(upbeat music) - From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

- Good evening and thanks for joining us on this Thursday night.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

Tonight, a few stories we're digging into later in the broadcast.

Who's ahead in the closely watched race for governor?

We'll tell you what the latest statewide poll says.

Then, years after a lead crisis, Newark is touting cleaner, safer drinking water, how a $20 million upgrade made it possible.

And later, filmmaker Ken Burns talks about his new documentary on the American Revolution and why New Jersey played a pivotal part.

But first, a few of today's top headlines.

With six weeks to go before election day, Democrat Mikey Sherrill has an eight-point lead over Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli in a new poll out today.

The Quinnipiac University survey finds Sherrill was favored by 49 percent of likely voters to Ciattarelli's 41 percent.

It also shows Democrats and Republicans are largely backing their party's nominees.

But independent voters, which will play a key role in this election, were split.

45 percent supporting Sherrill and 41 percent behind Ciattarelli.

With the margin of error, it means the vote could swing well within Ciattarelli's direction.

This is the most recent public poll of the race, conducted just last week.

But it's not the only one to give Sheryl an edge.

Two other polls out this summer by Fairley Dickinson University and Rutgers Eagleton also found Sheryl with an 8-9 point lead.

Other national surveys show the margins are much closer.

Meanwhile, likely voters in the new poll also gave Governor Murphy a 48 percent job approval rating and President Trump at 41 percent.

Also tonight it turns out a 2.7 billion dollar new terminal still wasn't enough to save Newark Airport at least on the latest customer satisfaction list where Newark landed dead last in JD Power's North American mega airport rankings yet again.

That's despite the new infrastructure and rave from airline passengers about the new terminal A. Travelers say the airport, though, still falls short, especially when it comes to getting there.

Meanwhile, the ranking isn't putting the brakes on future plans.

United Airlines, which is Newark Airport's largest carrier, just announced it's adding 2500 jobs over the next year and expanding its gate space.

CEO Scott Kirby says Newark is United's launch pad for Europe and only expects the hub to grow from here as he looks to the future.

The airport, though, still falls short, especially when it comes to getting there.

Meanwhile, the ranking isn't putting the brakes on future plans.

United Airlines, which is Newark Airport's largest carrier, just announced it's adding 2500 jobs over the next year and expanding its gate space.

CEO Scott Kirby says Newark is United's launch pad for Europe and only expects the hub to grow from here as he looks to the future.

The airport, though, still falls short, especially when it comes to getting there.

Meanwhile, the ranking isn't putting the brakes on future plans.

Those, of course, were capped in May after a chaotic spring when a series of equipment failures at the Air Traffic Control Center led to ground stops and cancellations.

And the former Del Barton priest accused of sex abuse took the stand in a landmark trial yesterday.

The former Father Richard Lott testified he wasn't on campus the day he was accused of sexually abusing a student who was 15 years old at the time.

Saying instead he was at a church in Lakewood on New Year's Eve of 1975.

That former student, known only by the initials TM, brought the civil suit against Lott.

The case is playing out in Morristown courtroom.

It's the first of its kind against the Catholic Church in New Jersey to go to trial.

According to NorthJersey.com, who was in the courtroom, the 89-year-old Lott seemed confused at times during questioning, telling the plaintiff's attorney he didn't recall some events.

The attorneys for TM argued Lott contradicted testimony given in past depositions and said he introduced this alibi only last year.

Lott admitted no records could confirm he was at the Lakewood Church that day.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys noted TM stayed in touch with the priest and they even reunited several times after TM left the school, including trips to Lott's home and overnight visits.

TM will get the chance to testify this week as the trial continues.

And coming up, nominees for governor, Mikey Sherrill and Jack Ciattarelli, are heading into the final campaign stretch and voters will get their first chance to see them face off in a high-stakes debate.

We'll tell you what to expect.

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As we mentioned at the top of the show, the latest polling on the governor's race gives Democrat Mikey Sherrill the edge, just days before the two candidates are set to square off in their first head-to-head debate Sunday night, giving each of their nominees their first opportunity to confront one another about the top issues facing the state and their vision to fix them.

