9/12/16 Caucus
Ken Balut
PERTH AMBOY- At the 9/12/16 Caucus Meeting, Councilman Irizarry and former Councilman Ken Balut got into a heated verbal confrontation in reference to the YMCA.
During the public portion, Balut mentioned that the YMCA had a big leak and pictures were taken by Police Officers of the damage. “A citizen got robbed while this was going on and Balut described the Y as a “Rat hole and it should be closed! We should be able to get OPRA [Open Public Records Act] requests and information easily if we are so transparent.”
Balut also complained about a lack of a fence around the pool in the Budapest section of town. “The connector road should have been built a long time ago.” Balut referenced owned by the Board of Education that is needed to build this connector road.
Balut then questioned how Planing Board Appointments are made. He mentioned that he and another Resident, Alan Silber had applied to that Board. He also questioned how City Employees were able to get a house through the Jewish Renaissance.
After Balut made his comments and was about to sit down, Councilman Fernando Irizarry called Balut back up to the podium.
Irizarry took offense to Balut’s statement and he quoted Balut, “You (Balut) referred to the YMCA as a rat hole! Are you saying that people who got there are rats?”
At that point, Balut backtracked and said, “It’s like pouring money down a rat hole.”
Irizarry said, “No! Your quote was the YMCA is a rat hole!”
Councilman Fernando Irizarry
Finally, Councilwoman Lisa Nanton put a stop to the discussion between Irizarry and Balut by saying, “Let’s end this conversation.”
After Balut spoke, Barry Rosengarten came up to add a bright spot when he talked about a new program called, “Sandy – A Source of Inspiration.”
He invited the public to a reopening of Bayview Park to occur on Saturday, October 8, 2016 at 11 a.m. “There will be activities taking place from South Second Street to Smith Street.”
Rosengarten wanted everyone to see the new improvements that were made.
After Rosengarten spoke, Resident Mel Knight came up to speak. Knight was not pleased when talking about the Master Plan which was on the website from the year 2013. “Nothing the Master Plan went past the year 2011. The City Website needs to be up to date. Documents are 10 years old. The information should be current and we shouldn’t have to call the Council to get updates. We could have missed a couple of million dollars. You (the Council) expect a lot from the citizens, but you need to do your work. Street Sweepers rarely come by where I live. Now you want to build Seagate (A new development proposed by Kushner Developers). What about the lack of services now? I can’t take a shower and run the dishwasher at the same time because of the low water pressure? Now you want to build a school there? (referring to the new High School to be built in the former Delaney Homes Site)
Resident Alan Silber spoke next, “In the past, we were cautioned about not talking about City Employees, then Cruz (the B.A.) wanted to present a letter from a law firm about Planning Board Members Maria Garcia.
6th CONGRESSIONAL DIST. – Rep. Frank Pallone is frustrated over the state of legislation in the House of Representatives, partly because of differences between the two parties that have hindered the passage of what he sees as necessary and important legislation.
There has been little effective action on bills to clean up water systems and free them from excessive lead content; bring down the cost of medical drugs; and find support for legislation that was passed but not financed.
Pallone, who represents the sixth Congressional district of New Jersey, met with weekly newspaper and online reporters on Sept. 12 to discuss the state of federal legislation. The meeting took place at the International House of Pancakes restaurant in Keyport.
The district covers northern Monmouth County and these towns in Middlesex County: Carteret, Edison, Highland Park, Metuchen, New Brunswick, Old Bridge (part), Perth Amboy, Piscataway, Sayreville, South Amboy, South Plainfield and Woodbridge.
Although he noted that a good amount of legislation actually gets through the deadlocked House, he expressed annoyance at the intractability of the Republican majority. For example, Pallone has been especially chagrinned over the House’s repeated passage of bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, knowing that President Barack Obama will never sign them.
Discussing what the GOP might do if it were actually successful in repealing ACA, he visualized a country without ACA.
“I don’t know how you do it,” he said, referring to finding a replacement for the millions of Americans who have obtained medical insurance under the act. “It’s become so much of a part of the health care system.”
