By Douglas E. Hall

When you think about it, serving the public in an elected office really is a tough job.  I’d say it’s more so when one considers this work on a municipal level.

Douglas E. Hall

Starting at the top, being president of the United States may be the toughest job around, but the president has lots of help and you’re really, for the most part, protected from direct contact with all the folks who voted for you, or voted against you.

That is true to a lesser degree as one considers holding public office on a Congressional level, a state level, county level and finally on a municipal level.  There on the municipal level, a Mayor, such as Nancy Merse of Edgewater, until her death on Thursday, March 10, gave her attention to supporters and detractors each and every time she conducted a meeting of the Borough Council.

Mayor Merse did it with skill, class and style and an amazing amount of patience with the most trivial or wrong-headed complainer.

Consider this, on top of the many pressures of this job; Mayor did it all while waging a lengthy battle with cancer that included major surgery.

Yet she was there to do, as best she could, her sworn duty to carry out the oath of her office and lead the affairs of the Borough of Edgewater through what ever challenges came up.

The high points of her administration were the resumption of regular ferry service across the Hudson River to Manhattan and the construction of a new borough Hall.

I’m not the first one to say it’s a pity the mayor did not get to participate in the opening of the new Borough Hall, which should be completed in a matter of weeks.  But it truly is a pity.

Nancy Merse

Now in the case of the ferry, this is a good illustration that the Mayor put the wishes of the people before her own thoughts on a matter.

For some may well remember that Mayor Merse, as a Borough Council member, did not initially support the acquisition of the Edgewater Marina, nor did she support the resumption of ferry service after an absence of 50 years.

But after the voters supported ferry service in a non-binding referendum, she wholeheartedly worked to make new ferry service to New York a reality.

The borough-owned marina has become an asset to the town, and the morning and evening ferry service has been a winner with commuters.  Not only did Mayor Merse provide shuttle bus service from the ferry to most of the Edgewater commuters to avoid the question of parking at the marina and increased traffic congestion, but she worked out arrangements with Fort Lee and Cliffside Park to have commuters from those towns brought to and from the ferries each day.  Cliffside Park Mayor Gerald Calabrese was among those who were there at her well-attended funeral at the Church of the Rosary on Monday, March 14.

There was a good turnout among the residents as well as current and former borough officials.  I feel it was a mistaken slight that there were no officials from the county, state or federal level at her funeral.

But Mayor Merse probably would not have minded.  Though she served the public and her town for 38 years, Mayor Merse was a humble, down-to-earth woman who sought not personal aggrandizement.

Anyone who even knew her slightly wound up calling her, Nancy, not Mayor or Mrs. Merse.

She was one-of-a-kind, and her steady hand on the tiller of the borough through rough seas or calm will be missed.  She was the first woman to serve as mayor of Edgewater with her exemplary service, which began on the Board of Education in 1973 and took her to the Borough Council in 1979 and the office of mayor in 2002. She should not be the last woman to serve as mayor of Edgewater.

Mayor Merse loved Edgewater and Edgewater loved her.  We miss her and will in the days ahead.

By Douglas E. Hall

For the ten years I’ve been writing this column, I’ve taken the opportunity to write tributes upon their death to some of the 300 show business personalities I interviewed back in the 1980s when I was producing radio programming and interviewing the stars who in one way of another made music in the preceding decades, particularly in the 1940s through the ‘60s.

Douglas E. Hall

Among the Hollywood stars I spoke with then was Jane Russell (May 10, 1988), who I am sorry to say died last month on Feb. 28 at her home in Santa Maria, Calif.  She was 89, which means she was coming into her 60’s when we spoke.

She looked good and had class and style and comported herself as the movie star she was. She was tall (5 foot seven, but statuesque compared to most of her contemporary actresses), which made her imposing, but she was a bit reserved and had to be drawn out a bit to keep the rolling recording tape filled with facts and tidbits of her glamorous career in Hollywood.

She also showed that she was a serious business woman, who was interested in talking about her then new line of lingerie especially designed for full-busted women.

Since the show I was producing was a musical magazine format that surveyed the musical hits of the past 40 years, I wanted to talk about her musical-comedy films with Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe.  Of course we talked about both and her whole career, including the film that launched her at the age of 19 into the public’s consciousness and made her a star.  That was Howard Hughes’ controversial “The Outlaw.”  And yes, according to Ms. Russell, the multi-talented airplane pilot, tycoon and in this case film producer-director Howard Hughes did design a special bra she was to wear in that film, to show off her prominent bosom.  But it was for pure publicity as Ms. Russell said she never did wear that bra.

The movie exposed too much cleavage and too much skin according to censors of the 1940s.  The ruckus delayed the film’s release for two years and then resulted in a nine-week run in San Francisco in 1943, but postponed openings in New York until 1947 and a nationwide release that was further delayed until 1950.  Critics turned up their noses at this Western where Jane played a tough cookie to a sheriff and Billy the Kid.  But, as was so often the case in those days, the sexuality-related controversy guaranteed good box office.

Jane Russell found her stride in the better movies that showcased her talent when she teamed with Bob Hope in 1948 in a Western musical comedy, “The Paleface.”  She played Calamity Jane and Hope was the inept and cowardly dentist in the old West.  The movie included one of the biggest song hits of the year, “Buttons and Bows,” which featured Bob Hope singing to Russell.  Unfortunately the opportunity for a Hope-Russell duet was missed.

