NJBIZ

Legislation to fast track green buildings doesn’t go far enough

All too often, sound environmental goals conflict with development goals and the results can be problematic for economic development, particularly here in New Jersey where red tape can wrap even the best developer into knots. Fortunately, a bill now moving through the state legislature is both environmentally smart and developer friendly and…The legislation, sponsored by Assembly Democrats Raj Mukherji (Hudson), Eliana Pintor-Marin (Essex) and Elizabeth Muoio (Mercer), encourages the fast tracking of environmentally friendly municipal construction projects and was released by the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee last week.

The bill (A-2081) instructs the state Department of Community Affairs, the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Transportation to give priority consideration to permit applications for green building projects. A-2081 defines a “green building project” as any project designed in accordance with the green building manual prepared by DCA.

Mukherji said, in a news release, “Fast tracking green construction jobs will give a much needed boost to our state’s economic engine. Ensuring that engine is fueled with environmentally friendly projects is an added bonus that will pay economic and environmental dividends for years to come.”

All true and all good but not as good as it should be and as legislators representing urban and industrial areas they could be even more creative. The bill should be expanded to include contaminated sites and Brownfields for those developers who are taking the risk to bring back desolate and non-performing properties.

Think about all the building going on in Jersey City and Camden, none of it on Greenfields. Imagine if the developers building there or in Newark or Trenton were further encouraged to build greener buildings on the Brownfields and the old abandoned industrial sites we need to redevelop. What’s more, as an added policy goal to support urban redevelopment, Mukherji, Pintor-Marin and Muoio should further encourage refurbishment or deconstruction over demolition. As we’ve seen in New York City, San Francisco and Seattle not to mention several projects in New Jersey, these old buildings can and often should have a second life.

We all know about the live/work trend from the suburbs to the cities. Policies that expedite the redeployment of abandoned, polluted properties to environmentally smart, vibrant spaces should be a priority, especially in New Jersey.

The assembly members’ bill is a good step in the right direction but they would do better to make it more of a leap than just a step. The benefits would be substantial.

Chip D’Angelo is CEO of Pennington-based WCD Group, which manages and mitigates environmental and construction risks for its clients.

NJBIZ reveals 2017’s Best 50 Women in Business

NJBIZ is proud to announce this year’s class of the state’s most dynamic women in business with its Best 50 Women in Business awards for 2017.Winners were chosen from all around New Jersey, in a wide variety of industries and career paths. There are C-suite executives, educators, entrepreneurs and many, many others.

The one characteristic they all share, however, is their leadership in the Garden State’s business community. They are truly shaping the economic future of our state through their hard work and passion for what they do.

In addition to this year’s class, NJBIZ has chosen a winner of a special Lifetime Achievement Award, who will be honored at our awards ceremony.

The 2017 event will be held from 6 to 8:30 p.m. March 20 at The Palace at Somerset Park, 333 Davidson Ave., Somerset.

For more information, or to register, click here.

To view the 2017 Best 50 Women in Business, listed alphabetically, click the links below.

The Best 50 Women in Business: A – K

The Best 50 Women in Business: L – Z

A fresh approach to that morning blast of caffeine

When James Caverly first started mapping out the business model in 2010 for what would become Booskerdoo Coffee, he had one condition that could not be compromised: the coffee beans had to be as fresh as possible.

“With any food, fresh is better, but — specifically with coffee — the flavor peak is in its first week of life after it’s been roasted, and that’s hard to find,” he said. “Someone had mentioned this to me and I had my doubts, but I tried fresh coffee and it was fantastic. We don’t sell anything that’s over a week old.

“That’s sort of the niche I found.”

And because of it, many customers have found him.

After the company starting growing steadily from its base in Monmouth Beach, Caverly moved Booskerdoo to a 2,100-square-foot facility in Asbury Park last fall. The location has brought all of the company’s functions under one roof.

“It’s a cafe, roastery and bakery,” Caverly said. “All of our production is there in Asbury Park and the customer can see it all: They can walk on over and watch coffee being roasted. They can talk to the roaster. We have a big window into the bakery and it’s open, so, if you want to talk to a baker directly, you can just pop your head in.

“The concept is just very open and welcoming, so people know our stuff isn’t made in some weird factory.”

