Hundreds of people assembled in front of City Hall this afternoon to protest an upsurge in violence against Asian Americans across the country. Organized by a coalition of immigrant rights and community activists, along with business and civic leaders, the rally took place amidst rising anxiety in the Asian American community following a series of highly publicized attacks.
A young Asian American man in his twenties named Randy shared one experience. “About a year ago, we were walking in the Newport area and there was a gentleman who yelled at us to go back to China and that we didn’t belong here. It happened in Boston as well.”
Said Ria Serrano, Executive Director of the Pan American Concerned Citizens Action League, “We want to make sure that we stand united. We want to make sure that our seniors feel they belong in our neighborhood.”
Vernon Richardson speaking on mayor Fulop’s behalf, recalled the how the late Michael Yun told him that “you can anticipate a rise in anti-Asian violence” as a result of Covid-19.
Richardson was interrupted by a woman in the audience who asked where the mayor was. “Where is he [Fulop]? He’s the mayor of this city and I’m a native of this city. I’m an Asian American woman. Where is my mayor that I actually voted for?” Cheers and clapping arose from the crowd.
Assemblyman Raj Mukherji spoke of America’s long excluding Asians. “For the last four years we had a commander in chief who fanned the flames of hate. Hate becomes normalized. It comes out of the shadows.”
If there was a headliner, it was New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Singh Grewal, himself a Sikh-American, who recalled the fear experienced by Asian-Americans in the wake of the “Dotbusters” attacks on Indian Hindus in Jersey City in the fall of 1987. “We will use all the tools we have as a law enforcement agency…to root out this problem.”
Local activists Harveer Singh, and Ruth Arroyo elicited boisterous responses from the multi-ethnic crowd in a call and response. “Show me what a community looks like” they shouted. “This is what a community looks like,” the crowd retorted.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Transportation Alternatives, the safe streets and transportation advocacy group, announced yesterday that they will be offering low-cost, secure bicycle parking at the Port Authority Bus Terminal starting April 19 and running through June 18.
The pilot program will provide bicycle storage to bus commuters, delivery workers and local residents who are in search of a safe spot to park bicycles as part of their last-mile commute, delivery work or recreational use.
“The Port Authority is pleased to provide a sustainable commute and peace of mind for cyclists and bus terminal users seeking to have their bikes secured when not in use,” said Diannae Ehler, the director of the Port Authority’s Tunnels, Bridges and Terminals department. “The agency continues to advocate for increased travel options and a better customer experience at all of its facilities.”
“New York City has a severe lack of secure bike parking, and we’re stepping up to address this by piloting a solution in the heart of Midtown Manhattan,” said Danny Harris, executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “Right now, cycling is more popular than ever, and this pilot will be even more critical as commuters begin returning to the office. We thank our partners Green Mountain Energy, Oonee, and the Port Authority for coming together with an innovative solution that will serve our city — especially essential working cyclists — during this ongoing bike boom.”
“Our mission is to bring a comprehensive secure bike parking system to the residents of New York and New Jersey, and this pilot program from Transportation Alternatives and the Port Authority Bus Terminal is a major step forward and we’re delighted to play a role, especially one that supports essential workers,” said Oonee CEO and founder Shabazz Stuart. “We’re looking forward to working with Transportation Alternatives and other city and state agencies across the region to deliver additional secure bike parking facilities.”
Transportation Alternatives will operate the bike parking service as a two-month long pilot program with support from the Port Authority, which is providing the secure storage space and a kiosk space free of charge to the advocacy group. For a $3 daily fee or $30 monthly fee, cyclists will be able to store their bikes in a secure location within the Midtown bus terminal.
Users will have unlimited access during morning (6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.) and afternoon (3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.) peak travel hours through the work week when check-in/check-out service is provided by Transportation Alternatives staff. Users will also receive a free gift of a bicycle light from the organization.
