From the Record:
New Jersey leads nation in foreclosures
New Jersey leads the nation in foreclosure activity, as the state continues to unwind the mortgages that went bad in the worst housing crash in decades.
One in every 598 Garden State households with a mortgage had some type of foreclosure filing in November, according to Attom Data Solutions, a real estate research company that is the parent company of RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosures. That’s down about 7 percent from a year ago – a sign that the worst of the foreclosure crisis may be in the past.
Nationally, foreclosure activity declined by about 17 percent in November, compared with a year earlier.
New Jersey has been slower to deal with foreclosures than other states, in part because the state is one of about two dozen where foreclosures go through the courts, which tends to slow the process. In addition, mortgage servicers are still catching up after a period where New Jersey foreclosure activity was almost frozen while the industry faced accusations of abusing homeowners’ rights.
According to Attom, New Jersey has two of the metropolitan areas with the highest rates of foreclosure in the nation, Atlantic City and Trenton.
In Bergen County, foreclosure filings rose 5.3 percent in November, compared with the previous year. One in every 987 Bergen households with a mortgage had some type of foreclosure activity during the month. In Passaic, foreclosure activity was down 14.7 percent from a year earlier, but the rate of housing distress is still higher than in Bergen. One in every 554 Passaic County households with a mortgage had a foreclosure filing during November, according to Attom.
From Bloomberg:
How Not to Build a Supermall: $5 Billion, 5 Governors, 3 Developers, and 15 Years
Chris Christie once called American Dream “the ugliest damn building in New Jersey.” Will it ever open?
From Shore News Network:
Bill to End Newspapers’ Public Money Grab On the Table Again in Trenton
For years, the printed news media in New Jersey has run a behind the scenes taxpayer funded monopoly that costs New Jersey tens of millions of dollars each year. By law, New Jersey municipalities, county bodies, utilities authorities, zoning boards, planning boards, school boards and sheriff’s departments have been required by law to pay for expensive printed public notices in local newspapers.
While most newspapers in New Jersey are quick to point out political double dipping of taxpayer dollars, the one headline you’ll never read in the mainstream newspapers is their own double dipping story. These newspapers receive millions of dollars per year in taxpayer funded subsidies, mandated by state law on one end, and they charge the reader to read them on the other end. Those figures don’t include those public notice ads that are paid for by developers, builders and homeowners seeking variances or hearings before their local planning board and zoning board.
New Jersey lawmakers this week are trying to put an end to that taxpayer funded gravy train. Senate bill S-2885 and Assembly bill A-4429, if passed would allow local municipalities to post public notices to their own website instead of paying hefty fees to the local newspapers.
…
According to the Poynter Institute, a journalism school funded by the Tampa Bay Times, they estimate most municipalities spend approximately $20,000 year on newspaper public notices.
Past attempts to remove the mandate have failed, mostly because elected officials have been afraid of editorial backlash from the newspapers if they stripped them of the revenue, which could bring financial hardship to industry which is already struggling to stay afloat. The newspaper industry, as expected fights each attempt to pass public notice reform laws.
One Ocean County elected official who wished to remain anonymous because of possible backlash by the local newspapers over his stance on the matter estimated the total amount of money being sent to newspapers by legal mandate in his town could be double or triple of what Poytner estimates. If each town, collectively spends $40,000 per year on public notices, that could be up to $1,000,000 per year in Ocean County alone, not including county boards, municipal utilities authorities, school boards and other agencies required by law.
New Jersey has 565 municipalities. Evan at the $20,000 per town Poynter estimate, that figure could be in the $10 million annual range statewide, and that’s just for municipal notices.
Newspapers aren’t quick to disclose their public notice revenue either, but according to a random sample, an average public notice costs approximately $20. Lengthier sheriff’s sale notices can net newspapers upwards of $300 per notice. Hundreds of notices are published daily in newspapers across the state.
