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Tonight on NJ Spotlight News, more flooding.

Another storm barreled through the state, bringing heavy rainfall and flooding neighborhoods and raising alarms about the frequency of these events.

Plus, bracing for impact.

New Jersey businesses are waiting for the economic impact of the president's tariffs that'll take effect next week.

So while the ultimate goals may be great for the idea of creating new opportunity and jobs back home, we need a bigger pathway to get there.

Also, state of disrepair.

Trenton Waterworks is on the verge of collapse after years of mismanagement, leaving thousands of residents unsure of where their water will come from.

And access to the candidates.

With only two official debates scheduled for the upcoming gubernatorial election, is that enough for voters to get to know the candidates?

A debate may not be won or lost in the conventional sense, but you still have to demonstrate to people that you are worth voting for, that there's something exciting about you.

NJ Spotlight News begins right now.

♪♪ >> From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Brianna Vanozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

Brianna Vanozzi is off.

>> We begin with a few of today's top stories.

First, New Jersey's drying out after being drenched yesterday by a storm that dropped heavy rain across the state, totaling one to three inches in most places, but significantly more in a few others.

Browns Mill in Burlington County had the highest reported rain total with six inches.

Manchester Township in Ocean County got almost five inches, and Montague in Sussex County reported just over four.

The kind of severe flash flooding that rocked central Jersey earlier this month was largely avoided, although there were scattered reports of flooded roads.

South Amboy was particularly hard hit this time, with viral video on social media showing an NJ Transit train moving through floodwaters in the area.

The town had dried out by this morning, but the storm left some delay-weary commuters on edge.

>> I'm always concerned because I commute a lot, so, like, last week, it was a lot of trouble on the tracks, so delays, like, hours, like, so, but today, it was fine.

But it's always a concern.

Yes, it's always a concern, especially when it's storms and stuff like that, so, but it's safe today.

>> Also, New Jersey residents and drivers are advised to be aware of scam texts that may appear to be from the State Motor Vehicle Commission, E-ZPass, or the New Jersey Courts.

These texts will say that you have unpaid fines or tolls and threaten severe consequences if you don't pay immediately.

Thousands of people have reported getting these messages, often with links that indicate where you can pay your phony fines.

Don't take the bait.

Government agencies will never send you a text message demanding payment, and law enforcement and our court systems never accept gift cards as payment of bail.

Plus, another one they caution you to look out for, employers offering high-paying jobs over text message.

These are all fraudulent attempts to steal your money and access your accounts.

If you do have a traffic ticket or fine, you can go directly to the state's official website by opening a new browser page on your device.

>> And did you know that New Jersey lifeguards are entitled to a pension?

A state law passed in 1928 called the Lifeguard Pension Fund Law entitles these seasonal workers to a pension at age 45 after 20 years of service.

The fund is managed by the individual municipality that the lifeguard is employed in.

But the state's comptroller, Kevin Walsh, recently analyzed how the program is run and found major inconsistencies between the shore towns.

Not all of them are required to offer a pension, and of those required, not all are in compliance with the law.

Of those that are offering lifeguard pensions, many are facing multimillion-dollar shortages in their fund.

Walsh says the findings indicate that the law is outdated and inequitable and imposes excessive financial burdens on just a few towns while offering generous benefits to workers in seasonal jobs.

He's calling on the legislature to revise the law.

>> Global trade deals are top of mind as President Trump announced new tariffs that will take effect today and next week.

The most stark increase, a hike from 25% to 35% going into effect on all goods coming into the U.S. from Canada that aren't already included in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.

And another 40 countries will see a new 15% tariff on goods coming into the U.S. That includes our trade partners in the European Union after a deal was reached earlier this week where the E.U.

agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of U.S. energy and invest an additional $600 billion by 2028.

And a 10% tariff will go into effect on other countries that have already reached trade deals but that still have a trade surplus from the U.S. Now, the news sent markets tumbling yesterday and the U.S. dollar dropped against other global currencies.

Market uncertainty continued today as the latest U.S. jobs report was released showing a major slowdown.

Only 73,000 jobs were added for the month of July.

That's much lower than economists expected.

Shortly after the report came out, President Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner saying without proof that the numbers were manipulated for political purposes.

Here in New Jersey, businesses are bracing for impact as most of these tariffs are set to take effect on August 7th.

In our spotlight on business report, we have Michelle Cekirka, president and CEO of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, here to look at the impact on our state's economy.

Michelle, it's great to have you with us tonight.

Can you just help us make sense of the announcement that came from the president just yesterday about the tariffs that we can expect and what the impact will be here in New Jersey?

Well, the impact is going to be that the cost has to be assumed and absorbed somewhere.

So it's either going to be absorbed by the receiving party.

And let's just start and focus on manufacturing because this is the biggest impact.

