[Music] From the roads to the rails, how did you fare this week?

Because we've got transit delays, rail upgrades, and some news about our highways just to start.

Hi everyone, I'm Joanna Gagis.

This is Reporters Roundtable.

We've got a panel of journalists with us to help break down all that's happened in the last week of New Jersey news.

Let's see who we've got.

Colleen Wilson, Transportation Reporter with The Record and NorthJersey.com.

We have Daniel Han, Reporter for Politico NJ.

And Brent Johnson, Politics Reporter with NJ Advanced Media.

So, lots of updates when it comes to transit, but there's a whole lot more to talk about too.

From the budget address that's just days away, to midterm elections heating up, let's get into it.

Colleen, where to start with transit?

How about with the Portal Bridge update?

That's ongoing, it's making life a whole lot harder for commuters this month, and Amtrak made some news about those upgrades.

What can you tell us?

Yeah, sure.

So let's start with Amtrak.

Yes, I heard that they had suddenly planned to do additional work in Penn Station at an interlocking, which is where a lot of signals come together and tracks.

And so it's a really important project.

It will be almost shocking if they can get it done in 10 days, which is what they are planning to do.

And they're trying to take advantage of these last 10 days of the reduced service, which allows them to conduct more work and in a more risk-free environment.

So we will see.

The hope is that, yes, they can get it done and won't cause any more disruption or reduction in service in order to get that work done.

But that remains to be seen.

We know that the snowstorm did delay the crossover just a little bit, but Amtrak said, look, we found these additional problems, but it's not going to add any additional time.

So you're saying it looks like they are on track to keep that promise?

That's what they've said, and that's the standard that I think New Jersey Transit and the commuters should hold them to.

Meanwhile, we saw reports that gas prices are going to go up in part because of the war in Iran, although that's not the totality of the reasons why.

Colleen, what else is contributing to those price increases, and what should we expect here in New Jersey?

Yeah, sure.

I think, yeah, gas is going up everywhere.

It's not unique to New Jersey.

And I think it's something that we're going to have to watch closely.

You know, I think that international affairs are causing a lot of fluctuations.

So it remains to be seen just how long that is going to last and how other factors are going to impact that.

Daniel, of course, what's happening overseas in Iran has been the focus of a lot of lawmakers, especially here in New Jersey.

Democrats and a couple of Republicans in Congress this week voted on a war powers resolution to try to rein in the president's military authority overseas.

Can you just tell us how those votes went in the Senate and the House?

- Yeah, so what we saw was a vote that really came down along party lines.

And I think that this is definitely going to factor into the midterms.

And we have to see where this is all going.

You just touched upon gas prices and how gas prices are going up.

And, you know, what I'm thinking about is does this contribute to someone like potentially Jeff Andrews, Housey potentially being in play, something that has traditionally been, you know, pretty safe for Republicans.

But with confluence of factors, maybe it could be more competitive this November.

On the flip side of that, we see Congressman Josh Gottheimer, who did vote for the War Powers resolution that stands right now.

What do you think that could be used against him on either side of the coin?

So Gothimer has been, you know, he's very famously a very centrist Democrat.

He's a very strongly pro-Israel Democrat.

So I think that this is really a tough decision for him.

You saw shortly after the American attacks in Iran, he actually released a statement being pretty strongly in support of that action, being one of a few Democrats who took that position.

Interesting.

You said you think this will play into the midterms.

And so I'm getting the sense that you think this will be a prolonged military action.

Of course, nobody knows, including Republicans, who have said, look, we voted against the War Powers Resolution, but we want to see what this looks like in just a couple of weeks.

What did we hear, Daniel, from the president in terms of extending the time that he expects this military action to continue?

I'm more focused on the Golden Dome in Trenton than D.C., but if memory serves me correct, the president said that we could be here for some unforeseen amount of time.

Yeah, I think it did extend, and that's a fair point, I think he did extend from about four weeks to at least eight weeks right now.

But of course, it's a moving target, like you're saying.

Brent, here in New Jersey, all eyes are on Governor Sherrill's budget address.

It's happening on Tuesday.

This is her first budget address.

But she came out with a warning last week.

She said, look, things are pretty dire here financially for New Jersey.

What are we dealing with in terms of a structural deficit?

And how do you think she's going to tackle that on Tuesday?

She's been sounding alarms already to kind of soften the blow, maybe to say that things are not very good right now.

There's a $3 billion budget deficit, she said, and that the $7 billion state surplus could be gone in two years.