…
Locally, newspaper subscriptions have been rapidly dwindling. According to Gannett’s 2013 newspaper circulation report, publisher of the Asbury Park Press, the company had 146,000 Sunday subscribers and 78,000 daily subscribers in 2012. According to the latest figures published by the Asbury Park Press on the NJPA’s website, the paper now has just 110,000 paid Sunday subscribers and 73,000 daily subscribers.
The newspaper covers Ocean and Monmouth counties, estimating the Ocean County circulations to be no higher than 55,000 on Sunday and 36,500 daily. With over 250,000 households in Ocean County according to US Census data, that means that just 14.6% of the county’s population reads the local paper each week. If those interested in public notices were to buy a newspaper every day of the week, it would cost them $11.50 per week to see all of the public notices. That would mean the cost to the reader to read those notices annually would be $598 per year.
The public is paying the newspaper at both ends for information that should be freely accessible to them.
…
In Ocean County, the Sheriff’s Department alone processed over $100,000 in paid foreclosure sale notices pass through their office annually. With 21 counties that would be nearly $2.1 million annually being fed to the newspapers. Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy said that while the lawyers of the properties are the ones who are responsible for paying those bills, his office has a responsibility to make sure the public received those notices.
“When I got here, we would have to cut out the clippings by hand and post them on the board in the hallway,” he said. “Now we have a phone app that can be downloaded for free and people can view all of our public notices on their phone.”
The Sheriff’s Department also lists foreclosure information on their website.
…
Oddly enough, the bill was proposed by New Jersey Democrats Michael J. Doherty (D-23) and Jim Whelan (D2) and has broad bi-partisan public support. If the bill reaches the desk of Governor Chris Christie, it is speculated that he would sign the measure into law.
…
According to the US Census, in 2013, 83.8 percent of U.S. households reported computer ownership, with 78.5 percent of all households having a desktop or laptop computer, and 63.6 percent having a handheld computer. In Ocean County, the local branches of the public library system offer free computer terminals with internet access.
From the Hartford Courant:
Bristol-Myers Squibb Will Depart Connecticut
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., continuing its exit from Connecticut, has announced it will close its Wallingford site by the end of 2018 and no longer plans to build a development facility in the state.
The drug maker previously announced plans to shutter the Wallingford facility. The company said last year it planned to eliminate 100 jobs by the end of 2015 and relocate 700 others with up to 500 staying in Connecticut by late 2018, but Tuesday’s announcement means Bristol-Myers will pull out of the state altogether.
…
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and his economic development commissioner, Catherine Smith, said Bristol-Myers Squibb’s decision had less to do with Connecticut as a place to do business than the company’s broader plans for where it will invest, including New Jersey and Massachusetts.
…
The Tuesday announcement included plans for Bristol-Myers to build a research and development center at its Lawrenceville, N.J., campus that will include laboratory work. Bristol-Myers will also build at its New Brunswick, N.J., facility to support biologics development and continue expanding its campus in Devens, Mass.
…
Bristol-Myers Squibb said its shifts will strengthen its research and development in central New Jersey, the San Francisco area and Cambridge while continuing to integrate development of biologics – genetically-engineered proteins from human genes – with clinical manufacturing to improve speed and collaboration.
So funny, but so true!
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/Donald-Trump/ss/Trump-Election-Victory.htm
I am sure Linda will replace all those BMS jobs with lots of small businesses.
Are we great yet?
I’m shocked, there is gambl1ng in this establishment!
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146
The reporting on this at the Star Ledger is hysterical. They are strongly against the bill.
This would seem to be a conflict of interest to me and might help explain some of the political leanings of writers at that newspaper and their editorial board.
I plan on calling and emailing legislators in support of the bill.
grim says:
December 15, 2016 at 6:36 am
From Shore News Network:
Bill to End Newspapers’ Public Money Grab On the Table Again in Trenton
What kind of business model depends heavily on local and state public announcements for revenue?
I think the Russians hacked Martin Sheen.
