Issue 193: Slowly catching up
JCBOE budget! Girl Scouts! Museum of Jersey City History events! And more!! (No cats though. Sorry, everyone.)
Good morning!
Well… remember that allergic reaction? Winds up that’s not what it was. After a six hour visit to the JCMC ER in the middle of the night last week, I got a diagnosis of a cyst growing near my sinus. Cue lots of pain and swelling and eventually emergency surgery on Thursday and, this week has not been fun. But I’m on the mend and should be fine by next week.
In the meantime, I wanted to let you know about a few different things going on. And next week, hopefully back to regular programming. And yes, that means more feral cats. :)
- Amy
JCBOE budget
I promised to follow up on the budget and, here’s a first stab at that. It will not be my last, as this is a complicated issue that will take some time to pull apart.
I’ve heard from a couple of readers that they’ve found some concerning details connected to the new JCBOE budget. To give you a sense of how serious some of these concerns are, here’s a pretty big one I can easily confirm: the tax increase that was initially shown to the public in the JCBOE meeting earlier this month was stated to be 2%, while the real number corrected later in press accounts is 20%. That’s obviously troubling and was not lost on a number of viewers watching the presentation online, some of whom reached out to me.
In a recent statement to Hudson County View, JC mayoral candidate and former JCBOE president Mussab Ali said:
[He] gave the school board the benefit of the doubt when asked about presenting the tax increase as just two percent, stating it was probably an honest mistake since they have a new business administrator.
Listen, that’s entirely possible. People make mistakes; I’m willing to believe the business administrator may have well just accidentally got it wrong rather than tried to intentionally mislead, although I’ll admit it’s concerning that no one made a correction at the time, which makes me wonder if the trustees were even aware that a misstatement was made. But it remains a pretty serious mistake, and it’s not the only one people are finding in this budget. The difference between a 2% increase and a 20% one is pretty vast, and the fact that seemingly no effort was made to correct the misstatement during the meeting doesn’t go too far to making folks feel better about things.
Shortly after the budget was released, I reached out to a few trustees I knew I could likely easily reach and ask for a simple statement about the budget and how they voted. This resulted in, basically, chaos. One trustee sent me a statement, then a retraction/new statement, then — days later — a retraction for the new statement. Another sent me a statement, and then days later, right when the first trustee retracted his, retracted hers as well. This is concerning behavior, and after consulting with a number of reporters on the topic of journalistic ethics, they told me they flatly wouldn’t accept these retractions and that I would be ethically clear to run the statements as they were sent to me in the first place. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I’m not going to do that because I don’t want to add to this saga unnecessarily, but I mention it to let you know how messy and tense things are getting right now. Even a simple inquiry asking why a trustee voted the way they did turns into complete confusion.1
This is a time when mistrust in institutions and elected officials has to be at an all-time high. We’ve never been a very trusting community when it comes to politics (well, all you have to do is look at JC history to understand why!) but now? Things are the worst they’ve ever been. It is absolutely imperative that faith be restored in the trustees and management of the JCBOE, and we get there by making things transparent and clear.
Meanwhile, what does the future hold for us? Even if this budget was totally flawless, what’s next year going to look like? What are the cuts from the Trump administration going to do to the budget going forward? As Ali states in that article posted above:
“President Trump recently signed an executive order dismantling federal oversight of education, putting $1.2 billion in funding for New Jersey students and educators at risk. This is one of the most perilous times for education in recent history, making the impending cuts to the Jersey City Board of Education all the more shocking.”
Or, for instance, are there still COVID surplus dollars in this budget? If so, how much longer can we depend on those?
So look, here’s what I’m going to do. I have a meeting this week with Brigid D’Souza aka CivicParent, a CPA who has been studying our school funding issues for years and has a far deeper understanding about this than I do. She has kindly offered to go over the budget with me, and help me to understand what on earth is going on. The budget doesn’t go before a public meeting until the end of April at the earliest, so there’s a little bit of time but not much.