It comes as mail-in ballots begin hitting voters' mailboxes as early as this weekend, meaning some residents could cast a vote before either Jack Ciatarelli or Mikey Sherrill says a single word on the debate stage.

Our senior writer Colleen O'Day joins me now for a preview and what you need to know.

Colleen, so before we get into that poll and everything else, let's talk about this debate.

What makes this so consequential?

You and I have covered a few of these races before.

So this is really the first time that we're seeing these two candidates go head-to-head.

We had some primary debates, those were intra-party fights.

Now we're seeing them speak one-to-one against one another.

And there have been a lot of grenades that have been hurled from campaign to campaign.

What's going to happen when you're going to face that head-on, face-to-face?

So that's one key reason that this is important.

And what do they need to accomplish?

Because both on paper and out on the campaign trail, these are two very different personalities and different people.

What do they need to accomplish on Sunday?

You know, so one thing that Jack Ciuddarelli needs to do is convince Democrats and independents to vote for him.

There are 860,000 more Democrats than Republicans in this state.

So he's really at a disadvantage.

Is that realistically something that he can overcome?

That a candidate can overcome when that voter registration difference is that big?

Chris Christie did it.

We've had lots of other Republicans who've done it before.

So yes, he definitely can, especially if he is able to convince people in New Jersey that they're really not happy with the way things have been going the last eight years with full Democratic control in Trenton.

What about for Mikey Sherrill?

What does she need to accomplish?

You know, so what Mikey Sherrill really kind of needs to do is show people that she can kind of stand up for herself, speak off the cuff.

She's really not had many events where she's been out just interacting with the public town hall kind of events.

Cittarelli's been out in diners and he's done some town hall style events where he's been asked questions.

She needs to show that she both can answer the questions and has answers that people will support, will like.

We see very different styles from them, both on the campaign trail and in some of their ads.

You mentioned that a lot of the ads so far have been sort of bios, who they are, what they stand for.

But there have been a few attacks already too.

I imagine that we're going to see some of those barbs on the debate stage.

Absolutely.

There's no question I think we're going to see that.

We know what some of that is going through.

Jack Ciatarelli has attacked Mikey Sherrill for the money that she has made on stock trades while she has been in Congress.

She pretty much attacks him at every turn on supporting Trump, 100% Trump.

And she's also got an ad that, you know, talks about him wanting to raise taxes.

He disputes that.

So we're going to see a lot of that.

I also think we're going to see this, this kind of question of who's really Jersey?

And do we want to, you know, do you need to elect someone who's Jersey?

I spoke with Dan Cassino of the FDU poll, and he had something to say about that.

We say someone is Jersey.

What we mean is, honestly, we're pulling on, you know, perhaps outdated stereotypes of what a Jersey guy is, right?

That is being aggressive, right?

That is being a fighter.

This is what Chris Christie excelled at, right?

Saying, I'm going to be aggressive on your behalf.

You might think I'm a jerk, but I'm your jerk, darn it.

And that's an effective way to go.

But it is an attack of authenticity.

It's the fact that I buy into, you can trust me as a leader because I'm a Jersey guy.

So it's a way of generally trying to claim those masculinized leadership traits for himself, as well as make a claim that he is more authentic than Mikey Sherrill is.

I mean, he makes a good point.

Chrissy didn't just excel, he perfected it, I would say.

But I mean, what can we expect then in terms of how they go after some of the big topics in the state and who has command over the issues?

- Right, so Jack Cittarelli today, in fact, had an event where he laid out his affordability agenda.

He's got a 10-point plan, so he's well-prepared, I think, to talk about that.

Whether you agree with it or not, I think there'll be some back and forth on some of those points.

You know, Mikey Sherrill has got a lot of plans.

She's rolled out a plan about utility costs and how she's going to tackle that from day one.

I think we'll see a lot of back and forth about that as well.

Can she do what she says she wants to do?

So, I think that, you know, we're going to see a lot of discussion of affordability.

I'm sure we're going to hear about things like parental rights in schools.

That's been a big issue.

