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♪♪ From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

Hello and thanks for joining us.

I'm Joanna Gagas.

We're bringing you a special NJ Spotlight News edition of Reporters Roundtable.

I'll have a roundup of the top political stories of the week with the help of a panel of local journalists.

Reporters Roundtable starts right now.

[Music] The World Cup has begun and the first match will be played right here in New Jersey on Saturday.

It's been years of preparation in the works.

Will it pay off?

Hi everyone, I'm Joanna Gaggis.

This is Reporters Roundtable.

We've got a panel of journalists here with us to break down everything that's happened in this last week of New Jersey news.

Let's meet our panel.

We have first up John Reitmeyer, budget and finance writer for us here at NJ Spotlight News.

We have Daniel Hahn, reporter for Politico NJ, and Brent Johnson, politics reporter with NJ Advanced Media.

We've seen and heard from the administration everything they're doing to ensure that there's a singular flow of traffic, folks going from New York Penn Station into MetLife Stadium.

New Jersey residents who are going to the games will also follow some of that same path.

They'll start at Secaucus and then get to the stadium.

But it's the redundancy, the contingency plans that have been added on top of that that the states had to put in place to make sure all goes according to plan.

Brent, I want to start with you.

Do we have a sense right now in terms of where NJ Transit stands with numbers of folks who plan on taking the trains to get to the games?

We're talking tens of thousands of people.

The stadium sits 82,000 people and most are considered to get to the game.

It's expected they'll get there via train.

Mostly from New York City.

We're looking at the vast majority of people.

So that is a lot of people from a lot of different parts of the world, meaning you have visitors coming from all over the globe for this.

So this is going to be a very big challenge for the state and NJ Transit.

And Amtrak runs the train tracks.

Let me ask you this, Brent.

When it comes to concerns around Amtrak and catenary wires and fires that we've seen there, Chris Caluri, CEO of NJ Transit, said this week, "We're going to need a bigger boat."

And so that's what they're doing.

Tell us what's happening with the ferries and the backups that they've put in place.

Yeah, literally.

Well, they have buses that are going to be backed up at the stadium in case anything goes wrong.

If anyone remembers the 2014 Super Bowl, there was a transit debacle.

People waiting for trains after the game and all kinds of worry and concern and wondering what was going on.

So the idea is to avoid that here.

But one backup plan is they have two ferries, two boats, that literally would take people from Manhattan's Penn Station over to the stadium if all things go awry.

So there are backup plans, but it's kind of heady to think about what may happen if things do go wrong.

So this is really the million dollar question heading into this.

How is transit going to run for the world's biggest sporting event?

Yeah.

And just to stay on this, you know, the governor said that she didn't want any of this to fall on the backs of taxpayers.

But when we think about all the contingency that's been put in place, if they don't hit the numbers of ridership that they need, does this end up being a cost that taxpayers pay?

That's the question.

Right now, numbers have lagged in terms of ticket sales.

So the big concern is what does happen if they don't reach that number?

There's still more time left.

There's eight games over the next six weeks.

So there's time to make up this money.

But that'll be a big question, because that's the other million-dollar question going into this event.

How much is the state going to be paying for this and spending on this?

Yeah, we're going to be of course diving into those numbers as soon as they become clear.

Daniel, games start on Saturday.

Brazil takes on Morocco.

We've seen some of these tickets sell for hundreds of thousands, up to I think $2.3 million a seat.

It's just wild.

though in the legislature process.

There's a bill c and Transparency Act.

Wha about that?

Yeah.

So there that ranges from everythin a ticket fluctuates realt of its perceived demand.

You know, you've had 15% fees on resales from FIFA is charging a 15% fee for resale tickets both on the buyer end and on the seller end.

And you see these really high resale prices.

As you just mentioned, there are some tickets that have been posted for as much as $2 million.

So right now in the legislature, there's been a little bit of a debate over how should New Jersey address the ticketing industry really in response to the World Cup, but which would apply to entertainment tickets for all kinds of events, you know, from spring scene to football.

And as you mentioned this week there was a bill that was introduced by freshman assemblyman Kenyatta Stewart, it would address a lot of the issues I just mentioned.

One provision that I found particularly interesting is that it would, it would cap dynamic pricing at 20% of how much a ticket costs, or in some cases, if it's a public, if it's a publicly funded venue like MetLife Stadium, there will be no dynamic pricing.

So I think that this is a really comprehensive bill, and sometimes lawmakers will introduce a bill to get a conversation, to get a conversation started around an issue.

And I think that that's what we're seeing here.

I don't expect any quick fixes to ticket pricing regulations and rules in New Jersey, you know, within the next two weeks by any means.

Yeah, it doesn't feel like anything that could be a quick fix.

I mean, this is an issue that's been a national issue, right, around Ticketmaster and the pricing with Live Nation.

