newyork

News 12 Staff

MTNJAGMBlock0122_2025-01-22-16-25-48

Welcome back to Governor Murphy. I'm Eric Glanz Kerner. Governor, as I mentioned right before we went to the break, uh, some important topic actually related to NJ Transit, and this is the potential for a strike. Uh, we've just begun what's a 60 day period which, which could lead to a strike. Presidential emergency board sided with NJT. Over contract negotiations with locomotive engineers, I, I mean, listen, it strikes the last thing NJT needs right now. Uh, what's your sense on how talks are going? Yeah, listen, let me say first of all we're very gratified to see the presidential emergency board came down on what I think is a very fair, uh, offer, uh, on NJ Transit or, or position rather on NG Transit side. We'll see, um, as, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, Chris Calori. Is the CEO. He's a very, very active, um, forward leaning guy. I have complete confidence in him, you know, I think we've got 13 or 14 labor agreements at NJ Transit, all but one of them have been settled, so you know we are a big organized labor state. We care deeply about organized labor. I just I'm confident and hopeful that this gets into a good place. I know you interviewed a bunch of people who didn't have a good experience. NJ Transit, I want the record to show has come through a big snowstorm and bitter cold on both the bus and tra rail front, not perfect, but it was very, very good and high performance. So no one interviewed me. I gotta get asked that next time. All right, Governor, let's get to a caller right now. We have Bill from Northvale on the line. Bill, thanks for calling in. What's your question? Hey, Bill. Yeah, hi, Governor. I'm calling about the state of New Jersey program. I just want to know if that's official, that it's definitely going through, and if I have taxes like $6000 that means my tax bill will reduced to around $3000. Yeah, so Bill, I will uh ask Dennis Zeveoff on our team. Natalie, you'll get Dennis to give Bill a shout. We've been funding this, um, and, and delivering property tax relief, period, but especially to our seniors and if folks aren't familiar with Stay and Jay, it is directed at seniors. Um, it's a program that we like. We like the anchor program, the senior freeze. We do a lot on property taxes. Uh, we like all of the above. We, we, we have to, the one thing is we have to make sure we have the resources to fund all these programs, and that's the one thing I think this will be a challenging budget, as I've mentioned several times, but I'm highly optimistic we're gonna land in a good place and seniors at the end of the day, and this is the right answer. Seniors, if you're gonna deliver relief, it's to the folks who have built this state who are by definition on a limited budget. Who have chosen to stay here and they're either property owners or renters if we're gonna help anybody out on that front, it's gonna be seniors first, uh, governor, we're gonna talk a little bit more about your upcoming budget address a little bit later in the show, uh, but right now, uh, one of the pieces of news that we found out this week is that the Pentagon is gonna begin to deploying as many as 1500 active duty troops to help secure the southern border. And that said, immigration in mind, as, as you know, the president did sign a an absolute slew of executive orders this week, one of which drew the ire of Attorney General Matt Platin. Let's listen. Presidents in this country have broad powers. But they are not kings. They do not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the constitution. So this obviously has to do with birthright ending birthright citizenship for children born to parents in the country without legal status. AG Platin, uh, is leading this coalition of states to prevent this. Do you think they'll be successful? And if so, how, how quickly do you think we could hear about that? First of all, I support Matt's leadership here completely. He's absolutely right. This is embedded in the Constitution, as I recall the 14th Amendment, uh, and we're not unique as a country. Uh, we are unique as a country, but on this one we're not, um, and this is just not on. I, I'm not a lawyer and I, I don't want to speak for Matt, uh, and I'm certainly again not gonna put my lawyer hat on. I think this is so obviously embedded in our Constitution and amendment to our Constitution. I would think that the chances of success are high. That's one guy's opinion here because this is not a, this is not, there's a bunch of stuff that are gray areas and it's gonna depend on what X or Y actually look like before you can draw a conclusion. This to me is not one of them. I think this is. Clear cut, but time will tell how quickly I don't know. I hope sooner than later, Governor, related to this, uh, this week, the new administration announced that it had rolled back Biden era guidance that limited federal immigration arrests near sensitive locations, including schools, hospitals, churches will state and local authorities comply with this? Do you anticipate a fight on this front? We'll see. I mean this is another one where. Uh, they're going 1000 miles an hour. We have an immigrant trust directive from 2018 which held us in good stead. Remember, we've had 3 years in our administration alongside a Trump presidency. When I walk out of here next January, I will have been the longest serving Democratic governor alongside. A Trump presidency, I say that because we have a sense of the playbook, uh, both what he might do and also what reactions we might have. So we have an immigrant trust directive which is still on our books for the past 7 years, which makes very clear we're all in on helping you combat criminal behavior, but if it's civil federal immigration law, that's not our lane. Secondly, literally today, Eric, our Department of Education, I think very smartly put out guidance to schools, to principals, superintendents on what their rights were, what, what is on, what is off, and thirdly, I think again as you and I have discussed, it depends on what this looks like if it's going after folks who are here illegally whose cases have been adjudicated negatively and I'm told there's a good amount of them in the country, well, there's not a whole lot of sympathy. With uh standing up for that crowd or if it's a group that have not yet been adjudicated but they committed a serious crime again, not a lot of sympathy to have the backs of those folks either so I think this is gonna depend on what it looks like and we're gonna see there's a lot of moving parts right now to say the least and of course there's the, the Lake and Riley Act as well, and that's gonna be intertwined I'm sure, which got bipartisan support. A lot of Democrats voted for that. Governor, we have to take a very quick break. When we come back we're gonna take more of your questions here and ask Governor.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/d5d790b7-1246-479f-b668-ebf213b5e9e0/d5d790b7-1246-479f-b668-ebf213b5e9e0.transcribe