Transportation we know that New Jerseyans are not always happy with the way infrastructure is.

So and you know taxes.

I mean these are all you know perennial questions.

Property taxes in particular in New Jersey.

What type of boost if any does Mikey Sherrill have now with three public polls behind her that have given her an edge.

Though margin of error of But quickly, what type of boost does that give her?

I mean, it's got to be a great confidence boost.

But if you ask the Sheryl campaign, they'll say, "No, no, no, we're running as if we're behind."

Not sure if that's really the case.

And so she's got an 8-point lead.

If you look at the margin of error, that goes down to potentially a 4-point lead.

And there are some parts of this poll that are good for her.

You know, Trump's approval rating is 41%, and she is definitely being, you know, anti-Trump at this point.

But on the other hand, there are some things that Cittarelli can take out of this that are positive.

His voters are more enthusiastic, and they're very more enthusiastic.

And he also does better with her on the issue of property taxes.

- Good point.

Very quickly, vote-by-mail ballots will be going out.

People should be on the lookout for those.

Quickly, in 20 seconds, what do we need to know?

- Yes, some may have gone out already.

They have to go out on Saturday.

If you are used to getting one of these in the mail, please don't throw out any mail you get from your county clerk because it's probably your ballot.

You've got until pretty much Election Day at 8 o'clock to return it in a drop box.

You can mail it back.

You can vote in person early, on election day, lots of choices.

The debate is Sunday night at 7 o'clock, hosted by Rutter University, NJ Globe and ONNJ.

You can read more about where to watch it and all of Colleen's reporting on our website, njspotlightnews.org.

Colleen, thanks as always.

Thank you so much, Brie.

City leaders in Newark are celebrating a major milestone this week, unveiling a $20 million transformation of the Pequonic Water Treatment Plant, with improvements that are expected to make cleaner, safer drinking water for the roughly 350,000 people it serves.

It's the latest chapter in Newark's effort to restore trust in the city's water system following a lead crisis that shook Newark seven years ago and a mission to make sure a similar situation never happens again.

Raven Santana reports.

We operate pumps, monitor levels, pressure gate pressures.

This summer, Newark finished a $20 million upgrade at the Pequanic Water Treatment Plant, which has been running since 1989.

I got a behind-the-scenes look at the changes, the plant now pumping out up to 60 million gallons of clean drinking water a day for nearly 400,000 people.

I know if I tell Newarkers, they might not clearly understand everything we're talking about, but what they will know is that they're getting clean water every single day, the water is safe to use, and that we'll be able to deliver it to more and more customers throughout the state.

Thea Rasbrock, adjoined water and sewer director Kareem Adim, NJDEP Deputy Commissioner Katie Angarone, and other state leaders for a tour marking the plant's state-of-the-art refresh.

The upgrades were financed through the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank, and officials say that saved taxpayers more than $7 million in borrowing costs.

State Superintendent Kevin Greer walked us through some of those improvements, including a new SCADA control system, which continuously tracks flows, pressure, chemical levels and water quality, while allowing operators to adjust treatment in real time to keep drinking water safe.

This is our upgraded state of the art new SCADA system.

We have the ability to control our dosages based on the parts per million that we prescribe on a daily basis.

We get 24-hour readings that gives us the daily reports that we send out to the city every day.

The plant also swapped out its old sand and gravel filters for new ones designed to catch forever chemicals like PFAS, contaminants that don't break down easily and have been linked to cancers and other serious health risks.

Greer showed us how the water moves through the new filtration system where it's then tested in the lab.

GAC is the new technology that removes a lot of the PFAS, right, new technology for filtration.

All our filters used to be standard filtrate filters, sand, gravel and anthracite.

We upgraded to GAC.

These improvements come after hard lessons.

The city of Newark's water supply impacted thousands of residents.

Since then, the city has fixed its corrosion control issues and replaced all 23,000 of its known lead service lines at no cost to homeowners.

And officials here I spoke with say the newly upgraded investments are not just about fixing past problems, but about protecting the city's water supply for generations to come.

