Thursday Morning News Roundup

By • Nov 5th, 2009 • Category: Blog

- Ward E councilman Steven Fulop and two North Hudson state Senators say they will work as best they can with incoming governor Chris Christie. Meanwhile, the Insider notes that U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez may have had the most to lose from Christie’s election.

- In the ‘what went wrong?’ department, the Star-Ledger expands on the theme we noted yesterday: Gov. Corzine’s bid was killed by low turnout in the Democratic strongholds, including Hudson County.

- Congrats to Central Avenue Wines (210 Central Ave. in the Heights), which landed on the Village Voice’s “10 Best Wine Shops in NYC (and NJ)” list, at number 6.

- Two doctors at the Jersey City Medical Center have been named tops in their fields by New Jersey Monthly magazine.

- “I love to vote,” Dislocations’ Tim Herrick writes. “Voting reinforces the small town feel of Jersey City, and it’s just a remarkable feeling I always get, realizing this moment is being repeated in schools and other places all across the land that I love best.”

- James Young at Draw & Quarter has a bit of a rant about the PATH, singling out three specific problems that really draw his ire, and offering simple solutions. One we can get behind for sure: recycling bins for the free (and paid, while we’re at it) commuter newspapers that litter the trains when folks leave them behind. It would be nice to get some regular garbage cans in the mix as well.

Today’s Best Bets:

- Sculptors Ming Fay and Chakaia Booker will be taking part in a “Get Your Art On” discussion at the Jersey City Museum at 1 pm. This evening, the Art House is back with DJ Justin Woo at 8 pm and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days will be shown at the Warehouse at 8:30 pm.

In statewide news:

- Governor-elect Christie said yesterday that he will move quickly to suspend new regulations on business and find ways to lower crushing property taxes. (More from the Record and Politicker.)

- Dick Codey says that Gov. Corzine’s re-election bid was nearly abandoned this summer as White House concerns over the race grew.

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is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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  • Alb

    Obviously, the big problem Corzine faced in Hudson County was corruptiongate. The indictments have probably broken the traditional vote-generating machine here.

    But I think the charter school issue might have done a little bit of additional damage.

    A lot of the “soccer parents” here who voted for Obama have kids in great but underfunded charter schools.

    Historically, Democrats have backed regular public schools. They have seen the charter school system as a baseball bat that Republicans use to whack the teachers’ unions.

    But very few Democratic parents here understand that argument. All they understand is that the charters are nice and underfunded, and that, even if parents are willing to take the test scores with a grain of salt, it’s really hard for a concerned parent to deal with the regular public schools here. Personally, I think the public schools here are doing a somewhat better job than we recognize. I think that most of the kids in the regular downtown grade schools, at least, like the schools and think they’re learning a lot.

    But the schools make the parents — including parents who are really active in Democratic politics — feel like worms. They just aren’t responsive.

    New Jersey Republicans have, in effect, turned the brusque public school administrators and the whole charter school issue into a crowbar for prying waterfront Democratic parents away from the Democratic Party.

    Corzine and his secretary of education helped the Republicans with that effort by being cold toward the charter schools, and, for example, putting the lovely, very progressive people who started The Ethical Community Charter School through hoops of fire.

    So, Corzine probably didn’t have that much luck at replacing the machine voters with Fulop/Levin reform Democrats. Partly because he’s always seemed to be closer to the machine than to Fulop or Levin, and partly because a lot of the Fulop/Levin folks are charter school parents. It could be that a fair number of the votes that Daggett got here came from charter school Democrats.

    If New Jersey Democrats want to continue to prefer traditional public schools over charters, OK, but then I think they would be wise to figure out some kind of compromise to keep the charter school Democrats in the fold.

  • http://www.jerseycityindependent.com Jon Whiten

    Alb-

    Your analysis is pretty spot-on, from my observations as well. The charter school issue was a big one for parents in downtown Jersey City, and it did indeed turn many of the reform-minded Dems to Daggett — or even all the way to Christie.

  • BearBear

    Remind me exactly what Christie planned to do to help charter schools?