♪♪ >> From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

Brianna Vannozzi is off.

Coming up in the broadcast, the budget is center stage in Trenton right now.

We hear from one lawmaker about funding education, energy and public media.

Plus, we get the latest on the Iran conflict and where the ceasefire agreement stands.

And with temperatures on the rise, we look at urban heat islands.

What are they and why do they hurt the residents who live there?

But first, the World Cup is less than two months away and leaders in the state are preparing for the onslaught of visitors from all around the world.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists are expected to attend the games that'll be played here in New Jersey between June 13th and July 19th.

Now, some lawmakers want to capitalize on it.

One plan is to temporarily hike the sales tax in the areas around the stadium where tourists are likely to shop.

Democratic Senator Paul Sarlo introduced a bill to increase the sales tax from 6.6% to 9.6% during that time.

But it's drawing criticism from Republicans who point to Governor Sherrill's campaign promise not to raise any taxes.

That's not the only cost to spike.

NJ Transit ticket rides from the stadium back to New York could cost around $100.

That's according to the publication The Athletic.

The plan isn't finalized, but Governor Sherrill said earlier this week that New Jersey taxpayers simply can't be the ones to shoulder the financial burden of getting people to and from the World Cup games.

And other states have proposed similar pricing models.

And maybe you're thinking about how you could capitalize on the games.

Residents are considering renting out their homes through Airbnb or some other short term rental site.

Well Hoboken is considering an ordinance to regulate who can list their properties in their square mile city.

In particular they don't want rent controlled properties being offered up for potentially thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars.

Many other cities and towns have ordinances regulating these types of rentals.

We recently told you the story of a local pastor named Yason Cortez-Vasquez, who's an immigrant who came to the country on a tourist visa in 2016.

He was arrested by ICE on March 20th for overstaying that visa.

Well, after much advocacy from his local community and congressional representatives, Pastor Cortez-Vasquez has been released.

He was held at Delaney Hall in Newark for 18 days, where he alleged having difficulty getting access to a Bible, a claim that ICE disputes, and where he was held during the Holy Week of Easter.

Advocates who were pushing for his release cited his clean record and his work as a faith leader at a church called The Gathering Place in Elizabeth.

They say he was attempting to go through the legal process to obtain citizenship.

Well, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged his release in a statement saying that he quote overstayed his visa by nearly a decade and failed to depart.

That he was quote released on bond with a GPS monitor while he undergoes further removal proceedings and that quote he will receive full due process.

In the meantime, Pastor Gortez Vasquez was back in front of his church congregation on Sunday.

Coming up we talk with State Senator Andrew Zwicker about the state's budget challenges.

That's next.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by the members of the New Jersey Education Association.

Making public schools great for every child.

As hearings continue on the state budget and lawmakers hear from various organizations and groups asking for funding, they also have to balance a $3 billion structural deficit.

State Senator Andrew Zwicker serves on the Budget and Appropriations Committee and joins us now to discuss some of his fiscal priorities as part of our Under the Dome series.

Senator, thanks so much for being with us today.

You've been -- go ahead.

SEN.

ANDREW ZWICKER (D-NY): Thanks for having me on.

LISA DESJARDINS: You have been outspoken on a number of topics as we are in this budget season.

Some of them cost money, some of them maybe not.

But I want to start with the power grid, because, as the state is balancing its budget, homeowners and residents in the state are trying to balance theirs with these rising costs of energy.

You're calling for upgrades to the power grid.

What would that look like?

DR.

RONALD B. JOSEPH, President, National Institute of Energy and Climate Change: So, there is a lot of new technology out there that will allow us to transmit more electricity over our existing grid.

And we -- our grid has been around for decades.

It's old.

It's aging.

We're trying to put more power onto the grid, for whatever reason, lower our energy costs by doing that, because this is a supply vs.

demand sort of thing.

And so this is requiring the Board of Public Utilities to begin the process so that we can quickly and rapidly upgrade our grid.

It's not about building new grid.

It's about upgrading what we currently have.

What are the costs behind some of the upgrades that you're calling for.

Is this an initial investment that needs to be made that could cost the state more at this moment when like I said there is a three somewhere around a three billion dollar structural deficit.

So like anything there will be a cost to it.

What has to be determined is who's going to bear the brunt of the cost.

The state does not own the grid.

