NBHA Hosts annual Family Day event
A brief downpour didn’t put a damper on the festivities as North Bergen Housing Authority hosted its annual Family Day celebration at Meadowview Village on Thursday.
The evening was filled with food, music, dancing, face painting, games, coloring, and a bounce house. The event was capped off with a free raffle contest, where five winners were presented with gift cards to Target.
Children created posters with the theme “What Home Means to Me,” that will be submitted to the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officers. The winning posters will be named later this year, and published in a NAHRO calendar.
“This is a tradition held every year at the end of June,” NBHA Executive Director Gerald Sanzari said. “It is part of Housing America’s initiative to recognize low-income families, single moms, and to encourage dads to be more involved with their children.”
Library announces Summer Programs/One Book North Bergen
The North Bergen Free Public Library’s Summer Programming for the Main Library, the Kennedy Branch, and the Guttenberg Resource Center will open its registration from Monday, June 24, until July 13.
To register for children or adult programming, proof of age and residency is required. Registration is limited. For more information contact the North Bergen Public Library at 201-869-4715.
Each branch of the library offers unique sets of children and adult programming, which will be made available online at nbpl.org.
The library also announced the One Book North Bergen program, sponsored by the library in conjunction with the Board of Education. It is a town-wide reading initiative where residents of various age groups can come together to read the same book. There are six titles for each reading level:
Pre-school: “How to Catch a Star”
K-2: “Interstellar Cinderella”
3-5: “Sanity and Tallulah”
6-8: “A Wrinkle in Time”
9-12: “The Sun is Also a Star”
Adults: “Hidden Figures”
To register for One Book North Bergen, visit nbpl.org. For more information, visit nbpl.org, email onebook@nbpl.org, or see a librarian.
DEP: Power plant application ‘on hold’ due to technology changes
While Department of Environmental Protection documents confirm that the application for North Bergen Liberty Generating’s Clean Air Act permit has not been withdrawn by the NBLG, the company is resubmitting an amended application.
The DEP’s allotted time limit by which a Clean Air Act application must be prepared has been temporarily suspended.
After questions were raised on the status of the application, the DEP issued a progress report on June 17, listing NBLG’s application clock as “stopped due to deficiency.” Without going into detail about what that label signified, DEP spokesman David Pepe said that changes need to be made.
“The applicant for this project has advised the DEP that it is considering making changes in technology for the plant and has indicated it will submit a new air permit application,” Pepe said. “The DEP has suspended its review of the existing application and will adjust its review process accordingly when a new application is received.”
NBLG spokesman Brian Hague said that the company remains in constant contact with DEP officials, and the work being done to secure all permits is moving ahead at full speed, and the DEP report doesn’t signify any hiccups in the process.
The network of environmental groups protesting the project, along with several similar fossil fuel projects throughout the state, remain skeptical toward the idea that the report isn’t sign of a delay, in spite of what was said by those speaking on behalf of the company.
Guttenberg Arts unveils latest exhibition
The Guttenberg Arts Gallery opened its latest exhibition, “Untrashed” by Rie Hasegawa. The exhibit will be on view until July 21.
The works included in Untrashed feature a mix of hand-pulled prints and drawings that illuminate the mounting world trash crisis.
“In recent years I have focused my art on social, environmental, and political issues I feel the world needs to focus on,” Hasegawa said. “I am concerned for the well-being of animals/humans and resonate with their reactions to the chaos and struggles in this society. My message is simple – what goes around comes around.”
For 2020, Hasegawa has devoted her artistic practice to all forms of printmaking, and has received many awards and fellowships, including the Purchase “Parkside National Small Print Exhibition” award in 2008. Hasegawa is particular about hand-drawn or hand-pulled outputs rather than digital media.
Hasegawa’s work can be found in the collections of Yale University Art Gallery, New York Public Library, J. Japane Voorhies Zimmerli Art Museum, and in other private and public collections. She has also been featured in international newspapers and other publications. She has collaborated with over 60 artists, and works as a master printmaker. She has taught various printmaking classes at Manhattan Graphic Center, New York Academy of Art, and the education center at MoMA.
Guttenberg Art Gallery is free and open to the public by appointment. For more information, visit guttenbergarts.org/exhibitions or contact matt@guttenbergarts.org.
Kids ride free on all NY Waterway Ferries through summer
Kids under the age of 12 will ride free on all NY Waterway ferries through the summer, starting July 5 and ending on Sept. 2.
On weekdays and weekends, ferries travel to the West 39th Street Ferry Terminal in Midtown Manhattan from, Weehawken, Hoboken, and Jersey City, terminals. Services also go to the Brookfield Place/Battery Park City and to the Pier 11/Wall Street terminals in lower Manhattan from Hudson County locations on weekdays.
NY Waterway also offers several discount packages for various Broadway shows, museums, attractions, and tours through the “Your Key to the City” promotion.
For more information, visit nywaterway.com/kidsridefree, or call 1-800-53-FERRY (1-800-533-3779).
Bill to ease transition from disability to work now law
Legislation sponsored by Assembly Democrats Shavonda Sumter, Raj Mukherji, Eliana Pintor Marin, and Benjie Wimberly to establish a partial return to work program for residents receiving temporary disability insurance was signed into law on June 17.
Prior to the law, workers were only provided benefits during the time they were completely unable to work due to a disability. The law permits paying temporary disability insurance benefits to workers who are able to return to work on a part-time basis while recovering from a disability, if they’ve been receiving full disability benefits for a week or more.
Employers are not required under law to permit a worker to return to work on a reduced basis, in which case, the employee would remain eligible for benefits until they’re recovered and able to work full-time.
“The law’s intent is to allow workers to transition back to work by initially working on a part-time basis, and to provide cost savings by reducing benefit costs during those transitions,” Mukherji said. “A similar program was implemented in Rhode Island in 2007 and has been reported to have seen savings every year in operation.”
Trump’s EPA kills Obama’s Clean Power Plan, signs off on replacement
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler has finalized the end of former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
The Clean Power Plan required states to meet incremental targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and aimed to reduce the nation’s power generating emissions 32 percent below 2005 levels, by 2030.
The agency replaced the Clean Power Plan with the the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which was preceded by President Trump’s Executive Order (13873).
The EPA’s new ACE rule rolls back Obama-era guidelines significantly. The rule would require states to lower greenhouse gas emissions between 0.7 percent and 1.5 percent by 2030.
The benchmark method of the new policy is “heat rate improvement.” Power plants generating fossil fuel will be pushed to draw energy more efficiently from the same quantities of fuel they currently consume.
This method would make fossil fuels a more cost effective means of generation, but wouldn’t tangibly enforce a reduction in fossil fuel, or coal consumption, at the federal level.
The Trump administration argued that the Obama plan was an overreach, and that the Obama administration didn’t have the authority to enact the Clean Power Plan under the federal Clean Air Act. They used an economic cost-benefit analysis in order to justify ACE’s legal adherence to the Clean Air Act, in spite of the major rollbacks to emissions standards the new policy entails.
Trump has been outspoken since he began campaigning about supporting the coal industry. New Jersey’s DEP Commissioner, Catherine R. McCabe, expressed her disdain with the new policy:
“The Trump Administration’s so-called Affordable Clean Energy rule is a betrayal of America’s future generations. By encouraging more coal-fired power generation, this federal action flies in the face of the scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels is causing climate change and harming the health of our people. Instead of facing up to the urgent challenge of reducing carbon emissions, as New Jersey and many other states are doing, the Trump Administration is taking us backwards.”