Nobody pays attention to water until they don't have any or until they have too much of it.

The men and women that work in water and wastewater infrastructure, they're the hidden jewels.

When you wake up in the morning, you just want to go in the bathroom and turn that tap on.

As long as water comes out, you're happy.

When you flush the toilet, as long as the water goes out, you're happy.

So I just think, you know, it's a pleasure and it's a great accomplishment that the men and women that actually work here every day, 24-hour operation, is recognized for the commitment they do for our residents to provide safe drinking water for those people in Newark and those surrounding communities.

It's about the business that wants to locate in your community as well.

And certainly it's Every single one of these decisions has implications for public health.

And when you make the right decision people are protected.

That's the bottom line.

For residents officials say the message is clear.

Newark's water is not only safe but it's getting cleaner.

For NG Spotlight News I'm Raven Santana.

New Jersey may be a political battleground right now with our upcoming gubernatorial election, but the state's pivotal role in the Revolutionary War is a major part of documentarian Ken Burns' latest project.

The American Revolution is a six-part series premiering on PBS in November that looks at the battle for our nation's independence.

On the season premiere of Chat Box, host David Cruz spoke with the acclaimed filmmaker about New Jersey's role in the war, along with how the federal rescissions of public media funding has impacted his productions and communities across the country.

Take a listen.

You know, I don't know that New Jerseyans really know about how big a role the state played in the American Revolution.

We kind of downplayed that.

It's huge, David.

It's I cannot, you know, overemphasize how central New Jersey is to this story.

You know, there's a kind of a joke now.

George Washington slept here.

It really mattered in the revolution where he slept.

And often that place where he slept was in New Jersey.

And that's a really important part.

After the fall of New York, after Washington loses the biggest battle of the Revolution, the Battle of Long Island, and has to abandon Manhattan, he moves up to White Plains, lose that battle, then comes down and is retreating across New Jersey, and the British think they've got it all pacified.

They use the same terms as we used in the Vietnam War.

They pacified this province.

And people line up to sign a declaration of dependence afterwards, and there's offered amnesty.

And then, of course, as an occupying army, they begin to take liberties.

They forage, that women are raped, families are destroyed, and all of a sudden, the tide turns.

And there are more British and Hessian soldiers killed by guerrilla actions, by ambushes, than they are in the three major set-piece battles in New Jersey that we've, at least some of us, have heard about.

Trenton, of course, everybody's heard about, but Princeton and Monmouth Courthouse, those are the big set-piece battles.

But they're happening-- skirmishes and ambushes are happening in hundreds of places.

And so it's nitty gritty.

It's really the story of the revolution written in an intimate community by community way.

And we've tried to honor that.

And then when the war moves south, the same thing happens, particularly in South Carolina, that same kind of Americans killing Americans.

We just think it's us with our big ideas, all true, fighting the Brits with their bad ideas.

Well, they had the best system of government up to that point, the British constitutional monarchy, but we just came up with a better idea.

And the Conservatives, the Loyalists, which is nothing wrong with that, they just saw all of their prosperity and health and the fact that they own land as issuing from Great Britain.

Why would I want to change that?

And so I think what happens is the revolution just awakens people, and not just the sort of moneyed, propertyed people, but everybody to the possibility of the cause.

And so you find Native peoples, you find free and enslaved African-Americans, you find the Spanish on the southern borders, you find all of these people trying to make decisions about which side to go on.

And it's not clear for just about anybody.

And the armies are constantly changing.

It's so, so interesting.

It's not too fine a point, I imagine, to talk about how this subject matter speaks to our current moment, no?

Well, you know, I think that we have a discipline.

We've always had that.

Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."

You know, if he said it, it's a perfect thing.

No event has ever happened twice, ever.

But we do understand that human nature stays the same, and we see that.

And we're at a particularly divided moment in our history, and I think it's important to know, A, we've always been divided.

And there's no more so than in our revolution, or civil war, at this moment, at that moment.

There's not a period that you could find where we're not divided.

But I think we've lost touch with the revolution.

There's no photographs, there's no newsreels, so we keep it at a kind of sentimental arm's length.

