Grace Spencer

WISNIEWSKI / SCHAER / SPENCER BILL SETTING 20-YEAR STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS FOR FORECLOSURES CLOSER TO BECOMING LAW

(TRENTON) – Legislation Assembly members John Wisniewski, Gary Schaer and L. Grace Spencer sponsored to codify a timeframe under which a lender can file a foreclosure action against a borrower who in is default is closer to becoming law.

The bill (A-3269) would give a mortgage lender 20 years from the date of a borrower’s default to bring a specific foreclosure action. It would ensure that decades-old defaults – which under previous law could still be acted against – do not remain as clouds on a property’s title, which can grind a sale to a halt.

“Given the current volatility in the housing market, there is no room for ambiguity,” said Wisniewski (D-Middlesex). “A distinct path to a clear title can be the difference between allowing a property to be sold or requiring it to languish in legal purgatory.”

Menza addressses the crowd.

HILLSIDE - This little, oft-dispected town practically buried under a criss-cross of highways in the muscled-up arms of Newark on one side and Elizabeth on the other today showed little sign of breaking a four-year standoff between mayor and council as Joe Menza assumed the oath of office several hours before the council's reorganization meeting this evening.

Real estate developer Menza beat the local Democratic Party machine on May 12th when he defeated At-Large Councilman Jerome Jewell, a staunch ally of local party chair Charlotte DeFilippo, who also runs the county party.

DeFillipo allies still controls five seats on the seven-member governing body, but Menza kicked off his mayoralty by letting the crowd of 150 people here know that under the Faulkner Act, it is his responsibility to prepare and submit an annual operating budget and to sign all contracts, and he doesn't intend to abdicate those powers.

On the contrary, "The buck stops right here, you can expect that from me," announced the new mayor, moments after taking the oath at the prompting of substitute Township Judge Geoffrey Gechtman.

Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer

TRENTON – Notwithstanding an 11th hour campaign effort to woo the African American community through church leadership contacts, the quiet terror in some Democratic Party circles that Gov. Jon Corzine’s candidacy has stalled irredeemably and creates little barriers-breaking hoopla in urban cities, prompted Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer today to defend the governor and call for an end to the negative back chatter, even as state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark), chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, maintained his resistance.

Palmer said there is much the governor must accomplish to be viable in urban New Jersey in a close contest, but he’s confident about Corzine’s ability to get it done between now and Election Day.

“Certainly he’s down in the polls because of the economy and on top of the economy everyday there is a story about the public employees’ furloughs and that’s hurting his base – the unions and families – and so he’s suffering a double whammy, but if you’re going to be behind, now is the time to be behind,” said the veteran mayor, a short-list candidate for lieutenant governor.

Assemblyman Albert Coutinho (D-Newark)

NEWARK – The creeping disillusion Fred Linhares felt with the East Ward Democratic Party reached its denouement two weeks ago when the Ironbound attorney, Kean University professor and former municipal judge changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican and filed to run for the Assembly in the 29th Legislative District. 

“I’ve been a registered Democrat my whole life,” said Linhares, 40, who served on the local bench from 1999 to 2002, when he hung up his robes to run for freeholder on a ticket with then-county executive candidate Tom Giblin.

That ticket famously lost to Joe DiVincenzo and his team, and when it comes to assessing the self-styled progressive Linhares, who admits he feels no heartfelt tug from the GOP and says he voted for Ralph Nader in the last three presidential elections, members of his former party generally point to 2002 as Linhares’s real turning point in politics.

“I’ve known Fred Linhares since we were kids, and I think he should have stayed as a judge. I respect everyone’s right to run, but he was a good municipal judge,” said Assemblyman Albert Coutinho (D-Newark).

NEWARK - Payne family patriarch, Former Assemblyman Bill Payne (D-Newark), backed up his nephew’s off-the-line challenge in the 28th District today, but said he has not yet reached a decision about his own comeback in the neighboring 29th District.

"I’m circulating petitions," Payne told PolitickerNJ.com.  I have another couple of days to give it some thought. I’m still weighing all the options."

The filing deadline to submit petitions to run for Assembly is 4 p.m., Monday, April 6th.

Two years ago, the Essex County Democratic Committee offered Payne a shot at reelection to his Assembly seat, but the veteran South Ward lawmaker and older brother and consigliere of U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark), insisted on trying to move up to occupy the seat vacated by former state Sen./Mayor Sharpe James.

