went to hamilton inn for third time or so saturday night (previous outings were mostly average) and had a very nice meal. mussels were very tasty with a nice little bite in the broth and companion's ravioli was fantastic. again nice spice. ravioli was a little pricey ($22) but worth it. woman who waited on us was also good -- casually professional. 1 drink and dish each for about $60 w/ tip.

i don't know what this person does or exactly what a business administrator in a school system does, but generally with the state of the schools, it's hard to see how that kind of pay and pay raise is justfied. we should spend more on the teachers in the classroom, not the failed infrastructure of the school system. as a society we've become so accustomed with rewarding failure. it's contributing mightily to the end of american dominance.

is it byo?

curious if the city contacted you before they came out or during. i've been thinking of calling them about a tree in front of my house but concerned they'll just chop it down for some stupid reason.

i agree. ignore the morons. there are nutters everywhere, and the jerks of jclist are just that--assholes who can't resist being snide and snarky in the comfort of their homes.
don't let these ivory-tower idiots discourage you from posting noteworthy things like this.

you can find out what the wait time is at the secaucus facility too at: http://njcam.appsolgrp.com/waitqueue/jsp/home.jsp
there's a number too 1-888-656-6867
if u don't what to do this, the guys at summit auto on pavonia and chestnut up newark ave seem pretty reputable. there always busy but think they do inspections fairly quickly. 201) 659-5872. i think i costs $30 or something like that while the secaucus facility is free.

i'm thinking of calling the city to trim a tree in front of my house but i'm slightly apprehensive because i'm afraid they may chop the whole thing down if they find it has some minor fungus or something. is this a legitimate concern? does anyone know if the parks dept overreacts?

this is from the weekend edition of the wall street journal. it's pretty good.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001 ... 04574308394035238188.html

Poison Ivy in the Garden State
The glory days of New Jersey corruption, from a colonial cross-dresser to a filing cabinet stuffed with cash

By BRAD PARKS
In a rite that has become as familiar to them as Springsteen selling out the Meadowlands?but, alas, far more prevalent?New Jersey voters again had to endure a money-grubbing herd of their duly elected officials being led out of a courthouse in shame and handcuffs this week, having become the latest in a huge rogue?s gallery of state politicians to face corruption charges.

Watching it makes me think of an old African proverb??a goat tied to a tree always eats from the same grass??that speaks to the deep-rooted nature of corruption in New Jersey and to the voracious greed of those who engage in it. And while it?s doubtful the Swahili Bushman who coined the phrase had ever been to Hoboken?he couldn?t find parking?it?s hard not to think of it whenever we have another day like Thursday, when a group of Jane Councilwomen and Joe Assemblymen are made to walk before the cameras with their heads bowed and ushered into an old school bus, because it?s the only vehicle large enough to hold them all.

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Bloomberg News

Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano is escorted from federal court in Newark.
Full Coverage
Sortable Table: Probe Nets 44 Jersey Mayors Stung in Graft Probe Video: Mayors and More Arrested Developer Became Secret Witness Law Blog: Highlights, text of Complaints In a state that doesn?t have its own commercial television station?New York and Philadelphia dominate our airwaves?New Jersey elected officials have been thoughtful enough to provide us their own long-running sitcom. This latest episode featured 44 people, an unprecedented number even for New Jersey, being charged in an investigation into public corruption and international money laundering. The bust included five rabbis, three assemblymen and two mayors, prompting one late-night caller on the state?s talk radio station, New Jersey 101.5, to ask, ?Where?s the partridge in the pear tree??

Answer: The partridge is actually a cooperating witness, having turned state?s evidence to avoid prosecution.

The details are still a little sketchy?something about money-laundering rabbis and a black-market kidney??but the pattern is familiar enough. The feds nabbed some smooth-talking alleged swindler, in this case a failed real-estate mogul named Solomon Dwek, who then curried favor with prosecutors by agreeing to wear a wire and fish around with cash-stuffed envelopes. Before long, he had hooked a whole school of greedy politicians, many of whom jumped in the boat before they even had a chance to swallow the bait, according to the criminal complaints against them.