MTNJAGMCBlock0122_2025-01-22-16-28-51

Welcome back to As Governor Murphy. I'm Eric Glanzer along with the governor. Governor, uh, again, so much action coming out of the new administration this week and one of the most widely talked about in the early days of the president's second term has to do with clemency for some 1500 people, uh, charged from January 6th, including the man who assaulted Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick from South River, as you well know, um, Officer Sicknik suffered two strokes and died a day later. You spoke to his family, uh, in the wake of that news this week. I did. That one disgusts me. The general clemency and pardoning certainly for anyone who committed a crime. And specifically to Brian Sicknick. Uh, I spoke to his brother Ken. I spoke to his mom and dad. Um, they put out an incredibly powerful statement, and I said to them, not only was it powerful and moving and emotional, but I used the word I wasn't, I wasn't expecting it was responsible in other words, they were basically also saying you, you judge for yourself who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. It's an awful disgusting move, uh, and I now understand they may be hosting a reception for these knuckleheads at the White House which is just. So disgraceful. A police officer doing his job, killed in the line of duty and, and they, and they pardon the, the, the perpetrators. I just, it takes my breath away, um, and I, I in the I could tell you that I'm, I'm not telling any secrets. Family like as as I am pulling their hair out like what they, they don't even know what to do about this other than they can't believe it, um, and sadly there probably is very little if anything they can do about it. Other than honor his memory. Apparently he was an incredible guy. His mom said that she never had to yell at him, never had to tell him to do something twice, which I thought as a dad, I thought to myself, boy, that is a, that is a, a son. If ever I heard, uh, but it's just disgusts me. There's no other way word to put it. Please keep that family in his memory in your prayers, right, uh, Governor, uh, we're gonna do a quick reset. Uh, when we come back we're gonna take more of your calls and questions. Remember there's numerous ways that you can ask your questions. You can give us a call 1-888 NewS12J. That's 639-7126. You can also get us on all of our social media platforms and X, just make sure you use the hashtag #Ask GovMurphy. We'll be right back with more Ask Governor Murphy right here on News Cork, New Jersey.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/fd364e0a-f8f8-46aa-8708-67984346e250/fd364e0a-f8f8-46aa-8708-67984346e250.transcribe