“They didn’t know I could sing then,” Ms. Russell told me 40 years later. Not only that, but Hope was a long established star of the first magnitude while Russell was getting her first real break in a first-class movie. The song won an Academy Award as best song of the year, and it was a big hit for Dinah Shore

Jane did sing in the sequel, “Son of Paleface” in 1952, but the songs were mediocre, and none became hits.  The movie was a hit with Bob and Jane paired again plus the addition of King of the Cowboys Roy Rogers in a supporting role.

The following year Jane did duets with Marilyn Monroe in the musical film adapted from the Broadway Carol Channing show “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”

Jane and Marilyn were those “Two Little Girls From Little Rock,” trying to gold dig their way to Paris singing an appealing show-stopper of the film, only exceeded by Marilyn’s iconic rendition of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

This greater exposure of Ms. Russell’s singing ability led to her landing a recording contract that produced an album of 78 rpm records, which today are quite collectable.  There is a CD currently available of Ms. Russell’s vocals from over the years.  With 21 selections, many of the tunes are forgettable, but there are some gems: “As Long as I Love,” “Body and Soul,” “Love for Sale,” “Until the Real Thing Comes Along,” A Hundred Years From Today,” “I Can’t Get Started,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “You’re Mine You.”

In all, I found Ms. Russell a charming, down-to-earth person to interview, who I would say deserved a bigger career in both films and musical recordings.

Time marches on and 22 years have gone by since I did the last of these interviews when I was working in radio programming.  The stars and other performers I interviewed are aging and leaving us at a faster rate.  I missed commenting on Mitch Miller, when he died in July of last year at the age of 99, songwriter George David Weiss, who once lived in Fort Lee, who died in August of last year and Eddie Fisher, who died in September of last year.

Mitch was an oboe player who became a supervisor/creator of hit recordings, who became a leader of a chorus.  Who can forget “Sing Along With Mitch Miller?

Who can forget the hit songs of Mr. Weiss – “What a Wonderful Word,” “Wheel of Fortune,” “Lullaby of Birdland,” “That Sunday, That Summer” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”?

Who can forget the hits of Eddie Fisher – “Oh My, Papa.” “Wish You Were Here,” “I Need You Now,” “I’m Yours,” “Anytime” “Dungaree Doll,” “Count Your Blessings.”

Someday, no one will remember.

By Douglas E. Hall

The fertile farm fields in the Willamette Valley of Oregon may not seem a legal battlefield over genetically modified produce, but it is.

Douglas E. Hall

The Willamette Valley is the heart of Oregon’s agriculture country. During spring and summer growing seasons, roadside stands dot the country lanes, and farmers’ markets appear in the valley’s historic towns.

The valley’s flat terrain and temperate climate make it a favorite for hikers and cyclists, who also enjoy the paved paths in the college towns of Eugene and Corvallis. Nestled among its rolling hills are over 200 wineries producing a medley of vintages—Pinot noir, Pinot gris and Riesling to mention a few. The valley, dubbed Oregon’s Wine Country, is one of Oregon’s major wine-growing regions.

But among the biggest cash crops are sugar beets.

If you’re not acquainted with sugar beets, you are very familiar with what the beets produce, the pure white sweet granules in your sugar bowl and so many of the foods you eat.  Sugar beets provide the nation with half of the sugar it consumes.  The other half is from sugar cane, produced mainly in the continental U.S. in Louisiana, but in Hawaii and Puerto Rico as well.

Sugar beets are grown across many northern states in the Continental United States and they are also a major crop in Nebraska, but what has put the Willamette Valley on the map is the fact that all of the sugar beet farmers in the valley have all decided to use genetically modified seeds from Monsanto to grow their crops this spring despite a ruling from a federal district court that revoked a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approval of the seed use.

Despite the ruling of Federal Judge Jeffrey S. White in San Francisco that USDA had to first prepare an environmental impact study (EIS), the Department said on Friday, Feb. 4, that the farmers could proceed with the genetically modified seeds.  The department decided it could not produce an EIS until May 2012 and if planting of the seeds was delayed, that would produce a sugar shortage.

These seeds have been modified by Monsanto to carry a gene that makes them resistant to Monsanto’s powerful and toxic weed killer, Roundup. The concern, particularly in Willamette Valley, is that there is insufficient room to isolate the bio-tech sugar-beet plants from cross-pollination with other sugar beets or even table beets and Swiss chard, which are from the same plant family as sugar beets.

There is concern that through wind-blown seeds, there will be cross-pollination with weeds as well, which will eventually make Roundup useless against weeds that have joined with the bio-tech sugar beet seeds.

Even scarier is the belief among some scientists and nutritionalists that ingestion of sugar produced from bio-tech sugar beets will cause increased and new diseases among human consumers.  These food watchers have also complained about corn grown with genetically modified seeds containing genes from insects that attack corn.

But Monsanto and its new German partner KWS Lochow seem unconcerned with those who are troubled by genetic modification of seeds.  In fact, KWS is taking a growing position in the United States in this area.

