♪♪ >> From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Briana Vannozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

Briana Vannozzi is off.

Coming up, should cameras be required in special ed classrooms?

Some say they'll protect students, others raise privacy concerns.

We'll look at all sides of this debate.

And later, the federal interest rates remain steady, even as the cost of groceries and fuel continue to rise.

So just how healthy is our nation's economy?

But first, as we approach the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, We talk with the co-designer of the state's 9/11 Memorial, who's calling on Governor Sherrill to help finally finish the project and complete the site.

That's next.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at RWJBH.org It's hard to believe that just two months from now will be the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks that forever changed our lives.

We lost nearly 3,000 people on that day.

About 750 of them were from New Jersey.

A decade later, a memorial was built in Jersey City's Liberty State Park to recognize the space where the sky sits empty, where the World Trade Center towers once stood.

But that memorial, now almost 15 years old, has never been completed, and many of its design functions are falling into disrepair.

This is a story we've covered before and I recently spoke with the memorial's co-designer, Jessica Jamras, to get the latest.

Jessica, thanks so much for being with us today.

Can you explain the design plan that was put in place for this memorial from the start?

Sure.

Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

The Memorial Design was a design competition from a request for proposals back in 2004.

It was a two stage process.

It was a blind design competition.

It went through a stage of jury members that were professional artists and architects and landscape architects.

- Jessica, if I could jump in here, what was it meant to look like when the state awarded the plan to you?

- The memorial is a two acre site.

It's integrated into the park as a kind of land art and a sculpture.

The memorial is predominantly two stainless steel walls that are centered on the center line to where the former Twin Towers once stood.

And on the approach to the memorial, you see symbolically where the towers once stood in the background.

The walls are 208 feet long, 10 inches, and that's the exact proportion of what a facade of a Trade Tower once was.

And the proportions and the geometry have been addressed to make it seem like the two Twin Towers have fallen to the site.

The entire memorial is much larger than that.

There's several aspects.

The mound is symbolic of the heart of New Jersey.

The walls are symbolic of the wound in the heart and then the reinforcement of the heart.

The names inside the memorial walls, there's many names, some names are missing.

There's known to be 767 names and they are very large, four inches, and they are randomly placed and organized as loved ones were lost.

There's also an unbuilt aspect in the northern part of the site, which is a grove of trees and plaza area that has been unbuilt.

Yeah, that's what I want to get to.

Can you talk to us about the elements that remain unfinished today?

And I want to point out before you answer this, that this has been several administrations, gubernatorial administrations.

I believe it's been through four and now we're in a fifth with the Sherrill administration.

But before we get to that, can you just explain what elements are unfinished today?

So, there's a number of issues that need to be completed and a number of issues that need to be restored.

So there's been three phases of construction to get us to where we are now.

And the items that need to be restored, there was once 65 trees that embraced the memorial on the landscape that were autumn flowering cherry trees, a symbol of rebirth and renewal at the time of the September 11th attacks.

Those need to be replaced.

There are broken kiosks that tell you where a name is located on the wall.

And the stainless steel on the outside of the memorial, what I call and refer to as the face of the memorial, is completely missing.

That stainless steel needs to be erected and installed, and upon it, it carries two different inscriptions.

One that says, "Never forget," and one that says, "Always in our hearts."

And this is, you know, the transformation of that one aspect alone will move empty sky from where it is into what I call a beacon of hope.

It is the one, you know, it will... Why has it never been completed?

Through all of these administrations, you say it's six.

Why has it never been completed?

Well, there's always reasons.

When in government, I would say, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of finger pointing as to why that has occurred.

I think it's because of the nature of the memorial was born from three executive orders, and the memorial has always been an interdepartmental project, and it requires leadership and accountability from the governor's office to see it through.

And so when the memorial was first selected, it was selected by family members under the Jim McGreevy administration.

Four months after it was selected, Governor McGreevy resigned, and then we fell into acting Governor Cody.

And then, you know, when the Christie administration came around, I'm skipping past Corzine, but when the Christie administration came around, he really put someone in charge, a man by the name of Charlie McKenna, who really took it upon himself to make sure that it moved forward.