Fees from the service and a sponsorship from Green Mountain Energy will provide funding for the program’s Transportation Alternatives staff. Delivery workers will have free access to the parking service thanks to a sponsorship from Oonee. An estimated 80,000commercial cyclists work in New York City, many of whom are low-income, immigrants, and people of color.
Last week, an article in NJ.com informed the public of 18 Jersey City police and fire dispatchers taken ill by COVID19, with one in hospital. It is our understanding that one employee has passed away. This is a concern for various reasons including the response time in answering 911 calls for dispatching public safety personnel, and the health of municipal employees.
While it may be the case that dispatchers must work on site due to the type of phone and computer systems necessary to perform their duties, those requirements are not the same for all municipal employees such as those that work in administrative functions.
In January, Jersey City municipal employees were notified by HR that they were no longer required to take COVID testing every 30 days. This change of policy came at a time when the number of positive COVID tests were increased and on an upward trajectory according to the Jersey City Tableau chart for COVID-19 cases.
According to the Tableau, the number of positive cases in March 2021 fall within the same range as spring 2020 and are nowhere near the low numbers we saw during the summer of 2020. The NY Times Covid tracker classifies Hudson County at an “Extremely High Risk” of exposure to Covid19 with only 14% fully vaccinated as of April 6th.
In the interest of the public, CivicJC would like to see the following information made available:
-What is the contingency plan for emergency dispatch in the case of reduced number of dispatchers or in the event that all dispatchers are out
-Copy of the uniform practice of informing employees when someone tests positive in the same building
-Schedules of building sanitation and vent cleaning including the protocols that are followed
-The number of employees that tested positive for Covid (including dates and work location)
-Will Council members, Planning and Zoning Board members, and Municipal Court meet with each other in person for meetings
Tuesday’s announcement to mandate employees back to the office in full force does not seem to follow a logical safe practice for a return to office given the current high positive rate and the non-requirement of Covid testing for employees.
While we recognize that not all employees can perform their duties from home, where it is possible employees should continue on a work from home with a rotating schedule for onsite work to keep contact and possible transmission to a minimum.
We value the health and well being of our municipal employees and recognize that keeping distance helps to minimize transmission of the virus which is in their best interest and the best interest for the public as well in reducing COVID19 transmission numbers.
Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez has announced that an undetermined amount of cash held for safekeeping has gone missing. The cash was reportedly held for “temporary storage in locked safes” and was seized from crime scenes.
In response, Suarez has ordered an “immediate” internal affairs investigation to be conducted by the office’s Public Integrity Unit, Internal Affairs Section.
According to a press release, Suarez has notified the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General of the investigation. Suarez has ordered a full audit of other cases and a review of the procedures for the safe keeping of cash and property.
The press release describes the investigation as being “in its very early stages” and goes on to say that “it has not been determined yet if this was limited to one or more of the investigative staff.”
Said Suarez, “This is a sheer betrayal and disgrace of the sacred oaths taken by those who wear a badge and were involved in these appalling acts. What compounds this even more is the fact that members of the Prosecutor’s Office are held to an even higher standard when it comes to integrity and trust. Every angle will be examined and we are confident that we will find who was responsible for this and hold them accountable under the law.”
The announcement comes at a sensitive time for Suarez who, according to reports, is being considered to fill the post of United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. U.S. Senator Bob Menendez is reportedly championing Suarez for the job.
In the last week, Star Ledger columnist Tom Moran alleged that Suarez’s office and blogger and former Bridgegate conspirator David Wildstein, joined up to smear him following articles that questioned Suarez’s fitness for the U.S. attorney position.
On December 3, Mayor Steven Fulop, local officials, and representatives of environmental groups gathered on a windswept field underneath the Pulaski Skyway to announce the construction of Skyway Park, a thirty-two acre park along the Hackensack River on the former site of the notorious PJP Landfill. Standing quietly among the assembled audience was Mario Verdibello.