MTNJAGMDBlock0122

Welcome back to Ask Governor Murphy here on News 12 New Jersey, special edition of Power of Politics. Again, this is your chance to talk one on one with the governor. We just told you how, but I'll tell you again right now you can get to us on the News 12 New Jersey Facebook page. You can get to us on X. Use the hashtag #askovvMurphy or give us a call 888-2212NJ 888-639-7126. Governor, uh, you're coming to us just a week after your state of the state address, uh, your 7th. You've got one more, 111 more speech. I get one at the end. I got a budget speech and then I got one more state of the state, uh, and listen, you, you laid out your vision for this final year in office and your priorities, and one of the items on your punch list was to ban a statewide cell phone ban in schools, uh, and that said, David actually asked this question. He said, why ban. Phones in schools, he, he says in case of emergencies, parents should be able to hear from their children, as you well know, and you pointed this out in your speech, also some districts in the state have already done this like Ramsey. Yeah, uh, David's question is the one that you get most frequently. I, I, I haven't gotten a whole lot of people claiming that cell phones are additive to the, uh, pedagogical experience. Of a kid, uh, nobody's making that, but there is a legitimate question how would we be reached, uh, how would I reach my kid or how could the kid reach mom or dad, and that's something we're gonna have to the Ramsey school district right here. So, and, and, and so David, again, let's, uh, I'd love to get, um, maybe Dennis Seboff again to follow up with David. Um, it is David, right? Uh, I think so, it was, um. I think this is subject to the security question and that's a paramount obviously we've seen tragedies in schools over the past number of years I think this is a no brainer. In fact, the, the experts if you will, on mental health, on learning loss or learning retention, to put it more positively, lessening distraction, the experts would have you. Adopt phone-free schools, so so-called bell to bell. Uh, there's some amount of evidence that you and I are in class and in the past, in the last 10 minutes of class we start to get, you know what, we gotta get our phone back at recess in between whatever it might be, so the real big stroke would be bell to bell. We'll see whether or not I don't, I don't know that we'll get there as a first step, but we gotta do something. This is beyond, um, questionable enough is enough, as I said. And uh what we're gonna do is we're gonna direct, which we do a lot of in New Jersey, it's the right way to do home rule matters so communities and local school districts matter their their leadership matters here get out there, have every district in the state come up with their, their plan, meaning not every plan will look the same. Some will be more aggressive than others, and I think David's question about. Security and being able to get your kid or the kid being able to get you in a crisis is a fair one that folks are gonna have to work through. I'm confident they can, uh, but again on the distraction part of this, enough is enough. Governor, you and I in the commercial break we're talking about social media apps, uh, so let's talk about TikTok very quickly. Uh, what are your thoughts on the president's executive order now delaying the TikTok ban for 75 days, uh, you know. As well as I do that so many businesses rely on TikTok to survive, to, to drum up sales. Um, last week, actually Senator Booker introduced a bill along with a couple of others to, to give China's Byte dance sufficient time and delay it as well. Yeah, I'm, I'm on the more hawkish end on this one, and I am for, for two reasons, putting aside that this already went to the Supreme Court of the United States and, and it has bipartisan support, right? um. So put that aside for a moment. I, there's 22 pieces of this that have bothered me for, and this is not new. One is their ability to be straight with users about age appropriate content, um, is questionable at best, um, and you and I were talking about this very question as you said in the commercial break, what's actually appropriate for a 12 year old versus what they put on there? I, I think they've been a lousy, uh, uh, policeman on that front. And secondly, and I hate to be the party pooper on this, the Chinese and accumulating data and manipulating that data is something they do morning, noon and night. I, I know this as a former US ambassador. This is their MO, um, and they do it in a lot of different ways so this isn't just TikTok, um, but access to our data and then manipulating our data and ultimately us. The Chinese and the Russians do it at a world class level. Let's not be naive about it. So for both of those reasons, in addition to the fact the Supreme Court has already adjudicated their opinion on this, um, on a Mohawkish end. OK, uh, let's talk about Jackson School District Governor. Uh, we've spoken about this before. We've been keeping an eye on the district. Uh, they already, as you know, had to, to close an elementary school, uh, at the end of last year, uh, to close an $18 million funding gap, uh, result of loss in state aid, uh, and other factors. There's a board of ed meeting tonight at which uh the plan, the recommendations are going to be proposed uh about redistricting and reorganization and so it's gonna be laid out to parents and it's also going