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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with a return guest who has really important things to say.

Reverend Dr. Charles Boyer is the founder of Salvation and Social Justice.

We'll put the website up.

Reverend Dr. Boyer, great to see you again.

- It's great to be here, Steve.

- Let's deal with something that's not a fun topic, but it's a real topic, and it's a painful topic for many.

New Jersey has the six most segregated schools, public schools, in the nation.

A, why?

B, what are we doing?

- Yes, Steve, it's a very shameful history that fortunately, many years ago, many of our legislators saw during the time of Brown versus Board of Education to entrench thoroughly within our constitution to make sure that that would never be the case here in New Jersey.

And so we have the strongest constitution in the nation, which states that the schools cannot be segregated for any reason.

Yet, where we are now, we find ourselves as one of the most segregated school systems in the nation, far more than many Southern school districts.

So it is a painful history.

I, one growing up in this state who has felt that pain and the disadvantages there.

And so it's a shameful history that the state needs to reconcile.

- Lemme play devil's advocate here.

What about, Reverend Dr. Boyer, of people say, you know what, people live where they wanna live, there's kids go to school where they wanna go to school, and you can't force people to do what you want them to do, or anyone wants them to do, and that's just the way it plays out.

White kids go to school in disproportionately white communities, African American, Latino kids, that's the way it is.

Folks think it, may not say it publicly, but doesn't it play out that way?

That it's by choice that people do a lot of this, not by law?

- Well, I agree that we certainly ought to let people do what they wanna do, what I disagree with is that it's by choice.

Folks are forced to go to the school district in which they live, and the state has a very shameful history of redlining, the massive amount of local control which has been given in segregating towns, literally to keep Black and white children separate from each other, specifically making sure that Black and Brown children are not able to access the levels of education.

So we have nearly 600 school districts, which is deliberately done in order to take away choice from Black and Brown communities, from attending some of these other schools.

And so- - Lemme give you an example.

I'm sorry for interrupting.

We live in Montclair, it's a relatively integrated school system.

There's a magnet school system where integration and desegregation happened in the sixties and seventies, there's a busing initiative tied to that.

But the next town over, Glen Ridge, small little town, virtually all white, Montclair kids can't go to school in Glen Ridge.

A Black kid couldn't go to school in Glen Ridge.

Is that by design by the folks in Glen Ridge?

And I only use that as an example.

They just said, well, we're just gonna have our own thing, and you can't come here.

Is that a simplistic explanation or a real one?

- It's a very real, deliberate means in order to keep Black kids away from white kids.

And the state enforces that, because zip code barriers is what keeps us in particular spaces.

So we don't have the choice to send our kids to the next town over.

In many cases... For instance, when I grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey, extremely segregated school system, particularly in the time when I was growing up, I lived not too far from Piscataway, and yet I could not go to the Piscataway schools.

My parents had to ultimately illegally send me to Piscataway High School, but most of my days I came up in a very segregated school system.

- Recent court decision, and you and some other folks brought a case before the courts.

Was a decision made on this, Reverend Dr. Charles Boyer, A, and B, what was that decision?

- Well, it was a decision that basically just stated the obvious.

We knew that the state played a role in segregating the schools, right?

We knew that already, that's the whole point of the case, the power of the case or what should have been a decision, was forcing the state to come to some level of remedy.

Imagine someone breaks into your home, steals all your property, and the outcome of the judgment is, oh, they broke into your house and stole all your property, but there's no remedy in place, there's no repercussions.

That in essence is what the judge did in this case.

And so we continue to advocate that there be remedies to what the state is unconstitutionally doing in enforcing the zip code barriers.

- Reverend Boyer, lemme switch gears.

It's a national issue that obviously has implications across the board.

The United States Supreme Court makes a decision on affirmative action regarding certain institutions of higher learning, Harvard being one of them, saying race can no longer, will no longer be utilized as a factor in determining admission to higher education.

Obviously, that's not just about higher ed.

That has implications pressing across the board.

I don't like using this term, but I'm gonna say it with you, because you and I have honest discussions all the time.

