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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. WNYC's Nancy Solomon joins us now with excerpts from an analysis solving and to take a few of your questions about her Ask Governor Murphy call in last night. She does that once a month and usually comes on with us the next morning. It was the first Ask Governor Murphy call in since the start of congestion pricing in Manhattan south of 60th Street. Certainly a topic last night, but as always, it was a wide ranging conversation among the other topics, affordability, transit in Jersey, renewable energy and more. Murphy also talked about wanting his final year in office. This is his final year in office. He's term limited out to be just as ambitious as year one. What's his roadmap for achieving that? We'll dive in and get some of the big takeaways. Hey, Nancy, happy Wednesday.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks, Brian.

Brian: I'm sorry, Thursday. I should say happy Thursday after your Wednesday night Ask Governor Murphy. Let's get right into it. This is his last year in office as I said, he listed a couple of big priorities for his remaining time in office.

Governor Murphy: Affordability will continue to be economic opportunity, the American dream, affordability, a lot of stuff around kids, continuing intense focus on equity. We had a very successful clemency initiative kick off with names and lives changed in December. We want to do a bunch more waves of those. There are some parole reforms that we need to do.

Brian: Let me dive in on the very first word that he spoke in that sound bite, affordability. We know the Democrats lost the presidential race, in part on perceptions of their inability to provide affordability compared to what people think Donald Trump can do. How can he bring more affordability at the state level in New Jersey? Is he being specific?

Nancy: He was not so specific. I think it's become a real politician's talking point. It seems that everybody is now talking about affordability. Of course, it's a very hard nut to crack. He didn't say much about specifically how he was going to make New Jersey more affordable. We are one of the most expensive states in the country. Property taxes are a huge problem.

I did ask him if he's going to make any more moves on property taxes. He started the anchor rebate program, which is $1,500 at the top level. That's the most you could get back on your property taxes. That's a decent amount for a lot of people. The whole property tax system is so out of whack in the state. You have just streets side by side, one street in one county, another street in a different county. You could be talking about the difference between $15,000 to $25,000 a year property taxes on this. Like, let's say you're in Essex county versus across the street in Union County, it could be $6,000 a year.

The system is a little too locally based and it needs to be evened out, I think, to help those that are in more expensive counties. He doesn't seem to have any real appetite for that. I think every time I bring it up, he talks about anchor and the rebate program. I don't think we're going to get any movement this year on that. I think the affordable housing it's in process.

They're trying to overhaul the entire state affordable housing program. It's the same problem here that you have everywhere. There's a desperate need for more housing. The cost of housing is super expensive, and it's a very, very slow process to get more housing built.

Brian: Do you think we're going to see a robust debate on how to get more housing built or how to otherwise bring down the cost of housing, whether rental or ownership in the gubernatorial campaign this year? We're committed on this show to inviting the major candidates from both the Democratic and Republican primary fields in advance of the June primary with Murphy term limited out.

Your answer just now, because Murphy would like to do something about affordable housing. I'm sure it's such a big issue for so many people, but it's hard. Do you see a competition coming in the Democratic or Republican primary field with respect to housing policies?

Nancy: I do. There's a fantastic range of candidates, from the Democrats to the Republicans, but even in the primary races, just among the Democrats, among the Republicans. You see the full range of the political spectrum really playing out in this race. For instance, Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, the focus of his campaign is affordable housing and building more housing and making cities more affordable.

He's done a lot of work in Newark on this. Steve Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City, has also talked about affordable housing a lot. I do think it is going to be a big issue. I think what people are going to hear is a real range of responses about how government should fix this problem.

Brian: Interesting. Listeners, we can take some phone calls for WNYC and Gothamist Nancy Solomon. You can't ask Governor Murphy right now directly, but you can ask Nancy Solomon about Ask Governor Murphy, her monthly call in show and some of the topics that came up. Or just any New Jersey topics that you want to bring up.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. The governor made references to a recent clemency initiative last night, 33 pardons, three commutations, and a promise for more this year. He seemed very moved by this work. Can you talk about clemency and commutations maybe very briefly the difference. What is he trying to accomplish in this respect?

Nancy: I think he is really excited about this. This is a remaking of the state's clemency program that was spearheaded by the ACLU. I think people affected by the criminal justice system are in good hands when you have the ACLU really going to bat on this stuff. Basically what they've done is they've looked at equity and problems with the criminal justice system, and created categories of people who have been unfairly sentenced, served long sentences, stuck in prison for long times and they're trying to repair that.