Likewise, many bills that actually get cross-aisle support end up stymied because they are not funded. Congress passes many bills which have little or no effect on improving conditions because the Congress fails to follow up with financing.
He mentioned in particular the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which was approved 407-5 in the House and received Senate approval. President Obama signed it into law in July. The law is designed to protect newborns from drugs that are introduced into their systems from drug-dependent mothers.
The measure promotes the idea of diverting people convicted of using drugs from the criminal justice system and into treatment centers, as well as assistance for those who need treatment for opioid addiction. It also supports the use of Naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses.
The problem, Pallone noted, is the lack of funding for the new law. Without funding, the law is rendered ineffective.
“I am deeply disappointed that Republicans failed to provide any real resources for those seeking addiction treatment to get the care that they need,” President Obama recently said, according to a report on Reuters. “In fact, they blocked efforts by Democrats to include $920 million in treatment funding.”
Pallone agreed.
Pallone said he and fellow Democrats are attempting to get $1 billion to support the new law, but have been frustrated by Republican intransigence.
He also noted frustration at the failure of the Congress to come up with $1.5 billion for the “cancer moon shot” and $9 billion for “twenty-first century cures.”
The cancer moon shot was publicized by Obama in his State of the Union address in January when he asked the Congress to treat cancer like a “moonshot,” that is, a massive project that treats curing cancer as a common goal. “The initiative—led by Vice President Joe Biden—aims to make more therapies available to more patients, while also improving our ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage,” according to the National Institutes of Health.
The 21st Century Cures Act supports biomedical research of the National Institutes of Health for a myriad of health problems, many of them for children.
In all three cases, funding has been slow to catch up with legislation. In some cases, Pallone said, laws are passed without funding and in others, funding is held up by lack of passage.
Pallone played a major role in getting the 21st Century Cures legislation passed into law. The website of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery noted Pallone’s importance in passage:
“The support of [Energy and Commerce Committee] Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) is being sought by committee Republicans in bypassing the standard committee process to advance the bipartisan legislation,” the website said.
Pallone, in his talk with journalists, said that it has become more difficult to get the opioid legislation passed because public clamor for government to do something “has really died down.”
In other issues, Pallone noted:
• He is trying to put off or modify a major entrance fee hike for the Sandy Hook federal park, which is also part of Pallone’s district. He said the entrance fee should “match local beaches….I’m just worried that Sandy Hook is becoming a major cash cow for the whole system [of parks].”
• He is working with other lawmakers to keep offshore oil and gas drilling away from the coast of New Jersey and Delaware. He said the whole New Jersey congressional delegation agrees with him except for Rep. Scott Garrett, a conservative Republican. “Some interests are always trying to use the ocean as a dump,” Pallone said.
• The Aqua Act, which updates the Clean Water Act, has stalled in Congress. It would help to improve water systems that do not meet federal regulations, especially for lead content. Perth Amboy, Pallone noted, has not made the $4 million investment in improving its water distribution system yet. “We need to provide more money” overall, he said. “The problem is no one ever sees this stuff [lead and other impurities],” he said.
• Pallone also is still seeking to give help to anyone who lost housing or property in Hurricane Sandy and said they should contact his office. He said many claims still have not been paid. “It’s frustrating,” he said. His office phone number is (732) 249-8892.
• Pallone is seeking more funding for a Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant to put more police on the street, and he said he supports “racial mirroring,” the idea that the police force should reflect the ethnic make-up of the local population.
• Pallone said he supports casino gambling for Monmouth County but is “not prepared” to say publicly whether he supports the measure on the ballot this fall for gambling in North Jersey.
• He also wants to see more money put into the House transportation bill. A subcommittee roundtable policy discussion next week will discuss the impact on freight of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. Pallone said funding for NJ Transit, also included in the bill, was removed and then refunded.
• Pallone also said he now supports the complete legalization of recreational marijuana. He said he has “changed his mind” on the question. “It’s clear that it’s not as dangerous to peoples’ health” as he once believed.
• Finally, he said he is actively pushing to get NJ Transit to install elevators in the Perth Amboy rail station. “We’ll keep pushing for it,” he said.