In doing so, Mr. Dwek joined the likes of Robert ?Duke? Steffer, the ?demolition contractor? who snared the famed Monmouth 11 a few years back; or the illustrious Jerry Free, a cement salesman who lured in a Paterson mayor and an Essex County executive, among others, with cash, trips and Brazilian hookers?prompting the explanation from the Paterson mayor that he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks and illegal gifts because he had gotten ?bogged down? in the hard work of governance.

And, yes, we laugh about it, in the same way we laugh about our landfills, our pollution and the New Jersey Nets. But it?s only funny until you realize that, as a taxpayer, you?re the rube footing the bill. So we smack our foreheads, slap down our morning papers and wonder how we once again have become a national punch line. (I say ?we? because, even though I recently moved to Virginia, my heart remains in New Jersey, where I lived for 10 years.)

High-Profile Arrests in N.J. Corruption Probe
0:53
FBI agents arrested 44 people, including two mayors, a deputy mayor, a New Jersey assemblyman and several New York rabbis. WSJ's Kelsey Hubbard reports, they're accused of money laundering, organ dealing and other crimes.
Because, like the goat, we in New Jersey keep having to swallow the same pulpy stuff. Long before we had the nation?s first gay-American governor?James E. McGreevey resigned after giving his boyfriend a high-level state job?we had Lord Cornbury. New Jersey?s first colonial governor wasn?t only a cross-dresser, he was also known for taking bribes and appointing relatives to important positions.

So it began and, in many ways, has continued unabated throughout our history. We have had Frank ?I am the law? Hague, who never made more than $9,000 a year as mayor of Jersey City, and never held another job during his 30 years in office, yet died in 1956 with an estate estimated at $5 million. Or there was the 1980s? Abscam?an oh-so-clever contraction of ?Abdul? and ?scam??in which FBI informants posing as Middle Eastern businessmen doled out bribes netting themselves 31 public officials, including a U.S. senator from New Jersey. Or there was Hudson County executive Robert Janiszewski, who got caught taking a $5,000 bribe a few years back and became a cooperating witness, whereupon he led investigators to the filing cabinet he had stuffed with cash-filled envelopes, because he had so many he didn?t know what to do with them.

Lately, our jails feel like they have a revolving door just for state senators: A month after former State Sen. John Lynch got out of jail for taking kickbacks, former State Sen. Wayne Bryant was yesterday sentenced to four years in prison for taking a no-show job.

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Reuters

Daniel Van Pelt, a New Jersey assemblyman, was one of the 44 people charged in a federal investigation of public corruption and international money laundering.
Then there?s Newark, which deserves its own chapter in corruption ignominy. You have to go back to 1962 in New Jersey?s largest city to find a mayor who completed his time in office and wasn?t later indicted for it. The current mayor, the ever-trendy Cory Booker, has positioned himself as a real reformer. Yet so had the former mayor, Sharpe James, when he came into office in 1986. After 20 years during which he and some of his handlers grew increasingly crooked ?his chief of staff, who was found with bricks of cash hidden in his floorboards, went to jail on corruption charges in the 1990s?Mr. James is now serving time for steering cheap city land to his mistress. But that still pales in comparison to Hugh Addonizio, who left the U.S. House of Representatives to reign over Newark City Hall from 1962-1970, in part because, as he was quoted as saying, ?You can?t make much money as a Congressman, but as mayor you can make a million bucks.?

There have been reform efforts, sure. But there have also been elections like the one in Hudson County in 1889, where voters?many of whom, it turned out, were not quite breathing on Election Day?were thoughtful enough to cast their ballots in perfect alphabetical order. Even our golden-domed statehouse in Trenton is a monument to graft: Originally estimated to cost $19,000 in 1881, it was completed six years late and cost nearly four times as much?including a $1,350 flagpole.

It?s true that New Jersey is by no means unique in having officials who misuse the public till. But it is generally accepted that, among the 50 U.S. states, only Louisiana compares with New Jersey in the pervasiveness of its corruption?the difference being in Louisiana, they actually know what they?re doing is wrong. In New Jersey, cash for influence has become so commonplace a lot of politicians don?t even understand it?s illegal. And so we get the spectacle of Hoboken mayor Peter Cammarano on Thursday, standing silently as his lawyer promised to fight these unfair and untrue charges?this from a guy who had been mayor all of 23 days, yet, according to authorities, he had already been caught on a federal wire tap telling a cooperating witness, who was about to hand him $5,000 in cash, he would be ?treated like a friend? when his projects came up for approval.
We have our excuses, both historical and contemporary, as to how we?ve become such a locus for official malfeasance: The state has long been an entry point for immigrants, who have tended to be easy to snooker. It is the most densely populated state with the least amount of available land, so developers and industrialists are always looking for an edge. And we are noted for having our share of, ahem, organized crime.