Is this something where legislators here in New Jersey, one, there could be bipartisan support for this, and two, can you legislate how it happens just here in New Jersey?

These are global ticket sales, right?

I think there could be an opportunity for some bipartisanship.

I think that sometimes what you see in Trenton when you're talking about regulating business and industry is that traditionally Republicans will be like a little bit more hands-off.

They'll side maybe with business groups a little bit more.

And then I think that for a lot of pieces of legislation, you see a little bit of a divide between Democrats who think that the hand of government should step in to remedy what they see as a problem versus Republicans who sometimes think that the free market can solve the issues and will course correct on its own.

- Yeah.

John, we've got FanFests happening all around the state.

We have what's called Flag City events.

We spoke with Jersey City Mayor James Solomon, who's hosting the first one here in New Jersey on Friday night.

There's going to be watch parties beyond those Flag City parties.

And the question, I guess, on a lot of folks' minds is, what impact does this have on New Jersey's economy?

Is this a boom?

Is it a bust?

If you're a betting man or if you're studying the numbers, is there any indication right now if this is a net positive?

Well, I think some of the early returns suggest some concern, right?

You've heard, you know, Brent made some references to soft NJ Transit ticket sales at this point.

And whether that picks up or not, you know, whether people are buying their tickets last minute, whether they even know how to buy an NJ Transit ticket at this point, you know, we'll have to wait and see if those ticket sales pick up.

We've heard reports of soft hotel occupancy, not just in and around the Meadowlands, but also in other parts of the state.

We have to remember there are also games being played in Philadelphia, which is right across the Delaware River from South Jersey, and it's a big deal in South Jersey.

However, on the other side of that, you do see, and for all of those people, myself included, who can't afford World Cup tickets, you see local businesses, bars and restaurants, hosting different watch parties.

There was a recent policy change where they're allowed to remain open longer in some cases.

And so this has, whether, you know, the really lofty numbers that we heard at different times about the type of economic development that this could generate, you know, those are usually put out by people who are also marketing the event itself.

So you always have to take those with a grain of salt.

But that's not to say that that neighborhood bar that might have a sleepy June picks up business because they're hosting watch parties.

I mean, with the New York Knicks playing in the NBA finals recently, you've seen a lot of bars and restaurants picking up business this time of the year in North Jersey because there are a lot of Knicks fans going out to experience this finals as a group.

And so, you know, there's something to be concerned about for sure.

And there's also a real potential for, you know, smaller restaurants and bars to do pretty well.

And that can all mean, you know, state tax revenue as well.

Because when people are spending their money, inflation's going to be high.

Yeah, John, I want to jump in there, because you talked about soft numbers, and we did speak with Jim Kerkos, who's the head of the Meadowlands Chamber.

He was helping to coordinate these Flag Cities events.

And he told us that hotels and hotel occupancy is not at all where they thought it would be, where they hoped it would be.

They were hoping to do a last minute push.

But like you said, how are they getting this information out to folks around the world as to what's available?

But I guess my question to you is, is it possible to gauge how much of this ends up being just folks in the region, right, New Jersey residents who come out to watch the games versus international tourists coming to our area?

Can we even measure that?

I think that's a really good point, and that's one of the reasons why this area was probably chosen.

I mean, we're in a huge population center, and New Jersey's an incredibly diverse state, so you will have people locally coming out to either celebrate their team or to go to the game or try to go to the game to watch the team that they root for, but you also just have, you know, soccer's popular in New Jersey and, you know, kids play soccer all over the state.

And so there have been efforts to kind of grab onto that.

So, yeah, I mean, I think that's another one of the big questions we're waiting to see how this plays out is, do we get a lot of international tourism?

You know, it's not been the most hospitable time right now, whether it's for visas or just immigration policy in general.

So that's sort of an undertone to this.

So, you know, lots for us to pay attention to as the next few weeks play out.

That's for sure.

Brent, the state has this new health hub that they launched.

I spoke with the commissioner of the Department of Health, Reynard Washington, earlier this week.

Something maybe, you know, the layman's not thinking about, but are hospitals ready for this influx of people if there are issues around heat or any type of disease that could spread, right?

These are things that we're not thinking of, but the state's got to be ready for it all.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of the many other things that go into this.

It's a very complex, fast-moving, you know, really sprawling tournament.

