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Re: Barack Obama for President
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I'm voting for Obama, but I've always liked McCain, and I think it's sad that so many of McCain's supporters feel as if they have to campaign for McCain by attacking Obama's personal history instead of by comparing and contrasting the candidates' positions. When the campaign started, it seemed as if the Republicans were going to sell McCain as an older, Captain Kirk kind of guy who could hike across the Grand Canyon, and it seems to me that that's a much stronger message than, "Obama is a radical!!!!" I know a lot of very liberal people wish that Obama was a radical, but I think the truth is that he's about as radical as toothpaste. Or, to extend the Star Trek metaphor, Mr. Spock. If the Republicans were making this election a matter of whether the voters prefer Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock, I think that would work a lot better for them than their actual message of, "Vote For The Guy Who's Pretending To Be An Extreme Conservative Over The Guy That We're Pretending Is A Muslim Commie."
Posted on: 2008/10/15 14:09
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Re: Jury Duty
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The first time I was ever called for jury duty was 2 years ago, even though I've had a driver's license for more than 20 years and I've had a driver's license here in Jersey City ever since I moved here more than 10 years ago.
Posted on: 2008/10/13 20:59
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Re: The New York Times: Healy pleased deadline has been set for Montgomery Gardens
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Just out of curiosity: has anyone in this thread ever spent much time in the Montgomery projects?
If they're the projects I'm thinking of (on the south side of Montgomery, between downtown and the Armory???), to me, they look as if they're well-run and under a decent level of control. The playgrounds, for example, are in way, way better shape than the Hamilton Park playgrounds, and the grounds seem to be well-maintained. I've passed what I think are medium-rise projects near the Martin Luther King Drive light rail that seem to look a lot more grim and seem to be home to a lot of guys who sit around drinking on the sidewalk all day. Walking by those projects really creeps me out. So, anyhow, I think it's fair to ask why the city is closing the Montgomery projects first when the projects in Bergen Lafayette look so much creepier?
Posted on: 2008/10/13 15:46
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Re: Downtown: Jersey and Barrow man was robbed by five teens
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People who've spent too much time watching the anchor guy on CNBC saying he's taking his money out of the bank and putting it under a mattress . . .
Posted on: 2008/10/11 0:46
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Re: Is it me or is an elevator missing at Grove Path??
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Just to make it clear: I understand that stroller moms' need for elevators is completely trivial compared with wheelchair users' need for elevators. But I just think that, if it's physically/financially/mechanically possible to make the elevators available to stroller moms, that just increases the number of people who have a huge, selfish stake in fighting for PATH elevators.
Posted on: 2008/10/9 0:04
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Re: Is it me or is an elevator missing at Grove Path??
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What I don't understand is why the PATH folks didn't cut a deal with the Grove Pointe folks back when the getting was good. ADA aside, it seems to me that, if I were a stroller mom who worked and played in Manhattan but was thinking about living at Grove Pointe, or if I was a grocery store location scout thinking about putting a store in Grove Pointe, access to an elevator would be a huge plus.
Posted on: 2008/10/8 2:49
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Re: Hilltop neighbors get peek at Square renewal plans
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a) One problem with McNair discussions is that detailed McNair student data is not widely available. Example: where were the McNair ninth-graders attending in eighth grade? Assuming a lot of them came from the public schools' honors middle schools: what schools were the McNair ninth-graders attending before they got tracked into the honors middle schools? b) I think there are a fair number of Newport parents with children at Cordero. A few years ago, I attended a birthday party for a child at Newport, and several of the parents had children at Cordero. My assumption is that, if several Newport residents had kids at Cordero in 2005, the number must be higher today, now that awareness of the high quality of the pre-K program and the respectable quality of the kindergarten has gotten around. c) In the long run, it seems to me that the Hilltop area ought to do really well. The view to the west is really gorgeous. The city and developers need to figure out some mechanism to protect existing west-ward views as much as possible and maximize the percentage of new residential and commercial units that have great views.
Posted on: 2008/10/1 16:59
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Re: NY Times - When Does a Housing Slump Become a Bust?
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Right now, I think the ideal portfolio would consist 45 percent of some kind of global money market fund (e.g., a money market fund backed by a combination of U.S. Treasury bills and other countries' government bills), in case the economy goes through a fairly normal depression; 25 percent in one of those mutual funds that supposedly is designed for people who will be retiring when you want to retire, in case the economy goes through a normal recession, then recovers and does fine; 25 percent in a financial institutions mutual fund, in case the economy ends up doing great; and 5 percent in survival gear, in case the economy really, really tanks. If the economy really, really tanks on a long-term basis -- in other words, we're at the start of a Soylent Green society -- then I think it would be more useful to have, say, a portable solar oven or the ability to fish than to have a pocketful of shiny yellow coins.
