♪ We started the week with a historic blizzard that shut down the state.

We're ending the week with a bleak economic forecast for the state, and a whole lot happened in the middle.

Let's get into it.

Hi everyone, I'm Joanna Gaggis.

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's with us today.

We have Colleen O'Day, Senior Writer and Projects Editor for NJ Spotlight News, Dustin Racioppe, Editor for Politico NJ, and Larry Higgs, Transportation and Commuting Reporter for NJ.com and the Star-Ledger.

Larry, I'm going to start with you.

The blizzard hit hard Sunday into Monday.

What was the impact on transit throughout the state and how quickly were they able to get systems back up and running?

Well, NJ Transit basically had a full system shutdown.

This is kind of an orderly thing that they do.

They shut down the trains, they shut down buses and light rail.

One of the things that CEO Chris Calori was talking about this morning with a little bit of pride was how quickly they were able to get things back running, starting with light rail at four in the morning, 24 hours later, as he said when snowflakes were still falling.

One of the things that commuters said that they liked was that instead of using the severe weather schedules, they went to a modified President's Day schedule, which gave riders a better selection of trains and buses to pick from so they could get back to work.

We often, Larry, we talk about the bad news a lot.

We don't often talk about the good news.

Is this an improvement for NJ Transit from where we've been after other storms?

Well it's a bit of an improvement because before they used severe weather schedules, which were, as far as commuters were concerned, somewhat draconian as far as the service it offered for people who had to get to work no matter what.

So that was a positive and actually there were some commuters in one commuter group specifically complimented that decision.

There's a whole lot more we're going to talk about when it comes to transit in the state.

But Colleen while everyone was still digging out of the snow we heard news that the Department of Justice was filing a lawsuit against the Sherrill administration for her executive order that bars ice enforcement on state property.

Now this will be handled by her now confirmed attorney general, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport.

What can you tell us about her administration's response to that lawsuit?

Yeah I mean the state is gonna just do everything in its power to fight that lawsuit.

They say that you know they've got the right to do this.

We know that in the past so for one thing there the state is allowing federal enforcement on public parts of state property and if federal agents have a criminal warrant they would be allowed to exercise that.

it's just not the civil law, it's the civil warrants.

so just for you know anybody who has a detention order, not for a criminal.

there are different rules for those.

they want a judicial warrant.

yes and the the lawsuit doesn't make that the lawsuit by the feds does not really make a distinction there it also by the way spelled the governor's name wrong five times you know there are some conflicting I'm not a lawyer um there are some some conflicting case law that we have you know the one case the immigration the immigrant trust directive was upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on the other hand there was a case in which the state had tried to stop the either siting or expansion of immigrant detention facilities and that they lost that in the Third Circuit so you know what happens I'm not sure.

It's gonna be interesting to see how that plays out in the courts because we have a lot of other cities here in New Jersey that are filing similar executive orders.

Newark is one this week.

Newark Mayor Rasbaraka issued an executive order for his city that very much looks very similar to the state's.

What do you think the trickle-down effect will be here in New Jersey, Colleen, depending on how this plays out?

And I wonder if it sets a precedent nationally as well.

- Yeah, I mean, I think we may see more and more towns that have democratic mayors or democratic councils doing kind of the same thing.

The reason that Mayor Baraka did that was because of, I mean, I think he said he was considering it, but the reason he did it was, the day that he did was because there was an ice chase that ended in a three car accident and three children ages 12 and two twins 15 were injured went to the hospital now they're fine but you know it's as he said and as Mikey governor Sherrill has said these ice actions are not making the state safer in fact they're doing the opposite when these kinds of things are happening and of course we do see Newark police in a lot of the video that was taken that day the mayor said the police were there responding to the accident not engaging with law enforcement which of course is a part of the state and that city's limitations in terms of what their local law enforcement can do.

Dustin another topic this week we saw that ICE has purchased a facility in Roxbury what can you tell us about that purchase what can you tell us about some of the feedback that we've heard?

Well the feedback has been bipartisan and it has been condemning against the administration.

Nobody seems to like the idea of a warehouse especially in a Republican town in Morris County opening up and becoming a place to be warehousing immigrants.

Just today Governor Cheryl sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security saying that she's going to fight it.

I don't know what those options may be for her.

So this is just yet another thing that's probably going to get bogged down in the in the court system.

But there's no doubt about it that people are just not happy about it whether they're Democrats or Republicans.

Republicans have different reasons.

It's all what they say is because of like environmental issues and like zoning stuff.

But Democrats as expected are pretty upset and completely against it politically.

Colleen while many people were watching the State of the Union address you were at that Roxbury Town Council meeting.

You spoke with state Senator Anthony Bucco who does represent the township of Roxbury.

What did you hear from him and what is their recourse.

As Dustin said this will likely end up in the courts.