to include um the combining we believe the combining of the two high schools as well as the closing of another middle school, not gonna be an easy meeting um. Given what Jackson has gone through, what other districts are facing, what is your, what is your budget going to, uh, entail? And, and are you going to, I know it's early and your speech is still about a month away, uh, does the budget, is the budget gonna have anything perhaps different or vision of, of school funding? Too early to tell the answer to your last question, but we will be fully funding the school funding formula, which, by the way, we're the first administration in the state's history to have done. And I'm proud of that. Most districts somewhere these numbers folks don't hold me to it around 65% of districts each year in our budget have gotten more money than they got the year before. About 30% have gotten less than the year before and about 5% are are awash. If you're getting, and by the way, that's not an easy meeting in Jackson, and I have a lot of sympathy with that. Tom's River has got a similar challenge. these recommendations in Jackson, uh, were those proposed by the state monitor or were these, did Jackson come up with these themselves? Is the state monitor still overseas? Yeah, I, I can't say for sure, but I can say that based on what I'm hearing. Those would be from a playbook that would be similar to ours and that's not, listen, these are not, uh, I'm not making light of how hard that meeting is gonna be and the emotions. I can imagine if you, if you were an athlete or a the star on the school play or you were the school president of a school that just evaporates, uh, I can, I get it, it's not not easy and it's not fun. When districts go from one level of funding down in any way, it's usually due to two reasons. It's number one, their ability to pay their share has gone up, which means the state can come down. So when you say aid is reduced, it may not be in the aggregate. It might be the state's number went down, but the total may not have enrollment issue. And then secondly is capacity. Number of seats versus number of kids, little surprising to me that it's places like Tom's River and Jackson because those communities people are coming in hand over fist into those communities right now but it it is a fact and in some cases it's an older demographic. I know that's part of the challenge in Toms River that the houses are flying off the market, but they're going to folks who may not have school district school age kids, uh, pardon me. So that's I have I have nothing but sympathy, but those are the realities we fund public education at the highest per student level in the country. We will again fully, I'm not sure exactly what it'll look like we'll fully fund, uh, K through 12 education. We'll continue to expand pre-K. Uh, I was at an event earlier this week on expanding pre-K and making full day K a requirement in the state. So there's we do a lot in the educational space. We try to get it right. Not every community comes out on top, but we care about every kid. I promise you that, and we'll do our best. All right, Governor, something that we haven't heard about quite as much over the past couple of weeks, uh, it has to do with the, the drone hysteria that we that we had at the end of the year last year, uh, as the president was signing executive orders this week, uh, President Trump was asked about all the drone sightings at the end of last year. He said he'd like to find out and then tell the people and issue a reporting he'd actually spoken about that before about issuing a report. When a report is issued, do you think there will be anything in there that you haven't heard already that will surprise you, uh, or any, any new revelation? So there are several layers to this. I gotta make sure I get this. I wanna make sure folks know exactly where I think this is. Let me start with what I think is a legitimate. Concern that we learned in graphic detail in the month of December. Our nation, this is well beyond New Jersey, our nation is not properly set up to defend against any drone incursions. That's just a fact. It is a whole patchwork quilt. There's not enough authority and there's not enough protocols. That's the big aha for me. We learned, I think frankly. In a very benign way, nobody got hurt, nobody died, thank God that we are exposed as a nation and Congress needs to act. This should be bipartisan. There shouldn't be any partisan nature here. Is it secondly, is it possible that early on in that crazy period there was some nefarious activities it's possible, but we didn't have this sophisticated equipment that the only the feds have on the ground monitoring it, so we'll probably never know. And then thirdly, once we got that equipment, I can say definitively. There was nothing nefarious. Not what might there have been an, an, a solo actor trying to mess with us, trying to put something up, trying to take advantage? Yeah, that, that's possible, uh, but there's nothing that I'm aware of, nor should do I expect to learn at least after that early period that's gonna surprise me. But as a nation this is a wake up call and we're better, we better, uh, heed it. Governor, we're gonna take another quick break. We'll be right back with more as Governor Murphy here on News 12 New Jersey.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/af8ef5d8-083e-4da8-95f7-6b14ac0098f7/af8ef5d8-083e-4da8-95f7-6b14ac0098f7.transcribe

