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Essex County Politics · June 07, 2022 3:32 AM
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JOHN REITMEYER, BUDGET/FINANCE WRITER | JUNE 7, 2022
NJ Spotlight News

Proposed changes to "senior freeze" could mean good news for New Jersey's senior and disabled homeowners.
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A state-funded property-tax relief program cherished by thousands of New Jersey seniors may soon get a legislative fix to keep more people enrolled as property tax bills continue to rise across the state.
A measure that easily cleared key committees in both houses of the Legislature would revise the state’s popular “senior freeze” property-tax relief program to make sure those enrolled can remain eligible for benefits even if they move into a new home.
The senior-freeze proposal is advancing at a time when lawmakers from both parties have moved concerns about affordability and the state’s high cost of housing up to the top of the legislative agenda.
It is also follows a series of policy changes in recent years to modernize state property-tax relief programs that have, in many cases, been on the books for several decades.
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Posted by
Essex County Politics · June 06, 2022 2:14 AM
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LILO H. STAINTON, HEALTH CARE WRITER | JUNE 6, 2022
NJ Spotlight News

Communities in New Jersey and nationwide are again focusing on the need to protect students, avert violence and help kids and families heal from the trauma of incidents like the recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas.
New Jersey — which has among the nation’s strongest gun laws — had already taken steps to beef up school security, identify students who may pose a threat and ensure districts provide comprehensive mental health services. The state also created a $1 million grant fund to help schools develop depression-screening programs, starting this fall.
“We’ve always had children that experienced mental health issues, but not at the level and frequency that’s going on now. We have to treat it like we treat reading,” said Millville schools superintendent Tony Trongone, pointing to strategies such as intervention, ongoing support and parental engagement.
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Posted by
Essex County Politics · June 03, 2022 2:56 AM
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JOHN MOONEY, EDUCATION WRITER | JUNE 3, 2022
NJ Spotlight News

May 25, 2022: Esmeralda Bravo, center, holds a photo of her granddaughter, Nevaeh, one of the Robb Elementary School shooting victims, as she is comforted by Nevaeh's cousin, Anayeli, during a prayer vigil in Uvalde, Texas.
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Dating back at least five years, the state’s training for New Jersey school and law enforcement officials comes with a clinical name and lots of detail on processes and procedures that belie its tragic topic.
But the latest online session of the “School Behavioral Threat Assessment & Management” certainly took on a greater urgency — and interest — than usual on Thursday, as experts and educators spent the day discussing strategies to address troubled students who could turn violent against others or themselves.
The session comes in the aftermath of the Texas school shooting last week, where the 18-year-old gunman was somehow missed by such safeguards in his school, leading to the mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School and the deaths of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers.
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Posted by
Essex County Politics · June 01, 2022 3:15 AM
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TOM JOHNSON, ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT WRITER | JUNE 1, 2022
NJ Spotlight News

Incinerators are one of the uses that would come under enhanced DEP permitting scrutiny.
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For the first time, state environmental regulators would be required when making permitting decisions to consider the cumulative impact of new facilities such as power plants on pollution levels in already overburdened communities.
That requirement is spelled out in a new rule proposed by the Department of Environmental Protection to protect communities that already have high levels of pollution from new projects that would increase public exposure to contaminants.
NJ Spotlight News obtained a copy of the draft 153-page rule, which is set to be published Monday in the New Jersey Register. A series of public hearings will follow on the new regulations before they are officially adopted.
The rule would implement a nearly two-year-old law that aims to end the long-standing practice of siting power plants, incinerators and other unwanted facilities in low-income communities — typically with mostly Black and minority populations. The so-called environmental justice law, touted as the nation’s strongest, was signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in September 2020.
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