Last month it announced, KWS has acquired the wheat germplasm assets of two American companies, Great Lakes Cereal Grains, Loveland, Colo., and Sunbeam Extract Co., Wooster, Ohio. These acquisitions provide KWS increased access to the US wheat seed market and increased opportunities to partner with organizations providing the latest technologies for cereal breeding (application of the science of genetics to commercial agriculture).

The move will, in the long term, also strengthen the company’s existing activities in Germany, United Kingdom, France, Poland and Russia. KWS’ wheat breeding and commercial activities in the United States will be consolidated in the newly founded company, KWS Cereals USA, LLC, located at the KWS Seeds headquarters in Shakopee, Minn.

And so the brave new world continues its meddling in the things we eat.

By Douglas E. Hall

The Hydra, which lived in the swamps near to the city of Lerna in ancient Greece, was a terrifying monster which possessed multiple heads which could quickly grow two back for everyone that was cut off.

I don’t know if we have any Hydras around these days, but one might be living in the New Jersey Meadowlands near the Frank R. Lautenberg railroad transfer station.

Governor Christie chopped the head  off the ARC (Access to the Region’s Core) tunnel and two have appeared to replace it.

One, spearheaded by Senator Lautenberg, the Gateway tunnel, would be built by Amtrak and seems to offer an almost body double for the deceased ARC, but with the major improvements in that it would not end at Macy’s basement, but go directly to an expanded New York Penn Station with 13 additional New Jersey commuter trains, providing hundreds of Garden State commuters with a one-seat ride to Manhattan.

The other, encouraged by New York Mayor Bloomberg, calls for the extension of the New York subway system’s No. 7 train from the West Side of Manhattan (construction is already underway to extend this line from Times Square to the Javits Center practically at the waters edge of the Hudson River) under the Hudson and to Secaucus to, what else, the Frank R. Lautenberg transfer station.

The subway extension would cost roughly half of what the ARC would have cost and about a third of what the Gateway will cost, but extending the No. 7 to Secaucus has no juice.

The Gateway, despite a projected cost of $13.5 billion, has .lots of juice and muscle.  Senators Lautenberg and Menendez have gotten Amtrak to give this new tunnel plan its highest priority.  Amtrak has a long history of endorsing the whims and plans of federal legislators.  After all, it takes Congressional action to keep Amtrak funded.  Responding to the politicians  over the years well may be why Amtrak has never shown any indication of profitability.

Douglas E. Hall

If you think the No 7 subway extension has any possible future, just consider the following quote from Senator Lautenberg when he announced the Gateway plan.

“When the ARC Tunnel was cancelled, it was clear to me that we couldn’t just throw up our hands and wait years to find another solution.  I immediately went to work looking for new ways to get cars off our roads and expand rail access from New Jersey neighborhoods to New York City office buildings.  Amtrak answered the call and is spearheading a project that will help New Jersey commuters and also expand intercity and high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor.  The Gateway Project is a vision for our future that will shorten commutes, create jobs, increase property values and grow New Jersey’s economy.”

Note that there is no mention of the New York subway plan by our otherwise enthusiastic senior senator.  Neither did our senator note that the $13.5 billion Gateway project will need congressional approval, including the preliminary $50 million engineering study he has endorsed.  Considering that the Republicans control the House, none of this is a sure bet.

With Amtrak in charge of building a tunnel under the Hudson River, this mammoth project is now a federal project, which takes Governor Christie and New Jersey taxpayers off the hook for literally billions of dollars that would have been the state’s responsibility to pay if the ARC tunnel had gone over budget with cost overruns.  The ARC with cost overruns?  You could have laid odds on it.

There may be cost overruns on the Gateway project.  But that will be a federal project with the feds absorbing or avoiding cost overruns.  Crossing under the Hudson is part of the Northeast Corridor that will serve Amtrak in all of its service to New York and New England.

It is only right that the federal government should be in charge of such a large inter-state project that will succeed the rejected ARC tunnel, which was the largest public works project in the nation.

By Douglas E. Hall

The people of Tenafly, in a non-binding referendum in the General Election last November, said they did not want the restoration of rail service in their borough.

This is a sad chapter in the long tortured history of Hudson-Bergen Light Rail (H-BLR), which should have been extended to Bergen County from its successful Hudson County base some 20 years ago.

But the 1,183 voters who cast “yes” votes may yet see H-BLR provide service to this borough along with Englewood, Leonia, Palisades Park and Ridgefield, even though they were outvoted 2-1.

It was only a few years ago that the principal argument over rail service on the Northern Branch was not whether it should be provided, but how – light rail electrically-power service vs individually diesel-powered cars.

Light rail won that battle, but the battle apparently goes on over providing any service.  In a Mayor’s Corner column in this newspaper last week (Jan. 27), Tenafly Mayor Peter S. Rustin declared, “If we are going to spend a billion dollars on a mass transit project, let’s build one that makes sense.”

We’re wondering what didn’t make sense about the plans that were outlined in detail in scoping hearings conducted by NJ Transit in 2009.

He did say that “A one seat ride into Manhattan would be immediately accepted.”  But the mayor should know that it would be extremely difficult to provide a one-seat ride into Manhattan because of the topography affecting existing rail tunnels into New York City and the Northern Branch tracks.  Even before Governor Christie killed the ARC (Access to the Region’s Core) tunnel, there was no chance and no plans to offer riders from the Northern Branch a one-seat ride to Manhattan.  Existing rail lines quickly filled the capacity of the ARC tunnel plans.  There was no provision for a rail line that has not offered passenger service for 40 years.