Thirty-five years earlier as a young engineer Verdibello had masterminded the cleanup of the chemically contaminated site. Now a new park would feature walking paths along the Hackensack River and a grove of 500 trees to commemorate Jersey City residents who died from Covid-19 but did not receive proper funerals due to safety protocols in place at the time.
Mario Verdibello
But back in 1985 when Verdibello went to work, the idea that the land would one day become a park would have been laughable. Since its closing, the PJP Landfill had literally been on fire, an apocalyptic hellscape belching toxic gas across Route 1 and 9 into the nearby Marion neighborhood. Indeed, the federal government had declared it a Superfund site. Putting the fires out and removing the thousands of barrels of toxic waste would fall to Verdibello and his crew.
I thought it would be interesting to sit down with Verdibello and hear how he got it done.
Verdibello tells the story of the PJP cleanup with the enthusiasm of a proud father. And like any good parent, he has multiple photo albums of his baby. I’ve included some of the images here.
JCT: I understand that you that you got involved with the PJP landfill early on. Can you just talk a little bit about when you first realized it was a problem and something that you needed to get involved with?
Verdibello: It was 1984, and my boss told me that he had a new assignment for me. ‘We’ve got this big job in Jersey City,’ he said. I said, ‘Jersey City, wait a minute! I live in Jersey City. What are you talking about?’ He says, ‘There’s an environmental project at the bottom of Duncan Avenue.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, I live at 47 Duncan Avenue. What the hell are you talking about?
Aerial photo of PJP Landfill before the cleanup
We were having this conversation on the 90th floor of Two World Trade Center. He says, ‘Let’s go to the window, I’ll show it to you.’ So we go to a window, and he says, ‘You see that smoke over there?’ I said, ‘Oh, my God, you’ve got to be kidding me. My wife and I and a bunch of my neighbors have been demonstrating against that problem for something to be done for years.’
And he says, ‘Well, guess what, it’s your job. You’ve got to fix it.’ So, that was my introduction to PJP.
[Verdibello submitted his plan to clean up the site and waited for his boss’s response.]
At the beginning of April, 1985, [my boss] walks into my office with a big smile. And he says guess what? Everybody agrees that your recommended way to go is the best way. My recommended way was to excavate the whole thing. Wet it down with a special wetting agent to kill the deep fires that existed there for decades and then re-compact the whole thing; take away some bad stuff if we found it while we were doing the excavation and then cap the whole thing.
JCT: During the time that this landfill was on fire from the seventies, were you aware of people in and around it getting sick?
Verdibello: Oh, yeah. That’s exactly what drew the attention because this partial combustion gives off carbon monoxide. In fact, it was so bad that many times the traffic on the Pulaski Skyway had to be stopped during rush hour. And that’s why we had demonstrations — myself and my wife included — because when the wind shifted especially in summertime sleeping with your windows open, all of a sudden you’d wake up with your bedroom smelling of smoke like there was a fire around. We had to close the windows in the middle of the summer because this smoke was horrendous. It was very upsetting. So, when we started hearing the word ‘demonstrations,’ we participated.
There was also a big housing project right across from PJP, and those people had been living with those fumes for years, and they were having asthma problems and other respiratory issues.
Verdibello’s team taming the PJP Landfill
JCT: Do you know how many years this had been going on for?
Verdibello: You know, the fires apparently were burning since the seventies, but PJP had been a problem for years according to my father-in-law, who was at the time in his high seventies. He remembers going there as a kid, scratching around for unburned pieces of coal to bring home to his mother to burn. And he remembers that even then it was a mess.
JCT: That’s in the early 1900s.
Verdibello: Yeah, that’s when it started. But the real problem with the fires from what I understand dates back to the seventies.
JCT: Was your contract with the federal government?
Verdibello: No, the contract was with the NJ DEP [Department of Environmental Protection]. They took the responsibility to do something because PJP had been put on the Superfund list, but it was like 13 hundredth down the list. And they said, Jesus, you know, by the time the federal government gets around to remediating PJP, people in Jersey City will be dead from inhalation of this smoke that was coming out. And so, the state decided to actually take it upon themselves to do something in the interim.