Utility companies own the grid but they have the ability to transmit some of their costs to us the ratepayers.

So we have begun those discussions because the number one thing we hear under the dome is affordability affordability and affordability.

So we're going to have to figure out how to do this without putting on the back of the ratepayer.

So education another issue that you've been outspoken not just in this budget cycle but in the past.

Let's start with funding for higher education because we see Governor Cheryl lay out two different plans.

One she keeps funding flat for public universities.

And on the other side she cuts four million dollars in spending for private institutions.

Do you agree with the governor's plan.

Look there's I have serious concerns about the long term strategy for higher education.

And when you go into the weeds it's actually much worse.

So for example Rutgers New Brunswick stays relatively flat.

But Camden and Newark take huge hits.

Our two year community college system where we see more and more people going to get their beginning of their advanced degrees they're taking over a 30 percent hit in just health care costs.

So I have been pushing hard that we have a long term strategy for higher education.

It's not just about funding but it's really about ensuring that New Jersey students high school students who want to get a higher education certificate advanced degree whatever may be they stay here in New Jersey and get a job in New Jersey and we need to figure this out because schools have been folding and being folded into other schools without a long-term strategy I really worry about where higher education is going in New Jersey.

Where does the funding come from and I'm gonna ask you the same question when it comes to K to 12 but for those districts that you know maybe on the losing side for these higher ed institutions where do you take the cut?

What else comes down in this budget proposal?

Well I'm not willing to go to the zero-sum game right now because if you look at let's do higher education funding.

What we know we've studied this over and over and the two-year colleges just came out with a new report.

When we invest a dollar into higher education in New Jersey, we get that dollar back in economic activity, two-fold, three-fold, four-fold, etc.

So this is a money maker, meaning invest today, it makes more money tomorrow.

I think we have got to start looking at multiple year budget scenarios.

Otherwise we get the zero sum game which says we're going to pick winners and losers and there will always be losers.

OK.

On that note when we look at K to 12 education you've supported in the past bills to create stabilization aid for those districts that have been on the losing end of the school funding formula.

Do you see the need for that this year now that the numbers are out.

Yeah absolutely.

Absolutely.

I have with my colleagues led the last few years trying to ensure that there are not drastic cuts to the schools who have lost under the bill that is known as S2.

I have several of them in my district that I represent in central New Jersey.

You know schools are doing everything they possibly can to cut costs but class sizes are starting to go up.

The quality of education is at risk here.

We are proud in New Jersey of the quality of our public K through 12 system and we should be.

It's one of the best in the country.

But we are squeezing it for all it's worth right now.

And so I think we need to find that money so that we don't see these drastic cuts that we're reading about now in school districts up and down the state.

I've asked you this question in the past.

If we have to have all of this stabilization aid does it then just make the funding formula null and void.

Where are where is the state in terms of reassessing re-evaluating how that funding formula distributes funds.

Yeah look the funding formula has needed a modernization upgrade for quite some time.

We've got special education costs transportation costs health care costs.

These are all going up dramatically and we have an outdated formula for it.

So I wouldn't say it is makes it obsolete but it does point to the urgency of upgrading as quickly as possible.

We've put together a task force of experts to start to do this.

It's going to be so critically important that we get this done in a timely manner.

Otherwise it's going to be what we're seeing this year and previous years happening in the years ahead.

Hard to talk about this without first saying that we of course here are public media.

We are NJPBS.

But you've been very vocal about your support for saving New Jersey public television.

First why.

Oh my goodness.

First of all there is nothing more important when it comes to our education around public broadcasting than PBS.

Whether that is for children and the shows that you just don't see anywhere else, whether it's for spotlight news, whether it's for community events, it is part of a vibrant New Jersey.

It's part of really our democracy, is ensuring that people are reporting about what's happening in their local communities.

I have put out calls on my social media and I get parents up and down the state talking about how Sesame Street or some of the shows that are, I don't even know because my kids are grown, are critical to just how they are raising their children.

And it's what I remember, you remember, we all remember.

I couldn't emphasize enough the importance of saving public broadcasting.

And I'll tell you right now, working with my colleagues in the legislature, we are going to make sure that happens.

We are not letting public broadcasting go away in New Jersey.

Bill on it.

You would like to see some money.

9.6 million dollars to sent to the trust for the support of public broadcasting any traction there on that bill.

