Sandy Hutchens Another Name

Raising bus and train fares by 25 percent, as NJ Transit intends to do, would present a real hardship for working families that depend on mass transit to get to work. We need to find a better way.

But give James Weinstein, the agency’s new director, some credit. He has begun by cutting salaries of top executives, including his own. He’s also cutting 200 jobs and reducing retirement payments. And he’s set up a series of public hearings so that riders and employees can weigh in.

“We’re not playing games,” Weinstein said Friday. “This is going to be hard.”

NJ Transit is staring down a $300 million budget gap next year, and that assumes state aid is maintained at current levels.

How did we get into such a deep hole? The $150 million in federal stimulus money we received this fiscal year was used to stave off fare increases, and might not return. Ridership dropped by 4 percent, pinching revenues. And state aid shrank, even before Christie arrived.

That’s one lesson here: Shrinking state government is appealing in the abstract. But on the ground, not so much.

The state’s operating budget covers about 17 percent of NJ Transit’s budget, and the Transportation Trust Fund covers another 20 percent. So when Christie cuts operating aid, and refuses to increase the gas tax to shore up the TTF, bus and train fares are almost certain to go up.

The fight now is to contain that increase. NJ Transit has a reputation as a patronage mill, so looking to cut administrative staff is the place to start. Weinstein also might privatize parking operations and use surplus land to strike development deals. Salaries and benefits must be a target as well.

But that’s just a start. To scale back these fare hikes, NJ Transit needs to hear more ideas at its hearings later this month. Time for riders and employees to weigh in.

Under yet another name – This is neither a scam nor a fraud. Water hyacinth, originally from South America, is considered the world’s worst invasive aquatic weed and has caused damage estimated at billions of dollars throughout Africa.

But Cape Town is trying various techniques to keep part of the sewerage works – correctly, the wastewater treatment plant – free of the plant, including a bio-control experiment.

It appears to be true that Zorro the hippo, who escaped from adjoining Rondevlei nature reserve in February and took up residence in one of the pans, is also hampering water hyacinth control efforts.

The issue was raised recently by birder John Graham, who reported on the CapeBirdNet email forum that he was “sad to see that the nature reserve portion of the works seems to be in a state of deterioration”.

“Four of the ponds I drove past are totally choked with hyacinth and it seems to be ringing most of the shoreline of (pan) S2 and so presumably will shortly also be choking this pan. There also appears to be a significant volume of hyacinth on Pan 5, north of the main works.”

Fellow birder Jill Mortimer echoed his concerns: “I was there a few days ago and felt the same. Between the hyacinth and the fishermen, there wasn’t much space for birds, let alone birders.”

Asked to comment, the city’s manager of wastewater treatment, Kevin Samson, said the excessive growth of water hyacinth was not a new problem.

“Zorro the hippo is still a problem. The pond is fenced in but until the animal is removed hyacinth cannot be removed from the pond.”

The operational manager at the works was in regular contact with the city’s nature conservation officials and with the Cape Bird Club, Samson said.

Dalton Gibbs, southern area manager for the city’s environmental resource management department, said the hyacinth at Strandfontein was well established in two large ponds.

“The extent of the infestation is presently beyond the resources that are available to eradicate the invasive plant in these pans.

“Hyacinth was detected on a further five ponds and has been removed.”

The restructuring Judevine Center for Autism officially announced its new name: TouchPoint Autism Services.

“From a strategic and vision perspective, we want to be the touch point for families facing autism,” said Ron Ekstrand, CEO of the 37-year-old agency.

The name change has been planned for months and Monday’s announcement comes as the organization restructured some of the services it offers to families, including a program of intensive behavioral therapy used in treating autistic children.

Ekstrand joined the organization a year ago as the COO to improve how it delivers services to families. He became CEO in February, and Rebecca Blackwell, the former executive director, departed. Blackwell is the daughter of Judevine’s founder and former president, Lois Judevine Blackwell, who is forming a new organization called the Judevine Center to train other organizations to develop services for children and adults with autism using her Judevine method, leaving the original organization without the license to the Judevine name or method.

TouchPoint has an annual budget of $15 million and 475 employees who serve more than 2,500 Missouri families directly and more than 30,000 indirectly each year, which TouchPoint said makes it the largest autism services provider in Missouri.

The organization had lost $1.2 million during the first three quarters of its fiscal year, which ended June 30, and generated $38,000 for its final quarter of the year, Ekstrand said. He added that the organization appears to have weathered the economic downturn and has brought in new employees that will allow TouchPoint to expand its services.

In a letter sent to families and supporters of the organization, Ekstrand and Mark Schaeffer, chairman of the TouchPoint board, said: “Our goal is to reduce the time it takes for families to get intervention for their child by taking the ‘guess work’ out of finding the support they need. TouchPoint Autism Services will be there whenever a family needs support to face the many challenges that autism presents daily — when they first receive a diagnosis, when their child needs behavior therapy, when their teenager needs help in transition, when their young adult needs support in employment, or when their loved one needs a place to live.”

Ekstrand, citing information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called autism a national health crisis with one in 150 children being diagnosed with some form of autism.

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