She said, "We have to tighten our belts," but she insisted that she's not going to raise taxes and that they'll have to find cuts elsewhere.

So everybody's kind of on edge in Trenton.

They don't know what exactly she's going to look to cut, how long of a fight this is going to be with the Democrats, her fellow Democrats who control the state legislature.

So this is kind of like maybe this is when she really kicks into gear as being a governor, not just in what she's done in the first month or so, especially with all the attacks on Trump.

But the pedal really hits the metal here.

Republicans say that her early warning is proof that they're vindicated.

They've been saying for years that New Jersey's operating on a structural deficit, spending more than its taking in, depleting its surplus.

Brent, they've called for the state to end some property tax programs, in particular StayNJ.

Do you see anchor, do you see StayNJ on the chopping block under this administration?

The talk I'm getting from insiders is that Sherrill will suggest some sort of changes to stay in NJ, though everyone's wondering how far that's going to go.

Because it's obviously a tax break for seniors, but it's an expensive program.

And some people think they can't afford it and that it kind of favors wealthier residents more.

But she would be on a collision course then with State Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, who is the mastermind behind that program.

And she needs Coughlin and Senate President Nick Scatari to get on board with the budget.

Otherwise, if they don't pass it by the July 1st deadline, we probably will have a state government shutdown, which is kind of the same threat we had in 2018 when Phil Murphy came in for his first year.

So we'll see.

Yeah.

And stay in, Jay, was something that even Governor Murphy had kind of postponed enacting for a long time.

And it was something that the speaker had been calling for for a long time before it finally got through.

Colleen, Governor Sherrill made some news this week about a very controversial Turnpike expansion plan.

What happened there?

Let's start with what was proposed and what she announced.

Years during the Murphy administration, they had advanced a $10.7 billion program to expand and replace the structure, the turnpike that goes from Bayonne to Newark to Jersey City.

It's passed its useful life.

It needs to be replaced in many places, especially the first phase, which is the Newark Bay Bridge, which was going to go from four lanes to eight lanes.

And environmentalists hated it.

A lot of local residents didn't like it, although some did like it because they feel choked by traffic, especially in Bayonne, and that this is kind of their, you know, key to the rest of New Jersey, that bridge.

So, yeah, so what Governor Sherrill kind of suddenly announced the day before the rescheduled board, Turnpike board meeting this week was that she is advancing a four-lane bridge, not an eight-lane bridge, which is basically what all the advocates who hate this project have advocated for.

So the NTSB, the National, you know that acronym better than I do.

What is NTSB?

National Transportation Safety Board.

Thank you.

They issued some dire warnings about this bridge and its safety, its potential to collapse.

What did, first let's start there, what did they say about it?

Yeah, my understanding is that it needs to be decommissioned by 2031.

And so this plan that is being advanced would build a new bridge and have traffic moved over to it by 2031.

The plan for the old version, which again, a longer program, a $10.7 billion program, you know, dragged out the construction of many different pieces, you know, well into, I think, 2040 or something like that.

It was a very long plan.

>> This scaled back the cost, scaled back the size.

What are we hearing now from mayors whose communities would be most impacted, Newark Mayor Raz Baraka, Jersey City Mayor James Solomon?

Both of them are supportive of Governor Sherrill's decision to scale up.

They had concerns about induced demand traffic, which means basically the more lanes you add, the more traffic you create, which is what actually the Turnpike's own data showed in prior federal environmental documents.

Meanwhile, I haven't heard anything from the Mayor Bayonne, although his department director of planning spoke at the last board meeting and raised concerns about how a four-lane bridge is going to deal with the traffic that they experience from expansion, and they're dealing with a lot of increased development.

They have a Paramount Studio coming that's going to create 3,000 jobs.

They have expansion at Port Liberty Bayonne.

The port's there.

There's a lot of traffic that goes through this area, and they have a lot going on.

So he's concerned about how the traffic is going to be mitigated and what ideas they have to work on that.

- Although anyone who's been on that bridge, of course, knows that many times there's just one lane operating.

So at least having two working lanes should feel like an improvement.

Switching gears a bit, Daniel, some big news out of DHS this week.

President Trump has announced that Kristi Noem will no longer serve as secretary.

What happened there?

- Yeah, so the president fired the head of DHS, Kristi Noem.

It comes as a big surprise.

Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is going to be the president's replacement for that agency.

And I think it comes after a lot of turmoil in immigration enforcement nationwide.