The company does its own roasting for the coffee at its cafe, but it also sells its beans wholesale. Those two different revenue streams were encouraging enough for Caverly to move forward with his plan.

Biz in brief
Company: Booskerdoo Coffee
Founded: 2010
Headquarters: Asbury Park
Employees: 35
One last thing: James Caverly owns the business with his wife, who was originally a teacher before coming on to run the baking side of the business.

“We have two ways of making money, so it’s twice as less of a chance that we’re going to fail,” he said. “If one part doesn’t work out so well, maybe the other one will.

“But both of them worked out really well and we just kept going.”

To keep the beans fresh for its wholesale operations, everything the company roasts is made to order.

“Managers place their order and are getting deliveries twice a week,” Caverly said. “Most of the stuff you’re drinking is only a few days old.”

For the wholesale clients, the company recommends at least a weekly delivery.

“We do it the same day every week,” he said. “And we don’t have a warehouse or anything: We roast it, package it and ship it, all within 24 hours.”

There’s an added benefit to moving the coffee so quickly: Since the beans don’t sit for long after their roasting, the company doesn’t have the cost of renting a warehouse for storage.

“It works out and saves us a bunch of money on rent,” Caverly said. “Otherwise, we’d be packaging it and putting it on a shelf in a warehouse, but we don’t do that.”

The company is in 15 Shop Rites throughout Monmouth and Mercer counties and has a presence in a few cafes in New York.

But that’s a drive the company wasn’t able to make until it relocated to Asbury Park, from where the company now moves thousands of pounds of coffee.

“I think we have a list of 30 clients and are only starting to push for that now,” he said. “We weren’t able to do it before because we were really at capacity at Monmouth Beach.”

It’s rare, Caverly said, to find coffee so fresh. It’s not something one would find at a Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts or Wawa, he said. But it’s a system that has worked so well for Caverly that he can’t imagine why it hasn’t become more commonplace.

“It’s just something most people don’t do,” he said. “But I don’t really get it because I find it to be kind of easy.”

For Caverly, it’s what gives the business purpose.

“If it’s 2 weeks old, it’s good,” he said, “but when we sell it, we want it to be the best. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

And it’s a reason why Asbury Park seemed the perfect fit for the company’s new home.

“There is this culture of people making their own stuff,” he said. “Everything is just fresh and done with a really high attention to detail and quality.”

Not only are there like-minded businesses, but there’s the customer base for this kind of craft.

“Us being there, we knew that the type of customers we attract, there’s a whole bunch of them in that town,” Caverly said. “Also, we wanted to be associated with that culture because that’s what we’ve done since we began.”

E-mail to: [email protected]
On Twitter: @sheldonandrewj

N.J. health care facilities could owe 1.5B if ACA is repealed

Hospitals in New Jersey could be on the line for a combined nearly $1.5 billion in federal obligations to support the Affordable Care Act, which they have been contributing to since 2010, through 2019 if the ACA is repealed.The New Jersey Hospital Association said on a conference call Thursday that to-date, $1.5 billion has been sent by acute and post-acute care hospitals to fund the ACA in what would be a total of $155 billion over 10 years.

New Jersey Hospital Association CEO and President Betsy Ryan said the continued cuts to hospitals in the state would be devastating, and has repeatedly asked that if the ACA is repealed, the funding sent to the government be simultaneously returned if a replacement is not enacted.

NJHA visited Capitol Hill in November to lobby for these changes, and will again in February, Ryan said.

But what the next step from Republican-controlled Congress and the administration of President Donald Trump will be remains, as with other sectors, a destabilizing question mark.

NJHA warned significant economic impact of a repeal. Prior to the ACA, at least 30 percent of member hospitals, including some which are now closed, were operating in the red, now that number is closed to 13 percent.

In addition to the funding cuts, health coverage for more than 796,000 New Jersey residents could be jeopardized as well, the NJHA said. That could force hospitals to increase charity care services dramatically, compounding funding cuts for that program from the last two state budgets.

Since the rollout of the ACA and Medicaid expansion in the state by Gov. Chris Christie, charity care has been cut in half with the anticipation that more individuals would be covered when visiting a health care provider.

That doesn’t include the nearly 400,000 undocumented immigrants in the state who are ineligible for insurance through the ACA exchange or for Medicaid. They remain the prime reason charity care exists in New Jersey, which Ryan said is considered a “border state” because of its significant immigrant population.