MTNJAGMEBlock0122

I have heard about some changes to the roads to help protect young ones and people of those nature of pedestrians that are crossing to revise the road system that we have here in New Jersey and I was just wondering. Having been here all my life, how that's even going to be possible with so much congestion that we have here already. Um, in terms of traffic flow during rush hour and things of that nature, I'm, I'm, I'm curious to see the details of this plan. Alright, so that was a rich governor, uh, and I believe that was rich in Franklin, yes, rich in Franklin, uh, so in your state of the state you you spoke about addressing the dangers at, at the 10 most dangerous intersections and the troublesome uh intersections in New Jersey. What does, what does your plan entail and, and, um. How much is technology gonna play a role in that? Technology will play a significant role. First of all, uh, Natalie, let's get Fran O'Connor, our commissioner of the Department of Transportation to, to follow up with Rich, um. And uh you're absolutely right. So I talked about a couple of things. 10 intersections. Um, let's, let me, let me back up and say I'm, I'm not proud of the road safety status right now in the state. We, we're going the wrong direction. Pedestrian deaths hit a 36 year high last year and it's something like 600 and upper 600s. Uh, you had the awful Greau brothers getting killed in South Jersey. Uh, we had a mom and dad there whose precious son had been killed a number of years ago. Um, so there's, and if you look at, there's some general stuff you can do, but there are absolutely specific parts of the state which are perennially, uh, the, the locations for traffic accidents and including with pedestrians and cyclists. So we're gonna tackle, uh, Fran O'Connor, our commissioner, terrific commissioner, Department of Transportation. We'll take the lead. We're gonna tackle the 10 most challenging. Uh, intersections and I think to Rich's point it's a combination of things. Yes, there's congestion, but there are things we can do better line of sight, better access egress, better technology. So we're talking about redesigning, completely redesigning intersection potentially it will depend on a case by case basis, better lighting, uh, so some of this is simple, some of it's more complicated. Secondly, um, there's a bill that I endorse publicly at the state of the state that will enhance the driver's ed. Learning permit uh process to include a lot more on how you deal with pedestrians and cyclists and that should make a difference. Thirdly, literally the next day I think I had a meeting with survivors of victims of traffic, uh, fatalities and accidents, and we established the target zero commission such that we get these fatalities down to zero by the year 2040 and again Fran O'Connor will chair that commission. Incredibly emotional. There's a picture or video of that, and you see the folks holding pictures. One guy beside me had a, we have a daughter Emma. His Emma was killed in western Monmouth County a year or two ago, just incredibly heart rendering stories. So that's the, that's probably more than Rich needed, but we'll, I'm gonna have Fran follow up with him and. We gotta, we gotta bend the curve here. We're growing here, here's good news. Uh, people want to live here. Companies want to locate here. Um, that's really good. Uh, we're in the top 10 in terms of percentage growth year over year, top half dozen in terms of total number of bodies year over year moving into New Jersey, which is great. It's a sign that something is working. People want to be here, but boy, you gotta. The responsibility that goes with that is schools have got to stay strong. You gotta have seats for those kids. You gotta have affordable housing, you gotta have safe roads, workable transportation and transit, and so that's, that's in, in short, the, the, the both the, the good news and the challenge that we have to embrace here. Governor, uh, let's move on to, to the wildfires, as you know, in, in California. Uh, we've reported in recent days a number of volunteers from the Red Cross here in New Jersey were going out. Uh, you have New Jersey resources on standby as well. Has there been any further talk about sending, uh, state resources to California? Uh, I've been back and forth with Governor Newsom. Uh, Pat Callahan has been on with his. Uh, Office of Emergency Management counterparts in California, um, we've been on at the highest levels with FEMA virtually certain, uh, and it will probably be under Colonel Callahan's aegis in the OEM, so, so to speak, function Office of Emergency Management, uh, almost certainly that there will be a dispatching of our folks out there when you look at these photos. Tammy and I have a lot of friends, both personal friends and then folks that we've befriended due to state of New Jersey realities, many of them in the film and television industry. I can't tell you how many folks that we've dealt with who have at a minimum been evacuated. And in many cases lost their homes. It's a tragic, tragic situation. So Senator Mike Testa uh sent you a letter this week. He was requesting a formal update on whether New Jersey's forestry management and firefighting services have the resources they need to protect us here in New Jersey. God forbid something like this happens, and he, he points to, you know, certain requests, uh, over several years for uh crucial equipment that. Took a backseat according to the senator's letter, uh, to other discretionary items. So, uh, is there gonna be some kind of update or or assessment of New Jersey's readiness? Absolutely, um, I, I've said this before. I haven't seen Mike's letter, but I look forward to reading it. Um, you can't answer something with nothing. So the minute New Orleans happened on New Year's Eve, we immediately I called for an inventory and assessment of any of our soft targets around the state. That process is ongoing again, Colonel Callahan at the lead and we said the same thing about these fires. We have, we have one of the worst droughts. We had the worst fall drought we've ever had, uh, only a few months ago, and this was wind driven, yes, but it was wind driven on top of a drought reality. So the answer is yes, I'm going down to the Pine Barrens I think next month, um, and I'm gonna sit with, uh, that's an area where we've had most of our exposure. We're gonna do a full assessment of our resources and readiness, including with local fire chiefs as well as the state fire force, and, uh, it's, uh, the good news is we're on it and we're exposed. Governor, we've got a couple of minutes left, we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back with more. Ask Governor Murke.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/2c38e480-3a30-4dc1-aec0-8bd40576dc71/2c38e480-3a30-4dc1-aec0-8bd40576dc71.transcribe