And then it was our luck that there was this engineer at DEP by the name of Marwan Sadat who took the initiative to do something.
If it hadn’t been for Marwan, probably the DEP would have done nothing, and we would have waited for God knows how many more years for them to get around to it.
JCT: What was actually burning?
Heavy equipment under Pulaski Skyway
Verdibello: These were deep pyrolytic fires because PJP for years had been used for illegally dumping all sorts of substances. Some of these things started chemical fires down deep.
[Pyrolysis is the thermal decomposition of materials at elevated temperatures in an inert atmosphere.]
JCT: So, they were just spontaneously combusting these chemicals?
Verdibello: Yeah, it was spontaneous combustion, if you will. And now you have to appreciate that in order for me to write the specs, I had to really learn a little bit about this site. But I was not allowed to go on site. It was too risky not only because of the fires and the gas but the risk of craters opening up and swallowing you since the fires were burning underneath. So, I was not allowed to go anywhere near it.
So, we did two things: Number one, I flew over the site several times in a helicopter to see where it was smoking the most, where the hot spots were. And number two, we did what is called a thermographic study, which is a thing that is done during the night in the dark. And we did it with these special sensors from the Pulaski Skyway. I have movies of that, and it gives you goosebumps when you see it because you really see the smoldering hot spots. So, with my observation from a helicopter and the thermographic study, I was able to establish where the really bad areas were.
So, the first step was to really squash down the fires before we got to the excavation or re-compaction. And for that I hired this famous company from Texas called Boots and Coots. They were the ones that were called to put out oil well fires not only in Texas but in Saudi Arabia and all over the world. But I told them that at PJP it had to be done in a very controlled fashion to not only put out the fires and really wet the mass of stuff that we were excavating but also to squash the odors and dust.
Mayor Steven Fulop announcing the plan for Skyway Park
I got the green light to start preparing the engineering specifications so we could actually go out to contract with some subcontractors to do the actual remediation. The plan was to excavate the entire area, douse it with a wetting agent to kill the fires, and remove in the process anything we found that was highly objectionable like highly contaminated material, drums of material, etc., that I had been told by DEP that I may find once I started excavating. And then once we did all that we would re-compact the whole thing, the whole mass of soil and garbage, and then cap it with an impermeable cap, and leave it until such time as the EPA would get around to do the final remediation.
JCT: Do you know specifically what chemicals they were?
Verdibello: [Laughs] You name it, and we found it. When we actually started digging, we found all sorts of terrible stuff that had been dumped there: petrochemical residues, other chemical residues. We even found near the Broadway ramp, picric acid, which is actually an explosive. If you handle it roughly, it could explode. And that was only one of many, many things that we found in there. In fact, the Jersey City Fire Department tried many times to put out the fires by dousing the place with tons of water. And incredibly after a few days the fires would be back worse than before. They were scratching their heads trying to figure out what was going on over here.
What they didn’t realize is was that by hitting the surface of the landfill with these high-powered jets, they were stirring it up. They were thus allowing oxygen to get down to the deep fires. So, while the fire seemed to be squelched on the surface, only a few days later with the additional oxygen, the fires were back worse than ever. So, you knew something was wrong.
Former Jersey City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis conserved the land for Skyway Park and worked with Mayor Fulop to bring the plan to fruition
Parenthetically, since I lived in Jersey City, I had been breathing those fumes every time the wind changed direction.
JCT: What did you do with all of the chemicals and the drums?
Verdibello: This is another little side story. When I started writing the specification, DEP said to me, ‘Mario when you write this, include a little spec for removing the drums because you may find some drums with objectionable materials.’ So, for the purpose of engineering cost estimates, I’d assumed a thousand drums. And when they saw that they said, ‘Are you crazy? We told you a few drums.’ So, I said, ‘Listen guys, it’s only an engineering estimate. If it’s less, you’re ahead of the game, and it means we will spend less.’ Well, by the time we got through with the actual thing, I found over 5,000 drums that could actually be handled as drums and probably over 20,000 drums that could not be handled as drums because they were rusted and decayed.
