10 bizarre news stories of 2020 that could only happen in New Jersey – NorthJersey.com
There are news stories and then there are New Jersey news stories.
From gigantic malls to mobster plots to indicted, profane and just plain embarrassing politicians, here are the news stories from 2020 that we can’t forget because of their pure Jerseyness.
New Jersey has some competition for “Most Public Corruption” — looking at you, Louisiana — but there’s no state (in our humble opinion) with more public officials whose conduct makes you go, hmmm.
It’s hard to think of a more head-scratching action taken by an elected official this year than Hackensack school board member Frances Cogelja taking her laptop into the bathroom during a virtual board meeting … then not turning the camera off.
Cogelja, who had previously resisted calls to step down after she made anti-LGBT comments and again after she wouldn’t vote on an anti-racism board resolution, resigned the morning after she accidentally Zoomed her bathroom break.
All these years New Jerseyans thought nothing is worse than going to the agency formerly known as the DMV. Turns out, there is: going there during a pandemic.
When the state Motor Vehicle Commission reopened after a monthslong closure in July, drivers and would-be drivers were faced with lines that formed in the midnight hours, confusion over what could and could not be done online and problems caused by the agency’s aging computer systems.
Things were so bad, Sue Fulton, the MVC commissioner, told the press about a customer who said it took him five hours to get license plates on a weekday. Fulton meant this to be a success story.
Write-in votes are nothing new, and crazy write-in votes for presidents are not rare either, but there’s something uniquely New Jersey about one Burlington County voter’s choice for president in 2020: “Ur mom.”
Read more:Nixon, Rick Astley, ‘Ur mom’ — 13K NJ voters skipped Biden and Trump and wrote these in instead
New Jersey drivers love to complain about roadway tolls almost as much as New Jersey officials love to raise them.
The pandemic, which in its initial months emptied the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway of much of its normal traffic, did not stop the New Jersey Turnpike Authority from raising tolls on both highways by as much as 36% in May, on the same day the South Jersey Transportation Authority hiked tolls on the Atlantic City Expressway. One member of the public described the push to raise tolls during the pandemic as “Jersey depressing.”
Many of us struggled with virtual meetings this year (see Hackensack entry above). It was only a matter of time that one of New Jersey’s salty politicians — in this case, Assemblyman Tom Giblin, D-Essex — would accidentally drop an f-bomb during a May legislative hearing.
Was 2020 the worst year ever?:Historians take a look back
For subscribers:Here’s a full list of the North Jersey restaurants that have closed in 2020
We take our malls seriously in New Jersey. So seriously that one of our biggest, American Dream, is still not fully open even though construction on it began during George W. Bush’s first administration.
Once called Xanadu, also dubbed “by far the ugliest damn building in New Jersey, and maybe America” by former Gov. Chris Christie, the massive mall slash entertainment complex slash tourist destination finally opened last year … then shut down in March when Murphy ordered malls to close.
At the end of its first full year in alleged operation, more than half of its retail and food spaces are vacant, according to the New York Times.
Story continues below gallery.
Pay-for-hire assault? Check. At a mall? Check. Committed by a mobster? Check. Cameo by a “Real Housewives of New Jersey” cast member? Check. All for a cheap wedding at The Brownstone catering hall in Paterson? Check.
Sudhan Thomas, a former Jersey City school board president, gained notoriety in January 2020 when U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito charged him with embezzling funds from a federally funded nonprofit.
It’s not unusual for a New Jersey politician to be accused of crimes, but Thomas had just been charged a month before by state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal with accepting bribes in a different alleged scheme, making him potentially the only New Jersey official ever charged by two different law enforcement agencies with orchestrating two separate public corruption schemes simultaneously.
Then in November, Carpenito indicted Thomas and threw in a slew of additional charges. Who knows what 2021 will bring?
Surely real-estate types in other states dream up silly names to rebrand neighborhoods, but only in New Jersey does a roomful of paid professionals gather and decide to go with the name “The Sack,” otherwise known as downtown Hackensack. A billboard on Route 17 promotes the name in giant letters to unsuspecting and horrified motorists.
Satin Dolls, the club that doubled as the Bada Bing in “The Sopranos,” reopened in June after a monthslong shutdown … but only for outdoor dining. Sure, their star attractions were not allowed to perform because of coronavirus restrictions, but at least everyone could sample the strip joint’s famous chicken française.
Terrence T. McDonald is a reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: mcdonaldt@northjersey.com
Twitter: @terrencemcd
