Tom Moran remembers NJ political veteran Jamie Fox, 62

Jamie Fox, who served both parties in New Jersey state government, dead at 62

** Updated to add a related news story below**
 
Tom Moran, the Star-Ledger’s political columnist and editorial writer, begins his eulogy for Jamie Fox like this:

Let me start by confessing that I am hopelessly biased on this one. But I am not the only one, not by a long shot.
Jamie Fox just died. He was 62. He was a friend of mine, and throw-back of the sort that seems to be passing from this earth, marching to extinction in the path of the dinosaurs.
After a lifetime in politics, fighting one tough campaign after another, serving in the cabinet of two governors, he somehow won the unreserved affection and respect of people on both sides of the aisle.
He was a Democrat, and not a gentle one. But when the bell rang, he put his weapons down and looked for the human beings behind the opponent’s armor.
Put it this way: He was friendly with Gov. Chris Christie, who appointed Fox to his cabinet. And yet, one of his closest friends was Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), the governor’s arch-enemy.

“I guess that sums it up,” Weinberg says. “Everybody liked Jamie, and it stretched to both extremes in New Jersey politics.” 

Read the full piece here (it’s worth it)


Related news story:

Jamie Fox, longtime N.J. political operative, dies

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From butcher to recycler to award winner: Pat McGaheran

How does one go from 10 years as a butcher store owner to a successful career in paper recycling?


Pat McGaheran says the secret is communication and taking good care of your customer.


Pat also has been contributing both skills for many years as a board member of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers.

ANJR recognized  his contributions this year by presenting him with its highest honor– the REX Award for recycling excellence.

Meet Pat McGaheran

Disclosure: ANJR is a client of our sister business, Brill Public Affairs

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In Philly, opting for home deconstruction over demolition

Greg Trainor, founder of Philadelphia Community Corps

Caitlin McCabe writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer:


Cities from Seattle and Portland to Baltimore have been experimenting with deconstruction as an alternative to demolition. With more than 245,000 residential structures and nearly 50,000 commercial structures demolished nationwide each year, generating by some estimates about 136 million tons of waste, preservationists have touted deconstruction as a system that could transform development practices — and cities.

Skeptics, however, have pegged deconstruction as an inefficient and initially expensive system — one, they say, that cannot expeditiously tackle urban blight.

The idea behind it is simple: When a home falls victim to blight, a developer, property owner, even a city planner can hire a team of deconstructionists to dismantle it. Rather than eliminating the house in a quick job with a demolition truck, the team instead strips it down, salvaging doors, bathtubs, and bricks along the way. By using manual labor, advocates say, deconstruction can boost local employment.


It’s an approach that (Greg) Trainor’s deconstruction company, Philadelphia Community Corps, is banking on. In 2010, it was estimated, 40,000 parcels here — both properties and tracts of land — were vacant. Recent estimates from the city’s Department of Licenses & Inspections put the number of vacant structures alone at about 15,000


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Jersey-Philly boys enjoying the company at Mar-a-Lago

George Norcross (left) and Bruce Toll are paying members of Trump’s
                    Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.,

Julie Shaw reports for Philly.com

George E. Norcross III, the South Jersey Democratic power broker and insurance tycoon, and Bruce E. Toll, co-founder of Horsham-based luxury home-builder Toll Bros., are among the nearly 500 members of President Trump’s posh Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., the New York Times reported Saturday.

It now costs $200,000 to be a member, a price tag that was doubled shortly after Trump took office.

Trump is there this weekend, his third weekend in a row. Last week, he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the club, the so-called winter White House.

The Times reviewed membership lists and found that most of the paying members were part of the club before Trump’s presidential campaign. A few memberships are still available, it says.

Norcross, 60, who chairs insurance firm Conner Strong & Buckelew, and Trump are longtime friends.

When Norcross and his wife bought a $10.9 million home on luxurious Everglades Island in Palm Beach more than a decade ago, he had asked Trump for his opinion on the purchase, according to an article in the Palm Beach Daily News.

“I wanted lakefront and deepwater, and Everglades Island has great views,” Norcross told the newspaper. “I took Donald to this house; we walked through three properties. He said it was spectacular, an exquisite location.”

Toll, 73, retired from the Toll Bros. board of directors last year. He is a principal at Horsham-based BET Investments, which owns, manages, and develops office buildings, retail complexes, and apartment buildings.

He told the Times for its article that he owns a home near the Mar-a-Lago Club and often sees Trump at the club. The two have talked about national issues, such as Trump’s plans to increase spending on highways and other infrastructure projects, Toll said.

“Maybe you ought to do this or that,” Toll said of the type of advice Trump received from club members.

Neither Toll nor Norcross could be reached Saturday by the Inquirer for comment.

For his part, the president on Saturday called Mar-a-Lago his Southern White House.


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Climate change leaving Mexico City parched and sinking

Climate change is threatening to push a crowded capital toward a breaking point. 