Meanwhile, here is a copy of the slide presentation that was given at the meeting that introduced the budget which you can review yourself (I do not know why so many of the slides are crooked and it is driving me insane too). Looking at some of the numbers there, I’m struck my things like (as was pointed out to me by a reader and I double-checked to confirm): on slide 7, the “2024/25” column doesn’t add up. I get a totally different number than what is provided on the slide as the total, and it seems to be missing one of the line items listed2 (important to note that the “2025/26” list of numbers does add up, which is good news but that still means the public was shown a slide with a glaring error and as far as I can tell, this has not been corrected). Again, this is all concerning — I do not for a moment think that any of this is intentional, but that doesn’t make it any less worrisome.
I remain really haunted by a quote from the president of the JCBOE in an article that appeared the day after the initial budget was unveiled:
“We need to investigate how much money is coming into these accounts. There has to be something else happening with our money,” BOE President Noemi Velazquez asserted[.]
Sigh. See, saying that really doesn’t help. It makes me more worried.
I want to make something absolutely crystal clear: I deeply believe that one of the most important things we can do as a society is have a free, high quality education for our children. As part of this, I think our teachers (and principals, support staff, etc) do incredible, miraculous work — and absolutely nothing I write here should be construed as criticism of public school education, teachers, or support staff and admins, in any way, shape, or form. I also think the idea of moving to a mayoral appointed BOE would be misguided and only serves to consolidate power in the mayor’s office (meaning, opening up the positions to political favoritism/cronyism) and away from the voting public.
Nothing I write — either here today or in the future — should be taken as either a criticism of the people trying to administer education to our kids, nor should it be twisted into support for a mayoral appointed board (I mean, if you come to the conclusion that an appointed board would work better, that is certainly your right; I’m just making it super clear that I personally do not support that). I also strongly support the teachers’ union, as teachers are workers and all workers deserve to have a union that represents them. Even the trustees themselves — they’re essentially volunteers, and I think they’re trying their best (doesn’t mean they always get it right or that they are above criticism, but most of them are trying) and don’t deserve to be harassed online or in real life. Again, I do not want to see anything I’ve written here get twisted into being something I didn’t intend.
For now, it seems like there are some questions with this budget that the public deserves to get to the bottom of. Maybe everything can be easily resolved — we’ll see. But I also deeply believe that asking questions never hurts, and that actually doing so can lead to better understanding and trust. In that spirit, I’m going to continue to look into this.
Museum of Jersey City History events
There are two talks coming up at the Museum of Jersey City History (298 Academy Street). The first is on baseball in our city — did you know JC used to have its own baseball team? (I mean, yes, I did — but my knowledge of it doesn’t go much further than that.) Joe Colford, grandson of one of the owners of the Jersey City Skeeters, will be giving a talk on Saturday, April 5th at 10am called, “From Skeeters to Giants to Dodgers.” It’s free, and if you’re unwilling to make it over to the museum a little early on a Saturday morning, there’s also a Zoom option. Whether you’re going in person or Zooming in, please RSVP here. There’s also an upcoming exhibition at the museum on sports and the city, so for fans of the two, stay tuned for that! (By the way, I couldn’t help but look this up: there are currently five vintage items up for sale on eBay that are JC Skeeter-related. None of them are cheap! But there’s some pretty cool stuff that’s being offered. Personally, I really like the pin... not enough to spend nearly $500, but it’s still a cool item.)
Meanwhile, just a few days later, Nestor Palugod Enriquez will be giving a talk at the museum about the history of the Filipino community here. Enriquez, former assistant city comptroller, will be presenting. It’s the first in a series of four lectures about different groups that have settled in the city, and this talk will take place on Thursday, April 10th at 7pm. Much like the baseball talk, you can also Zoom in rather than be there in person if you prefer, but either way the museum requests an RSVP.
Girl Scout Troop needs your help!