However, light rail service from Tenafly would provide easy and quick access to the New York Waterway ferries in Weehawken and the PATH trains in Hoboken.

Mayor Rustin also states, “It is easy to forget, that rail service on the Northern Branch was discontinued in the 1960’s, thirty years after the George Washington Bridge was built.  People chose bus service and automobiles over a two-seat rail ride into Manhattan.”

Douglas E. Hall

Not quite mayor. The public did not choose driving or taking buses over rail service. The public did not have a choice.  Privately-owned mass transit declined not because it fell out of favor with the public, but because private enterprise was unable to turn a profit as costs of this service rose.  The mass transit we have today only survives because what was once the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, Public Service buses and Inter-State buses, all went out of business to become the state-run NJ Transit. The sad fact is there’s little or no money to be made in mass transit.  NJ Transit only continues to exist because of large government subsidies.

What was unfortunate about the Northern Branch Railroad in the 1960s is that it was not continued as part of NJ Transit which was the good fortune of the Erie-Lackawanna Main Line, Bergen Line and Pascack Valley Line.  The 33,000 commuters who ride these three north Jersey rail lines apparently are satisfied to change to a PATH train for a two-seat ride to New York.  They’ve been doing this for more than 50 years.  Why does Mayor Rustin think a two-seat ride from the Northern Valley to Manhattan is unacceptable? NJ Transit research indicates 24,000 riders would use H-BLR if it were available.

Driving to the city has become more and more expensive and subject to delays as the George Washington Bridge and surrounding roads have become more and more congested.  Buses too are subject to delays due to congestion.  And I might also add that the PATH was once a private railroad that went bankrupt.  It was the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, better known as the Hudson tubes.

“If we wish to convince commuters to give up their cars, we need to give them an acceptable alternative,”  Mayor Rustin says.  Well Mayor, that’s what the H-BLR would be.

The mayor also complained that there was no parking to be provided at a “proposed downtown station located adjacent to perhaps the most congested and complex intersection in Tenafly,” What the mayor failed to mention is a proposed 550-car parking facility at what would be Tenafly North Station, which is close to the Cresskill town line.

What NJ Transit has proposed is a plan to keep traffic away from the center of Tenafly and lure out-of-towners away from the center of Tenafly by directing them to this Tenafly North Station.

A great deal of careful thought has gone into planning for each town that would be served by H-BLR.  You can see this for yourself by visiting Northernbranchcorridor.com.  Then under “Sections,” click “Documents”.  There you will see the opportunity to view the plans for Tenafly, as well as the plans for each of the five municipalities that would be served by H-BLR.

Although this light rail project has been slowed by the economy, among other factors, it is very much alive.  NJ Transit is awaiting approval by the Federal Transit Commission.  Once the FTC acts, NJ Transit will proceed to develop an Environmental Impact Statement.

Extending H-BLR to Tenafly will cost $900 million, according to estimates.  There are no plans at this time from where this funding might come.

Yes, Governor Christie killed the ARC tunnel, with a cost estimate of $8.7 billion and indications it might finally cost $10 billion or more.

But there’s a new plan, which for half the cost of ARC, could extend the New York Subway system to Secaucus.  While the ARC tunnel was never a plus for HBLR, the subway plan could create a major boon for HBLR with a transfer directly into the New York subways.

The subway-to-New Jersey plan could be the development that could give HBLR a big push.  It certainly turns the one-seat, two-seat argument on its head.

By Douglas E. Hall

If the federal government wants to recover $271 million that was granted to the state for part of the cost of building the $8.7 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River that was scraped by Governor Christie it will have to fight the state in court.

The state’s legal counsel filed a response Tuesday night to the Federal Transportation Administration’s demand for return of the $271 million in the ARC (Access to the Region’s Core) transportation funding stating “the State of New Jersey has no lawful or administrative obligation to repay any of the $271 million demanded by the FTA.”

The electronic filing with the FTA on behalf of NJ Transit states that the FTA overstates the funds that are even at issue and makes a demand for repayment that is far broader than authorized by statute.”

Douglas E. Hall

The filing claims that the vast majority of the $271 million – $225.5 million includes the state’s “own formula funds that New Jersey was entitled to as a matter of right, and chose to apply to the [tunnel] project.

With the announcement of the filing by the state, Governor Christie’s spkesman said, “As is by now abundantly clear, Governor Christie cancelled the project due to multi-billion dollar cost-overrun projections for a project that previously had an agreed upon price tag of $8.7 billion.  Billions in those cost overruns would have been borne by New Jersey – something unforeseen and entirely out of the state’s control, and a burden Governor Christie was not willing to place exclusively on New Jersey and its taxpayers.

While the state aknologes that any state that takes federal funding for a project and then cancels the project must return federal funds if the reasons for cancellation were within the control of the applicant.  However, New Jersey contends that reasons for cancellation of the ARC tunnel were beyond the control of the state.

The state explains, thus:

“FTA’s Jan. 2009 estimate of $8.7B was based on a detailed analysis of advanced engineering data, including data specific to tunneling under the Hudson River. FTA reiterated that the $8.7B estimate was “reliable” in a Feb. 2010 report to Congress. However, at the very end of the New Starts process, FTA changed key assumptions about costs and risks, and re-estimated Project costs to be as high as $13.7B. FTA controlled the analysis, the estimating methodology, process and inputs, would not deviate materially from its higher cost estimate and required NJT and its local partners to accept responsibility for the increase. With the Project’s cost estimate dramatically increased and the State and Port Authority under severe financial stress – both factors outside of NJT’s control – the Project could not proceed.

By Douglas E. Hall

The fourth annual Hall of Fame, Class of 2011, was announced by Governor Christie on Thursday, Jan. 20.  The 15 inductees provided a double win for Englewood.

Among those to be honored in this annual event, celebrated this year on June 5 at the usual venue, NJPAC in Newark, are: singer Tony Bennett and actor John Travolta, both with an Englewood connection.

Tony Bennett lived in Englewood from the late 1950s until early 1970s.  His son, Dae, who opened a recording studio in Englewood’s former railroad station ten years ago, is still in the city operating the studio.

The legendary pop singer, who has sold more than 50 million records, won 15 Grammy awards, two Emmy Awards and was named both an National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center honoree, remains an approachable, unassuming nice guy.

When I interviewed him in the 1980s, he took the time to draw a sketch of me, displaying his alternate talent as Anthony Dominick Benedetto, the artist.

Tony was born in New York City and grew up in Queens.  He told me that a fond memory of his childhood was when got to sing during ceremonies when Mayor LaGuardia cut the ribbon to open the Tri-Borough Bridge.

The young boy liked to sing and draw so he studied both music and painting in high school.  He dropped out of school to help support his family.  His father had died when he was 10.

He was drafted into the Army toward the end of World War II and was sent to Europe to fight the retreating German Army into Germany.  He continued to sing at every opportunity in the service, particularly as the war ended and the U.S. Army became an occupying force in Germany.  Upon his discharge he studied music under the G.I. Bill at the American Theater Wing.  He came to the attention of Pearl Bailey and won a spot of the bill of a Greenwich Village night club opening for Miss Bailey.  Bob Hope heard him performing there and hired him for a tour Hope was planning.  It was Bob Hope who urged him to change his stage name from Joe Bari to Tony Bennett.

In 1950, he signed a recording contract with Columbia records.  His first efforts included “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

Under the guidance of Columbia’s recording director, Mitch Miller, Tony achieved his first number one hit in 1951, “Because of You.”  He followed that with hits such as “Cold, Cold Heart and “Blue Velvet.”  Yes, Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet in 1963 was a re-do. The hits kept coming in the early ‘50s and included “Rags to Riches” and “Stranger in Paradise.”

Tony’s career suffered a setback as rock ‘n’ roll rolled over the music business and record charts.  Tony struck back deepening his musical artistry, adding elements of jazz and upgrading his material from Tin Pan Alley songs to standards and better music that has come to be known as the Great American Songbook.

Bennett not only moved toward jazz – his new musical director was the outstanding jazz guitarist Chuck Wayne, but he moved with the technology of the record business.  He became an LP artist instead of a singles singer.  He began this new direction with the album.  He added Ralph Sharon as his pianist and musical director.  Sharon pushed Tony further into jazz.  He began recording with such jazz artists as Nat Adderley, Art Blakey and Chico Hamilton.  By the end of the 1950s,  he was recording and performing with the Count Basie orchestra, another New Jerseyan (The Kid From Red Bank) who is in the New Jersey Hall of Fame (2009).

In 1962, keeping touch with his pop roots, he scored with “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” while in the same year starred in a jazz concert at Carnegie Hall with jazz greats as Al Cohn, Kenny Burrell and Candido.  That was also the year he won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male solo performance.

Douglas E. Hall

But tough times, particularly the 1970s, were ahead for Tony.  His days at Columbia were over when he was forced into recording an album of contemporary music, including some Beatle songs.  He formed his own record label, Improv and struggled even thought he made beautiful music on two albums with jazz pianist Bill Evans.

With the help of his son Danny, he shed a Vegas image and reinvented himself as a class act in a tux singing only the best standards and songs worthy of becoming standards.

With shrewd bookings devised by his son Danny to expose Tony to younger audiences – from David Letterman to MTV, Tony charmed a new audience that never heard of his hits of the 1950s.  The audiences of the ‘80s found this aging man singing Gershwin and Cole Porter with sensitive feeling a refreshing experience on the music scene.  Tony Bennett had a new audience and a new life.

*    *    *

John Travolta, the youngest of six children, was born and grew up in Englewood.  His father was a semi-professional American football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company.  His mother, Helen Cecilia (née Burke), was an actress and singer who had performed with the Sunshine Sisters, a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher.

After attending Dwight Morrow High School, Young John moved to New York City and landed a role in the touring company of the musical “Grease” and on Broadway in “Over Here!” singing a Sherman Brothers’ song.  He then moved to Los Angeles to further his show business career.

Travolta’s first television role was in 1972 as a fall victim in, “Emergency!” and his first significant movie role was as Billy Nolan, a bully, who was goaded into playing a prank on Sissy Spacek’s character in the horror film, “Carrie” in 1976. Around the same time, he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter” that ran until 1979.  His sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack’s mother) in that show.

The late 1979s was a busy time for Travolta, and he had a hit that got to number 10 on the Billboard charts, “Let Her In.”

In the next few years, he appeared in some of his most memorable screen roles: Tony Manero in “Saturday Night Fever” (1977) and as Danny Zuko in “Grease” (1978). These two films were among the most commercially successful pictures of the decade and catapulted Travolta to international stardom.  “Saturday Night Fever” earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. At age 24, Travolta became one of the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar

His mother and his sister, Ann appeared as extras in “Saturday Night Fever” and his sister Ellen appeared as a waitress in “Grease.” Travolta performed several of the songs on the “Grease” soundtrack album.  In 1980, Travolta inspired a nationwide country music craze that followed on the heels of his hit film, “Urban Cowboy,” in which he starred with Debra Winger.

After “Urban Cowboy,” he starred in several unsuccessful movies, while turning down leading roles in “American Gigolo” and “An Officer and a Gentleman.”  He bounced back in 1989 in “Look Who’s Talking” and two sequels of that film. Then in 1994 he played Vincent Vega in “Pulp Fiction,” for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

Notable roles followed that included such roles as “Get Shorty,” “Face/Off” and “Primary Colors.”

Travolta has been a practitioner of Scientology since 1975, and he starred in the 2000 film “Battlefield Earth,” which was based on a work of science fiction by L. Ron Hubbard.  He returned to the musical form of motion pictures in 2007 when he starred in a remake of “Hairspray.”  He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He is a pilot and owns and flies his own Boeing 707-138.   Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, he flew his plane loaded with supplies, doctors and Scientologist volunteers into the disaster area of that island nation.

Two other members of the Hall of Fame Class of 2011 are from Bergen County, suspense and mystery author Mary Higgins Clark and jazz guitarist John “Bucky” Pizzarelli, both of Saddle River.

Others who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in the June ceremonies are: John Basilone, a World War II U.S. Marine gunnery sergeant who died in combat in 1945, the only enlisted man during that war to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross and Purple Heart.

Also former Governor Brendan Byrne, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, Super Bowl most valuable player Franco Harris, Leon Hess, founder of Hess (oil) Corp. and former owner of the Jets football team, rapper-actress-singer Queen Latifah, TV host and author Martha Stewart, football player and broadcaster Joe Theisman and actor Bruce Willis.

Area winners in previous years include football coach of Vince Lombardi of Englewood (2008) and writer F. Scott Fitzgerald of Hackensack (2009).

By: Douglas E. Hall

If one had to sum up the message of Governor Christie’s State of the State address, which he gave on Tuesday, Jan. 11, it would be this, “we must live within our means.”

That’s basic good advice to anyone, but it is especially critical that the State of New Jersey does just that after years of financial gimmicks to put a happy face on our overspending and misspending.

If we are to avoid bankruptcy, or at least running out of money to sustain the lifestyle to which the state has become accustomed, it is long past the time to reign in the deficits and the actions that created them.

In large and small ways, living within our means has been imposed upon us, sometimes quite forcibly by the governor since he took office on Jan. 19, a year ago, almost to the day.

Not surprisingly, Governor Christie devoted his opening remarks to his fiscal accomplishments these past 12 months.

“It is my privilege to report to you that the State of our State is improving— getting better every day.  Why do I say that?  State spending is down 9 percent in one year.

• The budget has been balanced.
• State taxes are lower — for the first time in a decade.
• The unemployment rate has begun to drop— and today is below, not above, the national average.
• Companies are beginning to take a second look at New Jersey.

Together, we have begun to do something no one thought was possible: we are turning our State around.”

If in the past year, the governor seemed draconian, he explains his actions, thus:

Douglas E. Hall

“The Fiscal year 2010 budget was over $2 billion in deficit — with the year more than half gone and our options shrinking fast.  The state was actually in danger of running out of cash — within weeks of not being able to meet payroll.  We faced a deficit for fiscal year 2011 that was projected to be $11 billion — equal to 37 percent of the budget — the largest deficit, in proportional terms, in the country.  Property taxes had risen 70 percent in the prior 10 years.  Independent analysts concluded we had the highest overall tax burden in America.  Unemployment was at 10 percent — the highest in a generation, the highest in the region, and above the national average.  Wealth, and jobs, and people were leaving our state.  The New Jersey we love — the New Jersey of our youth — was in danger of slipping away,” he explained.

“Within three weeks of taking office, we took immediate action to prevent a financial crisis and stabilize the state’s finances.

• We balanced that fiscal year 2010 budget by holding back what spending could be stopped, and averted New Jersey’s cash crisis.
• We enacted the first steps in reforming our system of pensions and benefits — saving state and local taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
• We enacted legislation to head off the looming crisis in our unemployment insurance system— preventing a tax increase of as much as $700 per employee for many employers.
• We made a down payment— with unanimous support in the legislature, by the way— on an education reform package which created a permanent interdistrict public school choice program.
• We passed a fiscal year 2011 budget which restored some sense of fiscal sanity — it required spending cuts from every department of state government — but we closed that $11 billion budget gap — without raising taxes.
• Most importantly, we took action on the problem which the people of New Jersey have been crying out for us to solve — the growth of their property taxes.  We capped that growth at 2 percent per year.  Then, we made the cap real by limiting interest arbitration awards to 2 percent as well, “he said.

