Merla Apologizes!

Keyport Mayor John Merla apologized to residents at the March 1 Borough Council meeting.

I want to apologize to you for the recent media attack on me. It was not my intent to have our community plastered all over the news. I have no intention of resigning, and I have the full intention of fighting these allegations. I will continue to work hard for this community, as I have for 19 years. I want to thank all the friends and family who have supported me.

Well, isn't that special? Merla is apologizing on behalf the media for its recent "attack" on him. What attack? Does he mean the attack from Johnny Law? I've read just about every story on his, and the other Monmouth 11 14's arrests, and I've found that the "media" is simply reporting the fact that he and others were taped doing very unlawful things. Then he goes on to say that it "was not my intent to have our community plastered all over the news." Duh, that's why when he allegedly accepted an envelope full of cash ($9,000) he did it in a quiet restaurant. People don't intend on getting caught when they pull BS like this. They intend on getting richer and more powerful at the expense of their integrity and constituents.

And in another case of forgetting to cover your tracks (literally), Red Bank police arrested two men and charged them with robbery and assault after they store a man's backpack and ran to a local residence. How did Patrolman Steven "Sherlock Holmes" Adams solve the backpack mystery? He followed the idiots' footsteps in the snow.

"You say tom-A-to, I say tom-ah-to. You say fruit, the Legislature says vegetable. And lawmakers are making it official." Has anyone been following the saga of making the tomato New Jersey's official vegetable? Here's what Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club had to say:

New Jersey is losing farmland faster than any state in the nation. We see development paving over our farm-fields. Instead of taking on the real issues of protecting farmland and keeping farms viable, they pass silly resolutions that waste time and money.

Official State Breakfast - Taylor Ham, egg and cheese on a hard roll (of course!) and more "official state" things from DynamoBuzz.

I've added some more New Jersey blogs to the blogroll on your right. Try to check them out and stay informed on all the NJ buzz outside of our humble little town.

• Jerseystyle: politics/music/books/technology/rants
• Enlighten New Jersey: NJ politics
• Parkway Rest Stop: writing/music/news
• Mister Snitch: Hoboken/hilarity

Speaking of NJ buzz, NJ bloggers are all over a scandal brewing at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that while the university is adding more Ph.D's to its faculty, building new dormitories and increasing its endowment, it's bond rating has been lowered and faculty are raising questions about the school's fiscal management and President, Harold J. Raveché.

The timing of his growth plan has proved ironic. Soon after Mr. Raveché (pronounced Rav-a-shay) told faculty members about his goals last year, they were surprised to see Stevens's bonds downgraded first by one credit-rating agency and then by another. The faculty's standing committee on planning and resources, assigned to assess the viability of the growth plan, began to look into the downgrades instead.

Faculty members discovered that the institute was running operating deficits, even in years for which its own annual reports showed surpluses. And the endowment was declining, having lost almost $37-million from 2000 to 2003.

Enlighten New Jersey looks at the State ties to the school and points out that Raveché is one of the ten highest paid college presidents in the country(!). Even as one of the highest paid college presidents making $696,965, Jerseystyle notes that Raveché borrowed over $1 million from the school with little or no interest on the loan. Fausta at Bad Hair Blog is also on the case. Developing.