Trish Graber

Farmer Ellen Karcher, who lost her State Senate seat in 2007, is not a candidate for Secretary of Agriculture. But Assemblyman Doug Fisher (D-Cumberland) is.

New Jersey should have a new Secretary of Agriculture by the second week of February, according to a report in Today's Sunbeam, the Newhouse-owned daily newspaper in Salem County.  The cabinet post, which is chosen by the state Board of Agriculture with the approval of the Governor and State Senate, has been vacant since Charles Kuperus resigned at the end of last year.  Fourteen candidates were interviewed and five were selected as finalists, sources told PolitickerNJ.com.

According to sources, one of the candidates interviewed as Assemblyman Douglas Fisher, a four-term Cumberland County Democrat and Chairman of the Assembly Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

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U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie says that Wayne Bryant's conviction will wake up the state pension board

A story by the Gloucester County Times' Trish Graber must have been a real sphincter squeezing moment for more than a few politically active lawyers: "The conviction of former Sen. Wayne Bryant rang the alarm on public-sector attorneys who sent subordinates to perform their work, a practice the defense argued was common throughout New Jersey." Especially since outgoing U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie says that the Bryant trial "has woken up the pension board.... I think the pension board is going to be much more active in looking at these pension applications .. If you did it in a serial way like Wayne Bryant did, you should go to the pension board now and make good."

Graber suggests that among the first pension cases to be reviewed will be those of former State Sen. Raymond Zane and Gloucester County Democratic Chairman Michael Angelini, who "were key to the defense's argument that the practice of Bryant sending associates to perform his work at the Gloucester County Board of Social Services, and taking the pension credits, was common."   Zane, who served in the Senate from 1973 until his defeat in 2001, collects a pension based on nine part-time public jobs.

Trish Graber is a lucky reporter. She had to write stories yesterday on Steve Lonegan’s lawsuit to stop the state from borrowing to finance school construction for several of the Newhouse newspapers she works for. But life must become a little easier when two school superintendents from very different parts of the state gave Graber essentially the same quote.

Tonight at 6:30 and Sunday at 10:00 a.m., catch The Bergen Record’s Charles Stile, Trish Graber of the Gloucester County Times, and PolitickerNJ.com’s own Matt Friedman on Reporters Roundtable, hosted by Michael Aron. The reporters will discuss the state budget, Gary Rose’s departure and county chairman contests.

On the Record, airing Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m., will feature NJEA President Joyce Powell and Assemblymen Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) and Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen) discussing the budget.

If you can’t get enough Stile and Friedman, tune in to My9’s New Jersey Now, airing at 12:00 on Sunday, where the two will discuss political rumors. Also appearing on the show are Assemblymen Jon Bramnick (R-Union) and Ralph Caputo (D-Essex), who will debate what’s causing residents to flee New Jersey.

While the Gov was busy covering his asset monetization in “financial restructuring” down the Shore at the League last week, the press seemed resigned to let taxpayers wait until the State of State in January to learn any more about the chief exec's fiscal solvency plans.

Even the brain trust assembled last weekend around NJN’s Reporters Roundtable lamented that reality.

So here’s a novel idea. Stop waiting for the the Front Office to deliver a gift-wrapped copy of the plan and start doing a little digging for the facts.