City. He championed the founding of a public library for the city, coming up against the vote of a municipal referendum. When the approval and appropriations for the library were finally granted, Dr. Gordon became the president of its board of trustees and then the library's director. His brick, Queen Anne-style home by the architect William Milne Grisnell, built in 1888, was at 485 Jersey Avenue, not far from the library at 472 Jersey Avenue. A memorial window and a bust of Dr. Gordon at the entrance of the main library on Jersey Avenue and were donated by local residents in February 1907.

An iron fence that is anchored in concrete piers surrounds the urban park. In the center is a circular gazebo or bandstand. On November 9, 1930, the Hudson City Soldiers and Sailors Welfare League, Inc. placed a World War I memorial statue Dough Boy in the park. There is also an American eagle atop a granite shaft that was placed there by the Raymond Sipnick Post of the Jewish War Veterans.

I was in Bayonne today and the siren was very quiet. It also resembled a fire truck siren - it really wasn't a distinctive sound rising above the noise of the city designed to catch your attention. If I didn't know there was testing today, I wouldn't have even paid attention to it.

That's a huge brood for just one mama goose...I wonder if that's a JC gosling daycare outing?

The sex offender internet sites are not a representation of every perp that has ever been convicted of a sex crime, as many people believe.

In Hudson County, the prosecutor's office decides how an offender is tiered (one for the least likely to re-offend; two for mid-range offender; three for most likely to commit another act). It is at the discretion of the prosecutor who gets put on the list - mostly tier two's and three's.

I know personally of an offender who raped and impregnated an 11-year-old NJ girl and was never placed on the Meghan's Law list.

Another man (who used to live on my block) was listed as an offender in NY, but not in NJ (he was arrested on his way to an encounter with a 13-year-old he propositioned online).

Plus, the registration requirement for offenders can be manipulated as demonstrated in the article I link to below. The article provides a pretty good overview of the holes in the Meghan's law program in New Jersey, including the significant delays in listing newly released offenders online.

Look on the right sidebar for more useful resources.

If you're doing a search in your area, visit the larger Meghan Law sites like the one mentioned above and go to the NJ Sex Offender registry also. They list the photos (not always - and they're not always clear which is irksome to me) and describe the tier and offender profile. It's very disturbing stuff to read.

Meghan's Law Article

Quote:

Wow - what a waste of paper and resources. Imagine the impact Hyman could make with a $150,000 donation to a recreational, after-school, summer camp or gang prevention program to benefit the community he is trying so "benovolently" to assist.

Does anyone have any experience with renting party tents and tables locally? I could use a good resource.

Also helpful would be any positive referrals for talent for a children's party (clown, face painter, balloon maker, etc).

Thank you!

It takes about a minute to process a move order online. Go to the website, register and then follow the prompts for a change in service - you don't need to speak to a customer service person to do this.

It is taking about a 20 to 30 minute wait to get a live operator on PSEG. I just put my phone on speaker and waited and waited and waited....

The JC Police Activity League (PAL) runs a great program in the Bergen/Lafayette area. They may need items like this for their homework help program.

I know they've been hit quite hard by the economy - a lot of their main contributors are now out of business or reducing their donations significantly.

Call Sgt. Frank Williams at (201) 434-3366. They are currently seeking items for use by their after school or sports programs (art supplies, sports equipment, etc), volunteers and cash donations.

Maybe someone should tip the boys at A-1 off to this thread - perhaps if they see their dishonest ways in print, they'll know their ripoff scheme has been discovered.

It's a shame that they behave this way.

NJ.com has a video of the event (don't pop the popcorn - it's not that great) - glad of the raid outcome and hope there is a lot more of this to come. Thanks JCPD et al.

http://videos.nj.com/jersey-journal/2009/04/vest.html

I've probably said this before, but it's worth repeating. Because you never know what might happen during birth (or after), you want to make sure you're in a hospital with a top rated NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) and ob/gyn surgical team.

Small local hospitals, while convenient and cozy, just don't have the facilities and skilled docs that larger NYC or equipped NJ hospitals (like Hackensack) have.

After two births, both with unexpected delivery outcomes, I was glad to be at a larger, baby-centric facility (NYU and then Hackensack). I thought Hackensack was the better of the two.

Good luck with your search.

You'll have a difficult time finding this downtown. The best place is Little India (Newark Ave, Journal Square).