So there's a there's traction on that.

I have an another bill.

I'm about to introduce to take a piece of the film and tax credit about 400 million dollars of tax credits for the highly successful film industry that we brought to New Jersey and take a small piece of that put that into a dedicated source for public broadcasting.

I've talked directly to the governor.

Talk to senior staff.

I've talked to legislative leadership.

We don't have the final answer yet but we are starting to coalesce and everybody is together about the importance of saving public broadcasting in New Jersey.

And I just have to finish by saying when my kids first found out that I was working here they were so excited that I would work with Daniel Tiger.

So we have to leave it there.

But senators Wicker thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

Under the Dome is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting a private corporation funded by the American people.

We're one week into a ceasefire between the U.S.

and Iran over the conflict that began more than a month ago.

That agreement, though, expires in a week, but negotiations over the weekend failed to produce a long-term peace resolution.

In the meantime, control over the Strait of Hormuz has been a contentious issue, with the U.S.

now blockading ships from passing through.

That strait typically transports a fifth of the world's oil.

With us now to share the latest on the conflict is Michael Boyle, political science professor at Rutgers University, Camden.

Michael, great to have you on the show.

What can you tell us about the latest with the negotiations and now the U.S.

positioning our ships to block the Strait of Hormuz.

So there's been a lot of developments with the negotiations.

I'll start with that.

J.D.

Vance was in Islamabad and made a pitch for a 20-year suspension of nuclear enrichment from Iran.

Iran countered with essentially a five-year suspension of enrichment, but less sort of commitment over the long run than J.D.

Vance was in fact actually hoping.

So this has been relatively high stakes from the U.S.

I mean, essentially what they did is they went into Islamabad and in a face-to-face with the American vice president, pitched a much bigger, more sweeping deal for Iran than we might have expected.

Unsurprisingly, that didn't work.

I mean, I think if you go in with really maximalist demands and a very short window of a day or two to make an agreement, you can't be surprised that it didn't work.

The interesting question is that we're kind of going back to the table now and starting to trade proposals about what kind of suspension we might wind up with.

It might be a five-year suspension, a 10-year suspension.

There might be some movement on the highly-natured uranium that Iran actually has.

So it'll be interesting to see how this works out.

My concern is that this comes in in some way better than the last Iran agreement, the last agreement we had in 2015 with Iran, which in many ways was a commendable agreement.

The difference is the Trump administration kind of ripped that up and has now launched not only the June campaign but this war.

So you would hope that after that amount of cost you get a better deal and we won't just be kind of walking ourselves back to where we were in 2015.

A couple of follow ups there.

First it's important to note that Pakistan has been part of really helping to mediate between the two sides.

Obviously trying to keep those conversations going.

We know that.

Right before this peace agreement the president put out in a social media post that he was prepared to eliminate the entire Iranian civilization if there was an agreement reached.

One, what impact, if any, does that type of language have?

Let's start there.

Well, so, I mean, let's be clear about what that is.

Eliminating an entire civilization is a call for a war crime at a minimum, and possibly a call for even more sweeping claim of genocide after that.

So, what President Trump is doing is using a lot of very loose language that normally American presidents wouldn't use, that normal diplomatic correspondents wouldn't use.

And I think the best explanation you can come up with is that he's trying to essentially muscle Iran into a deal by making kind of outlandish threats.

Some have speculated that he's trying to play the kind of madman theory.

If you think he's unpredictable, that you'll get more kind of as a concession from that.

Do you think, Michael, to jump in there, do you think that's been an effective strategy in these negotiations to bring Iran to the table?

No.

On some level, we're not anywhere closer with Iran at the table than we were before.

I think what the president has done is use some very loose inflammatory language at really very little cost.

And in fact, what he's doing is losing the social media war around this.

Iran has garnered a little bit more sympathy internationally, and the President has imposed more costs on the U.S.

from language like that.

I want to pick up on that thought just in terms of global perception, because Iran, what we've seen reported is that they say that they have actually benefited in some way from the attacks on their country because they've gotten this kind of control over the Strait of Hormuz and are able to impact the global economy.

Now the U.S.

has positioned ships as of this week to block that strait.

Is this a way to kind of take away that control.

And what impact do you think that has on global perception of the U.S.

So if you think about this if we're thinking about where the two countries are at the beginning of this before this conflict there was free navigation in the Straits of Hormuz.