Michael Kimmelman reports for The New York Times:

MEXICO CITY — On bad days, you can smell the stench from a mile away, drifting over a nowhere sprawl of highways and office parks.

When the Grand Canal was completed, at the end of the 1800s, it was Mexico City’s Brooklyn Bridge, a major feat of engineering and a symbol of civic pride: 29 miles long, with the ability to move tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater per second. It promised to solve the flooding and sewage problems that had plagued the city for centuries.

Only it didn’t, pretty much from the start. The canal was based on gravity. And Mexico City, a mile and a half above sea level, was sinking, collapsing in on itself.

It still is, faster and faster, and the canal is just one victim of what has become a vicious cycle. Always short of water, Mexico City keeps drilling deeper for more, weakening the ancient clay lake beds on which the Aztecs first built much of the city, causing it to crumble even further.


It is a cycle made worse by climate change. More heat and drought mean more evaporation and yet more demand for water, adding pressure to tap distant reservoirs at staggering costs or further drain underground aquifers and hasten the city’s collapse.

In the immense neighborhood of Iztapalapa — where nearly two million people live, many of them unable to count on water from their taps — a teenager was swallowed up where a crack in the brittle ground split open a street. Sidewalks resemble broken china, and 15 elementary schools have crumbled or caved in.

Much is being written about climate change and the impact of rising seas on waterfront populations. But coasts are not the only places affected. Mexico City — high in the mountains, in the center of the country — is a glaring example. The world has a lot invested in crowded capitals like this one, with vast numbers of people, huge economies and the stability of a hemisphere at risk.

Changing Climate, Changing Cities
The first in a series of articles about how climate change is challenging the world’s urban centers.

One study predicts that 10 percent of Mexicans ages 15 to 65 could eventually try to emigrate north as a result of rising temperatures, drought and floods, potentially scattering millions of people and heightening already extreme political tensions over immigration.

The effects of climate change are varied and opportunistic, but one thing is consistent: They are like sparks in the tinder. They expose cities’ biggest vulnerabilities, inflaming troubles that politicians and city planners often ignore or try to paper over. And they spread outward, defying borders.


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Today, America turned from green to coal-and-oil black

President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt

After years of contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to congressional Republicans, hoping to reverse decades of environmental progress in the nation, the fossil fuel industry today won their battle as the United States Senate voted to confirm Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.


Coral Davenport reports for The New York Times: 


WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday confirmed Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency, putting a seasoned legal opponent of the agency at the helm of President Trump’s efforts to dismantle major regulations on climate change and clean water — and to cut the size and authority of the government’s environmental enforcer.  


Senators voted 52-46 to confirm Mr. Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who has built a career out of suing to block the E.P.A.’s major environmental rules, and has called for the dissolution of much of the agency’s authority. One Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, crossed party lines to vote against Mr. Pruitt, while two Democrats, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp, both from coal-rich states where voters generally oppose environmental rules, voted for him.  


Senate Democrats railed all night on the Senate floor against Mr. Pruitt and urged Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to delay the confirmation vote until after next Tuesday, when the Oklahoma attorney general’s office is under order to release about 3,000 of Mr. Pruitt’s emails related to his communications with the fossil fuel industry. 


But the effort did little but deprive Democrats of sleep.


Democrats, environmental groups and even current E.P.A. employees have harshly criticized Mr. Pruitt’s record of fighting the mission of the agency he will now lead, as well as his close ties with the fossil fuel industry he will now regulate. Both opponents and supporters of Mr. Pruitt say he is well positioned to carry out Mr. Trump’s campaign trail promises to dismantle the agency and slash its ranks of employees. Mr. Trump vowed to “get rid” of the agency “in almost every form.”


A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules. Many of the coal, oil and gas companies represented by those lobbyists were also some his largest campaign contributors. Mr. Pruitt also worked jointly with those companies in filing multiple lawsuits against major E.P.A. regulations.


Democrats say the emails to be released on Tuesday could reveal more, and possibly disqualifying, information about those relationships.


“I reminded my colleagues that the release of these documents could be imminent and that we would be wise wait to vote on Mr. Pruitt’s nomination until we had the opportunity to review them — and shame on us if we didn’t,” said Senator Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. 


“Mr. Pruitt has been nominated by a man who, as a nominee, as a president-elect, and now as president, has made clear his goals to degrade and destroy the E.P.A.,” Mr. Carper said. “Like many things President Trump says, we ask ourselves, ‘Did he mean it?’ With the nomination of Mr. Pruitt, it’s clear he did.”


How Senators voted on the Pruitt confirmation


Read the full story here


Tell us what you think in the comment box below. Do you agree that this is a truly shameful day for America or are we Pruitt critics out of touch. Are you starting to think that your anti-Hillary vote might not have been worth the consequences, or do you believe that reigning in the EPA is necessary to make America great again?  If you can’t get the comment box to work, please post on our Facebook page.


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