But by the time that the Christie administration did that, we had eight short months until the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

And so we got as much done as we could within those short eight months.

Hurricane Sandy happened shortly thereafter.

And then we know we felt we had We had eight years under Governor Phil Murphy.

And now, of course, in the beginning of the Sherrill administration, we did reach out to her for comment.

I'm curious, just very shortly, what happened that this was never finished under Governor Murphy?

And what have you heard so far from Governor Sherrill?

All I can say about the Murphy administration is that I think that they were well intentioned back in 2018, 2019.

The pandemic hit, so that's another major thing to have focus on.

After that, there's no excuses.

I think the Murphy administration just simply dropped the ball and didn't have leadership or accountability for making sure that it happened from the governor's office.

This obviously was not funded.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

We don't have a lot of time.

I just want to make sure we get this in.

There is no additional funding, as I understand, in this first budget that Governor Sherrill put forward.

We did reach out to them for comment, and their response was that they are committed to the Empty Sky Memorial and ensuring it befits and honors the victims of 9/11 in New Jersey and their families.

They say they will continue working with the families and stakeholders to find the best path forward.

They have our unwavering commitment.

I'm just curious your thoughts and what unwavering commitment looks like in your mind.

- I mean, that's wonderful.

I'm very touched by that statement.

I think it's all in the actions, right?

It's like we've gone through so many administrations.

- This is really emotional for me.

- This pain, I'm so sorry.

Sorry, this pain is like, just get it done.

At this point, we just got to get it done.

So.

- This is an emotional issue for you and for so many families.

- It has to get done.

I mean, really what has to happen is that Cheryl needs to move the ball forward.

I've heard people promise me that they were going to complete it in the past, including the previous administration.

So I hope she sees it through.

- Yeah, we hope so too.

Jessica Jamras, Memorial Designer for Empty Sky, New Jersey's 9/11 Memorial.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- We all feel it in our wallets.

Trips to the grocery store and the gas station have become more and more expensive.

New numbers are showing the US economy is slowing down.

So what does it all mean?

Joining us now is Carl Van Horn, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Rutgers University and the Director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development.

Dr.

Van Horn, it's great to have you on the show.

I wonder if you can just describe the U.S.

economy right now.

Can you give us the overview?

>> In general, I think we're stuck in a rut, basically, which is not a good thing, but it could be worse.

In other words, despite all the problems that we've been having with the war in the Middle East and other issues, often on policy with respect to trade policy, we're holding steady.

But on the downside, we're also not growing.

So that means as the economy grows, and people want to enter the labor market, there may be less jobs in the future.

Inflation is also holding fairly steady.

So given all the chaos that's happening in the world economy, in some ways, it's surprising that we're still in the place where we are now.

So here in the U.S., we're seeing reports that the GDP grew slower than expected between April to June.

Can you break down those numbers?

Well, that is true.

It did, but only slightly lower.

I think the biggest issue is that unemployment is remaining pretty much steady.

It ticked up a little bit, both at the national level and in New Jersey.

And the same thing has gone with inflation.

So what's going on?

Well, what's going on is those broad numbers don't necessarily measure what people are feeling on a day-to-day basis.

And what I mean by that is it's costing them much more to buy gasoline, I think, as everybody knows.

And that ripples through the economy because as we buy other things, they have to be delivered to those stores and that means the folks that are delivering have to pay more.

And so it eventually ticks into the price of goods and services.

So if the longer this war continues and the longer we see really high energy prices, the worse it's going to get.

As affordability remains a challenge, as you just described, from gas prices to energy to the cost of groceries and all of the other pressures, are we seeing a slowdown in consumer spending in response to that?

Interestingly, not that much.

I mean, I think people are hoping for an improvement.

When it comes to gasoline, most people don't have a choice.

I mean, you can cut back a little bit.

Maybe you can switch to mass transit if that's available to you.

But getting back and forth to work, you have to pay the pump.

So there's not much you can do about that.

You can also cut back on some incidentals.

We have seen a downtick in travel and vacationing, and that I think reflects the high gas prices.

