In case you’ve already forgotten, Save Jerseyans, Governor Murphy raised eyebrows last fall by dedicating the state’s Health Department building in the name of Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli.
Unlike the 10,000 nursing home residents who died during the Covid-19 pandemic? Persichilli is alive and presumably doing well.
Ex-Senate President Steve Sweeney has “Senator Stephen M. Sweeney Way” named in his honor in Harrison Township (Gloucester County), and there’s a “Stephen M. Sweeney Center for Special Services” building at Rowan College in Sewell (also Gloucester).
The former South Jersey party boss may be politically on life support but he’s also still very much alive and trying to stoke the flames of an electoral comeback.
Absurd and inappropriate? Yes, and Assemblyman Beth Sawyer (R-3) – the running mate of Ed Durr who unseated Sweeney last November – strongly agrees with you.
She introduced A3969 last week which, if adopted, would bar New Jersey state and local authorities from naming buildings or other public infrastructure after living public officials.
“No public building, facility, complex, park, bridge, street, highway, or parkway owned by the State or any political subdivision thereof shall be named in honor of any living public official,” the bill reads. “If a public building, facility, complex, park, bridge, street, highway, or parkway owned by the State or any political subdivision thereof is named in honor of a living public official.”
The draft legislation suggests past dedications to living officials would be left undisturbed, so Sweeney and Persichilli can keep their buildings. They just shouldn’t expect any new ones.