And you saw that most especially in Minneapolis, where Kristi Noem came out shortly after the death or shortly after federal agents shot and killed an American citizen and accused the citizen of so-called domestic terrorism.

That was certainly a bad look that made the Trump administration look a little bit foolish in that instance.

And you've also seen a lot of chaos around immigration and customs enforcement here in New Jersey as well.

So then we'll have to see if this means the Trump administration is turning a page on its posture towards immigration policy or not.

Daniel, beyond the ad buy or beyond everything that happened in Minneapolis, there were also allegations of an alleged affair with Corey Lewandowski in her department.

But I think what got the most traction was, you know, Republicans saying, "You've spent $220 million in taxpayer funds on these ad buys."

Do you know anything there more, Daniel, about those ad buys and how those funds were used?

I just know that that's a lot of money.

It's very expensive.

Yeah, it sure is.

Brent, what does her removal, if anything, mean for immigration detention facilities here in New Jersey, including the one that's proposed right now for Roxbury?

I should say the land was purchased in Roxbury, so more than supposed.

Yeah, this was something I was asking a lot about of my sources yesterday because that was the first question.

I had sources texting me being like, "What does this mean for Roxbury?"

And kind of the answer right now is it's too soon to tell.

I had some insiders tell me that, you know, anyone who says that to you doesn't really know what they're talking about.

Also, I talked to some advocates and their thought is that this is still going to go forward, that the change at the top doesn't affect that.

But you know, maybe Sherrill has a new negotiating partner, trying to figure out how to stop this.

And the same thing with Cory Booker and Andy Kim, our senators.

So it's kind of up in the air right now.

But the thought is maybe this softens the mood a little bit and they can cut a deal.

But who really knows?

We'll find out in time.

Yeah.

What else can you tell us in terms of what happened in Roxbury and where we are?

Local politicians railing against it.

They've promised that there's going to be a lawsuit.

Do you have anything else to add some color there?

Yeah.

Well, the sale went through.

There was some question of how much DHS was keeping everyone in the township appraised of what is going on.

They said that basically local Republican leaders in this very Republican town say that this is going to be a problem for local infrastructure, that they're not necessarily against what ICE is doing, but this is not the place where this should be built.

Democrats are saying that nowhere in New Jersey should an ICE facility be built because ICE is out of control.

And Mikie Sherrill, the new governor, sent a letter to Kristi Noem, and she was still in charge, saying, "I'm strongly opposed to this, and we'll keep an eye on you.

We'll use all tools at our disposal."

So it looks like it's going through.

The federal government spent $129 million on this, and it would be the third detention facility for ICE in the state.

And right now it's going through, but, you know, things could change.

Do you expect the Sherrill administration to reach out to the new secretary if he is confirmed?

Her office told me yesterday that they will continue to oppose this project no matter who is in charge.

So the question is whether they're going to get involved legally, whether the state attorney general's office will file a lawsuit, which the town has threatened to do.

Maybe there'd be some sort of joint lawsuit, but that's all still unknown right now.

Yeah.

Colleen, back to the roads.

Congestion pricing will remain in New York.

What happened this week with a lawsuit over that pricing model?

Yeah, a long-awaited decision in New York.

I believe this one had to do where there's so many lawsuits that it's almost hard to keep track of, but this is where the federal government under the Trump administration tried to shut down the congestion pricing program and threatened to withhold funding.

The MTA sued the federal government over this, and that is what this decision was, which was basically that this congestion pricing program is legal, it is allowed, and there's basically very little the government can do about it.

The one thing they can do about it is appeal to a higher court, which we have not yet seen but probably expect.

So right now the cameras are staying on and that's a message from New York.

Colleen, did you hear a rebuke in that decision to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy because he had promised to withhold funding for highway roads and expansions and other projects?

Yeah, that messaging, that philosophy, that strategy that has been used by not only Duffy but other elements of the Trump administration have not held legal ground for the most part that I've seen across the board.

We've already seen it now in the early stages of the Gateway Program and we're going to learn more about whether or not they can withhold funding over basically political differences and especially when we see obligated funds that have already been authorized by Congress that are supposed to be going toward projects.

And we've also heard that possibly in New York they are going to sue or seek some kind of legal action because of monies withheld over the Second Avenue subway, again, over congestion pricing or political differences.

I mean, it's a moving target as far as the reasons why those monies are withheld.

And that is kind of the point for whether it's New Jersey, whether it's New York or any other state that has sued over money that is supposed to be obligated or has been obligated and is being used as kind of a political cudgel and retribution for not getting along with the administration.