And what we wanted to do was give the reality of the war.

It doesn't in any way diminish the big ideas that issue out of Philadelphia.

In fact, it makes those big ideas even more impressive.

And as I said, there is no more important event in the history of humankind after the birth of Christ than the American Revolution.

Everybody before that was a subject under authoritarian rule, and everybody after that, in the United States at least, had the possibility of being a citizen.

Now, it wasn't extended to everybody.

No women were included.

Obviously, black and enslaved blacks were not.

Even free blacks couldn't vote.

So there's Native peoples... There are lots of asterisks, but eventually those words are going to open the door for everybody, and we should be extraordinarily proud.

And rather than grab onto the mantle of a particular current political argument, I'd like to say there is something in this film that every single American, regardless of their persuasion, will find an ability to feel proud and inspirited by.

Because we're umpires calling balls and strikes.

We're not interested in putting our thumb on the scale and saying, "Oh, isn't this so much like today?"

We're just saying, "This is one of the great stories in all of human history, and guess what?

It's our story.

It's complicated.

It's under-toe.

It has a cast of characters like you can't believe, and we sort of reveal who those bold-faced names are in much more human dimension, and we introduce you to dozens of bottom-up characters that you never have heard of before.

- You're a PBS staple.

I have to talk to you about this.

The network has been devastated by federal cuts and other challenges of the marketplace.

I wonder what you've been thinking.

How has it impacted this work and plans for works going forward?

- Well, I'm happy to say, David, it hasn't influenced this work.

It hasn't affected it in that way, but upcoming projects that we're working on have been severely budgets that we thought were there, money that had been committed have just been taken back and clawed back, and so it's made our job a little bit more difficult.

It's such a short-sighted decision.

It's going to hurt mostly rural communities that depend on these signals and for not just our superb prime time and children's programming, but also for homeland security, continuing education, classrooms of the air, emergency alerts, stuff like that.

And so it just, it seems petty and short-sighted.

We need to have a place where there's not, we can't have news deserts.

And what these rescissions and what these cuts are going to do is create news deserts all across the country where people no longer have somebody like an NJPBS going to a school board meeting or a city council meeting or a zoning board or understanding the local problems from the time up.

All the media is going to be either speculative and subjective or it's going to be from some larger source that doesn't have an investment in the community, doesn't know the person who lives down the street, doesn't understand how this works, how we're different here in New Jersey than we are, say, where I am in New Hampshire, and how we're very much the same.

You can catch the full interview with Ken Burns on Chatbox with David Cruz Saturday at 6.30 p.m.

on NJPBS, or head to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube page anytime to watch the full show.

And a programming note, on Friday we'll bring you a special NJ Spotlight News edition of Reporters Roundtable with David Cruz for a look at the week's top headlines with a panel of local reporters and the analysis you need heading into the weekend.

Well finally tonight, New Jersey's Patrice Jeter didn't set out to win awards, she was aiming to be heard.

And the Hamilton Township Crossing Guard Artist and Disability Advocate got just that when she and her team won an Emmy last week for the documentary film Patrice the Movie.

It's a powerful story about love, survival, and the hidden barriers of living with a disability in America.

The documentary followed Jetter and her partner Gary Wickham, who, despite being together for 35 years, remained legally single because of what the disability community calls the marriage penalty.

Under current Medicaid rules, marrying would mean losing their life-saving benefits.

It was just one of the many quiet injustices revealed in the film.

Now, in accepting the award, Jetter spoke about the realities of her situation, living off less than $2,000 a month, living below the poverty level, all with the fear of losing care.

I had the chance to speak with both the film's director, Ted Passon, and Jetter earlier this year, where she gave a powerful call to action.

I want folks to watch the movie and find out who your legislators are and write a letter to get them to repeal the marriage penalty and to raise the asset limit to help people like myself be able to gain the level of independence that we need.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

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

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

And with Election Day just around the corner, check out our annual voter guide to get up to speed on the candidates and races on the ballot this year.

For more information, just head to the NJ Decides 2025 tab on our homepage.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

Have a great night.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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