So people are experiencing some effects, but not as profound as they may be if this continues for another several months.

The Fed decided recently not to raise the interest rate.

What does that tell you about how they see inflation in the near future and in the long term?

That's correct.

And it was a bit of a surprise.

And I would.

I would note that three people voted against that decision.

So it's a 7 to 3 vote.

I think that basically they're going to have to do something and they signal they might increase by a quarter point in the next meeting.

So what that means is they need to figure out how to tame inflation before it gets built into the economy permanently, which has a negative effect on everybody.

Do you think they were right not to raise the interest rate?

That's a really hard question to answer because none of us can see into the future.

I think that it was a reasonable position to take, given the uncertainty of what's going on in the Middle East.

But I think if it goes much longer than that, it will cause greater anxiety in the economy and in the investment community, which will drive up many prices because they price in these potential increases from inflation.

I want to get a little bit more bird's eye view on New Jersey and how you see the state's economy as compared to the rest of the nation.

Well, in many ways, it's echoing the national economy.

We're neither doing much better or worse.

We have slightly higher unemployment rate, but not substantially higher.

So, again, we've been in this sort of steady pace and zone of uncertainty, I call it, ever since, you know, this whole war started.

And that's really the dominant factor.

That and the cutback in some federal spending that would flow through to New Jersey that helps boost the economy.

Yeah, do you see, I mean, we've heard a whole lot about, from the business community, about the state's business friendliness and whether the state is doing enough to generate jobs and attract business and keep people living here in the state.

Property tax values, of course, or property tax rates being the highest as well, among the highest.

Let me just ask you this.

Do you think that there's policy that could come from this administration that would make the state more business friendly that could potentially grow our economy here?

I know that's a very big question, but I'm asking if you believe that there's policy that can shift it amidst everything else that's happening nationally.

Well, the short answer is it's very difficult to do that because the national economy, what does New Jersey have to do with what's going on in the Middle East?

Nothing.

So it's really hard to do that.

I would say the sheriff administration and the legislature is doing what they can do.

For example, addressing the affordability issues, especially around property tax relief.

But I've been studying and participating in the New Jersey economy for over 35 years.

And there's never a time when the business community doesn't complain that it's not business friendly.

And I understand that.

I mean, that's the struggle they are dealing with.

But whether the state can significantly affect that, mainly I think through making some of the things that the governor's already doing, which is make it easy to get permits, easy to move ahead.

But fundamentally, it's the national economy that helps dominate what the outcome is for our businesses in the state.

- Do you see anything shifting, just a few seconds left, if this war were to come to an end, do you see things turning around quickly, or does it take some time?

- Well, it depends on what the end is.

So I think what we know already is the oil producing functions will take a long time to recover and even though we get most of our oil from the United States, our gasoline and so on, that still affects the world supply of goods and services.

- So it will take a while to recover once the war ends, and hopefully that will be soon.

- Dr.

Carl Van Horn, we've got to leave it there.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- For parents of children with physical and developmental disabilities, sending them to school and trusting they'll be well taken care of can be scary.

Many fear the worst.

Some say they've experienced it.

One legislator has been calling to mandate cameras in special ed classrooms, but has faced some pushback.

writer Julie O'Connor took a deeper look at that policy and what it could mean for our most vulnerable students as part of our Under the Dome series.

Julie, so nice to see you.

You recently wrote about some pretty horrifying allegations of abuse that were alleged to have taken place inside a special ed classroom.

Can you tell us what you heard from the mom, Natara Matias, about her five-year-old son, who we know is not verbal and has autism?

Natara Matias is a Newark mother.

She's also a nurse practitioner, and she says that her son was coming home from school with unexplained injuries for years.

You know, this ranged from a knot on his head about the size of an egg, to four-inch long scratches that became a permanent scar, to a welt on his back, Scarlett Welch, that she says resembles, you know, it was about the size of an adult-sized handprint.

And she says even when he had a dedicated one-on-one eat, she was getting, you know, differing explanations from the schools that he was in.

She was sometimes getting no explanation, no injury report.