For instance, some of the folks who got clemency, and this is the first clemencies that the governor has given out in his entire time in office. He did this in December. He announced the new program over the summer. For instance, you have women who are serving sentences for crimes that occurred when they were undergoing abuse. The whole idea of domestic abuse or partner abuse and women who fight back, who then find themselves charged with a crime and sitting in prison. That was one category.

Another category were the long sentences for people with non violent drug offenses. We know the war on drugs incarcerated many, many people of color, many men of color and that this is continues to be a big problem, that they're still sitting in prison. That's one of the categories that he was trying to address. Commutation, he mentioned it. I can't say I know that much about it. I'm going to take a little bit of a guess here and say that it has to do more with shortening a sentence versus a clemency, like the person walks out of prison the next day. Commutation, I think might not but could involve someone walking out of prison, but it might involve also somewhere, it's just a shorter sentence that still has to be served.

Brian: He also talked about parole reforms. Does that come under the category of what you were just saying, or is that something different, the need to address what's called technical violations?

Nancy: It's different. It hasn't been addressed yet. It's obviously connected in terms of it being a criminal justice reform. I believe when he talks about technical violations, he's talking about the small-- People who are on parole live with all these really restrictive rules on where they can live and how they can live, and if they violate something, which sometimes could be just going from New Jersey to New York, leaving the state that way or something like that. I think that's what he's talking about when he talks about technical violations. He wants to change those restrictions so that we don't have as high a rate of recidivism of people going back to prison.

Brian: Let's get into congestion pricing. A caller, Laura, praised their faster commute through the Holland Tunnel, but Murphy responded with a bit of snark. Let's hear that caller yesterday, and a small bit of the governor's response.

Laura: I'm actually calling because I got home 10 minutes earlier today. I've been seeing just amazing times on my commute through the Holland Tunnel, saving 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at night, both for myself and my husband. This has been phenomenal. What can we do to keep congestion pricing? Governor Murphy?

Governor Murphy: Laura, I've got mixed emotions. First of all, I'm very happy that your commute time is down. That's a good thing. You're obviously paying more money to get that, so you'll be the judge as to whether or not that's a good value for money trade for you.

Nancy: I love that.

Brian: There was a caller saying, I'm glad you got everybody else off the roads. I know the point is to get out of our cars, but I'm glad you got other people out of their cars, so I can have an easy ride because she can afford the toll. Maybe that's too negative a way to look at that call, but I don't know. Did the governor say anything more to you off the air about her?

Nancy: No, it was more the look on his face. I don't know. I take your point. I just loved the way she phrased the question, and she was praising him, even though he's clearly been so against congestion pricing. It was just funny to look at the look on his face, as if I had conjured this question, which I didn't. She called in, so that was a funny moment. He had, as you said, a snarky response. Then I just don't fully understand why this is a hill he wants to die on, to be honest.

I get that there are two sides. There are two arguments. There are people on both sides, pro and con, congestion pricing, but it just seems to be an outlier in terms of his overall philosophy of getting people out of their cars and improving mass transit. He won't say this, but I got to hope that what he's trying to do is to get a better deal out of the MTA and Kathy Hochul for New Jersey, because I do think that's the one point that he has a legitimate point to make, which is that if we're going to get people out of their cars, we need to make mass transit better. Why are you only doing this for the MTA and not for New Jersey transit?

Brian: What would they do? Hand over cash to New Jersey?

Nancy: Yes. I think so. I think that would be a reasonable thing that he's going for. Reasonable, I said that word accidentally, but I think you have another clip to play of him where he basically says he's the one at the table being reasonable, and they're not.

Brian: You want to hear that?

Nancy: Yes. Let's flip it.

Brian: Let's hear that, 40 more seconds of Governor Murphy on congestion pricing. Here's that clip.

Governor Murphy: Listen. We've got an incredible environmental track record, so I got firm ground to stand on. We're not against mitigating pollution. We're not against trying to figure out how to decongest crowded streets. We believe in climate change. We do a lot to push up against it, but unfortunately, and the federal judge said this is a very flawed program, but still let it go ahead. This is going to take it out of the height of our commuters, and it's going to displace the pollution from Manhattan to New Jersey, and you're going to pay six bucks a trip. I'm glad to hear, Laura, that it's a faster trip.

Brian: On, they will go on that one. We're going to go to a caller now who's going to touch on the roads, but I don't think congestion pricing per se. Debbie in Lanoka Harbor, you're on WNYC. Hi, Debbie.

Debbie: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have a couple different environmental questions. One is, my husband and I researched solar panels, and we were told by the contractor that there is a limit of our usage for how many panels we can get installed. We are single or just a couple living in our house, intending to move at some point and would potentially be selling the big house to a bigger family. I wonder if it has been considered to change that limit for how many panels could be installed. That's the first question.

