Sea Bright Farmers’ Market Continues to Build Momentum

Sea Bright, NJ – Kicking off its inaugural season just weeks ago, the Sea Bright Farmers’ Market continues to add to its line-up of area farmers and food makers who source ingredients locally.  In the past weeks, the Market welcomed Holly Jolly Jams producer of homemade jams and jellies made from hand-picked or locally sourced fruit whenever possible and Pickle Licious purveyor of garlic-soaked pickles and vegetables.  Beginning Thursday, August 28^th, the Market will begin featuring organic grass fed meat and cheese, cream top yogurt and eggs from pasture raised, hormone free hens.

The new vendors join an existing line-up which includes Krowicki Farm, Great Road Farm and Happy Harvest Hydroponics producers of locally and sustainably grown fresh fruit and vegetables; Baker’s Bounty bakers of fresh bread and pastries; Neshanic Valley Beekeepers makers of raw honey; Fair Mountain Coffee roasters of organic fair trade coffee; and Franklin Soapworks creators of all natural, environmentally responsible soaps.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

ObamaCare puts Monmouth County’s nursing homes in peril

UPDATE: August, 27, Curley pulls nursing home sale resolution

Freeholder John Curley called this morning to say that he has pulled his resolution to sell the Monmouth County owned nursing homes from this week’s agenda. County CFO Craig Marshall is on vacation.  Curley wants Marshall available to address all of the financial concerns regarding the proposed sale. Curley expects to reintroduce the resolution in September.

Reductions in Medicaid payments for long term care under the Affordable Care Act have led to increasing deficits at Monmouth County’s two government owned nursing homes.

The John L. Montgomery Care Center in Freehold and the Geraldine L. Thompson Care Center in Wall are owned and operated by Monmouth County’s government. Property tax payers have been subsidizing the long term care of the elderly, disabled and infirm residing in these facilities for decades.  From 2007 through 2013 the cumulative deficit funded by Monmouth property tax payers was about $40 million.  Despite cost cutting measures and union givebacks, the combined deficit this year is on track to exceed $13 million plus the cost of repairs and capital improvements required to keep the facilities in compliance with state and federal regulations, due to cutbacks in the amount that Medicaid pays for patient care under ObamaCare.  98% of the patients at Montgomery and Thompson are insured by Medicaid.

Freeholder John Curley has been pushing his colleagues on the all Republican Board of Chosen Freeholders to sell the nursing homes for years.  Every time the issue gets traction or public attention, patients in wheelchairs  and staff members of the nursing facilities show up at Freeholder meetings and plead with the Freeholders not to sell the facilities.  The patients’ stories are heart wrenching. The declarations of love for their patients by the staff members are moving.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Avon Man Charged in Rumson overdose death

Michael Renna, 25 of Avon-by-the Sea, was charged today with the October 2013 overdose death of Christopher L. Pesce, a 25 year old resident of Oxford House, a drug rehabilitation transitional facility located in Rumson.

Renna is charged with one count of first degree Strict Liability for Drug Induced Deaths and one count of third degree Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous.  He was released from the Monmouth County Correctional Institution after posting $210,000 in bail as set by Judge John R. Tassini, according to Monmouth County First Assistant Prosecutor Marc LeMieux.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Casino closings wipe $2B from Atlantic City property-tax values

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Freddie Mac faulted by IG in $2 billion mortgage fraud loss

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Attention Highlands and Sea Bright residents: Your input matters

New Jersey Future has teamed up with a research scientist from Carnegie Mellon University to support Highlands and Sea Bright in our effort to develop a long-term resiliency plan.  One part of this support involves reaching out to and engaging with the public to talk about flooding risk and plausible solutions. To that end, they developed a short survey to understand how best to talk about these issues with community members.

Please help our community in its plan for recovery and resiliency.This 10-15 minute survey will ask about your beliefs on flooding and flooding risk. Your answers will help Highlands, Sea Bright and New Jersey Future make plans for long-term community resiliency.  In a few months, New Jersey Future will publish a summary of the answers given by the community.

Here is the link to the survey:  http://njfuture.org/risksurvey

• Tweet

People In Love May Be Having Better Sex

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

N.J. Catholics warned of theological problem with Ice Bucket Challenge

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

James Foley’s masked killer resembles British fighter in video of Syrian soldier’s execution

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Shake Up At The Asbury Park Press

Hollis Towns, APP’s Editor of the Future. Photo via facebook

Editors and writers at the Asbury Park Press are vying to keep their jobs in Executive Editor Hollis R. Towns’ “Newsroom of the Future.”

Gannett, the owner of the paper, announced on August 5 that it is separating into two publicly held companies.  APP will be part of a  publishing company that will be debt free and own the company’s newspapers including USA Today and 81 local daily newspapers and their affiliated websites.  The more profitable broadcasting  and digital divisions will be folded into a company that will assume the existing debt and consists of the 46 television stations the company owns or services as well as the websites Cars.com and CareerBuider.com.  The publishing company will retain the Gannett name.

The following day, Towns announced on app.com and the paper’s front page that he, along with the executive editors of four other of Gannett properties were charged with creating the “newsroom of the future.”  There will be fewer editors and more reporters who will hang out in coffee shops and delis hunting for stories that they will be able to post to app.com without a gatekeeper reviewing their work.  And there will be public events like the Sleep Con event they hosted with an advertiser earlier this month where readers could pay $10 to learn how to sleep better by buying a mattress from the advertiser.

What Towns didn’t announce publicly was that current Asbury Park Press employees had to apply to keep their jobs.  “To be hired into the Newsroom of the Future” is how is was spun in Neptune.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet