Re: Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread Listening to NPR this morning, I think it was Corzine mentioned that there are 23 school districts that don't even have any schools. WTF?!?
Re: Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread Welcome to New Jersey! We have more school districts than we have towns. Why? Um...
Re: Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread And yet the Jersey City and Newark districts have around 100,000 students each. Seems about right, doesn't it?
I have a question. NJ is funding some stem cell research institute. Putting aside the moral questions, let's say they actually find something useful. What happens then? Who profits?
Re: Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread I can explain that. Can't defend it, but I can explain it. Let's say that your dinky little independent town, East Bumfutz, NJ, has too few school-aged children to build your own school. West Bumfutz has lots of kids and schools. So, East Bumfutz's town council decides to send its kids to West Bumfutz schools instead of building its own school, paying West Bumfutz a per-head charge to educate your students. But you don't want to just send your kids to West Bumfutz and let their school board decide the curriculum for your East Bumfutz kids, so you start your own East Bumfutz school board (which includes multiple salaried positions) that then works with the West Bumfutz school board to decide how your kids will be taught collectively. Everyone agrees that it's overkill, but no single district wants to reliquish control to another district. And, those salaried positions on the no-school school boards are held by fine upstanding local citizens of your little town -- might even have been popularly elected by the town to fill that role. So when Corzine talks about regionalization, no one wants to be the ones taking the sacrifice.
Re: Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread It's strange. Some very wealthy towns such as Saddle River belong to a regional HS district, thereby saving people like Jason Kidd $ while other small, blue collar towns in Bergen County such as Wood-Ridge & Wallington are single districts. You'd think these little districts would want to regionalize. Not in NJ. The same can be said of police depts. in those small towns. They probably have 20-25 officers plus captains, lieutenants, a police chief, etc. Seriously, that many cops could easily cover Wood-Ridge & Wallington. But you'll always hear the police cry "let's not take chances with our safety." They probably never even did a feasibility study of combining departments.
Re: Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread Just because Saddle River may belong to a regional HS district, doesn't mean they don't have their own district themselves. It's a mess. Luckily Jon Corzine is coming to the rescue, after he spends a whole bunch more money that the state doesn't have and sells the Turnpike.
Re: Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread They actually have their own K-8 district. But they were smart enough to look outside the district for their HS students. Small towns should've thought of this 40-50 yrs. ago but everyone wanted home control back then and are afraid (i guess) to do it today.
Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread Are you looking forward to moments like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_0bEHJY9oo http://www.njgra.org/aboutus.htm William Dressler Executive Director Or did you mean Senator & Dentist Gerald Cardinale? http://www.gerrycardinale.com/ New Jersey is a bastion of home rule! Some towns have multiple districts: one for its own students or elementary school(s) & a second, regional, high school district (sometimes grades 7-12). There are 566 towns in New Jersey, each with its own politicians & administration, as well as >400 local police departments, maybe 100 other police agencies & 615 school districts. Each county also has its own vo-tech district. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_New_Jersey http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/n...91a80e19f15b&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss http://www.njccvts.org/districts.asp The 5k appears to be only the one payoff that he pled to, probably the one with the most proof. It's enough to get him 2 years in fed prison. There are a lot more stories about this guy & Bricktown itself.
Official New Jersey Ironic News Thread Many small towns are happy with their small departments, as most officers are on patrol duties, not in special units. Even large departments are top-heavy with brass. The New Jersey State Police have about 750 sergeants out of 3,000 officers! http://www.nypd2.org/html/recruit/salary.html 1 in 6 ... of the NYPD are Detectives. (6000+) 1 in 7 ... of the NYPD are Sergeants. (5000+) 1 in 20 ... of the NYPD are Lieutenants (1800+)
In other NJ news: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/breaking_news/story/488907p-411750c.html "Miss New Jersey USA resigns over pregnancy" Some good news: Trump is not the father & she will soon be eligible for Mrs. New Jersey USA!
back to pumping our own gas for a moment... I've read that insurance prices would go up if self-service was implemented and it's actually cheaper to pay some one to pump our gas for us then for us to pump it ourselves. Higher insurance premiums for the gas station means higher priced gas for you. So sit in your car and enjoy the savings.
New Jersey is one of only two states that take away the freedom of people in its borders to pump their own gas. New Jersey has the highest auto insurance rates in the nation. Coincidence?
I'm talking about the insurance rates the gas stations pay not your car insurance. I'm not sure there is a correlation. If we went to self service what would happen? -A lot of gas pumpers would lose their jobs. -you'd have to pump your own gas. -insurance rates would probably go up for the gas stations because "untrained" people are now pumping gas. -our gas prices would probably go up. Call me a cynic, but I doubt they'd go down. I lean libertarian most of the time but I'm finding it hard to grasp how this lack of freedom is hurting me?
Maybe gas station insurance rates would go up. I have no clue. But 48 states allow people to pump their own gas, and you don't hear about gas stations blowing up on a regular basis. Somehow I think we could cope.
It's amazing how people in 48 states are smart enough to pump their own gas, but people in NJ and OR apparently haven't mastered the use of opposable thumbs. Maybe NJ has an excuse with all those chemical plants leeching toxins into the water table for the last 150 years, but what's OR's excuse?
Why would you have to pump your own gas? The rest of the civilized world has both self and full service lanes. As for the insurance rates, I would love it if you could link to an article saying this. It seems like lobbyist spin to me.
well, I found some articles... yeah, looks like lobbyists. http://1010wins.com/pages/30236.php?contentType=4&contentId=134338 I still don't doubt it will happen. If they have an excuse, they'll use it.