The second question I'll give to you, and then I'll take the answer off the air, but the second question regards EV charging. I was driving on the Turnpike and Parkway this week, and I pulled into each rest area and was unable to find any EV chargers at any of those rest areas I stopped at. Why does the state not put EV charging in the rest areas on the Turnpike and Parkway? I'll take my answer off the air. Thank you.

Brian: Thank you, Debbie. Nancy, on either of those things?

Nancy: Those are great questions. I wish you had called in and posed them to the governor because I would love to hear his answers.

Brian: Next month.

Nancy: The solar panels is over my head. I don't understand it at that level of detail. I do know that during the Chris Christie administration there was a much better, bigger program at the state level to defray the cost of investing in solar for homeowners. That went away. Governor Murphy has focused much more of his state power on wind, although I think there are some solar incentive programs. I can't really answer your question at the level of detail that you've got there.

I think this is the problem for folks who want to put solar on their roof, is that it takes, I remember when I looked into it a few years ago, it was it would take seven years to make your money back and start having a net benefit. If your kids are growing up and you're thinking of downsizing, it's a hard decision to make to invest in your house for that. That's solar.

The EV charging stations has been a bit of a problem. The governor announced a program to massively boost the number of EV charging stations. This is a desperate need to meet his goals of getting to zero emissions for all cars and trucks on the road by 2035, I think it is. It's a big problem. I will try to remember to ask him next month about the rest areas because I think that's an amazing point that you've just brought up, which is that if they don't have EV charging stations at the Turnpike rest areas, how could that be? I think that's certainly an issue worth looking at. It has been a failure of the state that they haven't been able to get those charging stations back built and up and running as quickly as they'd promised.

Brian: Jeffrey in Maplewood, you're on WNYC with Nancy Solomon. Hi, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Hi, guys. Nancy, I'm a neighbor of yours in Maplewood. My question is, last year they passed a law to prevent gray flight from Jersey. It was a tax benefit. I believe it was 50% of your taxes up to a limit of $10,000. What is the status of that, and what's to prevent a future governor from coming in and just throwing that out?

Nancy: There's a lot of caveats with that one. It's called Stay New Jersey. It was basically a bill put together by Craig Coughlin, the Speaker of the Assembly, a Democrat. Murphy supports it. He was a little resistant to begin with about it, but he seems to be on board now. They have passed the legislation for it. It's set up so that it starts in 2026. It would be for seniors who are under a certain income limit, which I think is pretty high. I think it's up at like 250 or something like that.

Yes, you're right. It would basically cut your property taxes in half. That would be fantastic for people. The issue why it's called Stay New Jersey and you mentioned this gray flight. It is really hard to stay in your house when your property taxes are so high. It's to retire, let's put it that way, to retire and stay in your house. The whole idea of the program is to give people the ability to stay in their house. I asked the governor about it one time on the show and he started talking about, everybody's got to downsize as you age. We're going to downsize at some point, now that our kids are grown.

It's like, no, people want to stay in their house, they want to stay in their community. Yes, they want to downsize when they're in their late 70s or early 80s, but when you're 65, you want to stay in your house, and you want your kids to come home to your house when they come home from whatever it is they're doing. That's what's behind the program. It remains to be seen whether the state will have the money to do it and whether they'll pull it off.

Brian: Jeffrey, you had a follow up? Real quick.

Jeffrey: Yes, I did. If they actually put the program in place, what will substitute for that amount of money in the state budget and the local budgets, that will prevent our real estate taxes for anybody not eligible for that program? Their real estate taxes will go to $70,000 or something to make up for the shortfall. How does that work?

Brian: A bug worthy comment as we heard in the background. Nancy, we've got a minute left in the segment.

Nancy: No, it doesn't work that way. It's money that the state has been putting aside and building up a fund. It's state money that would pay for that loss in property taxes to each community. It would not have any adverse effect on the your neighbors, basically.

Brian: Do you have a date already for the February Ask Governor Murphy. I know sometimes they move around a little.

Nancy: Oh, I'm glad you asked. In fact, we're usually the second Wednesday of the month. It'll be on Thursday next month on, I think it's the 11th, but it's sometime that week. It's the second Thursday. Usually we're on Wednesday, but the governor had a conflict in February, so yes.

Brian: Second Thursday of next month at seven o'clock for-- Wait, is it 7:00 or 8:00, I forgot.

Nancy: 7:00.

Brian: Seven o'clock, I got it right, for Nancy and Governor Murphy. Debbie in Lanoka harbor and anybody else who wants to bookmark that and call in, and probably Nancy will be here that Friday morning on the show to talk about it. Nancy, thanks for today.

Nancy: Thanks for having me, Brian.

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