Rep. Josh Gottheimer has requested the federal government review conditions at the facility formerly known as Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation II in Sussex County that he characterized as “jaw-dropping.” The nursing home is back in the spotlight with a new name—Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center—but this time for having the highest number of long-term care COVID patient cases in New Jersey. “This was the worst facility in the state of New Jersey two years ago. How are they allowed to continue to operate after we know their failures?” said Gottheimer. The facility made headlines in April 2020 when an anonymous tip led police to discover the bodies of 17 residents who had died of coronavirus stuffed inside a makeshift morgue. North-JerseyNews.com
Citing the lack of support among legislators from both parties on the 90 day extension of remaining emergency COVID-19 powers and orders, the state Senate and Assembly began advancing a resolution that agrees only to grant Gov. Phil Murphy a 45-day extension on orders, waivers, and directives that loosen guidelines for hospitals so they can more easily deal with a deluge of patients. The resolution does not extend key pieces of Murphy’s request — including the authority to install federal health guidelines, such as masks in schools, and overseeing vaccinations and testing. NJ.com
The New Jersey Education Association has come out against taking masks off with the recent surge in cases due to the Omicron variant, calling such a move “educational malpractice.” As lawmakers consider removing the mandate, the teacher’s union release a statement that said “We are appalled at the idea that any member of the New Jersey Legislature would fail to support an extension of the mask mandate in our public schools that has helped protect students and staff during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.” News12 New Jersey
All members and staffers of the New Jersey Assembly will now be required to show a recent negative COVID-19 test result, regardless of their vaccination status, to attend the final two days of the current legislative session. The move comes after a group of Republican members of the Democratic-controlled Assembly upended and prolonged two voting days last month with dramatic protests of the Statehouse’s vaccine policy, which requires all people to present either proof of vaccination or a recent negative test to enter the building. The new plan is an apparent attempt to avoid another GOP showdown as lawmakers gather to end the state’s two-year legislative session. NJ1015.com
Assembly Speaker Craig J. Coughlin (D-19) has tested positive for COVID-19, following the results of a test taken to comply with the update to the Assembly’s health and safety policy. “I am experiencing very mild cold-like symptoms, but feel fine and am in good spirits,” said Coughlin. “It is for this exact reason, with the goal of protecting the health and safety of my fellow members, invited guests, and all involved in our proceedings, that the update to our policy was made last week. Out of an abundance of caution I will be self-isolating and participating virtually in Monday’s voting session and Tuesday’s reorganization.” InsiderNJ
New Jersey is calling in the National Guard again for nursing homes around the state that are facing staffing issues caused by the latest surge of COVID-19 cases. Gov. Phil Murphy announced Jan. 6 that the New Jersey National Guard will be deploying to long-term care facilities throughout the Garden State to assist with COVID-19 response efforts and to augment facilities’ staffing. The state will be assigned approximately 150 guard members starting Jan. 10 at more than a dozen long-term care facilities around the state. “This deployment will send members of our National Guard to long-term care facilities with staffing needs and will act to protect the health and safety of long-term-care residents while the Omicron variant surges throughout the nation,” said Murphy. North-JerseyNews.com
New Jersey on Jan. 9 reported another 12 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 26,615 confirmed positive cases, the 12th straight day with at least 20,000 new cases as the rate of transmission in the latest surge dropped slightly for the second day in a row. New Jersey’s statewide transmission rate was 1.55 Sunday, down from 1.61 on Saturday. There were 5,747 patients across New Jersey’s 70 of 71 hospitals with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, the most since April 30, 2020. NJ.com
No-cost COVID-19 testing at the County College of Morris will resume Jan. 10 to meet the rising demand from local residents. All tests are by appointment only and must be scheduled through the Morris County COVID-19 information website. The county made the decision to bring back the CCM testing in consultation with health officials from Morristown Medical Center and Saint Clare’s Health, who noted that the move would help relieve pressure on front-line workers dealing with increased hospitalization rates. New Jersey Herald
Paterson is offering free COVID testing at 12 different locations this week to its 3,700 employees and 25,000 students as it decides whether to resume in-person learning. In preparation for the possible return to in-person learning, the board approved a resolution saying that Superintendent Eileen Shafer would decide who needs to be tested, whether testing would be mandatory, when the testing would be required and what the consequences would be for those who fail to get tested. Shafer said she would decide Jan. 12 whether to continue the current remote-learning program beyond its current end date of Jan. 18. The district has been using remote learning since the Winter break ended. The Record
OPINION: Why Isn’t Gov. Murphy Doing More to Help Cresskill? It’s approaching 1,700 days since students have been in a classroom full time in Cresskill. It is simply outrageous that Gov. Phil Murphy has not found time in his schedule to tour the damages and speak to local residents affected by Tropical Storm Ida like he has done countless times across the state during his tenure. For a politician who has no problem promoting that New Jersey has the best public school system in the nation, it would only seem right that he would meet with and move any mountain he could for Cresskill. His actions tell North Jersey residents their kids are not a priority on his agenda. North-JerseyNews.com
School districts in Hudson County are taking different approaches when it comes to returning back to school this week. With hundreds of teachers out with COVID-19 or quarantining, the Jersey City school district has delayed the return of students to in-person instruction for another week. In Bayonne, the district is letting the students decide whether they want to learn remotely or in person for the last few weeks of January. Union City, West New York, Kearny and Guttenberg will remain remote, while East Newark (with proof of a positive COVID-19 test), Harrison and the Hudson County Schools of Technology plan to have students in their classrooms Jan. 10. The Jersey Journal
