Corzine Crash Comes at Crucial Time for N.J.

This is Joisy, folks. A truck ran him off the road according to witnesses. The cops are eating doughnuts and the truck driver is footloose and fancy free.
----
April 15, 2007

Members of the staff of Gov. Jon S. Corzine say it could take a week to 10 days before he is well enough to resume his duties as the governor of New Jersey. His doctor said it could be “days or weeks.” Six months may pass before he can get around by himself.

No matter how long the recuperation period, the incapacitating injuries that Mr. Corzine suffered Thursday evening when his Chevrolet Suburban crashed on the Garden State Parkway not far from Atlantic City come at an important moment in both state government and in the life of his young administration, politicians and analysts said. If his convalescence proves a lengthy one, they said, the crash could define his first term and lead the state into murky political waters.

“From every point of view, this is not a fortuitous time for him or for the state,” Thomas H. Kean, a former governor of New Jersey, said of the accident.

By MICHAEL COOPER

--MORE--

N.J. Pension Fund Endangered by Diverted Billions

April 4, 2007

In 2005, New Jersey put either $551 million, $56 million or nothing into its pension fund for teachers. All three figures appeared in various state documents — though the state now says that the actual amount was zero.

The phantom contribution is just one indication that New Jersey has been diverting billions of dollars from its pension fund for state and local workers into other government purposes over the last 15 years, using a variety of unorthodox transactions authorized by the Legislature and by governors from both political parties.

--MORE--