It goes across North America, and we're one of the sites, we're the central site because we're hosting the final.

so there's a lot of logistics to go into this if people might not be thinking about hospitals are one of them you know will hospitals be have enough capacity of the if there's a need uh... with all the fans coming here so you know again the uh... the state says is ready everybody i talk to you says that they feel like everything is ready you know there's intangibles the can really control but transit cost hospitals those are all things that people are thinking about as we head into this six-week tournament is that they have the finals not until July 19th so that's another thing I've also heard Paul Sarlo tell me that the state senator that he thinks there's a little bit of time to get things right because they have few pool play games early on and maybe by the time we get to the final they'll have this all figured out except that the public is not too gracious as we saw with the Super Bowl right when things don't go well I remember the chance of New Jersey I won't I won't finish it but the public is much less forgiving maybe than legislators are of themselves or the administration Daniel sticking with the Department of Health the commissioner visited Delaney Hall recently they they issued a report what can you tell us about their partial oversight visit that they were allowed in Delaney Hall and what they found there.

Yeah, I think it's really important to take a step back here in terms of what we're talking about.

So Delaney Hall is a 1,000 bed immigration detention center located in Newark, the largest of its kind in New Jersey right now, and there have been a lot of really disturbing reports around the conditions inside.

You've heard reports of detainees having to eat food with, you know, some reports say that there are worms and maggots on the inside.

People are having access to medical care.

And the facility itself has been a little bit of a black box because obviously it's not open to members of the public just to walk in and members of the press have not been able to visit.

And what we've seen is members of Congress are able to conduct oversight visits.

Some congressional Democrats walk in and they walk out saying that it's the worst facility they've ever seen.

It's disturbing.

They want to shut it down.

And then you see some Republicans who have walked in, like Republican Congressman Jeff Andrew, he walks out and says, this is a great facility.

Everything on this, everything going on in there is a okay.

And right now the Sherrill administration is fighting in court to have its health inspectors inspect the entirety of the facility.

And the health inspectors, the state health inspectors were able to do a partial tour inside Delaney Hall, which really looked at the kitchen and the food service areas.

And it actually found that the place was satisfactory, at least as it relates to those food service areas.

Now, the commissioner of health is cautioning everybody that it's hard to make any final determinations as to the facility as a whole until state inspectors are allowed unfettered access to all of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Brent, I want to bring you back in because you've been on this Delaney Hall story for a while now.

We did see earlier this week Ms.

Rachel came by.

She was singing with kids outside.

She did that in partnership with U.S.

Senator Andy Kim.

But can you give us a sense of what it has felt like outside in terms of protest?

Has anything kind of heated up throughout the week?

I feel like the heat was was hotter last week when when you had the state police came in and there was questions about whether they use too much force and then newer police took over.

There have been all kinds of clashes between protesters and law enforcement.

At one point at the end of last week, employees of the private company that runs the facility were trying to get out and protesters were trying to block them.

A car windshield got broken.

So there's been all kinds of tension there.

I've heard that reports that it's kind of calmed down.

This is a national issue.

You see headlines all over the place about what's going on there.

It's tense inside because you have the conflicting reports of what the conditions of the facility are, and tense outside because the protests have been confrontational with law enforcement and vice versa.

So it's a real flashpoint in the ongoing national debate over immigration in this country.

Let me ask you this, though, Brent.

There was some fallout that we saw from folks, former supporters of Governor Sherrill, who were outraged that she sent in the state police a week out from that, more than a week out from that.

Did that have legs?

Do you think that's going to carry over where people are still frustrated with how the administration responded?

It was.

It's it was interesting should altering her campaign last year she had social media influencers the major part of who was covering the campaign they uh... they would go to events an interview her now a lot of those who tend to be progressively mean uh... people and advocates are really upset with her and and and uh... few advocates have said they feel betrayed they they won't support her anymore uh... she said she sent in the state police because um... there was a fear ice was going to surge in the area and that she had to get in front of that and also, you know, some officials have said that protesters went too far ahead and started attacking police officers and you needed some sort of pushback.

But yeah, that was one of the biggest controversies so far in her four months as governor.

And I don't know if it has legs.

I'm curious.

I had one Democrat tell me, you know, where are they going to go?

Where are those people?

Who are those people going to vote for, Republican next time?

But yeah, there certainly is anger from the left toward her, but she also signed a bill, or signed a bill, but appropriated money, $20 million total, to a legal defense fund for detainees.

Some people saw that as a way for her to give something back, although people close to Cheryl say that would have happened anyway, and Republicans aren't happy about it because they say we're in a budget crunch and we shouldn't be putting money toward those things.

So all kinds of drama when it comes to Delaney Hall.

I do think that, you know, we're just talking about the backlash from influencers, which is very real, because the Sheryl campaign really tried to platform those influencers.

They're a key part of her campaign communication strategy.

She grants them special access and special interviews.

But I feel like a lot of the pushback that we've seen so far has been limited to influencers and some forces that are definitely on the more progressive or, you know, further to the left side of these issues.

And we haven't seen any, what I would say, establishment Democrats, elected Democrats, really weigh in on this against Sheryl.