Posted on: 2008/10/1 4:32
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Re: Jersey City 'lot' of trouble for developer Mocco?
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I'm not a huge fan of real estate developers, but I think the city ought to recognize that real estate developers are caught up in terrible economical upheaval right now and be careful about starting new enforcement actions against them right now.
If, say, the city sees that Mocco is doing something with construction that will someday make the buildings fall down, then it should step in. If Mocco is really violating some limit on new construction, and building where he shouldn't build, the city should stop that. If Mocco maybe owes the city some money because he took in revenue that wasn't quite kosher -- well, OK, maybe the city should put in a claim, but it shouldn't be tying Mocco up in meetings right now, and it shouldn't necessarily expect Mocco to cough up a huge amount of time at a time when he probably has a hard time tapping existing credit loans, let alone taking out a new loan. In general, I think the city has to go on the assumption right now that best path to future stability is to try to nurse reasonably responsible developers along till the economy turns, and not assume that a company that looks big and stable actually is stable enough to deal with an unexpected $100,000 bill. There may be a lot of companies out there right now that are secretly $100,000 from liquidation. In theory, maybe we should be wiping the weaker companies out in the hope that newer, better companies will spring up, but I don't think there's any guarantee that newer, better companies will spring up. If Jersey City wipes out Mocco, for example, maybe it will be another 20 years before another Mocco comes along. And, maybe not, and maybe 10 faster, stronger, better Mocco alternatives will show up next year, but I think counting on that to be the case seems pretty aggressive right now.
Posted on: 2008/9/26 17:34
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Re: No more passageway? Developer's protest may alter Newark Ave. redevelopment
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One challenge is that, except for the new tourist attraction explanation signs that are going up, Jersey City does absolutely nothing to indicate that it expects to get tourists. - The signs and traffic flow are confusing. - Many of the storefronts are completely empty. Personally, I find that a lot of out-of-town guests that I have love visiting dollar stores. Plenty like visiting Arab American shops, "Spanish" shops and other hole-in-the-wall shops that they don't have back home in suburbia. But none of them has any interest in visiting an empty storefront. The city should figure out some way to at least get temporary shops into the empty storefronts, even if all the shops sell is art produced by the city's public grade school pupils. - Places like Sweet Priscilla's get nice downtown guides aimed at residents, but, if you walk around downtown and are a tourist, it's very unlikely that you'll end up holding anything like a quickie guide to Jersey City. - To my knowledge, there isn't a tourist information office anywhere. I learned a few months ago that we have a county Chamber of Commerce, but the only evidence of its existence that I've seen is a couple of newspaper articles about some meeting it had somewhere else. - To the extent that the city has started putting signs up, the signs tend to be very downtown-centric. No one tells you, for example, if you're standing on the Newport light rail platform that there's a lot of good Caribbean food and soul a few blocks south of the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive light rail stop. - The city hasn't really done anything to explain and showcase its very historical historic sites in a tourist friendly way. Example: there's not even any kind of marker, as far as I can tell, at the site of the Feb. 25, 1643, Dutch massacre of 80 Lenape Native Americans. A lot of folks here think caring about that kind of thing is too politically correct, but maybe some Dutch people or people into Native Americans would come here to look at the memorial plaque on the site if we had one. - The city makes little effort to preserve and market the old industrial sites here, which are probably some of the most tourist-attractive sites we have. A lot of the old industrial stuff here -- example: the Morris Canal -- was actually paid for by European investors. But I don't think there are really many plaques or brochures that explain our economic history very well, or a tour that might, for example, tempt European bankers who are visiting Goldman Sachs to go look at monuments to 19th century European investments in Jersey City (and American industrialization in general). - No one has picked up on the fact that one of Barack Obama's first ancestors to live in the United States is buried in the Old Bergen Church graveyard. - The city doesn't seem to make a serious effort to promote itself as a daytrip destination on the Web. No city-paid sock puppets are going around posting messages about how great Jersey City is on sites such as TripAdvisor.com. - It's hard to find out about lodging away from the waterfront. Did you know, for example, that there's a moderately priced hotel right by the Journal Square PATH station? I didn't know that till a few weeks ago.