JCT: Had, they just buried them?
Verdibello: Yeah, this was all illegal. So, we found at least 5,000 drums that were actually recognizable as drums. And those we picked up using a special drum handling machine. It was like a backhoe fitted with a grabber at the end instead of a bucket. And we grabbed those drums, and then we over-packed them in steel overpacks for safety. And then those drums were sent to licensed facilities. The other drums had deteriorated beyond human recognition. You could see parts of the drum the drum in the contaminated material, so we scooped up many thousands of cubic yards of those highly contaminated materials, and those were actually sent to a licensed facility.
JCT: You capped it with probably some kind of a plastic?
Verdibello: Well, the cap is a composite consisting of three layers. You have initial drainage layer. Then on top of that, you have a compacted and impermeable clay layer. And then on top of that, you have a layer of topsoil to establish and maintain a vegetative cover. The topsoil had to be at least six to eight inches. I think the clay layer was two feet, and there was a drainage layer under it. But the key element was the compacted and impermeable clay layer.
Bill Sheehan of Hackensack Riverkeeper which worked to conserve the land to become Skyway Park
JCT: How many years did the whole process take?
Verdibello: We started in October or early November 1985, and we finished the beginning of 1987, so about 18 months.
I remember the timing because I entered PJP in a contest for the outstanding environmental engineering achievement for 1987 sponsored by the Consulting Engineering Council of New Jersey, and we won.
When the federal government finally came around, they sent their own team to inspect. They found that what we had done was all that could have been done short of removing the whole million- and-a-half of cubic yards of soil there. So, they said that there was nothing else that they could do except continued monitoring.
JCT: Basically, you took that job off the federal government’s plate.
Verdibello: Essentially, yes. What we did as an interim remedial measure was above and beyond that scope. It was in fact as good a final measure as they would have done, so they didn’t do anything else.
JCT: By the way, you speak English like a college professor, but you have a slight accent, just a slight accent. Where were you born?
Verdibello: I was born in Italy. I came to the United States when I was 13 years old not speaking one word of English.
JCT: Did you come straight to Jersey City?
Rendering of the future Skyway Park
Verdibello: No, no. I lived in uptown Manhattan. I went to George Washington High School in Manhattan, and then I actually went to the City College of New York. This is where I got my degree in civil engineering.
JCT: Back in the day when City College was considered the Harvard of the poor?
Verdibello: Yeah, it was the called the Harvard of the proletariat. At that time City College was an incredible institution with one requirement: You had to have a 90 average from high school in order to be accepted. And you had to maintain a minimum of a C average to stay in. If you didn’t, you were expelled to make room for somebody who was more serious about studying than you were.
I married a girl who was born and probably will die in Jersey City. And so she dragged me to Jersey City at the time kicking and screaming, and now Jersey City is my town.
JCT: Fantastic. That’s such an amazing story.
Verdibello: That year-and-a-half was, you know, like the love of my life.
JCT: It’s your magnum opus as an environmental engineer?
Verdibello: Right. And it’s obviously very meaningful work. So, yeah. This was an incredible start of my environmental career, which lasts to this day.
Note: The final remedial work was done and an additional cap implemented in 2011 after the Healy Administration acquired the property. The site is expected to be officiallydelisted from the Superfund in the next year.
Governor Phil Murphy announced today that all individuals ages 16 and older will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccination on April 19 – two weeks ahead of the state’s initial target of May 1.
New Jersey’s phased vaccination rollout has administered 4.7 million doses of vaccine to essential frontline workers, educators, high-risk groups, and other eligible adults who live, work, or study in the state. According to the governor, with 1,796,798 adults already fully vaccinated, New Jersey is on track to meet his goal of fully vaccinating 4.7 million adults by June 30.