What pathetic pussies. 35K views, 17K dislikes. The limo libs are so completely out of touch, they still have no clue why they lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z0iuWh3sek
The government should be banned from advertising or contributing anything to any media. No reason for it with the web. Why am I hearing advertisements for food stamps on the radio or seeing the parks dept advertising on TV? It’s outrageous.
Opinion: End Corporate Welfare For Newspapers
http://www.moremonmouthmusings.net/2016/12/15/opinion-end-corporate-welfare-for-newspapers/#more-35319
New Jersey’s “legacy media” is so desperate to remain dependent on government subsidies in the form of mandated legal advertisements that their trade association, the New Jersey Press Association, offered to cut the advertising rates for taxpayer funded ads in half so long as they could increase the fees for legal ads paid for by private parties.
The newspaper industry was caught off guard earlier this week when legislation to allow New Jersey’s governments to publish meeting dates, proposed ordinances, zoning applications, sheriff sales, etc., online rather than in daily or weekly newspapers was introduced and fast tracked for approval before the end of the year. Since then they papers been editorializing to rally their readers to put pressure on the legislature to scrap the bill and save their revenue. Their arguments have been unseemly; Governor Chris Christie is pushing the bill as revenge on newspapers for their coverage of the Bridgegate scandal, that the elimination of legal ads would lead to less transparency and chicanery on the part of government officials who might not publish the ads as the law requires and that municipal and county governments publishing their own legal notices on the web won’t lead to savings.
Apparently the publishers fear that their campaign is not working. Thus the hail mary proposal to cut their fees in half. Members of the legislature should resist the emotional temptation spare the newspaper industry the inevitable migration to vital government information being accessed online rather than in print. Our elected leaders and representatives should not fall for publishers’ plea to save journalists jobs with public dollars. The management of New Jersey’s largest newspaper publisher, Gannett, did not make an emotional decision when they laid off 400 people after acquiring the Bergen Record/North Jersey Media. They made an economic decision. Our government leaders should make an economic decision for the benefit of their “shareholders” –the public.
In their current printed form, legal notices are more likely to be read by sad souls selling their jewelry or shopping for sexual favors than by citizens interested in attending a Planning Board Meeting or in buying a foreclosed property. The usefulness of legal ads has already been supplanted by the Internet and social media. Recent public opposition to proposed developments in Eatontown, Howell, Manalapan and Middletown is a testament to that fact. Citizens are getting their information online and sharing it with each other.
Printed classified ads are obsolete. Newspapers publishers themselves are invested in online classifieds. They use the empty space in their printed classified sections to encourage readers to visit their online classifieds websites like cars.com and careerbuilders.com.
The public will be better served by having legal notices available online. As painful as it will be in the short term, the news industry will be better off in the long term by being independent of government subsidies.
One of the arguments the newspapers make against the bill is that municipalities and counties will incur more labor and technology costs to publish the ads. The legislature should allow the governments to adjust their fees from private entities required to post ads in order to cover those costs.
I would gladly provide this service to NJ free of charge, statewide, for the ability to host these public notices in a forum that allowed me to post advertisements.
I could do this very profitably, and provide the public with benefits they don’t currently have today, such as subscribing to specific topics or locations, email notifications/digests, more flexible search options, etc.
Fab the Bristol jobs are not moving overseas so I don’t know what the are we great comment is intended for. You have to get over it. Trump won. If you are the open minded tolerant liberal you claim to be.
3b
“open minded tolerant liberal”
Now there’s an oxymoron.
The modern day liberals and those supporting hefty government interference have never been tolerant nor considered an opposing view. The democrats needed to increase and solidify their base and saw lay-a-bouts, malcontents, pseudo-vagrants and misfits as an easy target. The democrat party was once a compassionate entity that stood for the hard-working people. They’ve become a freak show and could care less as long as it places a certain faction of elite into power.