Posted on: 2008/9/25 17:35
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Re: No more passageway? Developer's protest may alter Newark Ave. redevelopment
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First, I've just realized that Steve Fulop supports the Paseo. If so, maybe the proposal has some merit to it, as long as the city buys the property on a truly voluntary basis. If the city uses eminent domain to seize the property, or it forces the owners to sell by blocking their construction plans, then that's not fair. If the city really buys the property, or the property owners themselves create the Paseo and profit from it, then it all comes down to what will work. Second, I don't think that support of the Paseo concept has to go hand in hand with support of improvements on Newark Avenue. The city could repave Newark, fix crumbling sidewalks, help property owners improve their facades, etc. whether or not the Paseo gets built. Third, does anyone have data from an economic development study that compares the Grove Street/Newark area with, say, roughly comparable areas in Brooklyn or Queens? If so: how much buying power do us consumers in the Grove Street area really have? What kinds of additional businesses can we really support? Is it actually realistic to think that the new businesses that went into the Paseo (or new businesses that went into the existing empty storefronts on Newark) would be viable? Fourth, if the owners of the burned out lot want to keep their lot, would it be possible to put the Paseo somewhere else? Example: aren't there some parking lots behind the World Fruit Farm building, on the north side of Newark? Could someone put a Paseo there? Fifth: what if we let the owners of the burned out property rebuild but made them put a funky and/or high-end outdoor food court kind of area up on the roof? In other words, why couldn't we have a Paseo in the Sky rather than a Paseo in a Concrete Canyon? I think it's possible to want to see Newark Avenue improved without necessarily wanting
Posted on: 2008/9/24 15:17
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Re: Be Part of the Solution, Not Part of the Problem
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Doesn't someone here have a ticket and Photoshop? Maybe someone could make a counterfeit ticket and put that under the windshield.
Posted on: 2008/9/23 13:36
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Re: Newark Avenue Redevelopment
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I'm not a huge fan of Del Forno, but the idea of seizing their property, even though they're still paying their property taxes, to build outdoor restaurant seating is really outrageous. If the city were taking away a building because it was about to fall into the ocean or it was hurting the environment, OK, I could support that. But I think it's horribly, horribly unfair to use eminent domain and seize someone's private property just to create outdoor restaurant seating. And, OK, maybe it also helps people get from Newark to Columbus, but it's not as if Barrow is five miles away from Grove. The Grove-Barrow block is a very short block as it is. I'm a lot more liberal than a lot of people here, and I think the government should intervene more to help homeless people and improve welfare benefits and all that, but I've never in my life thought that the government ought to seize private property from business people so that I can sit outside eating spaghetti. I think the logical explanation for this plan is that Del Forno either failed to pay the right bribes or have done something else that ticked off the powers that be, and the result is that the powers that be came up with a bizarre plan just to mess with the Del Forno people's head. Pretty soon, the Paseo plan will go away, but after the poor Del Forno people have spent a lot of sleepless nights and wasted a lot of time fighting this proposal.
Posted on: 2008/9/22 16:10
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Re: Hybrid ed board for Jersey City?
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I think the key here is that before the school reformers can be taken seriously, we have to take existing reports and go in to teach school and create a list of what specifically is wrong (and right) at each school, then use the list to figure out what's right and wrong districtwide.
If all we reformers can say about the schools is, "The test scores are low, and we go in and hear people yelling at the kids," then the existing school board members and district managers are probably right to laugh at us. I think one of our problems is that we don't recognize that there are actually bright, well-informed people in charge of the district who are already trying a lot of the strategies all of us would suggest. The big problem is that implementing those strategies well is easier said than done.
Posted on: 2008/9/19 13:54
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Re: How many people does Lehman Brothers employ in Jersey City?
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The press releases seem to say of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but I don't think anyone has released a document showing what exactly the terms of the deal are, so I don't think anyone really officially knows.
Posted on: 2008/9/19 13:38
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Re: How many people does Lehman Brothers employ in Jersey City?
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I wonder if this Mr. Fuld is related to the Ouija board spirit William Fuld? If so, it might be funny to get a bunch of Ouija board owners to try asking William Fuld what he thinks about all of this.
Posted on: 2008/9/19 4:41
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Re: How many people does Lehman Brothers employ in Jersey City?
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The real lesson here is that this is a truly spectacular time to buy mortgage-backed securities. If I had enough money, I would go find a pool of mortgage-backed securities issued before, say, 2006, and I'd be a vulture and buy as many as I could at 10 cents on the dollar.