And when she tried to, you know, confront the district about this, that they threatened her with truancy charges, and she's still seeking answers.

She still doesn't know, you know, what happened to her son, and she finds that just very disturbing.

It raises the broader question about having classroom cameras, right, especially for special education classrooms.

Where does New Jersey stand in terms of policy compared to other states when it comes to having cameras in the classroom for special education?

In New Jersey, this is left to individual districts.

Some schools may have cameras in hallways, they may have them on the playgrounds, but there are no mandatory cameras in special education classrooms or in schools.

And some parents think that there should be, you know, other states have had mandatory cameras or have had at least laws passed that allow for these cameras in special education classrooms.

And those laws have been in existence for about a decade.

And now some parents and advocates in New Jersey are calling for the same.

- I know that you really dove into that issue and you looked at some proposed legislation here in the state.

Who has been in support of this?

Who hasn't?

Can you just kind of break down where policymakers stand on the issue?

- Senator Shirley Turner twice introduced a bill that would have mandated cameras in all special education rooms in New Jersey.

The last time she introduced this bill was in 2020, but it went nowhere.

You know, it didn't even get a hearing either time.

And she says there just wasn't at the time sustained advocacy from parents and the bill briefly lost its assembly sponsor and it just didn't go anywhere.

She's hoping to reintroduce that bill in the fall because now there's a growing group of parents and advocates who are again calling for cameras in the classroom in response to several cases of abuse or neglect.

- What's some of the pushback?

Why would that not be a simple solution if there are parents who are raising concerns and districts might want to protect themselves?

What is some of the concern and pushback that you've heard?

This has been a debate in other states, even among parents of special education children.

Parents fear lack of privacy.

They worry that footage of vulnerable children could wind up on social media.

They worry that it could become part of their child's permanent record, you know, say if the child has a meltdown in class, something like that.

We've also seen pushback from some teachers unions.

They fear that the footage could be used in just regular performance evaluations of teachers.

They also argue that, you know, maybe it's better to use funding instead of spending it on surveillance for more staffing or better training for staff.

So we have seen resistance in some states, although I did speak also with experts who say that over the past decade, they really haven't seen those fears realized.

They haven't seen footage from these cameras used in ways that either, you know, abuse teachers or students, that really it's just been used to expose misconduct.

In Matias' case, can you just explain the difficulty she's had in proving to anyone in the district or in the state that something was happening to her son in the classroom?

She ran into a lot of resistance and roadblocks.

You know, she at one point filed for due process seeking an order from a judge or a hearing officer and she was asking for either a protective one-on-one aid or placement in a gold standard program for students with autism.

And so it became, she ran up against a lot of resistance from the district.

They refused to give her incident reports, she says.

She had to put in a public records request just to get the reports about the injuries that her son sustained in school.

She says that the district argued that there was no evidence that he had sustained injuries or that he was at risk in school, even though she says, according to her records, he had these injuries.

And in fact, the school's own incident reports documented many of these injuries.

So it just became a fight between her and the district.

Her son is safe now.

He's in a specialized program that costs about $90,000 a year, a tab that the district picks up.

But she's speaking out on behalf of other vulnerable children, including nonverbal children with autism, who she and other parents say are at particular risk of neglect and abuse without cameras or some sort of objective record, you know, in the classroom.

Yeah, because of course they cannot come home and self-report what they may have experienced in the classroom.

I found it interesting that Senator Shirley Turner compared this to the early days in fighting for body cameras on police.

I guess similar objection there when this idea was first introduced?

That's right.

She says it was a long road for her to get mandatory police body cameras in New Jersey.

Initially, she met up with fierce resistance from police unions and from civil liberties groups, but now body cameras are standard policy in New Jersey, and she hopes that one day classroom cameras in special education rooms will be as well.

Some advocates are even calling for cameras throughout school buildings for the safety of students and staff.

Yeah, this is something that, as you said, I know the Senator plans to take back up.

It'll be interesting to see who actually does support it this time around.

Julie O'Connor, our urban education writer.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Joanna.

Under the Dome is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagis for the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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