10.17.26 Seth Grossman WPG Radio: Early voting, mail/messenger ballots win elections. Why houses are ridiculously expensive today. Stockton never wanted Atlantic City campus. Sell it!

Above Image: Application for Mail-In (And Messenger) Paper Ballot from County Clerk. Click this link for more details: New Jersey Department of State - Division of Elections - NJ Voter Information Portal Early voting and mailing/delivering paper ballots are the keys to winning… and losing Vote now with paper ballots from your County Clerk (Mail-in or personal delivery). Early in-person voting at various locations in your county begins next Saturday, October 24. Final Day to Vote: Tuesday, November 3. (What we used to call Election Day.) Democrats demanded and got early voting and mail/messenger ballots because it helps them. They usually get the votes of people with little knowledge or interest in voting. They rarely voted in-person when we had one Election Day. Democrats hired “community organizers” and did their best to drag them to the polls on Election Day. However, many still didn’t vote. Now, Democrats get most of them to vote. Democrat “community organizers” now more than 6 weeks to find them and have them fill out the forms. For the past thirty years, many elections have been decided by paper ballots from low-interest, low information, low motivation voters “harvested” by Democrats. Republicans can only win by also harvesting votes from these voters. Everyone knows someone who is unlikely to vote. Parents, relatives in nursing homes, assisted living. Kids in college. If you don’t get them to vote, some Democrat “community organizer” will. Trump made himself the biggest issue in this year's elections. Is he "energizing the Republican base"? Or is he helping Democrats? Every day, President Trump is doing and saying things to make himself headline news. He promoted himself with government funded commercials on natonal TV networks like ABC, CBS and NBC. All the mainstream TV and radio networks are reporting everything Trump says and does as headline news. Trump said he wants voters to act as if he is on the ballot. Is this helping Republican candidates? Or hurting them? Above Images: Photos of "No Kings" Demonstration by Democrats in Manahawkin, NJ on Saturday, October 17. There were also "No Kings" demonstrations in Galloway, Atlantic City, Ocean City and Cape May Court House. Our Congressman, Republican Jeff Van Drew is one of the best members of Congress in the country. I know him well. I ran against him back in 2018 when he was a Democrat. Van Drew is with us on every issue. He gets things done because he understands how Congress works. Van Drew almost single-handedly stopped the offshore wind turbines. He returns phone calls and quickly responds to problems people have dealing with the government. He is running a perfect campaign. However, Democrats are trying to use anger at Trump to take down Van Drew. Will they succeed? Will Trump hurt local Republicans here in Atlantic County. Tokyo Joe O’Donoghue is doing an outstanding job as Sheriff. Anyone who has done business with the County Clerk knows that Joe Giralo is doing an outstanding job. I know because I’m a lawyer. I know how much time and money I wasted when when we had a bad County Clerk before Joe Giralo was elected. I also know that Republican commissioners John Risley and June Byrnes are doing good jobs helping Dennis Levinson run Atlantic County government. But will Trump’s unpopularity cause them to lose? Young families could afford good homes in the 1950s and 1960s-even with only one parent working. Why are homes so expensive today? Above Image: Typical suburban split-level house built in 1957. When my Boomer generation grew up in the 1950s, almost every young family could afford a good house, with good schools, in a safe neighborhood. And only one working parent could support a family. Why was that? Many affordable houses near Atlantic City were built by Holocaust refugees like Pinchus Kiedjan and Jack Trocki during the late 1950s and early 1960s. They began as chicken farmers in Egg Harbor Township shortly after World War II. Later they began building chicken coops and storage sheds for other farmers. Then they began building houses. They bought vacant land, divided them into smaller lots, and built modest homes on them. They paid about $3,000 for each lot, spent about $10,000 to build each house, and sold them for about $15,000 each. Young families with one parent working could afford good homes, near good schools in safe neighborhoods. This was the American Dream. Why can’t we do this today? Today, zoning laws, building codes, Pinelands rules, wetlands rules and all sorts of state laws no longer allow builders to subdivide land and build houses like that. It is almost illegal to build anything anywhere. of course, things still get built. However, builders today need to spend a fortune on lawyers, politicians, planners, and other experts to get special approvals and exceptions. Many tell me they spend at least $50,000 just on permits and paperwork for every house they build. So this is the only “affordable housing” we are getting today: Rio Grande in Middle Township (Cape May County): The township government is promoting a project with 63-units of “affordable” housing units for veterans 55 and older. It will be in a single three-story building, apparently on county-owned land. The project will cost $36 million, or $571,000 per unit Atlantic City: CRDA approves 180 "affordable" rental units for Jared Kushner's property in Atlantic City Inlet. 