White resentment, meaning to some degree there's white resentment of policies that a disproportionate or a significant number of whites say, hey, wait a minute, enough is enough.

Haven't we gone too far?

Let's just level the playing field, and let merit be the only criteria for admission to wherever, for a job, for college.

You say what to those folks?

- I mean, I say that that is absolutely what privilege and being ahead economically within the justice system, and having every privilege of the system given to you throughout your entire existence, that's what that would lend to you.

Imagine if I were to say to you, we're gonna have a race, and I'm gonna tie you down at the starting line for three quarters of the race, and I'll let you go when I'm almost three quarters of the way through.

Being fair would not be saying, okay, well, now we let you go.

No, we would both have to start in the same place all over again in order for fairness and justice to take place.

Those who were held back would have to be given ground made up.

So you can't hold people in slavery for 200 and something years, and then have disproportionate laws that disproportionately impact them and disadvantaged them, and then all of a sudden say, not even a fifth of the timeframe into that space, and say, all of a sudden, let's just make it fair by not making up ground.

- Reverend, you make a compelling argument.

But the question many ask, folks that I've grown up with, born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, you know the community I grew up in, disproportionately Italian American.

Those folks moved to the suburbs, wherever.

And when they're talking, largely in private, it's like, okay, we understand what the reverend's saying, but when will we ultimately say, you know what, we're gonna start at the same starting line so that we can be judged purely on merit.

When does that come?

- That comes when those who have participated in the disadvantage of others finally equip those who have been disadvantaged with everything that has been stolen from us.

- But for a 7-year-old, 10-year-old, 14-year-old, who happens to be white, their argument would be, well, my kid didn't do that.

- But for instance, you benefit from everything that happens to that point.

Did you inherit anything from your grandparents?

Are you in a home that ultimately you were given down payment assistance from your grandparents?

- See, reverend, you don't wanna go there.

You see, 'cause some of us who had family who came from Italy, Southern Italy, because it was poor, and there were no jobs, and came here, couldn't speak the language.

See, now, they are white.

- No, no, no.

I do wanna go there, because the history of the country - Go there!

- is that you could assimilate to be white, which gave you advantages in the job market, gave you advantages in education, gave you advantages across the board.

I can never assimilate to be white, you can.

And when you first came, you couldn't, but the growing nature of this new class of whiteness allowed people to enter into a privileged class where people of darker hues could never do that.

- And finally, you believe government policies regarding affirmative action and opportunities for those who have been disproportionately historically disadvantaged, that that is the answer.

- Yeah, absolutely, ground has to be made up.

So until populations which have been historically disadvantaged are made right, are made whole, there will always be disadvantages in the system.

- Reverend, could we do this, Reverend Dr. Charles Boyer, founder of Salvation and Social Justice.

I know you're gonna say yes, can we continue this conversation in a different time and get greater depth?

'Cause you never hold back, you never duck anything, and you always say what you think, and you make us think.

Thank you so much, we appreciate it.

- Absolutely, Steve.

Looking forward to it.

- Thanks, my friend.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Tim Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

The website will be up.

Good to see you, Tim.

- Good to see you, Steve.

Thanks for having me on.

- We're having you on, and right before Thanksgiving 2023, you took a little trip to East Asia, is that right?

- Yeah, the Governor and the First Lady led a huge delegation to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

We had a great trip.

- Purpose of the trip, A, and B, what does New Jersey get out of it?

- Broadly, you know, economic development and business development, drumming up business for the state.

We had a really, really productive trip.

We came back with, you know, brief cases full of business cards and lots of different leads.

And also, you know, reintroducing New Jersey to those three places.

Those are places New Jersey has longstanding business and cultural ties, and reintroducing New Jersey, and telling the story of the momentum we have going on, you know, under Governor Murphy's leadership.

- And just to, to be clear, I believe Choose New Jersey underwrites that trip, is that correct?

- Yeah, Choose is the key player there.

Wes Matthews and his team are great partners and we had a great trip.

- And speaking of underwriting, the Economic Development Authority is an underwriter of our programming.