What are they planning.

Yeah.

So you know a lot of the people there were more than 100 people at that meeting Tuesday night and there were a number of people calling for Bucco to either be replaced or to recuse himself saying that because of positions that he holds on legislation in Penning and Trenton that is they deem anti-immigrant legislation or his opposition of pro-immigrant legislation you know they'd like to see him leave.

Now Senator Bucco said he there's he has absolutely no conflict of interest in this issue and he said that he has done everything in his power to give the best advice to the council.

The mayor agreed with that he said he's very satisfied with the suggestions that that the senator has made well Township attorney in that case has made but ultimately he said that he thinks that this is going to wind up with with a lawsuit so do you will the Township file a lawsuit will this be led by the state do you have any clarity there that's a good question so Township officials have met with officials from the Attorney General's office and they've been you know kind of collaborating and trying to figure out what to do next.

One of the things that was holding it up was that they had not at least as of Tuesday night seen the deed to the property and that was filed on Wednesday which proves now that DHS owns the property.

They paid more than $129 million for it which is more than twice its assessed value.

So now that there is someone to sue, we'll have to see how quickly something develops there.

Yeah, and Dauphin Industrial, I believe, right, is the company that owned that warehouse.

Larry, while this was happening in Roxbury, President Trump was giving his State of the Union address, one of our representatives, Congressman Frank Pallone, brought a guest with him.

It's customary for congressional representatives to bring a guest of honor.

Who did he bring and what did that person represent?

Well, he brought a laid-off gateway worker, specifically a laborer who's represented by one of the largest labor unions that's on the job.

And basically this person was representative of a thousand workers who were laid off on February 6th when the Gateway Project officially ran out of money.

The issue he wanted to illustrate was the impact that this had on real working families.

Where's my next paycheck coming from?

How am I going to pay the rent?

How am I going to make my bills?

And the other worry that there would be a brain drain because a lot of these specialized workers would look for work on the next project.

Now, the good news was that Gateway Development Corporation said that work was resuming this week and in fact work has started to resume with some workers clearing off snow from the work sites.

But it kind of brings up a bigger problem as far as what happens with future federal funding to keep that project going.

Yeah, you took the question out of my mouth because the Gateway Development Commission had said this week they won't be entering into any new contracts until they have confirmation that all of the $15 billion left, the remaining funding, is available.

Of course, that is money that would trickle out.

When they say available, I think they mean confirmed.

But what can you tell us about what those next contracts would need to be?

And without those contracts being entered into, does that slow the work, the pace, the budget for the project?

Well, and that's the interesting thing is the next contracts to be led are probably two of the biggest ones.

The contract to build the actual tunnel under the Hudson River and another contract that would build a second set of tracks through the Jersey Meadows to create a four-track railroad and eliminate a bottleneck.

Now the thing is they were hoping to award those contracts this year so of course the problem is it's going to set the project back and when it sets the project back that can basically mean that the project will cost more money as far as inflation and the cost of materials and the contracts that the states and Gateway Development and Amtrak signed with the Federal Transit Administration are very specific.

If there are cost overruns, it's up to the two states to bear the cost of those.

So obviously, part of the reason why the states have brought a lawsuit, right, against the administration.

Yes, the two states were the first, along with Gateway Development, to bring lawsuits.

And the state sued basically were the ones that said, "We want a temporary restraining order restoring the owed funding," and those funds have been repaid.

But the question is, the funds that were approved in 2024 and allocated by Congress, what happens to those?

Yeah, big question.

We'll stay on it.

Dustin, we had the chance to speak with Congressman Rob Menendez, who was also at the State of the Union.

He talked to us about a number of things, including his opposition to the Roxbury facility.

Something, by the way, that folks in that town have called on their representative, Congressman Tom Kane Jr., to fight back.

We haven't heard much from him.

But Congressman Menendez is calling for divestment from a company called Palantir.

I know you and your team have covered some other calls previous calls for divestment from the GEO group which operates out of Delaney Hall.

These calls for divestment.

They're from New Jersey's pension fund.

Are these really more symbolic calls or are they impactful.

I think they're more symbolic than anything.

The amount of money in a lot of these cases is not a whole lot when you in as it relates to the broader pension fund.

But we see this crop up every couple of years, it seems like it happened with GEO Group under Governor Murphy.

It also happened with Ben and Jerry's, the ice cream maker.

We're seeing it now with Palantir.

And it presents sort of an interesting study on like what the state's prevailing responsibility should be.

take moral stances or is on investment?

Um So yeah terms of dollars and cent more of a symbolic thing Have we seen the state cha in the past when these ca off?

Well, we saw as we r week that the state did d years ago, but then reinv these aren't long term la they are.

And that just g Yeah, maybe these are mor if if we're going to quiet years later.

Yeah.

Um, ta finances.

