Nuts for filberts

Good morning!

A fight erupted on the Assembly floor last week over a measure declaring the hazelnut New Jersey’s state nut.

A group of Republicans voted against it, with Assemblyman Brian Bergen (R) calling it a “moronic, awful, stupid, crazy, nutty piece of legislation.” Bergen has a particular distaste for these kinds of designations, saying they are a waste of the Legislature’s time.

But there’s a bigger story here, one that’s been in the works for decades as some farmers hope to make hazelnuts as synonymous with New Jersey as tomatoes and corn. Dana DiFilippo talked to the folks behind that effort.

“We are really trying to build an entire industry here,” said Ozgur Tunceli, who has close to 1,000 trees planted on her hilly, sprawling property in Ringoes.

One former in Hillsborough said his hazelnut trees pull double duty: producing hazelnuts and protecting the farm from catastrophic flooding seen in the area.

“Growing trees sequester a lot of carbon, so there’s greenhouse gas benefits. And they help with water quality and flood mitigation,” said third-generation farmer Ed Clerico. “When you hear about stormwater management, people are very oriented towards man-made infrastructure, but we could be using the environment as infrastructure too.”

Read more from Dana.

Courts: A municipal judge who raised eyebrows last year over comments he made to truant children in his courtroom — “You’re illegal, you’re getting deported. You know a great place to find people to deport is? The courts,” he told one 14-year-old — should get removed from the bench, a split judicial ethics panel has told the state Supreme Court. Eight members of the state Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct agreed he should be removed, while a minority said the judge, Britt Simon, should be suspended. “Respondent’s misconduct, in the aggregate, betrays not only a lack of sound judgment and self-control, but the appearance of an ethnic and socioeconomic bias against individuals routinely served by the municipal courts in which he sits,” the recommendation reads.

NJ PBS: Dana dove deep into the state’s plan for NJ PBS, which is expected to be taken over by Montclair State University next month. Critics, including the losing bidder, say Montclair’s plan does not include enough Jersey-centric coverage nor enough reporters (they also worry about the independence of a news organization housed at a state-run school). Keith Strudler, dean of Montclair’s College of Communication and Media, said the school’s bid is fiscally responsible. “We obviously hope that the federal government at some point will restore funding to public media. But we also know that if we don’t want to be in a place where, three years from now, if there is a state financial crisis and the X number of millions of dollars that had been appropriated are not available, that we’re back where we were to start with,” he said.

ICE: Ken Burns at WHYY reports on an incident out of Stafford Township in Ocean County, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says an agent pulled over a car when the driver fled from the scene and struck the agent. The agent shot in response, striking the vehicle, and a man they believe was in the car, Peruvian national Freidrich Castillo-Ormeno, remains at large.

World Cup: Today is the second of New Jersey’s eight World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. This time, the match is likely to end just about when the evening rush is at its peak, so if you generally drive, take the train, ride the bus, or take an Uber in the area of MetLife at around that time, skip it if you can. Meanwhile, Ben Jacobs at TalkSport reports that President Trump will join the winning team at MetLife on July 19 and lift the World Cup trophy along with them, as he did at the Club World Cup. Peeved Democrats can blame Phil and Tammy Murphy for this.

Trenton: A bill intended to calm school officials anxious over state funding passed an Assembly committee yesterday. The measure, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, aims to give school districts more flexibility when it comes to their budgeting, though it’s not clear many of them think the bill will help much.

Trump: President Donald Trump said Monday he had signed a ceasefire with Iran, moving the two countries one step closer to ending the war that began in February. The text of the deal only started floating around late last night so it’s still unclear what people think of it.