Tim, lemme try this.

I'm curious about this.

When it comes to economic development in New Jersey, The issue of affordability.

We've had so many business leaders on from the Business and Industry Association, from the Chamber of Commerce, from the Commerce Industry Association.

Affordability for businesses in New Jersey.

A, do you appreciate and empathize with those who say that in business and B, be specific about what help the EDA and the state is offering in that regard?

- I'd say, you know, broadly speaking, yeah, affordability is a huge issue, not just for businesses, but for families here in New Jersey.

It's why you've seen Governor Murphy and legislature be so focused on it with things like the anchor property tax rebate and trying to drive property taxes, get those under control and make those more affordable and so broadly, you know, I think, yeah, of course that's an issue.

But the issues that we hear most about when we're trying to recruit businesses, whether in East Asia or, you know, in Pennsylvania or New Jersey or New York trying to come here or stay here, it's about talent, it's about location, it's about values, and, you know, making sure that people, they can find the workforce that they need.

And so, you know, where people are choosing to live matters a lot so that our population's continuing to grow, that we're still continuing to welcome people from other countries to live in New Jersey is a really important part of that dynamic.

- What is the Aspire program?

- So Aspire is a really important tool that Governor Murphy signed into law in the early 2021 to support, broadly speaking, real estate development.

A lot of housing, a lot of mixed use, a lot of lab space and commercial space to support the innovation economy.

And it's a gap financing tool that helps make the math work for developers to include things like affordability, affordable housing in residential projects, or to make sure that we have the right, you know, that the investment makes sense for the developers.

- You know, again, we'll put up the website for the EDA, the Economic Development Authority, because one of the other programs I'm curious about.

We talked about it before, the New Jersey Innovation Evergreen Fund.

A, what is it?

How much money is in it?

And who the heck is eligible?

- So the Innovation Evergreen Fund is a game changer we think.

You know, Governor Murphy announced this idea a few years ago, and it's now up and running, and we'd actually just made its first investment in October.

So it's about investing in early stage companies that are either in New Jersey and wanna do their growing here or are from outside New Jersey and wanna come and bring their headquarters here and do their growing.

So early stage companies, primarily in things like technology, life sciences, clean energy, kind of high growth industries where we see an opportunity for huge job creation.

And these are equity investments from the state.

- What does that mean?

- We're gonna own a piece of the company.

We're gonna invest alongside private sector venture capitalists, and, you know, if we help create the next Tesla or the next Facebook or the next whatever, you know, the state taxpayers will participate in those returns as well, in addition to getting the job creation benefits.

- Shift gears, I know I've touched base on this issue before with you, Tim, but I wanna bring it up again because it feels like it's more important than ever before and it's accessible, affordable childcare, Reimagine Childcare, the graphic will come up.

It's been five years that we've been involved in this public awareness effort.

And I often struggle because we're not in the business of advocacy, but we are in the business of public awareness.

Where's the line?

Not sure.

Here's the question.

Explain to folks, the direct, very clear relationship between a quality, affordable, accessible childcare for families and economic strength, economic development, the viability of the business community to have employees who work.

What's the connection, A, and B, why the heck isn't there more attention paid to it?

- Yeah, I wish there was more attention paid to it.

You know, Governor Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy have been banging the drum on this for as long as I can remember.

But it's still an issue that, you know, needs, I think clarifying.

Yeah, I think childcare gets often misunderstood or mischaracterized as something other than a core economic infrastructure.

- It's daycare.

It's daycare, which often people use that phrase to minimize it, but go ahead.

- Yeah.

First of all, my kids have been in the childcare system and you know, God bless early childhood educators who did a great... - We've had four gone through, but go ahead.

- Yeah, it's an amazing group of people who do, you know, tremendous work.

It's also, it's economic infrastructure.

If your workforce doesn't have a place for their kids to go and be safe and well taken care of and educated, they're not gonna go.

They can't go to work.

And we saw that during the pandemic.

We saw that, you know, we see that even back in sort of in normal times, if there's not a place for kids to go, parents don't feel safe or comfortable entering the workforce.