The goals of the tariffs are to drive more manufacturing back to the United States.

The challenge is this is all happening too fast.

So while the ultimate goals may be great for the idea of creating new opportunity and jobs back home, we need a bigger pathway to get there, a longer runway to get there.

We don't have enough workforce here and we have critical manufacturing inputs that we don't make in America that we must source from elsewhere.

I'm just going to tell you that 56 percent of U.S. imported goods support manufacturing.

You say we need a longer runway.

What would that, what should that look like in your mind?

Absolutely.

So in the meantime, what we need to do is we need to understand the situation.

So for those critical inputs, example again for manufacturing, that we cannot source from America today.

Take for example steel.

Can we use steel as an example?

Steel is a perfect example.

That's exactly where I was going, because there are certain things in order for us to manufacture here that we do not have the critical parts of steel to get here in America.

Right.

And so what we need to do is for those companies who are going to continue to invest here in America and particularly here in New Jersey.

Right.

Think about manufacturing.

One hundred and twenty years ago, Trenton makes the world takes.

Right.

That's steel, Roebling steel.

In order to do that, in the meantime, we have to ensure that we have tariff free access to the inputs that these manufacturers need so they could use the money to invest in their growth here and invest in building the workforce here.

We don't have that today and we need the time to build it in order to be able to say made in America more than we say made in America today.

Are we seeing, Michelle, any move towards more businesses, more manufacturing coming here to the U.S. since these conversations around the tariff started at the start of this Trump administration?

Well, I think the industry on the whole is at a freeze point right now, waiting for predictability and certainty about what's to come.

I mean, that makes sense.

You can't make investments if you don't know what those investments are going to cost you 30 days from now, six months from now, a year from now, five years from now.

Especially in manufacturing, very, very cost intensive industry.

We're not going to make big investments until we know what it's going to take for us to get ROI on those investments.

Are you concerned seeing the jobs report that came out today that clearly there's been a slowing down?

Are you seeing that here in New Jersey correlating with the national numbers?

Yes.

In fact, I mean, I think this past month I just saw that maybe our numbers were a little better on unemployment, less people on unemployment.

But our unemployment rate has been higher than the national and we should be concerned about that.

And we also have to recognize that the workforce shortages that we experience today are the result of not just, you know, lack of skills to get people into the right jobs, which we continue to try to develop each and every day in partnership with our educational institutions.

Right.

The right skills for the right jobs.

But we are looking down a demographic loss in coming.

We're going to have a demographic cliff.

We're going to have about a decade where birth rates have been down and we need to ensure that we can fill the jobs that we have.

And I'm going to go back again to manufacturing, because today, even if we could possibly bring more back here today, we don't have the workforce to support what we need to deliver the products we want to make here in America today.

All right, Michelle Stokurka, we have to leave it there.

President and CEO of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, as always, thanks for your perspective.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Support for The Business Report is provided by the Newark Alliance presents the 2025 Halsey Fest featuring the vibrancy of Newark's Arts and Education District and Halsey Street.

Halsey, a neighborhood built on hustle and heart.

The 2025 Halsey Fest schedule is available at HalseyNWK.com.

Most people don't think about where their water comes from.

They just turn on the spout and use it.

But what happens when the entity that controls your water supply starts failing?

That's what's happening in the Trenton region right now, where five cities and towns are trying to determine how to restructure the operation of Trenton Water Works, which a recent assessment shows is in crisis.

And they're getting pressure from the State Department of Environmental Protection, whose commissioner is pushing for a regionalization of the utility company.

Ted Goldberg has more on the proposed changes and the reactions to it.

Makes me want to tear my hair out.

That was three years ago, and the water situation in Trenton hasn't gotten much easier on Hamilton Mayor Jeff Martin.

So while it's not all torn out, it's certainly there's less of it.

Though he still has hair, Martin is still worried about Trenton Water Works, which supplies water for more than 200,000 people.

The utility has earned scathing reviews from the Department of Environmental Protection, which has provided oversight here for about three years and has suggested they regionalize, essentially splitting control of the utility between these five municipalities.

Trenton Mayor Reed Gashoris says he'd be open to a study to figure out costs and benefits.

I've all along said that I'm in favor of this study and that what it means to Trentonians, what it means to the workforce that's there, how much it will cost, and what's the governance structure in the future.

I want to be, as the mayor of Hamilton, part of an entity that's going to provide clean and safe drinking water without anybody having a reservation of when they turn on the tap what they're getting.

Mayor Gashoris tells us he's not opposed to the idea of regionalizing.

He just thinks the DEP is being a little forceful about wanting Trenton to buy in.

Now it seems that they want to put the cart before the horse and demand regionalization without any regard to what Trentonians think or any evaluation of Trenton Water Works and what it means for Trentonians.

