On September 29, 2022, your Community Associations Institute New Jersey chapter Legislative Action Committee (NJ-LAC) conducted its first “lobby day” since the pandemic started. On lobby day, representatives of the NJ-LAC travel to Trenton for a series of meetings with lawmakers throughout the day. This year, we were joined by NJ-LAC members Karyn Kennedy Branco, Esq., Lisa Rayca, CMCA, AMS, Ed San George, MPA, PCAM, David Ramsey, Esq., Mitch Frumkin, PE, RS and Carol Shenk, EBP. In addition, Angela Kavanaugh, Chapter Executive Director, and Phoebe Neseth, CAI’s Director of Government and Public Affairs joined us as well.
Our goal during lobby day was to promote our Structural Integrity (S2760/A4384) and Fire Hydrant Maintenance (S2935/A3959) bills. We also timed lobby day to coincide with the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the Structural Integrity bill.
We started the morning with a meeting with Senator Troy Singleton, the primary sponsor of the Structural Integrity bill. Subsequently, Ed San George, David Ramsey, and Mitch Frumkin gave extensive testimony before the Community and Urban Affairs Committee which lasted nearly an hour. They did an incredible job presenting the bill and answering the various questions posed by the Committee Members. As a result of their efforts, we are pleased to announce that the bill passed out of the Committee. As per the practice of the current legislature, the bill is now listed before the Budget and Appropriations Committee.
During the day, we met with Assemblypersons Gerry Scharfenberger, Sterley Stanley, Clinton Calabrese, Carol Murphy, Don Guardian, and McCarthy Patrick. We also met with Senators Patrick Deignan and Nia Gill. Getting this face time with elected officials is crucial to our efforts, and we believe that both the Structural Integrity and Fire Hydrant bills were very well received.
I want to give our NJ-LAC members a round of applause for dedicating their volunteer time and efforts to the cause. Of course, we could not achieve any success without our partners at MBI, and we thank Michele Jaker, Lisa Ginther, Richard Wright, John Hund, Trevor Mulhall, and Kristen Chilleri for their efforts on our behalf.
MATTHEW Z. EARLE, ESQ. KATES, NUSSMAN, ELLIS, FARHI & EARLE, LLP LEGISLATIVE ACTION COMMITTEE CHAIR