Now the United States is fighting to get free navigation in the Straits of Hormuz.

So in a sense we're fighting to get back something that we lost as a consequence of our own military action, which isn't a very smart strategy.

I think what's also happened that I think is really dangerous here is that both Iran and the United States have started to barter about more or less imposing tolls or a degree of control over the Straits of Hormuz to interrupt free shipping and commerce.

That is a violation of the law of the sea, but it's also an extraordinarily dangerous precedent for us to get into that countries are going to start to impose tolls and control shipping.

And that actually could work to Iran's favor, that if Iran is able to in some way be the toll master for the Straits of Hormuz, that's going to be cashed towards Iran.

So now the Trump administration is trying to stop that by essentially pushing Iran out of the Straits of Hormuz, blockading it itself, and threatening to stop any Iranian flight vessels.

I understand why they're trying to do that.

In a sense, they want to place pressure on Iran, economic pressure, to get it to fold in the negotiations they had in Islamabad.

But in the long run, you're creating a very dangerous precedent that now the U.S.

is blockading the Straits of Hormuz in order to stop Iran from blockading the Straits of Hormuz.

Aside from the obvious problem that that doesn't make a lot of sense, it's creating a very bad international precedent that the U.S.

doesn't want to live with.

At this point, who is able to get through?

Which ships are able to get through now that the U.S.

has this blockade in place?

So the situation is very confused on the ground.

The U.S.

is imposing a blockade that is a little bit technical in the sense that a blockade in the way that they're administering it, like the blockade they've imposed on Cuba, means that they contact vessels and they have the right to board those vessels, but they often do it with the cooperation of the people sailing the vessels.

In practice, the U.S.

actually hasn't stopped that many ships so far.

We have a blockade in place, but if you read what's been happening, they're letting a lot of vessels go through.

They're letting even some Iranian flag vessels go through.

The official terms of the blockade is they will stop anything going in or out of an Iranian port.

But in practice, they haven't done that so far.

So right now, we say we have a blockade in place.

We say we have the right to stop ships, but we're not actually stopping that many ships.

And the consequence of this is a kind of leaky blockade, like the U.S.

is administering, may also still push up the world price of oil.

So we're all going to feel it at the pump, because there's a blockade being imposed, but it's a very leaky and inefficient blockade.

We also know that today in Washington, D.C., Marco Rubio is sitting down with the heads of Israel and of Lebanon, and this is historic.

Just give some context for this meeting and what's happening there.

So it's an interesting development, and the Trump administration is gambling in fairly big ways, both with the meeting with Iran and getting Israel and Lebanon to sit down.

The historic context of this is that Israel and Lebanon don't have diplomatic relations, so they don't have a lot of face-to-face meetings.

They often communicate, but they communicate through intermediaries.

This is an attempt in Washington to broker a face-to-face meeting, which could potentially lead to a kind of break in the logjam and a diplomatic relationship between Israel and Lebanon that is formal and recognized.

But the big sticking block here is Hezbollah.

Really what Israel wants is for the Lebanese government to exercise some control over Hezbollah in south Lebanon, and what the Lebanese government wants is a ceasefire.

So although it's very good to essentially get the parties in the room and get them talking, they're pretty far apart on terms.

And there are serious concerns about whether the Lebanese government, if it wanted to rid itself of Hezbollah, if it wanted to shut down Hezbollah, actually has the capacity to do that in southern Lebanon, because Hezbollah is a fairly entrenched force with a lot of assets.

So I would say good news that they start talking, but I wouldn't be confident we're going to see a breakthrough very soon, in part because the cost of doing so and the barriers are fairly high.

Do you see Secretary of State Marco Rubio as effectively mediating that type of deal, or do you think that this is going to be much longer, only a few seconds left?

The Trump administration has tried to do this with a lot of countries, is to kind of broker peace agreements with Israel in order to kind of end the sort of diplomatic logjam in the Middle East.

I understand what they're doing.

I wouldn't, if I were the Secretary of State, put a lot of stock in it immediately until I start to see real movement from the parties.

I wouldn't expect a breakthrough in the next few weeks, for example.

All right.

Lots to cover as this all plays out.

Michael Boyle, professor of political science at Rutgers University, Camden, thank you for the insight.

Thank you.

Urban areas are usually warmer than their rural surroundings.