I think to the extent we've seen that was Newark Mayor Raz Baraka, who tried to walk the fine line of saying, "Well, I think Governor Sheryl stepped in and she had to, but I don't know, I don't like the way the state police handled it."

So he was, he, you know, Mayor Raz Baraka, he's really the most prominent progressive figure in the state, or definitely among them, and he was trying to walk the line of not quite criticizing the governor herself, but criticizing her administration and the state police.

Yeah, he definitely directed that at state police.

That is for sure.

And he had the Newark police take over.

Yeah, yeah.

Good.

John, we're talking, you know, ICE immigration really at the heart of all of this.

This is what started it, was we saw the clashes between ICE and protesters outside of Delaney Hall.

It's something we've talked about for a long time now.

Will we see ramped up ramped up ice efforts around the World Cup.

That time is here.

And it comes just as Congress sent a bill to President Trump's desk that funds ice and customs and border patrol.

What can you tell us about what was in that bill.

Yeah well I'm really fortunate to have our good colleague Ben Hulak down in Washington who's been covering this issue really closely and has done a lot of good reporting.

And so just you know looking at Ben's most recent story you're looking at another 70 billion dollars infusion for the Department of Homeland Security which of course one of the agencies that is part of that is ICE.

And just put that into context the entire state budget for New Jersey for the current fiscal year is a little less than $60 billion.

So you're talking about big, big money.

Again, just looking at Ben's reporting, this includes over $30 billion for ICE, another $13 billion for Customs and Border Protection, and then there's billions more for equipment and training and some other things across the agencies.

So certainly a win for Republicans in terms of, in a tight Congress, getting this big funding bill finally to the finish line.

But Brent alluded to some of the politics of this, and I think as we look ahead to the midterm elections, the President's driving these hardline immigration policies, and by all accounts his popularity is plummeting, including on the issue of immigration, which is very interesting.

And so if this is going to sustain immigration policies now for the remainder of Trump's term, you know, they may have won this funding battle, but the political consequences could result in the Congress shifting, which would have a lot of implications for the President and Republicans.

So sort of an interesting backstory as we watch that issue play out as well.

Yeah, for sure.

And of course we are in midterm season.

I want to pivot for just a minute though and explain something to our audience.

Our audience may or may not know that the operation of the NJPBS license will transfer to a new entity this summer.

It's something we're very aware of here.

There was a request for proposal and the treasurer's office confirmed by the governor selected Montclair State University to carry over to take over the operations of the license.

The legislature has until June 22nd to vote to block this if they choose to do so.

our former colleague Brenda in a challenge to Montcla the license.

Brent, I want there?

Yeah, well, long st Montclair State University which proponents say is cheaper and has facilities that could be used and student help and resources from the university.

And then there was a coalition of public broadcasters and public media led by former NJTV producer Phil Alonji.

And the proponents of that plan say it was more robust, there were more staffers who would be on board, and then they'd have more independence since the school is appointed by the, the school's board is appointed by the governor.

And the question is which is better?

The thought is that the state went with NJPBS in large part because it was the cheaper option.

The school says that.

MSU.

Yeah, I'm sorry, Michael.

Yeah, MSU because it was the cheaper option.

And so Brenda stepped in and said, you know, this is not the correct way, that there's not going to be independence because it's a public school, there might be undue influence from the state.

And she said she called on lawmakers to stop this.

The clock is ticking.

But this determines who will be able to run public television for the next five maybe to 15 years.

The school is saying that they will have guardrails in place and that they will do the best to bring a good product to people who deserve it.

So we'll see how this plays out in the coming days.

Yeah we will and it's like you said the clock is ticking on that so legislators have just a short amount of time to review and act if that is how they choose.

Daniel you covered a really wild story about catfishing.

I should say who thinks of dating and politics as converging in a political report but they did for you tell us what you found.

Yeah online dating can be tough these days so basically I reported on a story on in in December 2024 then a senior aide to Governor Phil Murphy met a woman on Bumble over the course of five months they would text, call, go on dates.

He had told me that he thought he met his forever person but in a federal lawsuit filed this month it was revealed that the woman was actually not at all who she said she was.

She's actually a and she was secretly recor all of their conversatio posted online by a conser steven Crowder and what t says was an attempt to in for governor.

That's about right?

Yeah, well, you kn happens every day, but th to the story.

So I recomm and check it all out.

Ye to give you like 10 secon question.

Do you think we budget in the just over t going to take to get the governor to sit down?

Wel requires the budget to be they want to run a foul o we would.

And with the pr of this soccer tournament that they need to pass a Yeah.

All right.

We're go Thank you so much for bei NJ and go ahead and scan our code on your screen to see more episodes of roundtable.

That's going to do it for us.

I'm Joanna gag is for the entire team here at NJ spotlight news.

Thanks for being with us.

Have a great weekend.

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