Candidate for New Jersey General Assembly - District 17 in 2019 New Jersey Primary Election.
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Get StartedAt the time of this writing, New Jersey State Legislators are holding up the passage of the recreational Marijuana legislation proposed by Governor Murphy. Recreational Marijuana makes sense. It is less dangerous than alcohol, will provide the state with significant tax revenues to invest in social programs, funding pensions, and help us fuel the growth we need here in New Jersey. When supported by the right legal infrastructure to encourage safe use at home and deter use while operating vehicles of any sort, legal Marijuana is going to be a great thing for New Jersey. I fully support recreational Marijuana for home and personal use throughout the state. Learn more
Solutions to Improve School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) Short Term: Fully funding the SFRA formula to meet its adequacy targets. They are requiring districts to fully fund their local fair share if they fall below adequacy targets. Using a competitive wage growth index instead of a consumer price index. New Jersey can only maintain a high-quality teacher workforce if it offers competitive wages. Keeping those wages competitive requires tying them to the wage increases of other college-educated professionals. Medium Term: Replacing the current Geographic Cost Adjustment (GCA) factor (which is applied at the county level) with a similarly determined adjustment (Taylor’s ECWI) applied at the labor market level, to remove distortions along county lines within the same labor market. Returning special education funding to a system based on tiers of student need, with appropriately differentiated funding based on actual distributions of children with disabilities. This change should be combined with providing 100% of special education funding through the equalization formula. Long Term: Recalibrating funding targets and cost adjustments tied to current outcome goals. Using current data and applying more rigorous cost analysis methods, New Jersey should reexamine the levels of resources needed for schools and districts to efficiently achieve its current educational goals. Reconsidering the role of charter schools and how they affect public school funding. The state should direct funding to charter schools based on costs and needs while simultaneously assessing their fiscal impact on the efficiency of the entire system of public schools. Integrating pre-K funding into the SFRA model. Considering a statewide, SFRA-like formula for financing the state’s community college system. This would enable the provision of free, equitable and adequate two-year public college programs for all who wish to attend. Learn more
Construction of wind turbines along every mile of New Jersey’s coastline: New Jersey has the strategic advantage of having a coast, and it is entirely within our means to use that coast to our advantage. Coordinated investment in wind-powered energy is a resource we must use to prepare our state for the inevitable impacts of climate change. Learn more
I propose that New Jersey be the first state to adopt a fully networked green energy infrastructure. That means we retrofit every building with solar panels, network those buildings together, and use battery storage technologies* to store and distribute excess energy. In doing this we decentralize our power structures, making every building a power node. This increases New Jersey’s resilience against crisis, will dramatically reduce costs, and democratize our energy generation and distribution within the state. Learn more
No new fossil fuel projects According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), energy output for solar and wind is going to surpass fossil fuels by 2020. If we compare equal outputs of solar and wind versus fossil fuels the cost of the green energy will be cheaper. At their core green energy technologies are information technologies and info tech are growing exponentially. There is no future or hope for fossil fuels; they are quite literally going obsolete. I will reject all new fossil fuel projects in the state of New Jersey. Investing in fossil fuel infrastructure is the equivalent of spending money on a horse and buggy as your primary vehicle. Learn more
New Construction Mandates If elected I will propose legislation requiring all new development to have solar panels installed. It will be a precursor to any building permits residential, government, or commercial. Learn more
Develop a centralized, publicly owned Candidate & Issue Information Platform Estimating New Jersey’s present population at 9 Million people developing this solution would cost each resident about $0.06 per person. Maintaining and supporting the platform afterward would cost less than $0.01 per person per year. Allows any registered candidate to run their campaign for free Issue-based format that does not list party affiliations Provides New Jersey residents a more democratic process for resolving issues and determining our direction Develop legislation requiring all candidates running for local office to post campaign information online Creating an educational campaign and support structure to ensure that all New Jersey residents are familiar with and have access to the candidate information platform Introduce a Bill Supporting Rank Choice Voting[4] in New Jersey Fight for passage of the Anti-Corruption Act here in New Jersey: Create independent, fully transparent redistricting commissions that follow strict guidelines to ensure accurate representation for all voters, regardless of political party. Require all candidates for the same office to compete in a single, open primary controlled by voters, not the political establishment. This gives voters more control over our elections and more choices at the ballot. Ban paid lobbyists from making campaign donations of any kind. Stop lobbyists from bundling contributions from several donors into single donations. Stop elected representatives and senior staff from selling off their government power for high-paying lobbying jobs, prohibiting them from negotiating jobs while in office, and barring them from paid lobbying activity for seven years after they leave office. Prevents politicians from wasting taxpayer money by preventing fundraising during the workday. More robust transparency laws regulating political donations, advertisements, and the process in which these transactions are made public. Create laws to more rapidly resolve legislative impasse through direct democratic participation – let We The People ultimately decide. Making Election Day a protected state holiday. Alternatively, if you hate the idea of another day off, we could have elections on the weekends. Learn more
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