Rickey Patat, of Great Kills, spotted the whale last week as he sailed his boat in Raritan Bay and caught it on video.
“I find them almost every time I go out on my boat,” he said. “I always alert the Coast Guard and report the status and condition of the whale to the best of my ability.”
The Advance quoted Mendy Garron of NOAA’s Mammal Response Program in Gloucester, Mass as saying that whales have been spotted in both the Raritan and Sandy Hook Bays.
Trenton- Alcohol Beverage Control Director Michael Halfacre announced charges against two Jersey Shore area drinking establishments today.
Forked River House of Lacey Township is charged with serving alcohol to actually or apparently intoxicated individuals on six occasions between August of 2012 and March of 2013. In each occasion, the patrons were arrested for driving while intoxicated after leaving the establishment. Their blood alcohol concentration ranged from .15% to .21%. In New Jersey, a person is guilty of drunk driving if their blood alcohol concentration is .08% or greater.
Porta, the Asbury Park pizza restaurant is charged with serving alcohol to two underage women during the summer of 2012. Undercover investigators arrested two 20 year old women for underage drinking on June 9, 2012. A month later investigators arrested a third 20 woman for underage drinking at Porta.
The Borough of Union Beach announced that the Independence Day Fireworks celebration on the beachfront, originally scheduled for tonight, July 3, has been postponed until Saturday night, July 5th, due to expected inclement weather.
Calling a bill that would have reduced permitted ammunition magazine sized from 15 rounds to 10 “reform in name only,” Governor Chris Christie conditionally vetoed A2006 this afternoon.
In his conditional veto message, Christie said the bill follows the well worn path of empty rhetoric, political self-promotion and polarizing intolerance in the face of violent crimes committed with guns:
“Difficult choices are brushed aside
in favor of empty rhetoric. Uncomfortable topics are left
unexplored, while easy soundbites and videoclips are packaged
for consumption. Appropriate empathy for victims, and their
suffering survivors, blurs with politics and elected officials’
self-promotion to create a polarizing intolerance. We ignore
the hard for the expedient, the controversial for the safely
familiar, and the costly for those cheaply recycled answers that
never really address the root causes.”
Christie sent the legislation back to the General Assembly as a bill that he says addresses violence by fixing critical short comings and crack in the mental healthcare system.
Governor Christie on the Belmar boardwalk, August 2011
Governor Chris Christie will be making several appearances on the Jersey Shore tomorrow, Thusday, July 3.
At 11am Christie will join Congressman Chris Smith, State Senator Jennifer Beck, Neptune Mayor Dr. Michael Brantley and Dr. Dale Whilden, President of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association for the ceremonial ribbon cutting of Ocean Grove’s newly rebuilt boardwalk.
At 1:15pm, Christie will sign S846/504, a Boating Safety Act which increases the penalties for leaving the scene of a boating accident, at the NJ State Marine Police Services Bureau Station in Point Pleasant Borough. Follow the bill signing, Christie is scheduled to walk the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk.
In the March Monmouth/APP poll, 55% of NJ voters said Booker deserves to be reelected. Today, only 44% say the former Newark Mayor deserves his own six year term in Washington. Booker was elected last October to fill the remainder of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg’s term. He faces off with Republican Jeff Bell in November.
Booker would beat Bell easily if the election where today, 43%-23%, but 15% say they would vote for a third party candidate and 17% are unsure. But the vast majority of voters, 82%, don’t know enough about Bell for express a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him. The GOP nominee for U.S. Senate against Bill Bradley in 1978, Bell scored a surprise victory in the GOP primary for Senate last month. Of those who do know enough about Bell to express an opinion, the overwhelming impression, 2-1, is favorable.
A substitute teacher at Matawan-Aberdeen High School was arrested on Thrusday and charged with engaging in sexually explicit conversations with two female students, ages 15 and 17.
Philip Riveley, 29 of Woodbridge, was charged with two counts of second degree Endangering the Welfare of a Child. He is being held at the Monmouth County Correctional Institution on $150,000 cash bail.
The arrest is the result off an investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Special Victims Bureau and the Matawan Police Department. The Woodbridge Police Department assisted in Riveley’s arrest.
If convicted, Riveley faces a prison term of five to 10 years.
Asbury Park — An overflow crowd of Asbury Park residents attended the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders meeting in the city last evening to rally the county’s governing body to save the north end beachfront property known as Bradley Cove.
iStar Financial, the city’s master developer, owns the development rights to the site and has a proposal to build 15 town homes on the property. The Asbury Park Council passed a resolution earlier this month to apply for Green Acres funding to preserve the property.
The freeholders were sympathetic to the public outcry to prevent the development, but made it clear that the ball is in Asbury Park’s court. Prior Asbury Park administrations sold the development rights to the property and approved a tax abatement to support the development. Community members are now trying to undue that deal, and seem be hoping that Freeholder Board has the power to make that happen.
“Drew’s Law” is named for 11 year-old Drew Keough Cerrata. The boy was killed in a motor vehicle accident last April
Legislation proposed by Senator Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) and Senator Nicholas Sacco (D-Bergen and Hudson), Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, would lower speed limits to 15 mph on roads adjacent to or passing through parks when they are open or when children are present. Violators would face fines of between $100 and $400, double the current amount.
Dubbed “Drews Law,” the legislation is named Drew Keough-Cerreta, the 11 year-old Keansburg boy killed last April by a vehicle that was apparently traveling at the 25 mph speed limit.
“The Keansburg community is still reeling from this terrible loss,” said Kyrillos . We must make sure the roadways around parks give our children the utmost safety. The time to do that is now. Slowing traffic is a small price to pay and I thank members of Drew’s family and others for their input on this important measure.”
Joseph W. Pezzano, Drew’s uncle and a 29 year veteran of the Keansburg Police Department, was on duty and answered the call when his nephew was struck.
In a statement issued in support of the legislation, Pezzano said,
Trenton- Alcohol Beverage Control Director Michael Halfacre announced charges against two Jersey Shore area drinking establishments today.
