PoliticsNJ.com

Any bets on who is going to replace the departing Steve Kornacki over at PoliticsNJ.com?

Will it be a blogger, a reporter or some shadowed figure coming out of left field?

Wally Edge owes us a few hints, man.

Committeeman to be sworn in

It's my understanding that Hazlet Committeeman-elect Kevin Lavan is going to exercise his right to be sworn into his unexpired term immediately -- namely at the Tuesday, December 6 committee meeting.

The seat was vacated by former-mayor Paul Coughlin after his February arrest on bribery charges. Scott Broschart was selected to replace Coughlin and was planning to run in the November race but withdrew his name one week before the filing deadline.

Lavan ran against political new-comer Will Kolibas.

Another round up?

I know rumors have been swarming since the February arrests, but the chatter seems to have gotten louder very recently.

Has anybody been hearing the same rumors that another round of arrests by the FBI is coming to Monmouth County in the very near future?

Clerks 2 Pics

Here are some pictures of the Clerks 2 cast and crew. They were filming the infamous Food Circus Clown for a few hours yesterday. The Courier's office is right in that parking lot, so we got to enjoy the whole thing.

Anyway, click here to enjoy the pics. They're high resolution, so only click if you have a fast Internet connection, otherwise, this'll kill you. I'll try to crop and repost the pics shortly so I don't kill my bandwidth.

Freeholder to be named later

Honest Abe has an interesting post about the race to fill Assemblywoman-elect Amy Handlin's freeholder slot.

Writing, writing and more writing

With the election over, I'm going to be focusing more of my writing skills on my fiction. My agent is shopping two potential projects around - a novel and a collection of short stories tentatively titled Red Bank Stories. I have to put my nose to the grindstone and produce, produce, produce!

The Courier is also taking a more "happy-joy" direction. Investigative pieces will still appear from time to time, but not the brain drain, non-stop insanity of this summer. I am thoroughly exhausted and I'm looking forward to some generic meeting coverage and some fluffy-joy pieces, such as the history of the evil Food Circus Clown, for the time being. (Anyone want to go on the record with their childhood nightmares of the infamous clown?)

Give me a month or two to let my brain settle down, then maybe I'll take up looking at some other development projects some tipsters have given me info about.

Until then, I'm going to be a thoroughly boring, non-confrontational Corley hell-bent on landing a book deal.

An even worse day to be Jack Morris...

FBI searches office of former Sen. Lynch

Here's some background on "Billboardgate."

And, by the way, the law firm the Star-Ledger reports as representing Lynch is the same firm that Morris used to send The Courier letters threatening a lawsuit.

TGIO

Thank God It's Over!

Ah, the peace and serenity when I slipped into bed tonight... I'm grateful silly season is over.

It was a night of narrow victories and a few surprise defeats.

The biggest surprise, in my mind, was the 12th District loss of Mike Panter and Bob Morgan, Democrats, to Jen Beck and Declan O'Scanlon, Republicans. Beck, who pulled out a victory at the Monmouth County GOP convention in April where she wasn't a favorite going in, really proved her mettle. Beck and O'Scanlon campaigned aggressively and non-stop and Monmouth Republicans are rightfully very excited to regain control of seats they lost but two years ago.

Republicans retained control of the 11th and 13th Districts. I'm pretty surprised that the 13th District Dems, with their lack of funds or even campaign staff, weren't thoroughly stomped, though Republicans did attain a sizable victory. In the end Middletown proved the Democrats' undoing, with a 2,200 vote deficit in the township that they didn't have much of chance of recovering from.

At the local level, Republicans won two seats in Atlantic Highlands, Highlands, Holmdel, Red Bank and Middletown. Democrats won four seats in Matawan for control of the borough; two seats in Hazlet; three seats in Aberdeen; and two seats in Keyport.

With the Democrat victories in Aberdeen and Matawan and a three-seat Republican victory in Mercer's Hamilton Township, it wasn't a very good day to be Jack Morris. Morris, a Piscataway-based developer, had proposed a redevelopment project of the Aberdeen-Matawan Train Station; opposition to Morris's plan became a major part of the Aberdeen and Matawan races. In Hamilon Township, three Republicans who came to run to office because of their opposition to a Morris-company project in their town, won handily in a Democrat stronghold.

Some self-promotion

I did a brief interview with a Harrisburg public radio station to promote Consumed, an anthology by Savannah Schroll that I have a story in. (And you've been forewarned: my writing certainly isn't for everybody.)

'Twas pretty strange. I talk kind of fast.

Anyway, here it is if you wanna listen. It is (somewhat) related to Monmouth County politics.

Correction and apology

A small piece I put in this week's issue was inaccurate. The article, titled "Assembly Dems call for debate" stated that the Thompson-Handlin campaign received funds from the 11th and 12th district races. It was a misunderstanding between myself and Mike Dasaro. What Mr. Dasaro was actually saying that the influx of funds INTO the 11th & 12th district races show that those races are in trouble. I had thought that Mr. Dasaro was saying that those campaigns had donated to the 13th District race. I had heard the word "district" instead of the plural "districts." I should have bracketed the word "13th" to show that that word wasn't in a direct quote, but I didn't. So, basically it was a chain of misunderstanding that I ultimately take full responsibility for.

I apologized profusely to both Mr. Thompson and Mr. Dasaro for the misunderstanding. Ms. Handlin does not return calls to our office, so I can only offer my apology through this website.

I also sincerely apologize to our readers. This is the first time I've really screwed up a quote and I'm absolutely mortified.