Governor Sheryl Haldepress conference on Thursday and painted a pretty dire picture of the state's economic reality.

Colleen, how bad is this fiscal reality that she laid out for us as she gets ready for her first budget address, which will be on March 10th?

Well, what she said was that if nothing else changes within a little more than two years, the state will be in a deficit situation, which is not something that we are allowed to do because the Constitution requires us to have a balanced budget.

Essentially, the state, in order to meet its obligations, would need, without making any changes, would need to dip into surplus by $3 to $4 billion.

So we know how big the structural deficit is now.

We've heard different numbers over time from the Democrats, from the Republicans.

Certainly she's painting a dire picture.

You know, we've got federal cuts coming in programs like Medicaid and SNAP.

You've got this much more expensive stay-on-J program that people seem to be liking, at least I've heard that around my neighborhood, you know, for senior citizens.

We've got high pension payments again that just have to continue because we have to make up for years and years of not investing in that system, increases in state aid.

It just, you know, the list doesn't end.

So she asked, she's asked her departments and agencies to give her suggestions for where some cuts could be made.

She doesn't want to raise taxes, she said, but she really was not very specific in terms of what might happen.

Everybody's going to tune in on March 10th, which is the date of the budget address, to hear what the actual plan is.

Yeah.

And she did lay out $3 billion structural deficit and said that our $7 billion surplus would be wiped out in the next two years if nothing changes.

I think everyone can imagine that cuts are coming.

So of course, we're going to watch to see how that plays out.

But Larry, she did also promise that she would not use one, you know, one shot gimmicks.

We've heard this time and time again.

Governors promised that they're going to balance the budget and not use one offs.

But you raise concerns about the corporate transit fee and how we fund N.J.

transit.

What are your concerns there when it comes to this kind of dire budget.

Well the concerns really come from experts that I've interviewed about what Governor Sherrill's priorities should be for NJ Transit and public transportation and they pretty much all agreed job one should be to dedicate the corporate transit fee to New Jersey Transit.

That basically was the fee that saved them from a fiscal cliff and saved commuters for the kind of cuts that we saw proposed by SEPTA.

SEPTA was looking at axing entire rail lines to save money on paying Amtrak rent to run those lines.

And the thing was four years ago, NJ Transit's budget projections showed a steadily increasing fiscal cliff.

So the corporate transit fee basically avoided that.

But because it's not dedicated to NJ Transit, it is a source of funds that could be diverted to other places.

The other thing that experts are concerned about is the fact that in 2028, the corporate transit fee expires.

That's the last year of Governor Sherrill's term.

And they're calling for basically renewal of that and dedication to NJ Transit.

Now the interesting thing was Governor Sherrill's transition team for transportation and infrastructure name check the corporate transit fee as saving NJ Transit from the kind of draconian cuts other agencies have seen but their 20 recommendations did not list Renewing that that fun.

Yeah, that's interesting and and very often needs to be a voter approval to have to have funds Constitutionally dedicated otherwise it does tend to kind of get sucked up into that black hole Just a little bit of time left Dustin.

There was a package of immigration bills that were moving through the legislature they have since stopped.

Are they stalled?

What's happening there?

What can you tell us?

Yeah, I don't think that they're going to go away.

There is a faction of Democrats in the legislature who really want to see some action on this.

As we know, Governor Murphy pocket vetoed a couple of those on his way out the door.

Governor Sherrill has expressed approval of some of those measures.

It really is going to come down to the way the language is crafted in the legislation.

That could be really the determining factor of whether it gets her signature or not.

But with everything happening, whether it's in Roxbury or what we've seen in Minnesota and elsewhere, immigration is one of the frontline issues for folks and I don't think it's going to be going, those measures will not be going anywhere.

Colleen, I hate to ask you a big question with a little bit of time, but there was a Mercer County Democratic Convention this week.

We saw a shift maybe in the dynamics there in Congressional District 12, the race to replace Bonnie Watson-Coleman.

What can you tell us?

Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson cleaned up.

She won on the first round, 140 votes.

That's great for her.

She beat Sue Altman, came in second, and she beat her by a mile.

But we saw in the... Well, two things quickly, I know.

Middlesex County has more Democrats than Mercer.

This is still significant.

But number two is that we saw in the CD11 special primary that the Essex County line didn't help Brendan Gill at all.

He came in third.

So the county line is less important than it was in the past.

So you still see the race as wide open?

Certainly.

I mean, I think it gives her an edge in Mercer, but yeah, I mean, it's still wide open.

Lots of candidates, lots of time for people to drop out.

So we'll see what happens.

- Unfortunately, we have to drop out now, but Colleen, Larry, Dustin, thank you all so much for being with us today.

Great conversation.

You can follow me on Instagram @joannagaggis and Jay, 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 Gaggis.

Thanks for being with us, and have a great weekend.

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