DEP Commissioner Sean Lazzarette visited the water treatment plant in mid-June and sent Trenton City Council a letter this week stating in part, "For the well-being of the City and the health and safety of all Trenton Water Works customers, DEP cannot encourage you strongly enough to proceed with restructuring or regionalization."

The roof of the water treatment plant is riddled with holes, with mold growing, clearly growing in the ceiling tiles.

This is unsafe for the workers.

You see electric cords draped over areas that are covered in water, which they shouldn't be.

Well, he's not an engineer and the system is probably the second oldest water system in the nation, but yet it still delivers water that meets all federal drinking standards.

Lazzarette testified about Trenton's water supply at an Assembly budget hearing in April, where he offered a stark opinion on the Capitol's leadership.

My honest opinion is that the water system needs to be untied from the city government itself.

We're going to untie the city and then we're going to merge them with four other municipalities.

Who is the expertise?

You recruit it, you bring it in.

And why can't DEP do that now?

Because no one will work with the City of Trenton.

An anti-regionalization campaign has also begun in Trenton, tied to former Councilwoman and Mayoral candidate Robin Vaughn, who was often at odds with city administration, with billboards like this earning the anger of people like Lazzarette.

People died from Legionnaires' disease in this area.

And that grassroots movement is motivated by former city council members with political axes to grind.

And it is deeply, deeply shameful.

Some places in New Jersey have sold off their water utilities to private companies, but these communities aren't interested in that.

What we're looking for is to buy shares in Trenton Water Works so that we have an ownership stake in it.

Why would you want to buy shares in something that you know is troubled, that you know has a lot of debt?

The status quo cannot continue.

So now what are our other options?

Trenton sent a reply to the DEP saying, quote, "The letter reads less as constructive oversight and more as an attempt to pressure the city into a predetermined outcome, without the due diligence or public engagement that such a consequential decision requires."

All this leaves Hamilton Mayor Jeff Martin still wanting to tear his hair out, along with Trenton and the DEP at an impasse for how to handle the water supply going forward.

In Trenton, I'm Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.

Survivors of sexual assault who are waiting for due process have faced a common problem in the state, not knowing whether their case is moving forward after providing what's called a rape kit.

Well, earlier this week, New Jersey's attorney general announced a statewide system is rolling out that allows each individual to remotely track their own case and to get updates privately in a way that's more sensitive to their emotional process.

It'll also create accountability for the more than 6,000 kits that have been collected but not yet tested.

Here to explain how the system will work is First Assistant Attorney General, Lindsay Ritolo.

Lindsay, so great to have you with us.

I want to talk to you about these sexual assault forensic exams, these safe kits.

First, what are they?

Sure.

So a safe kit is taken by a forensic nurse examiner after an assault takes place.

A victim, of course, has to consent to this.

And if they do, then a highly trained victim-centric nurse who usually works with law enforcement will meet them at a medical facility and will conduct a forensic examination, collect specimens that will have evidential value further down the line in a prosecution and store it in a kit called the safe kit.

So the state's rolled out this electronic tracking system.

Help us understand why that was necessary.

What does it provide to survivors or those who come forward and allege that they've been raped?

Of course.

So we've taken, with Attorney General Plattken's leadership, a more victim-centric, trauma-informed approach.

And this is just one of several steps and reforms that we've implemented to achieve that goal.

In having a database, what we've done is we've provided victims and survivors with the freedom and autonomy to make their own decisions about when they get status updates and how.

So at any point during their process of healing, a survivor can log into the portal and see where their track is in the system.

Has it left law enforcement?

Has it gone to a lab?

And this saves them from the potential re-traumatization of an unwanted status update from a law enforcement officer.

We don't want to disrupt their life and their healing journey as they recover.

Make that come to life for us.

What would that have looked like for a person?

And was there difficulty in that process in terms of there being a backlog?

What did that look like?

So what we heard from survivors is that it's such a fragile journey, right?

Like there are days where they're able to move on with their life, and often that would be the day that they would be picking up their kids from school and there's a voicemail missed from a detective who's just giving them an update that we thought was intentional and helpful in their healing journey but was actually really disruptive.

So this allows them to decide when they want to log on.

The general has also changed the standards that we use in collecting kits, storing them, and also the discretion that used to exist here in New Jersey in law enforcement where a victim had consented to having their kit tested, it wouldn't always be tested.

And this left several thousand kits untested in the state of New Jersey.

Attorney General Plakken, through directive, has mandated that all kits that a victim has consented to testing will now go through a forensic lab test.

That discretion has been eliminated.

So does this then create the need for more law enforcement folks involved in the testing process to ensure that these cases actually move forward?

Actually, the area where we need to really bolster our staffing is in forensic science.