You know, women, men, it's disproportionately women.

But that's true for everybody.

And so it's economic infrastructure.

The childcare system isn't working if it's not safe and affordable and reliable.

It's like, it's as if the electricity's not running or the subway's not, or the trains aren't running, you can't get people to and from work and the economy just doesn't function without it.

- Go on our website, steveadubato.org, look at previous programs under the umbrella Reimagine Childcare.

Again, I'm gonna switch gears again.

So Orsted, I believe, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, Tim, the largest wind energy producer I think in the world.

- Yep.

That's it.

- Pretty big, right?

- One of the big players.

Yep.

- New Jersey bet on Orsted.

There's an effort to stabilize the situation and bring them, get them some resources through I don't know whether it's a bail, I don't know what the heck it was, but the bottom line is after the governor makes that move, Orsted's a big part of the wind energy program, the governor's larger clean energy program.

They're like, we're outta here.

It doesn't make sense economically, the supply chain is screwed up.

Inflation's what it is.

We're out.

Are you kidding me?

A, were you shocked?

B, now what as it relates to wind energy?

- Yeah, I think if you saw the governor's statement on Halloween, which is when this news broke, I think you saw two, so two sentiments at the same time.

One, pretty significant frustration.

You know, the governor chooses his words pretty carefully, and those words were pretty direct about being frustrated with the decision that Orsted made.

And that's certainly a frustration that I share.

That being said, wind energy is about a lot more than one company.

Orsted's certainly a big player.

But we have other projects that are proceeding.

The BPU right now is evaluating bids for the next round of offshore wind projects.

You've seen projects moving forward in New York.

And so broadly speaking, you know, the future remains bright for offshore wind, but this is a setback.

- Hold on, Tim.

Oh, all right.

I appreciate that.

But you don't believe it's dead because Orsted says the economics don't work.

If it doesn't work for them, why would it work for another wind energy company?

- So these are very project specific.

So projects that work that were sort of crafted and put together, either before the pandemic, which is the case for Ocean Wind 1, or sort of early pandemic, Ocean Wind 2, before interest rates went up two or three times before inflation, you know, hit, they're just priced wrong.

And you've seen that up and down the East coast where you've seen projects happen to either reboot or get canceled and come back and live to see another day.

You know, Orsted made the decision they made, which is disappointing and frustrating, but broadly speaking, there is a bright future for new products that are conceived, sort of post pandemic, post interest rate inflation, et cetera.

- Let's make sure we keep talking about it in the future, okay?

- Absolutely.

- Tim Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Thanks Tim.

- Great to be with you, Steve.

Talk to you soon.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Back by popular demand.

Cathy Bennett, President and CEO of New Jersey Hospital Association.

Good to see you, Cathy.

- Good to see you again, Steve.

- Been too long, we'll have you on again real soon, but I, right now I wanna talk about, as we do this program in the middle of November 2023, be seen later, the nursing crisis in our state and nation.

How bad is it and what's the impact on hospitals?

- The nursing shortage, as you know, it's a challenge, and it's one that's impacting healthcare systems and facilities across the country.

We're all facing it, and it's especially prevalent in New Jersey right now as we're predicted to have a shortfall of 11,000 nurses by 2030.

That's the third-largest shortfall in the nation.

- You know, we've talked to a lot of Higher Ed leaders and Higher Ed's changing on so many levels out of necessity, right, the need is there.

What's the role of higher education as it relates to this nursing crisis?

- The role is critical, as you know, we need to make sure that we have an education system, you know, that has the resources they need to stand up.

You know, the courses that students want to enroll here in New Jersey, we have a lot of people that apply to Nursing School.

And the Nursing Schools here, simply can't accept them 'cause they don't have enough educators.

- Let me try this, there's a lot of debate and confusion around nursing ratios, nursing and patient ratios.

The economics of hospitals are what they are and we're underwritten by a variety of different hospitals, all not-for-profit because hospitals are not-for-profit in the state.

Is there any standard as to what that should be, the patient to nurse ratio?