Sorry Eddie but again I have to disagree. Democrats, however successfully or unsuccessfully they have been, have tried to address issues of social significance through the public schools, and through public entities at large. The freak show that you refer to is just another label or ‘name’ that you have for people who do not look or think like you.
The site already exists
http://www.njpublicnotices.com/
…for people who do not look or think like you.
Really? Address issues of social significance? Like telling me I’m the reason for the world’s injustices of the last 2000 years? That I’m privileged? While I’m paying for their safe rooms, coloring books and flavored oxygen?
Essex on the meds version….STFU you freakshow…..
Essex says:
December 15, 2016 at 9:58 am
Sorry Eddie but again I have to disagree. Democrats, however successfully or unsuccessfully they have been, have tried to address issues of social significance through the public schools, and through public entities at large. The freak show that you refer to is just another label or ‘name’ that you have for people who do not look or think like you.
ChiFi u a low rent ivy coated putz.
http://www.njpublicnotices.com
Good site. A nearby house was bought for $650K twenty years ago and is now in foreclosure with a judgement of $1,350,000.
The “owner” is a financial Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
The liberals I take the greatest issue with look a lot like me and I’m not sure they think at all.
…for people who do not look or think like you.
BMS relocating here….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk9_u98OfyE
eddie…no more like ….ur a schmuck.
“So funny, but so true!”
So terribly hacky. Want to read funny memes? Join Bernie Sander’s Dark Meme Stash on Facebook if you want to see creativity instead of obvious crap that would only be the most mildly entertaining to the cheerleader set.
In Boston NBC is yanking their programming from the current affiliate and starting up a new channel, NBC Boston, leaving the existing affiliate, WHDH, twisting in the wind for programming. I found the last line of this announcement highly humorous:
WHDH will air 12 hours of news programming every weekday and seven hours of news on Saturday and Sunday. In total, it will air over 87 hours of news weekly — more than any other Boston station, it said — as well as the game show “Family Feud.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2016/08/16/channel-7-reveals-new-format-without-any-nbc-shows.html
When we first moved to Boston it was very weird to not have the major networks on channels 2, 4, 7.
Instead CBS is 4, NBC is 7, and ABC is 5. For many years my wife an I had this conversation:
Wife: “What’s 4 again?” Translation: “What channel is NBC?”
Me: “How many times do I have to tell you? 4 is 7, 7 is 5, and 2 is 4.”
You might wonder “What’s on channel 2?” Answer: PBS.
eddie…no more like ….ur a schmuck.
Is this a demonstration of the logic you attempted to display?
my knowledge of you is strictly defined by what i see here…
(1) Through desire a man, having separated himself . . .—This should probably be rendered, The separatist seeketh after his own desire, against all improvement he shows his teeth. The man of small mind is here described, who will only follow his own narrow aims, who holds himself aloof from men of wider views than his own, and will not join with them in the furtherance of philanthropic or religious plans, but rather opposes them with all his power, as he can see nothing but mischief in them. (For his temper of mind, comp. John 7:47-49.)
Here are three from today
http://tinyurl.com/flab1
Dow 20,000 is today…..
http://tinyurl.com/flab-two
http://tinyurl.com/flab-three
New York City Now Runs The United States
As the home of Donald Trump and much of Trump’s opposition, New York City is once again at the center of the battle to define and lead America.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/12/15/new-york-city-now-runs-united-states/
Now those are funny! Especially the Putin one.
LOL. I’m joining
Here are three from today
http://tinyurl.com/flab1
Wrong NYC is just a place where his minions gather mostly from flyover country. New Yorkers are probably split 50/50 like the rest of the nation.
We’re gettin tunnels were gettin tunnels!!
In fact, the ONLY 3 PERIODS of extended unified Republican governments going back to 1900 ALL DIRECTLY led to banking crises….Arguably the 3 worst in US History. To be clear, I am defining ‘extended’ unified governments as anytime they control the House, Senate and White house for at least 4 years. This does not include short 2 year stints since it’s hard to screw things up that quick (FYI there was only 1 period of that anyway, 1953-1955). You can look up the periods yourself here and more detail here.