We're working closely with the state lab and the counties that have labs to really support them so that they can handle the influx in kits.

And I would encourage any of your viewers who are educators to really focus on STEM students and encourage them to pursue and consider careers in forensic science.

It's a really impactful career.

These are really tangible changes that we're seeing kind of on the front end.

Does it create more accountability on the back end where more cases are actually brought forward, more cases are tried?

Of course.

The mission was to create more victim-centric, trauma-informed policy and reform, and General Plakken has done that since he took office.

But one of the other effects that this has had is we want to encourage survivors to come forward, and they're going to be more likely to do that if there is a more approachable system for them, a system that's easier for them to navigate.

But by having more of them come forward and by testing every kit that we collect, we're able to identify serial offenders, and then that does lead to more accountability.

And of course, from a public safety perspective, we want to prevent future harm by finding perpetrators and holding them accountable.

And just very quickly, the law that was passed in 2023 also changed the time in which a person could come forward and say that they had been raped.

Can you explain that quickly?

And the legislature also changed the statute of limitations to allow for victims and survivors more time to come forward.

Yeah.

Lindsay Rotolo, first assistant attorney general here in the state of New Jersey, thank you.

Thank you.

In each election cycle, there's a governing body called ELEC, the Election Law Enforcement Commission, that determines how many debates will happen between the major candidates.

With New Jersey just three months away from electing our next governor, the debate number has been set by ELEC at two.

So is that enough for voters to make their choice?

And how do the candidates feel about it?

Senior political correspondent David Cruz takes a look.

When candidates qualify and opt to participate in the public financing program, they are required to participate in these debates.

Election Law Enforcement Commission executive director Amanda Haynes says the two governors and one lieutenant governor debate awarded this week are exactly what the state's public financing law requires.

But Republican Jack Cittarelli thinks two gubernatorial debates is not enough.

His campaign has asked ELEC to schedule four.

Generally speaking, people say, oh, they want they want more debates because they're behind.

No, no, I think the answer here is and we've seen this, she's done less than 10 public interviews by my count.

She's done less than two dozen public events since the primary.

Our campaign is saying let's have a public debate and a public conversation.

And frankly, members of the press, I would hope, would be asking her and her team these questions and asking why she's hiding from you.

That's a lot coming from a campaign well practiced in avoiding joint appearances during the recent primary.

In that race, Cittarelli led in the polls the entire way.

But Sheryl is still working on a public style and hasn't had decades of politics to get to know the state press like Cittarelli has.

Sheryl's camp didn't respond to our calls today.

Still, she's ahead in all public polls.

So why would she why would any front runner want more debates?

That's how strategists like Dan Bryan see it.

He's a Democrat who saw Governor Phil Murphy through two campaigns worth of debates.

Listen, David, here's what I'll say.

If you mapped out campaigns over the last decade that have asked for more debates and demanded endless debates and campaigns that have actually won in the end of the day, it's a pretty small list.

You know, demanding endless debates is usually the hallmark of a losing even a desperate campaign.

I think that's what we're seeing with the Cittarelli campaign right now.

I have never heard a voter say I really wish they had more debates.

Usually two is enough.

You know, the days of having all of these debates is usually before television.

Since then, you know, one or two debates is usually plenty for actual voters.

I personally and I think a lot of people who care about democracy would love to see more debates.

But we'd like to see actual debates where people go back and forth.

You know, you look at that old Kennedy Nixon debate that everyone knows so well.

Those were pretty good debates.

You know, they were civil.

They were policy oriented.

There wasn't a lot of sniping.

It was pretty high level stuff.

And I think we'd like more of that.

You know, we hear repeatedly from you.

It's always the previous administration's fault or Donald Trump's fault.

So let's just say that's why I say that.

I'll reject you twice.

Character is an issue.

You've never won election.

He's integrity.

You've been rejected by.

All right.

Oh, for the days of the three hour Lincoln Douglas debates where each candidate spoke for 30 minutes with a 90 minute response, followed by a 30 minute rebuttal from the first candidate.

You can't imagine sitting through that because in 1859, they didn't put out seats.

Not in this short attention span era, says Professor Ambar.

But a debate may not be won or lost in the conventional sense, but you still have to demonstrate to people that you are worth voting for, that there's something exciting about you.

Why am I going to come home early or get in line early in the morning?

That may be expecting a lot from a debate with candidates trained to deliver sound bites and one liners over nuance.

But is more really more?

That is, as they say, open to debate.

I'm David Cruz.

NJ Spotlight News.

That's going to do it for us this week.

But remember, you can download our podcast wherever you listen and watch us anytime by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

Plus, you can follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky to stay up to date on all the state's big headlines.

I'm Joanna Gagas for the entire team at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

Have a great weekend and we'll see you here on Monday.

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