From left: U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, Sen Ronald Rice, Andre Reames, Bill Payne, Freeholder/Councilman Donald Payne, Jr., and Craig Stanley

NEWARK – Democratic Party stronghold Essex was supposed to be quiet this season as Newark and the environs reflect on a North Ward-City Hall lovefest and prepare for the reelection campaign of Gov Jon Corzine. 

Now the Payne family appears mobilized on the primary horizon here in the 28th District and potentially in the 29th, though insiders say it's unlikely they will be able to escalate a fullscale battle, even if they choose to fight.

After getting bumped out of office by an Adubato-Booker alliance in 2007, family scion former Assemblyman Craig Stanley (D-Irvington) is trying to scratch his way back into the legislature and finding little organizational support in the process with two weeks to go before the April 6th state filing deadline.

Essex sources on all sides say there’s little or no chance Chairman Phil Thigpen will award the District 28 party line to Stanley over incumbents Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville) and Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) - not in a gubernatorial election year when an unpopular Corzine faces more than a warm body challenge from the Republican Party, and party chieftains are intent on trying to keep his troops in line. 

Thigpen himself is cryptic on the Stanley issue.

TRENTON – However subdued his variations on this year’s most infamous catch phrase, “tough economic times,” members of both parties are prepared to hear Gov. Jon Corzine’s budget address tomorrow as a starter’s gun blast in the 2009 gubernatorial and legislative races.

Already exhilarated by Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Chris Christie’s argument that Corzine and the Democrats must accept responsibility for the state budget (which swelled from $25 billion to $33 billion in nine years) and not hide within the folds of an international economic crisis, the GOP wants to capitalize on a dismal tide statewide, which last year buried John McCain at the national level in a narrative of poor fiscal management by the Bush administration.

“It’s too late,” confirmed Assembly Minority Whip Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) of Corzine. “You’ve been the governor. If the economy was doing great you would take credit for it. When it’s not doing well, you’re stuck with the hand you’ve been dealt. If the state ain’t getting better, end of story."

Presumably no longer able to rely on their most beloved if unwitting ally – President George W. Bush – to deepsix the Republican Party, New Jersey Democrats face a humbling nine point deficit in the gubernatorial contest, according to last week’s Fairleigh Dickinson Poll. 

***MULTIMEDIA PACKAGE***

GREENSTEIN/SCALERA/SPENCER ON 10-BILL PACKAGE TO ENHANCE INTERNET SAFETY FOR MINORS

(TRENTON) – Assembly members Linda R. Greenstein, Frederick Scalera and L. Grace Spencer today released a multimedia package on a sweeping 10-bill initiative to better protect children from Internet and digital predators.

The 10-bill package, among other things, would upgrade penalties and crimes for offenders who communicate in a harassing, sexually offensive or abusive manner with minors on Web sites and through electronic communication.

SPENCER/DeANGELO BILL TO HELP BUSINESSES COMBAT UTILITY OVERPAYMENTS ADVANCES

(TRENTON) – Legislation sponsored by Assemblywomen L. Grace Spencer and Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo to help businesses better handle overpayments to public utilities is advancing toward law.

The bill (A-678) would require interest be paid or credited on overpayments by residential and nonresidential customers to public utilities. State law only requires utility companies do that for residential customers.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker

NEWARK – Television star Oprah Winfrey’s decision this month to drop a $500,000 gift on Steve Adubato’s North Ward Center effectively stamps out the fuse on a standoff between the North Ward Democratic leader and Winfrey confidante Mayor Cory Booker, in a resolution that underscores the political strengths of the two main combatants.

If Adubato, native Newarker and a grizzled guru now in his seventies, proved his relevance by waging a war in the streets and alleys he has known since childhood, Booker the Bergen County outsider turned Newark activist and statewide star, proved his manna from Heaven connections. 

And the community won in the end, according to sources from both camps, as Adubato’s Blue Ribbon charter school, the Robert Treat Academy - whose students consistently rate higher math and science test scores than students in schools in all of urban New Jersey and all of Essex County - stands to get an unprecedented infusion of funds.

The contribution came with a back story.  

For almost as long as Booker’s been in office, Adubato poked, prodded, cajoled, and chest-thumped in the face of the young star’s particular power, and now sources close to the North Ward leader say he intends to endorse the first term mayor for reelection next year.

It’s been an odd relationship.