Free Republic

The State Treasurer's Office has denied an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request filed Republican members of the Assembly Transportation and Public Works Committee. Yesterday, the trio sent a joint, second letter to Governor Jon Corzine asking him to compel Treasury to release an $800,000 consulting report on the proposed sale of New Jersey toll road assets for public review. "Late Friday, we received word from treasury that this report would not be made public," says Assemblyman Sean Kean. He warns, "We are prepared to take legal action against the Administration if they refuse to turn over the results of...

Passages would let creatures safely slither and hop under widened Parkway Snakes, frogs and salamanders may never be stuck in Shore traffic again. The long-planned widening of the Garden State Parkway through the Pinelands will include a series of wildlife tunnels designed to let five threatened or endangered species of reptiles and amphibians pass safely from one side of the highway to the other. The cost: $9 million. The widening project will disrupt the habitats of 14 animals on the federal or state threatened or endangered species lists, a Turnpike consultant found.

Governor Jon Corzine continues to be dogged by questions about his still secret plans to monetize State assets, namely the New Jersey Turnpike and he continues to refuse to release any details. A recent poll shows Garden State voters oppose the idea and even some of Corzine's fellow Democrats are critical of the undisclosed scheme. "I don't have plans until I have a plan," says Corzine. He adds, "It makes no sense to talk about something that we don't know the underlying factors on……people in my own party (Democratic) and the other party, they all want to talk about something...

An illegal immigrant from Ghana was driving a tractor-trailer that rear-ended a car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Westmoreland County on Thursday, killing a Honduran diplomat. Trade specialist Nuria Ortiz Navarro, 31, a passenger in the back seat of a 1996 Volkswagen Jetta driven by her brother-in-law, was pronounced dead at the scene by Deputy Coroner F. Christopher O'Leath, according to state police in New Stanton... The truck driver, Sam P. Thompson, 32, of Gaithersburg, Md., an employee of Transcare Systems Inc., of Bowie, Md., was arraigned on multiple criminal charges, including homicide by vehicle, following vehicles too closely, driving...

UNION CITY, N.J.—In his 30-plus years as a player in New Jersey politics, Senator Robert Menendez has cultivated dozens of friends and allies in positions of influence. But recently, on Sept. 5, one of his allies, a New Jersey business owner and a major fund-raiser for Mr. Menendez, showed up in a curious place: in front of a grand jury in Newark, where he was questioned about the financing of terror bombings in Cuba during the 1990’s. Also appearing in front of the grand jury was the former accountant of a deceased ally and donor for the Senator. The fund-raiser,...

URGENT BULLETIN: The New Jersey Supreme Court will hand down its ruling in the marriage equality case Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 3:00 pm. THIS SUPERCEDES THE COURT'S EARLIER ANNOUNCEMENT THAT THERE WOULD BE NO DECISIONS COMING DOWN ON WEDNESDAY. The Court will post the decision at http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/index.htm Please attend Garden State Equality's statewide rally for marriage equality Wednesday night at 7:00 pm, Unitarian Church of Montclair, 67 Church Street, downtown Montclair. The rally supercedes any other event we have e-mailed you about. Right now please call as many people as you can, and please forward this e-mail to every...

I received a notice yesterday from the State of New Jersey, Office of the Attorney General, Department of Law and Public Law and Safety, Division of Elections The letter said: Dear Voter: A review of the statewiud voter registration system indicates that your date of birth is missing from your registration record. Please be advised that a missing date of birth will not affect your right to vote. However, we need this missing information to assure that your records are correct and properly maintained. Please provide your date of birth on the line below and mail this letter back in...

BOSTON -- A Boston law firm has agreed to represent the state for free as Gov. Mitt Romney seeks to remove Matthew Amorello as chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority following the death this week of a turnpike motorist. WilmerHale -- the entity resulting from the merger of Hale & Dorr of Boston and Wilmer Cutler & Pickering of Washington -- has agreed to represent the state on a pro bono basis, according to Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor's communications director. Amorello is expected to be represented by the Turnpike Authority. A WilmerHale spokeswoman was researching the...

Who's laughing now? New Jersey, the state that spawned a thousand wise-guy bumper stickers and became the butt of a million late-night jokes, is actually a nice place to live. The research group Morgan Quitno crunched the numbers this year and yesterday ranked New Jersey the fifth-most-livable state. As for its neighbors? Pennsylvania finished 30th, New York 32d. "The people we talk to say they wouldn't live anywhere else, and I have to go along with that," said Mark Moran, a Bloomfield resident and one of the editors of Weird New Jersey magazine. "Whether it grows on you or people...