- So our hospitals, Steve, use established metrics and professional judgment to provide safe staffing for patients.

You know, rigid ratios themselves, they impede best practices in care delivery.

They discourage innovation and they dilute the real-time clinical judgment and flexibility that our care teams need.

- You know, I just mentioned the economics, if you will, of hospitals, and we've had this discussion in the past, but I want to revisit it.

To what degree, from your perspective, and the Hospital Association represents a large percentage of the hospitals in the State of New Jersey, correct?

- We represent all of the acute care hospitals, correct.

- All of them.

- Yes.

- Do we have, quote, "Too many hospitals" in New Jersey?

- We do not have too many hospitals in New Jersey.

Steve, you know, the hospitals we have are integral parts of their communities.

They're the anchors providing jobs, providing resources, providing, you know, community health benefits.

And as we saw through COVID, and as we've seen as we've come out of COVID, our hospitals are the place that all of our community members can go to, regardless of ability to pay 24/7 and get treatment and ongoing care.

- Cathy, from your perspective, you mentioned the pandemic.

How do you believe COVID has changed hospitals and delivery of healthcare in hospitals forever because of COVID?

- I believe, some of the things we've seen are that innovations like Telehealth, and remote patient monitoring have allowed hospitals, and allowed their team members to do jobs from beyond the four walls of the hospital.

And that's something that has allowed us to really meet patients where they're at and where, you know, they can have care in the most accessible way.

- You know, as COVID was at its peak 2020, moving into 2021, you remember as I do, and you're much closer to it than I am, Cathy.

The celebrations, the honoring, the recognizing of those on the front lines are healthcare leaders, physician, nurses, respiratory therapists, those who held the hands of patients as they tried to talk to their family members via FaceTime and many of them passed tragically.

Fast-forward, a whole range of hospital professionals, people who work in hospitals are concerned.

Not only that public sentiment has shifted, but they are now targets of certain people who see them as some sort of enemy in this public health debate around all kinds of confusion, excuse me, all kinds of issues.

How the heck did hospital professionals get on the wrong end of this?

- I think what we saw emerge, you know, even during the pandemic as we were coming to the tail end, was a lot of frustration from the public that wanted to be, you know, back out in public, did not want a mask and, you know, wanted to interact.

They wanted their kids back in schools.

And because hospitals were so key, hospitals were doing all the testing, that's where you went to for treatment.

Hospitals were setting up the vaccination sites in the communities, you know, the issues that people felt about COVID, they started to conflate with hospitals.

- So hospital professionals are trying to provide community health services to people in the community and they're on the wrong end of frustration.

- I think that that's really what we're saying.

Wrong end of frustration.

You know, that's just bubbled over.

And what we've seen is, you know, a public that wants things to be back to normal.

And so, you know, part of this is that, you know, the hospitals were conflated with this thing that didn't feel normal.

And when we look back over what this three years looked like, let's be honest, it, you know, was dealt with uncertainty, inability, you know, inability to get testing out because of where we were nationally.

And then, you know, we turned the corner and there was still masking going on, you know, and people wanted to go back out and they wanted to have a good time.

And they were hearing, you know, that part of the reason is we weren't quite over it.

Now, you know, what hospitals are at, where, you know, the public is at now.

We are in an endemic state.

We deal with, you know, surges as they come up.

But, you know, we make sure the public, you know, is safe.

But, again, we're back to our business of quality, equitable care for all.

- Cathy Bennett, President and CEO of New Jersey Hospital Association.

Thank you, Cathy, we appreciate it.

- Thanks so much, Steve.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato, make sure you join us next time.

See you then.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by New Jersey Institute of Technology.

PSEG Foundation.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

New Brunswick Development Corporation.

PNC Foundation.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Fidelco Group.

And by The Adler Aphasia Center.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Chamber.

And by NJBIZ.

At the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, we are working now more than ever to fill the emptiness caused by hunger.

We are the state's largest anti-hunger organization.

And together with our 800 plus community partners, we are committed to delivering food, help, and hope, to our hundreds and thousands of neighbors in need.