One of my favorite local groups, Jersey City Girl Scout Troop 12912, is gathering supplies for their yearly Easter basket project, where the young scouts get together and make beautiful baskets to distribute to people in need who attend a free breakfast at Grace Van Vorst Church. From their troop leader:
It's that time of year again! For a 9th year (!), Jersey City Girl Scout Troop 12912, which now has 10 scouts in grades 8-12 grades, are packing 100 "Easter Baskets of Toiletries and Treats" - 80 for men, and 20 for women - which will be given to the guests of Breakfast Plus at Grace Church Van Vorst on April 20th, Easter Sunday.
Breakfast Plus is a Grace Community Services program that provides a full breakfast to all who stop by 39 Erie St. (Grace Church gym) every Saturday and Sunday morning - with pastries, and hot oatmeal and grits at 7:30am and more hot food served at 8am. Several times per year, Girl Scouts help cook, serve and clean up after this Breakfast Service.For their "Easter Basket" project, these scouts are asking for your help with any or all of the following:
contribute items still needed to complete bags, which they will pack on Sunday, April 13. To donate items - such as toothbrushes, travel size deoderant, bottles of water, sugar free gum, ziplock bags, low-sugar fruit snacks or crackers, sanitary napkins,etc., send an email to info@scoutsjc.org to find out what is still needed, and they will share the address to where these can be delivered or dropped off by Saturday, April 12.
contribute $ so the scouts can purchase any items still needed. Money can be sent to the Troop Venmo account (TroopDJC / security code 4397) or CashApp ( Troop12912) - with a note that this is for Easter Basket donation.
contribute $ to Grace Community Services - which is facing severe budget cuts and rising food costs - so could use donations more than ever for their important work: Breakfast Plus | gracecommunity
I stopped by where the girls were assembling the baskets last year, and it’s such a wonderful project that this troop has embraced. If you’re able to, I hope you’ll consider contributing.
ICYMI
Man Dies After Being Found Unresponsive In North Jersey Jail Cell: Prosecutor A 63-year old inmate was found dead in his cell in the Hudson County jail last Friday. There hasn’t been any update in the news that I can find that provides more details as to what happened in this case.
“After years of litigation to acquire ownership of the long-closed Harsimus Branch of what was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s (PRR) freight way into New York Harbor, Jersey City is poised to begin implementing plans to reshape it as a park.” The Sixth Street Embankment may finally be moving forward!
“An out-of-state visitor with measles could have exposed others at a Mercer County medical center last week,” states NJ.com. This comes on the heels of an entirely different story a few days earlier where a guy with measles took Amtrak to NYC (passing through NJ) and may have exposed people along the way. Look, this isn’t rocket science — if you have measles, could you stay home, please? (Ok the first person was seeking medical care which, fair enough, but the Amtrak story has me pissed off.)
Apparently, the Jersey City Cannabis Control Board is having some serious problems. Quote: “This has been such a mess that almost everyone on the cannabis board quit.” Look, given that, maybe this would be a good time to slow things down just a bit? I am quite a fan of legal weed but there are a lot of dispensaries already — there’s at least four on a six block stretch near me poised to open in the next few weeks — and they all going to carry more or less the same products so adding more and more to the mix doesn’t make any sense to me. Let’s give the ones that are already in existence a chance to grow before piling a bunch more into the mix.
To be clear, these were not whistleblower statements or anything like that. If it was anything shocking or that revealed the inner working of the board, I would surely share them. Instead, this was a whole lot of fuss over something that really wasn’t a big deal — but the fuss itself is what concerns me most of all. (And to be completely fair, a third trustee sent me a very standard statement that was never retracted or had any fuss around it whatsoever. I just decided that given that two of them were so freaked out by my request to let the whole thing go.)
I believe this point has been made elsewhere online — I’m just still playing catch-up from being sick all week, so this may not be the first time you’ve read about it. It seems a lot of people noticed this particular discrepancy.