I have signed House Bill 1521. Because pay raise bills are always the subject of much debate, I want to explain my reasons for doing so. I believe that this is good legislation because once and for all it takes the power to grant all subsequent pay raises -- for the judiciary, the executive branch and the General Assembly -- away from the Legislature. This legislation, particularly the concept of linking state salaries to a percentage of those paid equivalent federal officials, emanated from an idea put forth by our fine Supreme Court Chief Justice Ralph Cappy. It was a...

Gov. Richard J. Codey is working on a plan to bolster the state's Transportation Trust Fund with a temporary increase in the gasoline tax and additional money generated by privatizing the New Jersey Turnpike or Garden State Parkway, according to a published report. The Record of Bergen County, citing an unnamed administration source, reported in Thursday's editions that the plan calls for a small gas tax increase to be pushed through shortly after the Nov. 8 election. The increase would be rescinded or phased out after the lease deal is signed and begins to generate cash. The Transportation Trust Fund...

TRENTON, N.J. -- Authorities were investigating reports of a shooting incident Wednesday evening involving a car and a tractor-trailer on the George Washington Bridge, police and turnpike spokesmen said. A witness reported that shots were fired at the truck at about 6 p.m. as the vehicles traveled westbound on the upper span of the bridge, according to Pasquale DiFulco, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge. No one was injured, authorities said. (snip) According to turnpike spokesman Joseph Orlando, authorities held up traffic on the southbound inner roadway near Interchange 12 in...

New Jersey Republicans are taking the Codey administration to task over a proposed idea to lease state toll roads. Acting Governor Codey is exploring the possibility to help plug a looming four (b) billion-dollar budget deficit. Under such a deal, the state would get a one-time payment from a company, which would take over the operation and maintenance of the highway in exchange for keeping toll revenues. But Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, a fiscal conservative, said doing so would allow New Jersey's state government to continue to live beyond its means. A Codey spokeswoman says it's an idea under...

The Salvation Army's efforts to help the needy will receive a boost from the state of New Jersey this holiday season, acting Gov. Richard J. Codey announced this week. "We are opening up rest areas on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway to the Salvation Army for its annual Red Kettle Campaign, and increasing the number of NJ Transit locations available for the campaign," Codey said. Codey said the Red Kettle Campaign is one the Salvation Army's primary sources of donations, providing Christmas dinners, clothing and toys, as well as financial assistance for families and individuals in need....

When CBS announced the retirement of disgraced news anchor Dan Rather, did you first check with the Internet bloggers, also known as the pajamahadeen, before you believed it? If you checked, that might be because of the CBS credibility gap Dan Rather helped widen a few days before Election Day. Unbelievable things also happen in our little slice of heaven around here. You can read about some in today's stream of unconsciousness. Courage:

<p>PORTLAND, Maine -- Summer tourists who clog Maine's highways would bear the brunt of a new toll plan under consideration by the Maine Turnpike Authority.</p> <p>Under the plan, one of four toll schemes under consideration, the turnpike would charge higher tolls during July and August.</p>

The anti–racial profiling juggernaut has finally met its nemesis: the truth. According to a new study, black drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike are twice as likely to speed as white drivers, and are even more dominant among drivers breaking 90 miles per hour. This finding demolishes the myth of racial profiling. Precisely for that reason, the Bush Justice Department tried to bury the report so the profiling juggernaut could continue its destructive campaign against law enforcement. Rest of article

TRENTON, N.J. (Reuters) - New Jersey , which helped turn racial profiling by police into a national political issue, on Friday became the first state to make race-based arrests and police searches a crime. A new law signed by Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey made racial profiling by public officials, including police officers, punishable by up to five years' imprisonment and a $15,000 fine. The signing marked a victory for civil rights activists who had pressed for such a law since April 1998 when two state troopers pulled over a van of black and Hispanic men for a traffic stop on...

<p>Ah, driving in New Jersey. The most crowded roads.</p> <p>The longest commutes. The, ahem, nicest drivers.</p> <p>And the highest average auto insurance bills in the nation. Again.</p> <p>New Jersey beat out all the other states for the eighth time in the past decade, according to the annual National Association of Insurance Commissioners' survey, released yesterday.</p>

Sunshine Skyway bridge drivers might not want to remove the spare change from their cars just yet. A proposal to increase the bridge's toll by 50 percent, thought to have died on the regular legislative session's last day, has been revived in the ongoing special session on the state budget. The Senate already has passed the renewed measure (SB 24A), which would increase the toll on the bridge that connects Manatee and Pinellas counties from $1 to $1.50 each way in July. The bill also would increase tolls on Florida's Turnpike, Alligator Alley, the Beeline-East Expressway and two bridges in...