“Over the last several months, our Administration has worked closely with our communities and federal partners to ensure an efficient, accessible, and equitable vaccination program,” said Governor Murphy.“Together, we have administered 4.7 million doses of vaccine and opened more than 750 vaccination sites across the state, with 98.7 percent of all New Jerseyans living within five miles of where they can receive a vaccine. With an expected increase in vaccine allocation from the federal government, coupled with our extensive network of vaccination distribution sites, we can confidently expand our eligibility to all individuals ages 16 and older who live, work, or study in New Jersey on April 19.”
For more information about current eligibility, statewide vaccination site locations, and to preregister for a vaccination, visit https://covid19.nj.gov/vaccine.
For more information on current CDC criteria for eligibility, please click here.
Jersey City Board of Education trustees and city council members who met for a joint session on Wednesday are in agreement: to solve the public schools’ funding crisis, they must work together. City council members did not promise any specific amounts of funding at the session, but the two governing bodies planned to form subcommittees and reconvene for another meeting in May.
Conversation among the officials who met at the Hank Gallo Community Center in Lincoln Park was congenial, although due to WiFi problems that made the livestream unwatchable, members of the public could not view the meeting in real time.
The school board has passed a preliminary budget for the 2021-22 school year that includes an $85 million increase in the tax levy. The preliminary budget would raise school taxes on the average Jersey City home assessed at $461,925 by an additional $993 per year – or $83 per month – in school taxes, according to the district.
Superintendent of Schools Franklin Walker has said the budget will repair years of underfunding for the district of 30,000 students. School Board President Mussab Ali, who is a graduate of McNair Academic High School, put that in concrete terms at the session. “The students who are graduating this year, the class of 2021, from kindergarten to 12th grade, have never had fully funded Jersey City public schools,” Ali said.
Ali said the state of New Jersey has been cutting aid to the district based to some degree on Jersey City’s growth in ratables, which he said have risen from $20 billion to more than $40 billion. He also pointed out that the only 27% of the city’s revenue goes to the schools, while the state average is 53%.
“Jersey City, as a city, can afford to put more money in, but the question is how are we going to do it sustainably and in a way that doesn’t hurt homeowners,” said Ali.
The school board’s 2021-22 budget includes $86 million in payroll taxes from the city, even though the city has only certified $65 million of this owed amount.
Ward E Councilman James Solomon spoke about working together to come up with “additional revenue raisers,” such as cigarette taxes. “We don’t know what the future of the commercial waterfront is going to be that was supposed to fund a good portion of the payroll tax,” Solomon said.
In agreement Solomon’s ideas for local revenue sources was Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh.
“We as a council should be looking at recreational cannabis and passing that as soon as possible, sort of creating the framework for how we’re going to tax it,” he said.
Saleh, along with others on the board and council, said pressure needs to be put on state officials.
“This is an election year, so that is front and center in mind. You can’t come get votes from our area and then meanwhile hurt a district of majority Black and brown students,” said Saleh.
Councilman-at-Large Rolando Lavarro said there are only two ways to alleviate the taxpayer burden and adequately fund schools: “by either substantially reducing the city’s levy, so as to offset the increases on the school side, and/or having the city contribute revenues to the Jersey City Public Schools.”
Lavarro had proposed a meeting between the city council and school board during public comments at a recent Board of Education meeting. He is being mentioned as a potential challenger to Mayor Steven Fulop in this fall’s citywide elections.
Council President Joyce Watterman and Ali said the next step after the session is to form subcommittees, which will focus on legislative outreach, finances and operations. Watterman said “we can come back to the public as a unified body once the subcommittees know what they have to do.”
“If we all live here, I think we should all get along and put everything on the table,” Waterman said.
The preliminary 2021-22 school budget is currently awaiting approval from the county superintendent. The district’s budget calendar lists April 22 as a tentative date for a board meeting on budget adoption and April 24 as the earliest date for the next public budget hearing.