A lot of the borrowers will default, but plenty will pay, so plenty of those MBS will do fine. Of course, these things get divided in tranches and all that, so you'd have to look into that. But, if you get MBS that perform about as well as the underlying mortgage market performs, or better, then that's good enough. Chances are the very best deals would be in places like the Cleveland or Detroit suburbs.
Posted on: 2008/9/18 13:21
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Re: Outrageous... out-of-town board-of-ed kids going to McNair
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Wow. So they McNair really was open only to school district employees from outside the district, not just workers (e.g., Goldman Sachs employees, or Target employees) from outside the district. That's pretty obnoxious. If it turns out that "district employee" means "low-paid maintenance engineer," OK, but, if it means white-collar employee with a good salary, who has consciously chosen to live outside in Jersey City (and probably in a community with decent schools), that's another story.
Posted on: 2008/9/18 2:32
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Re: How many people does Lehman Brothers employ in Jersey City?
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You think you are joking, but it's possible that this part could be true.
Posted on: 2008/9/16 20:52
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Re: Greenville: Suspect Killed By Police
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You're right, I'm wrong. Sorry. Quote: Besides, witness are often unreliable. And I am willing to bet that the suspect laying on the ground was most likely not laying there calmly, waiting for the cops to slap the cuffs on him. I'd like to see more about this. Also: does anyone here know whether there are situations in which you're supposed to kick a guy who's resisting arrest because that's the proper way to handle him? To me, it seems as if kicking a guy who's on the on ground is what you to do to someone you want to punish, not an effective way to restrain a guy. But I've never had a karate or a judo class and don't know. If kicking a guy in the ground is a standard way to control a prisoner, or other witnesses say the guy on the ground was causing serious problems: I surrender. On the other hand: one reason I find the idea that this was overkill credible is because I know that a very law-abiding guy I know got thrown down on the sidewalk and terrified just for trying to persuade a police officer to protect a utility worker in a manhole. If good police officers want me to give them the benefit of the doubt when they kick unruly prisoners, they have to get their colleagues to treat ordinary, law-abiding people more politely and not throw those folks down on sidewalks.
Posted on: 2008/9/16 1:22
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Re: Greenville: Suspect Killed By Police
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My initial reaction to the story was, "Yah! The police got a bad guy!!! Good job!!!" Then I read this part and suddenly wondered whether the part in the story about a suspect pulling the gun was true. I understand that the police officers involved in this stop must have been freaked out, and it seems likely that the guys in the car were dreadful, but what is the point of a kicking a guy who is already on the ground? How does that contribute to restraining him? If the police officers really kicked a guy who was already on the ground, and it turns out that the guy on ground was already restrained, that act of brutality would undermine everything the officers say about anything else that happened around the time of the arrest. If the officers are so poorly trained and/or disciplined that they kick one suspect in broad daylight, in front of civilians, how can I trust them to give an honest explanation of why they used deadly force against another suspect? And I recognize that these officers were freaked out and that, if I were in their place, I might do worse things. I don't necessarily want anyone throwing the book at those particular freaked out officers, but I think that, if this report is correct and I'm understanding it accurately, the JCPD needs to do a better job of training the officers.
Posted on: 2008/9/15 18:04
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Re: Abbey's Pub
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I caused trouble. :( I brought my daughter there for the chicken about two years ago, when the pool room part was almost empty, and let her play with another child. At some point, she crawled under a table, and a glass fell off and broke. So, of course, I'm too embarrassed to ever go back there. But, anyhow, that's the worse incident that I've ever seen when I've gone to Abbey's early in the evening for fried chicken.
Posted on: 2008/9/12 7:22
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Re: Jersey City's McNair High taking in out-of-towners related to district staff
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Are people sure that the policy applies just to kids of parents who work FOR the district? My impression from the article is that it applies to kids of any parents who work IN the district.
Posted on: 2008/9/8 17:55
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Re: JCPD BLACK & BLUE
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In my opinion, the attacks here on Bolton are helping Bolton, not hurting him. I think that, assuming that everything Bolton has written is true, the officers were guilty mainly of screwing up royally. If I were their boss, I'd reassign them to desk jobs, but, if I were sitting on a jury, I think I'd be inclined to let them off. I don't think people should go to prison because they do dumb things when they're scared. But the anti-Bolton posts here make it look as if the police department and folks affiliated with the JCPD are out to wage witch hunts against people who file what seem to be reasonable complaints. In my opinion, if the people attacking Bolton really are JCPD folks, or are surrogates of those folks, then THAT kind of harassment is the result of premeditated awfulness. I don't know exactly what laws apply to that sort of thing, but I'd be a lot more inclined to vote to convict someone of harassing a complainant than of voting to convict someone who, in the heat of the moment, beat up someone who seemed to be a scary robber.