30 year tax abatements: Old timers like me remember when the old trolley bar was there. Then it was a bus garage. This is in the Inlet next to Captain Starns. Later, that building became a discount department store known as Garwood Mills. I bought my first Beatles album there in 1965 for 99 cents. Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law bought that land 20 years ago. Last year, he got permits from the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) to build 180 rental units there. He also got 30 years of tax abatements. The landlord won’t pay full taxes on those apartments for 30 years! Everything is wrong with this. Why is a state agency like CRDA giving out approvals instead of officials elected by the people? Corrupt voters are just as bad as corrupt politicians. What is worse than letting a bunch of voters support politicians who will spend all sorts of money on them, and force somebody else to pay the taxes? Yesterday, George Tibbetts was on the Harry Hurley program pointing out another big problem. Many of those rental units will have children, and Atlantic City is spending $27,000 for each child in its public schools. And it will spend more for police a trash pickup. This problem is everywhere. Egg Harbor Township is putting up all sorts of roadblocks to top new housing for families there. The logic is simple. Each new house will pay about $8,000 in property taxes. If a family living in that house has two kids in public school, each child will cost the taxpayers at least $25,000 each, or $50,000 for the house. The township loses $42,000 a year every time it approves a single house for families with children. So local governments block affordable housing for families every day, and housing is no longer affordable. This is not a solution. The solution is make it easy to get permits again, and to cut the cost of public schools. Stockton President admits that school never wanted an Atlantic City campus. So why not sell it? Above Image: New Stockton University building on beach block in Atlantic City, NJ, May 23, 2023. Why doesn’t Stockton University sell its Atlantic City campus and pay off its debt? Last week, Stockston’s president, Joseph Bertolino testified to an Assembly Committee. He confirmed everything we’ve been saying about this for years. This year Stockton spent about $25 million more than it took in, and its deficit will increase to $32 million next year. Stockton is burning through years of donations in its endowment to make up the difference. Stockton just gave notice that it will lay off 27 professors and administrators to make up the difference. To me, this seems like a drop in the bucket. Bertolino said much of its budget shortfall is paying back all the money it borrowed for its new Atlantic City campus. Bertolino said that state government should pay that debt because Stockton did the Atlantic City campus to please state politicians. We’ve been saying that all along. Stockton never wanted or needed the Atlantic City campus. It doesn’t need that campus now. It is nothing but a burden. Hardly anyone is there. Stockton wastes a lot of money and gas to run mostly empty buses back and forth between its Atlantic City and Galloway campuses. There is a very simple solution. Most of the Atlantic City campus is prime, beachfront real estate. There is no reason why Stockton can’t sell that real estate, pay off its debt, and go back to one campus in Galloway. By the way, the State forced the state to build new headquarters in Atlantic City, even though there was absolutely no need for it. I remember talking to a bunch of executives from South Jersey Gas when all this came down. I went to a few of their yearly shareholder meetings in Mount Laurel, because I owned a few shares of the company. At that time, South Jersey Gas was trying to get permits to built an 18 mile pipeline to the oil electric power plant at Marmora, to keep in in operation. In my opinion, South Jersey Gas moved its headquarters to Atlantic City because they thought that was what it had to do to get permits from the state. And I also think we are all paying higher gas bills because of it. I hardly use any natural gas at my law office during the summer. During the summer, I only pay for the fixed fee. That fee went up from about $15 per month to about $42 per month. I wonder Above Image: Monthly South Jersey Gas bill shows $39....