The most recent audited documented charity care spend for New Jersey safety nets is $477 million, according to NJHA.

By comparison, last year’s state budget allocated roughly $300 million for the hospitals.

Christie recently announced his support for Medicaid block grants, which the NJHA has previously opposed.

The loss of coverage would mean that more people might access the emergency room rather than a primary care provider, resulting in higher cost of care, according to Sean Hopkins, senior vice president of federal relations and health economics at NJHA.

So far, none of the Republicans’ plans appears to provide a viable alternative to the ACA, Ryan said.

“As we talk to experts with respect to block grants. They worry that it is a way to cost shift to the state and provider community,” Ryan said.

The NJHA also found that:

New Jersey could lose $4.4 billion in federal matching dollars under Medicaid expansion;

New Jersey residents could lose $795 million in federal subsidies that help them pay insurance premiums;

New Jersey could lose 86,400 jobs, according to an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund; health care is the state’s second-largest employer, with hospitals alone employing more than 142,000 people.

The NJHA said a solution to the funding issue is clear: Lawmakers must pass a replacement plan simultaneously with any ACA repeal. If they cannot or will not do so, the organization said, they must find a way to return the deep funding cuts to providers to help them care for people who lose new-found coverage through the repeal.

NJR announces Koeppe service award

In honor of Alfred C. Koeppe, a member of New Jersey Resources’ board of directors who died on Dec. 6, NJR announced it has created the Alfred C. Koeppe Service Award at its annual meeting Wednesday.The award was created to honor the life, legacy of service and lasting contributions Koeppe gave to the company and New Jersey’s community.

“Al Koeppe was one of New Jersey’s pre-eminent business leaders and a valued member of New Jersey Resources’ board of directors, whose intelligence, insights and integrity have made us a better company,” Laurence M. Downes, chairman and CEO of NJR, said. “His focus was always about helping others and no one I know has had a positive impact on more lives than Al. The creation of the Alfred C. Koeppe Service Award is a fitting tribute to Al and the value of service he exemplified.”

The award, NJR said, will be presented annually to an NJR union employee who exemplifies a commitment to service that improves the lives of others, enhances New Jersey’s communities and benefits the company.

Stephanie Campagna, a New Jersey Natural Gas customer service representative, was named the first recipient of the award.

“Stephanie Campagna is an exceptional employee and a valued member of our team,” Downes said. “Her unparalleled commitment of service to our customers, company and country makes her a fitting and deserving recipient of the first Alfred C. Koeppe Service Award.”

Christie First year of Cooper EMS in Camden a success

Pointing to data released Tuesday by Cooper University Health Care, Gov. Chris Christie said the hospital network’s first full year of handling all of Camden’s emergency medical services has been a success.Pointing to data released Tuesday by Cooper University Health Care, Gov. Chris Christie said the hospital network’s first full year of handling all of Camden’s emergency medical services has been a success.

“I’m here first and foremost to say thank you to all of you,” Christie said to emergency staff at an event at Cooper’s EMS ambulance bay in Camden.

According to Cooper, EMS responded to over 90 percent of advanced life support calls within an eight-minute window, 10 percent more calls than in 2015, when competitor Virtua handled emergency services in the city.

In 2015, Virtua only met the eight-minute benchmark on roughly 70 percent of all advanced life support calls, Cooper said.

“When Cooper University Health Care took over EMS services on Jan. 2, 2016, we promised the residents of the city of Camden that we would improve response times, services and community involvement,” said South Jersey powerbroker George Norcross, the Cooper board of trustees chairman. “We have delivered on those promises by responding to more calls, reducing response times and building stronger relationships with the community we have been serving since 1887.”

Norcross added that “simply put, Cooper EMS is providing more access to emergency services — quicker — for city residents.”

In July 2015, Christie signed a bill into law mandating that Level One trauma centers across the state be solely in charge of handling a host city’s emergency services. With Cooper’s designation as Camden’s only Level One trauma center, the hospital network effectively took over services from Virtua, which had been Camden’s EMS provider for decades.

A months-long legal battle for control of the city’s emergency services ensued, until the state Supreme Court upheld the law in a ruling last January.

“Let’s not sugarcoat this today,” Christie said. “This was a fight.”