The list of Unified Republican Government crises include the Panic of 1907, The Great Depression, and the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008. Interestingly, the record of extended Republican control of Congress has also only led to crises. There have only been 4 periods of extended Republican control of Congress (3 of which overlap with the periods of full unified control just mentioned). However, the 4th period (I KID YOU NOT) ended in the 2000 DotCom Bust where the Republicans controlled the House and Senate from 1995-2001.
In short, full Republican control has NO history of making America great…let alone AGAIN.
Essex, don’t forget they’ll control SCOTUS too.
No, the presidential election can’t be hacked
By Tal Kopan, CNN
Updated 4:29 PM ET, Wed October 19, 2016
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/19/politics/election-day-russia-hacking-explained/index.html
Where’s the outrage over Russia’s hack of the US election?
By Paul Waldman
Updated 7:34 PM ET, Sat December 10, 2016
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/10/opinions/how-politicians-let-russia-hack-americas-election-waldman/index.html
Which one is the fake news?
Developers are seriously the scum of the earth. How do they always get away with using other people’s money, esp the tax payer’s money? They are worse than used car salesmen. Developers have probably done more harm than good with their parasitic ways. They always leave the bill for someone else. Hope trump doesn’t go all developer on America. If that’s the case, we will be begging for the Clinton corruption machine on the basis of it being cheaper than the Trump machine.
“If not, well, there’s always another Dream to pursue. A year and a half ago, Triple Five announced a potential fourth mall, this one on 190 acres of undeveloped land near Miami. “It is our intent that this project—American Dream Miami—will exceed our other world-famous projects in all respects,” Triple Five said in a statement. It’s preparing the way: Last winter, a state senator who also represents the company as a lawyer sponsored legislation that could divert property tax revenue toward infrastructure that companies are usually responsible for. And absent government support? “I do not need to build here,” Eskandar told officials in April 2015. “We are a family that is very well off.”
The Miami Dream, Don Ghermezian says, is years away.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-american-dream-mall/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/what-happens-if-you-draintheswamp-poland-may-have-the-answer
Sooooo tired of winning….ugh
Re-reading Eddie’s earlier post. Your thinking is comical.
Re-reading Eddie’s earlier post. Your thinking is comical.
And yours is sad.
Typical Bergen County trash.
I won’t even druve through Bergen Co. The mouth breathing Mercedes driving grease count is through the roof.
So much love here today.
D-FENS says:
December 15, 2016 at 1:32 pm
Which one is the fake news?
I take it you did not read past the headlines on either one of these. Or you did and are disingenuously trying to make a point.
Wow. Has Otto and the Twitiot offed themselves?
I’m done listening passively to morons.
Just skip their posts.
Regarding BMS exiting CT, lets face it most pharma is leaving. CT is considered the country club for big US pharma R&D . Nothing gets discovered in CT.
You are correct Pete! Nice work. Both are fake.
Just read of the supposed first case of flying while black.
This will backfire horribly on the pastor bringing up the lawsuit. It appears he grabbed the flight attendant (must be due to his lack of privilege) and was removed from the flight for doing so.
Democratic convention did look like a freak show, Republican convention looked like A bunch of hacks on Trump’s payroll. See freaks here: https://goo.gl/images/amGW0a
I can HAZ puss-y?
It appears he grabbed the flight attendant (must be due to his lack of privilege) and was removed from the flight for doing so.
wanna see a freak? Former Apprentice contestant Omarosa Manigault has officially joined Donald Trump’s transition team.
Manigault, who appeared on the first season of Trump’s reality TV show, was named on the transition’s executive committee on Thursday.
She worked on the President-elect’s campaign as Trump’s director of African-American outreach.
Brilliant blog post 1 BHK Flats in Bhandup