Posted on: 2008/9/8 14:43
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Re: Morning Murder at LSP Light Rail Station
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I'm for fixing that law, but I think you have to fix the law, not de-fund the public advocates. (Note: sometimes the formatting here confuses me. If I mixed something someone else wrote up with stuff you wrote, sorry.) I think one great argument in favor of imposing tough laws is that, while we impose them, we'll also support a strong public defender/advocate program, so that, for example, my spouse can't put me in a mental hospital simply because I post to JCList too much and can't afford a good lawyer. But, if I ever start wandering around muttering about wanting to kill that horrible John the Baptist if he comes into my brain with Mary Magdalene ever again, then I ought to have a good lawyer, but a judge ought to be able to turn to a law that lets him/her put me under close supervision. Maybe one compromise would be to try to somehow make sure that the advocates who represent the allegedly mentally ill people don't have an ax to grind. The advocates should have a built-in incentive to recommend that clients who really need to be supervised end up with supervision. Example: if more than a certain number of an advocate's clients go on to commit violent crimes, or become the victim of violent crimes, as the result of a lack of supervision, the advocate could be fired, or punished in some other way. If more than a certain percentage of the advocate's clients ended up living on the street, then the advocate could be penalized for that.
Posted on: 2008/9/5 20:17
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Re: SUIT: COP 'SHOT UP' BEFORE ATTACKING - Claims 'roids fueled beating on wrong man
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Quote:
But Bolton has posted in this thread (or somewhere else in this thread), and it seems as if friends of his have also posted here and described him as being an ordinary, sane guy. He seems to have a good union organizing job, and my understanding is that he's the son or nephew (sorry, my memory is cloudy and I don't remember which) of a police officer. I can believe that he and the police officers simply ended up in a horrible situation because of a bad misunderstanding, not because anyone had bad intentions, but I don't think he's lying or trying to milk money out of the police department. On the other hand: I don't necessarily think the police officers are necessarily lying, either. Maybe they were just really scared and remember what happened differently than Bolton does. Even if they did screw up, maybe they screwed up because they were scared to death.
Posted on: 2008/9/5 20:04
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Re: Traffic signal to be installed at Marin Blvd & 9th St.
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Good job. We can't have a light at every corner, but that's certainly a much busier intersection than many intersections in the Heights that have lights, and it's a popular route for children going from Newport to P.S. 37 and Golden Door.
Posted on: 2008/9/5 17:18
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Re: Temporary housing going up on Coles
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Well, at least they stepped in when something was going wrong with the building at Jersey and First. Maybe they'll take a look at this project now that we're discussing it here.
Posted on: 2008/9/5 13:38
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Re: Morning Murder at LSP Light Rail Station
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I was with you to here. I think it's pretty obvious just from walking down Newark Avenue that the system lets people who need close supervision live on their own. I don't really know whether that's more because of problems with laws and regulations or problems with funding. Either way, those problems should be fixed, to protect the many mentally ill people who end up living in terrible, dangerous conditions as well as to prevent mentally ill people who are violent commit acts of violence. But the solution is to fix the laws, regulations and funding (and maybe administrative procedures), not to keep people who might actually be sane, or somewhere close to sane, from trying to exercise their legal rights.
Posted on: 2008/9/5 13:20
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Re: Morning Murder at LSP Light Rail Station
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My understanding is that most people with schizophrenia are not at all violent, and that they're more likely to be murdered than to be murdered. But I think it's pretty clear that society needs to be somewhat stricter about who is considered to be sane enough to live on his/her own, AND, probably more important, to commit enough money so that the group homes or other places where people with mental illness end up are decent places to live. I think one problem is that a lot of supervised settings are either so awful, or so poorly adapted to meet the needs of shy, cranky people, that people who desperately need to be supervised end up living under highway overpasses instead. I think another problem is that a lot of treatment and supervision programs are so badly underfunded that they toss out anyone who seems even a little bit able to function, even if "functioning" will mean living in an alley and panhandling next to OX.
Posted on: 2008/9/4 20:43
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