“Well, we did change course — decisively, the governor explained.

“Today, step by step, we are putting ourselves on a better, more sustainable path— and pushing ahead on the road to growth.”

Looking toward the future, Governor Christie said, “For this year, the biggest things fall in three categories:

“One: we must stick to the course of fiscal discipline.

“Two: we must fix our pension and health benefit systems in order to save them.

“And three: we must reform our schools to make them the best in the nation.

“On these three, what is at stake is no less than the future of New Jersey.

“You see, we are in a global competition, and we are in a competition among states.

“So I ask you to join me in cutting the popular in order to fund the necessary.

“And I will go further than that.

“It is one thing to just say no to higher taxes after decades of tax increases —  115 in the last 10 years alone.

“If New Jersey is to be a home for growth, we need to reform the taxes we place on business and individuals and begin to roll them back.

“So we need comprehensive tax reform – and by that I mean changes that are considered together, not in a piecemeal approach.

“In my budget next month, I will propose the initial installment of such a package.

“But let’s be clear:  We will not put in place tax cuts that we can’t pay for.

Any economic incentive package that I will sign will be enacted in the context, and only in the context, of a balanced budget,” he said

Turning to the finance of retirement, Governor Christie said,” The second big issue we must tackle this year is our antiquated and unsustainable pension and benefit system.

“This cloud hangs over us — and almost every state in the union.  It is one of the reasons New Jerseyans pay the highest property taxes in America.

“Nearly 75 percent— 3 out of every 4 dollars— of our State’s municipal and county budgets are driven by personnel and labor costs.

“Without reform, pension and health care, benefit costs will increase by more than 40 percent over the next four years.

“Without reform, the unfunded liability of our pension system will grow, from $54 billion today to a staggering $183 billion within 30 years.

“Without reform, the required annual pension contribution by the state will grow to over $13 billion annually over that same time period.

“Just to put that in perspective that is more than New Jersey spends each year on its entire system of public education.

The choice is clear — reform today, or risk disaster tomorrow.

“Without reform, the beneficiaries of the system face a high risk of catastrophe which would place all of their benefits at risk.

“So again, I am not proposing pension and benefit reforms just to be tight-fisted.

I am proposing pension reform for the police officers who have served— and contributed— for years, but who may find nothing when they retire a decade from now.

“I am proposing pension reform for the firefighters who every day put their lives in danger to serve the public— and who have the right to expect that when the time comes, the public will serve them.

“I am proposing pension reform for the teachers who put in the extra hours every day to help their students.

We now must put in the extra hours to ensure the system is solvent for them.

If we cannot shed regulations, reduce spending, and hold the line on taxes, we cannot attract and create the jobs our citizens so desperately need.

“If we cannot make the promises of our pension system more realistic, there will be no pensions for those who have earned them.

“And if we cannot repair our schools, our people will not be ready for the jobs of the future.

“So our work is far from finished.

And here is where we must go in 2011 —  on the big things, the things that really matter.”

We wish the governor and the legislature continued success in this bipartisan effort continuing to save and restructure our Garden State.

By Douglas E. Hall

He is a nut plain and simple.  There are too many among us, but that’s part of our society, part of the price we pay for the freedom we enjoy.

There are also too many among, us, too many with microphones, megaphones and soap boxes who are ready to blame this psycho monster on this or that political movement, particularly, it seems on conservatives.

He is not a tea party member.  He was not driven to mass murder by Sarah Palin who unfortunately drew crosshairs on maps last year indicating where Republicans needed to work hardest to defeat Democrats.

No, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, lived in his own little mentally-ill world, worshiping a skull sitting in a pot on a make-shift backyard brick alter that appears to be a part of something that was once a grill for cookouts.  If he had a mentor it was Adolph Hitler since Loughner prized the book of Hitler’s political ideology, “Mein Kempf.”

Those who came into contact with this troubled man in the Arizona community college he attended for a time feared him.

Fellow students, and at least one instructor, feared his outbursts, his inappropriate laughter and babbling complaints about what he perceived to be a low level of literacy in the world he inhabited and resented.

There are many like him, Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber, and more recently, the disturbed man in Florida who held a school board at bay threatening to kill then all as the school superintendent pleaded with him to put the gun down. Fortunately, this man was a poor shot and wounded and killed no one before a security guard shot and killed him.

There is no complete or easy answer to preventing these outbreaks of senseless violence. A free society cannot generally lock these people up before they commit a crime.

We must wait until they do something illegal before they can be incarcerated.  Generally, our society cannot lock people up without due process.

It will do little or no good to tighten gun laws or expand legislation against hate speech.  Mad men are not so easily deterred.

There are some things we can do to decrease the carnage.  Why do we allow anyone to own sophisticated firepower such as Loughner’s weapon of choice, a Glock, semiautomatic pistol, capable of, with minor modification, of holding a clip of 33 bullets that can be fired at a rapid pace?

And while we cannot set about locking up individuals who act a bit strange, we should be able to identify such individuals to the point that they cannot easily obtain a semi-automatic gun with a high bullet capacity.

Further, our leaders and all of us must not stoop to use such a tragedy that killed six and wounded 14 to point fingers for political gain.  Among the dead was a federal judge and critically wounded with a bullet through her brain is Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat.