There will be few strings attached to the $10.2 billion in federal funding New Jersey is getting under President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending bill. This time around, the final rule issued by the U.S. Treasury Department under Biden allows states and localities to use the federal dollars for programs and services designed to respond to the pandemic, replace tax revenues lost when officials shut down businesses to avoid spreading COVID-19, provide premium pay to essential workers or replace salaries lost to pay cuts or furloughs, expand high-speed internet, invest in water and sewer projects, and expand housing, childcare, schools and hospitals. The rules ban the money from being used to cut taxes, pay off debts, or shore up pension funds. NJ.com
While it was feared that the coronavirus pandemic threatened to ruin Americans’ finances, the opposite happened for many U.S. residents. Though initial shutdowns caused unemployment to surge to levels not seen since the Great Depression, trillions of dollars in government stimulus and the economy’s swift, if turbulent, recovery helped many families reach a new level of financial security. The first two rounds of stimulus payments lifted 11.7 million people out of poverty, according to the Census Bureau. Americans built up $2.7 trillion in extra savings. Some expect that, combined with rising wages, to provide them with lasting stability despite the return to more normal spending patterns and rising inflation. The Wall Street Journal
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is refusing to cooperate with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, joining a growing list of allies of former President Donald J. Trump who have adopted a hostile stance toward the panel’s questions. The committee informed Jordan last month by letter that its investigators wanted to question him about his communications related to the run-up to the Capitol riot. Those include Jordan’s messages with Trump and his legal team as well as others involved in planning rallies on Jan. 6 and congressional objections to certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Jordan—who in November 2021 told the Rules Committee that he had “nothing to hide” regarding the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation—denounced the bipartisan panel’s inquiry as among what he called the Democrats’ “partisan witch hunts.” The New York Times
Sen. Cory Booker marked the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection by pushing his colleagues to vote to protect voting rights in the coming days. Booker said that the Capitol riot by Donald Trump supporters, which included a Confederate flag, was part of a larger effort to stop Blacks and other minorities from voting and was concerned because Republican-controlled state legislatures, responding to Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen, have rolled back voting rights, such as limiting early balloting or making it illegal to offer food or water to someone waiting on line to vote. “There has never been a time in my life where I’ve been more worried about this democracy,” Booker said on the Senate floor, his voice breaking. “Why aren’t we talking about the fact that in states right now, laws are being passed specifically designed to disenfranchise people?” NJ.com
State lawmakers are readying final approval for an addition to the capitol complex in Trenton specifically for security screenings of visitors and employees seeking to enter the State House and other government buildings. The proposal to spend $8 million on what’s being called the “Capitol Complex Security Screening Building and Secure Courtyard Project” comes as work is still underway on a broader, $300 million renovation of the State House itself, which has portions that date to the late 1790s. NJ Spotlight News
Philip Carchman, the tiebreaking member of the New Jersey Legislative Apportionment Commission, laid out his standards for the state’s new legislative map that includes the expectation that districts adhere to a 5% population deviation. New Jersey allows for some population deviation in order to keep municipal boundaries intact—a requirement for all districts except those incorporating Jersey City and Newark, which are each larger than one legislative district. “Recognizing that it is virtually impossible for each district to be identical in population, the law permits a deviation of up to 5%, that is, 2.5% above and 2.5% below the required district size,” Carchman wrote. “Districts should be drawn to achieve that result.” New Jersey Globe
State Sen. Holly Schepisi (R-39), who has stalled the confirmation of New Jersey Supreme Court nominee Rachel Wainer Apter, suggested the nomination could advance in the coming legislative session. Schepisi said she is moving closer to signing off on Englewood resident Wainer Apter’s nomination after engaging in talks with the administration on maintaining the tradition of partisan balance on New Jersey’s high court. “I think we’re coming to, potentially, a resolution to some of the concerns that I’ve raised, and come the new session, there may be a pathway for us to get there,” she said, adding, “When we are putting forth candidates who very likely will sit on the court for upwards of three decades, it’s even more important to ensure that we have the appropriate ideological balance.” New Jersey Monitor
New Jersey residents could order wine deliveries from a much larger variety of wineries if new legislation is enacted. The legislation, which was moved forward from an Assembly panel, would rewrite current legislation that allows for only a small number of wineries to ship direct-to-consumer in the Garden State. Under current rules, wineries producing more than 250,000 gallons annually are restricted from shipping directly to New Jersey customers. The wineries in this category represented 95% of the market. North-JerseyNews.com
Ridgewood is delaying its efforts to move to school starting times to 8:30 a.m. for its middle and high school students. The largest school district in Bergen County with 5,705 students, officials tried to address the issue at two meetings last month, but decided the complicated change needed to be better explained to parents, and postponed a survey on the topic. “The Board of Education requested that we further educate the community about all aspects of this topic and continue to vet the preliminary survey questions,” Superintendent Thomas Gorman said in a Dec. 7 letter to parents. The Record
And finally…A pair of Olympic hopefuls are practicing at their home rink, Montclair State University’s Ice Arena. The Record