Yeah, hard to hear you say that without immediately thinking of the Gateway Tunnel Project.

An analyst came out recently and said that those costs, because of the withheld funding and because of funding uncertainty, could increase and pretty dramatically.

What are they forecasting?

Something like a billion dollars, you know, maybe annually.

I'm not exactly sure.

It's hard to know where that kind of number is generated from, but it is definitely concerning any amount of money.

This project is already $16 billion to build two new tunnels and repair the old ones.

And it is on a very, very tight schedule and deadline.

They were, as far as I know, on time, on budget, going into the Trump administration era.

And so any kind of withholding of funds and delays that they've already caused is definitely going to have an impact on the project.

And now they're in litigation.

Daniel, you broke some news this week about an assemblyman down in South Jersey, Dan Hutchinson.

He just became the town solicitor in Gloucester Township.

What's the problem there?

Yeah, so basically the scenario is that there is a Democratic elected from South Jersey, as you described, Dan Hutchison, and he just became the town attorney for a town he represents in the state legislature at a salary of $175,000 a year.

Now, I should note that as per a public records request that we submitted, his predecessor made approximately $96,000, and no one I was able to, Hutchison himself cannot explain the increase in salary, and the mayor in town did not respond to my request for comments or my questions.

And I think this also speaks to a broader question that is not specific to this lawmaker, but is it ethical for a sitting state lawmaker to have employment from a town they represent in the state legislature?

Is there a push and pull there or a potential conflict of interest?

I know that we talked about Roxbury before.

There's a really interesting scenario there where New Jersey Senate Minority Leader, basically one of the state's top elected Republicans, was fighting to make sure that the ICE detention facility in Roxbury did not open.

When will the House of Representatives open?

What are the challenges facing the House of Representatives?

And of course, there were a lot of calls of conflict of interest about Senator Anthony Bucco, who you just referenced, when those hearings were going on, when the town council meetings were going on, disputing what was going to happen in the town with the facility.

Brent, switching gears, on a lighter note, you write about Gov.

Sherrill's new ex-social media account, not that new at this point, but she's really taken aim at the president since taking office.

What's happening with the social media account, and is this perhaps a misstep on her part, really coming hard at the president?

Well, that's one of the great questions that I have sources debating behind the scenes.

It's a new account, Gov.

Sherrill's press account, which kind of looks like Gov.

Newsom's press account in California, which is interesting because Newsom has really taken aim at the president over the last year, especially on social media, kind of doing an eye-for-an-eye type thing on social media, kind of mimicking how the president talks on X and his platforms.

And so her team's kind of doing the same thing.

It's a takeoff on what New Jersey's government account did under Governor Murphy, which is it's kind of run by the same person, Megan Coyne.

It's taking a very Gen Z, snarky kind of approach to responding to the Trump administration.

But yeah, there's a big question.

Should Sherrill continue to be this strong against the president?

Does that benefit New Jersey, or should she take a more approach like Murphy had, or like Zoran Mondami, the mayor of New York City, is doing?

Kind of putting some sugar in their salt.

So that's a big question.

I know Republicans are like, she's not going to get as much done against Trump if she's not at least a little bit softer.

But Sherrill herself told me during our entrance interview this year that she doesn't think working with the president works, that this is how you have to approach dealing with Donald Trump.

And that's what I know many Democratic voters want their Democratic officials to be like.

So, and there's also the question of whether this social media account is another example that she might have her eye on higher office.

Her allies say that she's very focused on New Jersey.

But you know, the thought of that Gavin Newsom might be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, and he might be looking for a running mate who's a female governor on the East Coast, either her, Sherrill or Abigail Spanberger.

So there's so many layers to this.

You know, the beginning of a new governorship always has all these types of questions and things to look out for.

It sure does.

Gives us a whole lot of meat on the bone to chew on.

Colleen, Daniel, Brent, we've got to leave it there, but thank you all so much for being with us today.

Before we leave you, though, a quick programming note.

On Tuesday, March 10th, like we said, we will bring you live coverage of Governor Mikie Sherrill's first state budget address beginning at 2 p.m.

I'll have analysis here in the studio as well as from our reporters at the Statehouse, bringing you the latest on the governor's fiscal plan.

You can watch it all right here on NJPBS or on our NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

You can also follow me on Instagram @JoannaGagisNJ and go ahead and scan that QR code on your screen to see more episodes of Roundtable.

For all the crew here at Gateway Center in downtown Newark, I'm Joanna Gagis.

Thanks for being with us and have a great weekend.

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