MTNJAGMFBlock0122_2025-01-22-17-02-57

Welcome back to Ask Governor Murphy. Uh, Governor, the Alexander family intend to fly desperately waiting for some kind of word on when their son Edan, who has been held hostage for about 474 days and counting, is gonna be coming home. Have you been in touch with the family? was on actually with his dad, uh, an hour or so ago, um, please God, this, this lad. Gets out uh uh alive and well. It was very encouraging to see the Biden and Trump teams working in concert. I think that was a really good moment for our country, and I think on this one, the, the, the uniqueness of Donald Trump is a big asset on this, and I'm praying that we get uh good results, uh, but nothing to report yet, but we're praying. Beyond hard for that young lad, yeah, uh, his release would, would apparently come under the framework in in the second phase of this deal. So, uh, we'll keep everybody updated as well. Governor, right now we're in the throes of this, of this cold snap. It's a deep freeze. It's just face skin numbing cold. Um, New Jersey is under, uh, a code blue right now. What do you want to pass along to folks in terms of resources? So one is NJ 211.org. If you need a place to be warm or if you know of someone. A senior in particular, uh, who is not able to make that call themselves NJ 211.org and I'd say, listen, good news and bad news. The good news is it's not gonna be as cold the next few days as it has been the past couple. The bad news is it's gonna be cold, uh, and so this code blue is on in all 21 counties. Our state of emergency that we put on on Sunday morning is still in effect. Um, we don't think we're gonna get a lot of crazy weather other than cold, but it will be cold, and, um, we cannot underestimate how many neighbors are out there who are gonna need to find a warm place. So again, NJ 211.org. All right, Governor Murphy, we've come to the end of, uh, another show, our first show of 2025. Thank you so much for being here as always. Thank you for having me here and thank you for watching, uh, New Jersey Power and Politics as Governor Murphy. I'm Eric Lanzkruner. Again, we thank you for watching and we'll see you again next time.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/3253a371-3755-431b-8ef0-195fdd089e02/3253a371-3755-431b-8ef0-195fdd089e02.transcribe

Gov. Phil Murphy answered viewers' questions on News 12 New Jersey's “Ask Gov. Murphy” program.

Gov. Murphy answers viewers questions on ‘Ask Gov. Murphy’ program – Jan. 22, 2024

Gov. Phil Murphy answered viewers' questions on News 12 New Jersey's “Ask Gov. Murphy” program.

More from News 12