Christie said it was “really heartening” to see Cooper fulfill its promise of being able to offer better and faster emergency care.

In a statement Tuesday, Virtua did not refute Cooper’s numbers, but noted that it “disagrees with the legislative process that changed the EMS system in Camden” and that the hospital network “continues to provide high-quality EMS services in Burlington and Camden counties.”

Virtua declined to comment on whether or not it saw a decrease in EMS admissions at its hospitals as a result of the shift to Cooper.

Tuesday’s event was also hailed by Christie, Norcross and Camden Mayor Dana Redd as yet another example of the city’s growth and revitalization over the past several years.

“This is certainly a tremendous time for Camden,” Redd said.

In introducing Christie, Norcross said, “There has been no other individual who has done more for the city of Camden.”

Norcross added that Christie’s renewed focus on battling drug addiction and increasing access to treatment is not only a major challenge currently in the state, but also noted that it “will be his greatest legacy.”

During his remarks, Christie called on Cooper, RWJBarnabas and other top health networks across the state to consider his challenge to not deny anyone seeking inpatient or outpatient drug rehabilitation services for the first six months.

“I hope I don’t have to do that by mandating,” Christie said.

January is called ‘Divorce Month’ Resolutions, fresh starts and had enoughs

Over the last decade or so, January has come to be known as “Divorce Month” due to the jump in divorce filings during the month, more so than any other month of the year. This phenomena is proven objectively, by the number of filings and anecdotally, by the number of new clients typically seen by divorce attorneys during January.Over the years, I have noted that the number of new clients spikes a few times of the year, but most significantly right after the new year. Out of curiosity, I typed “New Year’s Resolution Divorce” into Google and got 2.35 million results in .45 seconds, curiously up from 540,000 results that I got when Googling this search 6 or 7 years ago. While not all of the search results were on point, many were extremely interesting. It turns out that my intuition about this topic was right and that there are several reasons for it.

One article on Salon.com put divorce up there with weight loss on New Year’s resolution lists. Also cited in this article was that affairs are often discovered around the holidays. Another article linked above attributed it to “new year, new life”. Another article claimed that the holidays create a lot of pressures at the end of the year that combine to put stress on people in unhappy or weak relationships. Family, financial woes, etc. associated with the holidays add to the stress. Turning over a new leaf to start over and improve one’s life was another reason given. This seems to be a logical explanation for a clearly difficult and perhaps heart wrenching decision.

People with children often want to wait until after the holidays for the sake of the children. There is also the hope, perhaps overly optimistic, that the divorce will be completed by the beginning of the next school year. These people tend to be in the “improving one’s life” camp.

Other people wait until the end of the year or, if married to someone who works on Wall Street who gets their bonus in the first quarter, to make sure that the bonus is in the pot or available for payment of various things, like their lawyers for the divorce.

Though most people are not that tax savvy, and divorces usually are not completed that quickly, taxes could be a consideration as well. You can only file a joint tax return if you are still married on Dec. 31 so for some, filing status could be a consideration in the timing.

In recent years, we have seen more and more clients in November or December who are seeking to learn about their rights and the process and what they need to do to prepare for the divorce that they intend on commencing not long after the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. However, more and more, we have heard of people telling their spouse it “is over” before the holidays. I suspect that in some, it was the discovery/disclosure of a new significant other or perhaps pressure being exerted by that person that was the cause. In other cases, the person just didn’t want to wait until the new year to advise their spouse, perhaps a zinger to ruin their holiday and share the pain that they are feeling.

The fresh start and minimizing impact on the children are also reasons that the second “busy season” as it were, is in September, after the summer and once the children are back to school. Parents do not want to impact the children’s summers or start the process when the kids are out of school (though this seems somewhat counter-intuitive), and are hopeful that by the end of the school year, their fate for the next school year will be resolved.

Whatever the reason, we await those who see 2017 as a chance for happiness or a fresh start. Happy New Year?!

Eric Solotoff is the co-chair of the Family Law Practice Group of Fox Rothschild LLP and the editor of the New Jersey Family Legal Blog. Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Lawyer and a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Attorneys, Solotoff is resident in Fox Rothschild’s Roseland and Morristoww offices though he practices throughout New Jersey. You can reach Eric at (973)994-7501 or [email protected].

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