But the main problem?and this is the ?tree? part of the goat-tied-to-tree proverb?is that the state is enormously over-governed. In most states, the local unit of government is the county; in others, it?s the municipality. In Jersey, we have both, and lots of them. There are 566 municipalities?California, with four times the population, has only 480?and each has a mayor and/or councils. The 21 counties have their various freeholder boards and utility commissions and there are also 120 state legislators. When that many people have their hands in the cookie jar ?and there are that many cookie jars?is it any wonder that you get people selling Oreos out of their trunk in the parking lot to make a little extra cash on the side?

What?s more, much like the nation?s congressional districts, the vast majority of New Jersey?s 21 counties are either heavily Republican or heavily Democratic, with voter registrations tilted to one side by a margin of 10% or more. The result is entrenched political machinery and the kind of hubris that we heard from Mr. Cammarano, who was caught bragging, ?I could be, uh, indicted, and I?m still gonna win 85 to 95%? of certain key voting blocs, according to authorities. A Hudson County freeholder was re-elected while under indictment a few years back.

This has been a kind of golden era for corruption cases in New Jersey, where a few years back a fundraiser for George W. Bush, heretofore unproven as a prosecutor, was named U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Chris Christie ended up making enough of a name for himself?he left office with a perfect 130-0 record in corruption cases last year?he now has a commanding lead to unseat Gov. Jon Corzine come November in a state starved for someone to clean up its mess. And while critics said he was merely collecting trophies to place on his political mantel, Mr. Christie counters it actually wasn?t that hard to catch dirty politicians in the state. It would only get complicated because the perpetrators were so gluttonous?and so dumb?that as soon as word got out a contractor was throwing around money, they started tripping over themselves to cut their buddies in on the action.

The dollar amounts are inevitably small, relative to what?s being sold, which is only one of many sad aspects of these cases. Like most morally flexible Americans, I have a price at which I would gladly sell out my most cherished ideals?mine is $10 million, in case anyone is buying, and I figure it would be enough to set me up on a tropical island where no one would have heard of my shame. But most of these Tony Soprano-wannabes sell out for $5,000 or less, which is perplexing when you consider state assembly members are making $49,000 a year for part-time work. They?re risking their reputations, political careers and freedom for a little more than a month?s pay.

The only possible explanation is that the graft is so widespread, they figure they?ll never get caught. I once had a long, off-the-record conversation with a disgraced former public official who simply started unloading all the things he had witnessed?and been a party to?during his time in office. It was the usual bid-rigging, influence-pedaling and other tomfoolery that has become the norm, and there was so much of it my notebook was practically throbbing by the time we were done. Most of it was a few years old, so I never got around to verifying it. Yet it left me with the distinct impression that, much like Turnpike speeders, the number of people who get caught is really quite small compared with the number of people doing it. George Sternlieb, a longtime head of local government studies at Rutgers, the state university, was once asked what percentage of municipal governments in New Jersey were corrupt. His answer: ?About half.?

So the crooks are everywhere. Yes, they have tended to be more urban than rural and more Democratic than Republican. But taken as a whole, they cut across demographic, racial, ethnic and political lines and suggest that there is something universal about corruption in the state. And we sometimes revel in it: We actually discuss what people wear to their perp walks like its our own Oscars red carpet. When Tamika Riley, the mistress of former Newark mayor Sharpe James, was arrested in a daring blouse that divulged about six inches of cleavage, it was buzzed about for months. She was later convicted.

But mostly we revile it. And we are revolted by it. And we are resigned to it. New Jersey corruption cases are a bit like eclipses?lunar, not solar?in that they happen with predictable-enough frequency to be mentionable but not all that remarkable. And if you happen to miss one, fear not, there will always be another one soon. The goat is always hungry.

?Brad Parks is a former reporter with The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger. His debut novel, ?Faces of the Gone,? is due out from St. Martin?s Press in December.

larry and joe's

wish they'd return tomorrow.