Douglas E. Hall

Efforts to incriminate Republicans unfortunately began while the barrel of Loughner’s gun was still hot.  It began at the scene of the crime in Tucson with Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik:

“Vitriol” in today’s political discourse contributed to the incident and that Arizona has become “a Mecca for prejudice and bigotry,” he said.

Playing the amateur psychiatrist, Dupnik condemned the “atmosphere of hatred and bigotry” that he said has gripped the nation and suggested that the suspect being held in the shooting was mentally ill and therefore more susceptible to overheated messages in the media.

No doubt his “mentally ill” judgment can put Sheriff Dupnik further into the spotlight as a witness for the defense at Loughner’s trial.  When did it become any sheriff’s job to prejudge the state of mind of one who publicly shoots down a Congresswoman, a federal judge and ordinary citizens?

He continued, “There’s reason to believe that this individual may have a mental issue. And I think people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol,” he said during his televised remarks. “People tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.”

Well, all speech can have consequences.  Why can’t we have more public officials who are more temperate and who think before they speak?

After Sheriff Dupnik wrapped up the Loughner case to his apparent satisfaction, there were others who piled on, including New Jersey Democrat Congressmen, Rep. William Pascrell who represents Dist. 8 that includes Paterson and Passaic.

Pascrell blamed the angry, unchecked rhetoric of some on-air personalities, including Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, for fanning partisan flames, and contributing to the kind of hostile environment out of which the shooting may have grown.

I’ll lay you dollars to doughnuts that there’s a good chance the madman of Tucson never heard of Glenn Beck.

And then Rep. Pascrell had the hypocritical tumidity to suggest to the clergy of North Jersey that they help people put aside their ideological differences during a “week of solidarity.”

Sharp thinking, Bill.  You’re just the guy to call for that.

The evidence is in that Loughner’s thoughts had little to do with the conduct of the 2010 election.  Loughner, registered as an independent, did not vote in 2010.  And there is evidence he has been obsessing on Rep. Giffords, who was the target of his attention, at least since 2007, when he asked her a strange question at a similar gathering as took place this past Saturday on Jan. 8.  “What is government if words have no meaning,” he asked three years ago.  He was incensed that he did not get a straight-forward answer.  This apparently was the beginning of a long grudge that came to a head in the shooting.

We’re not dealing with a political nut or ideologue.  Loughner is just a plain psycho nut.

Unlike some pols on the left, President Obama took the high road in leadership right after the shooting took place:

“This morning (Saturday, Jan. 8), in an unspeakable tragedy, a number of Americans were shot in Tucson, Arizona, at a constituent meeting with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. And while we are continuing to receive information, we know that some have passed away, and that Representative Giffords is gravely wounded.

“We do not yet have all the answers. What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society. I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Representative Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers.”

We all need our prayers to ask that this might be a less threatening and dangerous world.

By Will Corrente

I am a firm believer that client relationships are solidified during the holiday season.   As a child growing up I would watch my father hand deliver poinsettia plants and other gifts to our top customers each holiday season.  He knew a very valuable secret of small business ownership: show your customers personally how much you care about them and their business.   Thank you cards, small gifts or tokens of appreciation go a long way in solidifying business relationships throughout the year and should never be eliminated.

But a hand delivered holiday gift takes it to a whole new level, the level of personal appreciation and interaction.  Ever since as the owner of my own business and even during my years as a corporate executive, I do the exact same thing.   In case you didn’t know, poinsettias are poisonous to dogs, so instead of delivering poinsettias as my father did, I instead deliver boxes of cookies.  I order the cookies and had them delivered to my store.  I then had my staff hand address them and include a personal message of appreciation and holiday cheer.

Will Corrente

I then personally delivered them to each of my top referral partners.   The personal delivery is important especially when your business has grown beyond a one or two person operation.  I want these key relationship people to know me personally, who I am, what I look like and to personally shake their hand to say thank you and happy holidays.  Sure I could have had them delivered in an impersonal box with fancy corporate packaging to save time and effort, but that wouldn’t even have come close to expressing how important these strategic alliances are to me and my business.  I wanted them to know that they were so important to me and my business and that I the owner, the guy they seldom speak with or may not have even known exists took the time to personally acknowledge them and their contribution to our success.

This is in person delivery also serves another valuable tool, it allows me to solicit direct feedback on our performance and to gain insight into additional customer needs and wants.  After I introduce myself and present the gift I ask, are still hearing good things about us?  Is there anything we can improve upon?  Thankfully all of the feedback was good and there was nothing that was said that was in need of improvement.

If there were any negative comments or areas of improvement I would address and let them know of any further action I would be taking and when I would follow up with them on the result. I close by handing them my personal card and telling them I am always available to speak with them if they ever have any comments, concerns or feedback and please feel free to contact me. The holiday season is an excellent opportunity to show your clients how valuable they are to your business, how much you appreciate them and an excellent opportunity to solidify your most valuable relationships.

Will Corrente is Managing Director of Corrente Consulting International Inc. a small business entrepreneur consulting firm and professional connection company based in West Palm Beach, FL.  Feel free to email him questions, comments or suggested stories at will@willcorrente.com  or follow him on Twitter @willcorrente.