There's one overriding issue in tomorrow's election - changing the status quo of palm greasing and pocket lining, double dipping and dozing at the wheel. If Jersey City hopes to get on top of the many problems it faces, its culture must change.
One of the lessons of last year?s national elections is that change is possible ? maybe even inevitable. The city?s challenges can?t keep piling up without new policy. Some of these problems have been around for a long time and, like the flu, have mutated and require new cures. Old and tired ideas aren?t solutions ? they?re just old and tired words.
The candidates who counter crime, fix schools, promote sustainable development and fight congestion with new ideas will get my vote. I don?t care if an incumbent or newcomer has it, but the city needs a new way forward ? beginning now.
Dan Levin and his ticket and incumbent Steve Fulop in Ward E are these candidates.

i was impressed with a cop at grand and grove this morning. i saw him write up a guy probably for going thru a light. then he drove two blocks to montgomery and grove (he was behind me) and pulled over a driver who blocked an intersection.
well done!

can anyone recommend a dishwasher repair person. i need to get the food disposal/grinder bit cleaned as it's making a grinding noise. it's a kenmore.

during the planning and voting on the park renovation, i recall talk that the work would largely be done so that some of the park would remain open, except for a relatively short period when the entire park would be shut for major drainage and infrastructure work. that was somewhat comforting but now isn't part of the equation. it should be. the park seems large enough to be worked on a quarter or third at a time, no. Keeping a slice of space open would make a huge difference.

this is slightly off topic but how serious are u guys? i'm looking for a regular kickaround downtown - 5-on-5 kind of thing - but probably not as serious as yours.
there are nice fields at the park on brunswick and pavonia.

couldn't disagree more with those last two posts. everytime i went in there he was helpful - but also busy as he was the only person working there. i've never been a sole proprietor but i'd imagine it's hard as hell to do everything.

codero gym has basketball - and other sports too - but the problem is getting the court time. it's booked but it's a good idea to call every few months to see if anyone's stopped their game. it's free so i think people never give it up. wonder if it's still used throughout the week. would be great to get a midweek bball game in.
the gym at the golden door, which is close to newport. is great but think it's used by several school programs so court time may be hard to secure.

i looked at their web site a month or so ago and it noted a late night 10 pm-on happy hour, which sounded really good.
fyi, embankment has happy hour prices all night tuesdays.

like others, i was a bit surprised to see these after the cross streets. does seem to make more sense to have them below. i wonder if there's a concern about distracting drivers before cross streets. would be good to know if there's any psycho-behavioral-traffic data out there.

does anyone know if these buildings are well insulated - can hear your neighbors from above, below or beside.

Thx for lead on snowbird. Unfortunately it was bought by nestle or deer park and doesn't fill bottles up anymore. was 30 cents a gal. Does anyone know of other places?

someone told me there's a water company around liberty state park that sells/fills the big water bottles used for water coolers. is there such a place?

think i just overwound my old watch. can anyone recommend a local watch maker/repair shop that works on old watches? it's an heirloom so i'm looking for someone who knows what their doing.

hyman has less leverage now than ever. the city would be crazy to settle with him.
if there's a time for the bureacracy to be diligent and take its time, it's now. if it doens't, there should be outrage.

i agree. the museum theatre would be excellent. it is very nice. wonder if it would consider trying it one day a week for a month to gauge response. i'm sure the museum would face more overhead to open late night but perhaps it could open its doors in the afternoon one day a week - 3pm to midnight on fridays instead of the 9-6 it's probably opened now.
the theatre is great space and should be used more for movies, music, plays, dance...

i agree. that's the most compelling anecdotal evidence i've heard so far that times are tougher...

there's a place on the corner of erie and fourth. sort of an odd place for it - middle of mostly residential. never had a flat fixed there but it's probably inexpensive and it looks like they've been there forever so they're probably okay at what they do.

the road is bleak but gripping. recently read his no country for old men, which is bleak in its own way but also can't put down.
finished saturday by ian mcewan, which is also good. though most highly recommend mcewan's enduring love.

i know this is one rumor that spreads like wildfire around here but i heard that wholefoods has committed to open in the massive toll brothers development in the power arts warehouse district.
anyone else hear this too.

the release says 300 of 400 units leased and 200 people moved in. that said, i don't trust anyone - particularly PR flacks and real estate people.
can't say i've noticed 200 more residents walking around.