It's a phenomenon known as the heat island effect.

These heat islands can have some dangerous health impacts on the residents who live in them and they can actually impact communities by driving up their energy costs.

The State Board of Public Utilities recently committed $5 million to 10 different municipalities across New Jersey to help mitigate these impacts.

Here to talk more about it is Jennifer Sauter from the Rucker Center for Urban Policy Research.

Jen, great to have you on the show.

Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you for having me.

What is the heat island effect in turn.

In other words what does it actually do.

How do you live.

How do these urban spaces actually create this effect.

The urban heat island effect is really just when you have a built up area which is densely populated with just envision a lot of roof surfaces paving surfaces and other services that heat up and retain heat.

So you're displacing the natural systems.

So really any urban area can have an urban heat island effect.

Obviously less greenery to write less plants less vegetation.

What areas in New Jersey are most vulnerable to this heat line heat island effect.

New Jersey a lot of New Jersey has this can experience the urban heat island effect and in particular overburdened communities densely populated communities like Newark which is a hot spot actually in the nation I think it's the second which a hot spot in the nation and Patterson Trenton Camden and really any area that has that condition can can experience this problem.

I set it up in the intro here but we know that you said that these are overburdened communities they're already dealing with a range of other types of environmental impacts whether it's truck traffic or sometimes water pollution but when we talk about the impact on the cost of cooling spaces in this heat island effect how is this a compounded problem?

Well if you picture it you have an increased temperature and then you're increasing your need for cooling which is then increasing the need to on the grid, the power grid, so there's more pollution going into the air.

And then in addition some communities and some households don't have air conditioning so when you're having those increased conditions you're exacerbating health problems and that's a real problem especially for vulnerable populations that already have maybe respiratory issues or heart conditions.

The increased heat can and communities across New Jersey.

>> Something that's not often talked about but we have covered here on our news is the impact on pregnant women.

Actually the impact on early labor and maternal health impacts death in fact is significant.

So help us understand now what the state is doing.

The BPU is stepping in.

They're putting $5 million behind some mitigation efforts.

Can you talk about that project and what that's going to look like?

Absolutely.

It's a really exciting project and it's statewide and it's $5 million, as you mentioned.

And it's distributed into three different categories.

There are two projects that are million dollar projects, which are larger scale, of course.

And there are about four projects that are focused on resilience hubs.

And then there are the remaining projects are smaller micro projects that really show how strategies to mitigate the urban heat island can be at all different scales.

And they're really great projects.

So exciting working with community partners in Newark, Trenton, Patterson, Camden, Atlantic City, just to name a few.

And each project is different.

A lot of them include major planting initiatives, redevelopment of parks, resilience hubs, cooling centers and green infrastructure.

When you talk about planting and green infrastructure, what does that look like?

Make that come to life for us.

Sure.

It can mean a lot of things.

And in this case it can be things like green roofs the opportunity to agree on a roof because roof if you picture a city lots and lots of square footage of roofs and roofs are really an area that retain heat.

So you can have a green roof which basically means a planted roof and you can have you could have a white roof.

So any time that you have a choice to pick a lighter color for those surfaces it's going to reduce that urban heat island effect.

And there's other things like rain gardens plantings that absorb water and any area that when you're replacing a black asphalt area or dark material with a plant you're going to be reducing that urban heat island effect.

Can you talk to us about how Rutgers is involved in these projects.

How how are you involved.

Well we're really excited to be part of this project.

So the Rutgers Center for Urban Policy Research is helping to provide technical assistance.

So we will be working with the awardees across the state and working with BPU to make sure that in the beginning of each project we're baselining what are the temperatures now and how are these mitigation strategies making an impact.

And also we're helping to tell the story because we want to make sure that the community members involved are getting the benefit, understanding the importance of this project and how it's impacting the community.

And a lot of these projects are really community based.

So the community members are a big part of making it happen.

How will you measure success here?

Oh, there's a lot of different ways.

Some are the analytical piece of saying the temperature over time will decrease and we can do that through modeling.

Sometimes it's more literal surface temperatures, taking a before and after temperatures.

And also it's again telling the story.

So are people enjoying these spaces?

Are they using spaces that they weren't using before?

Are people more comfortable?

So it's surveys, quantitative and qualitative data that we're collecting.

All right.

Jennifer Sauter, appreciate you coming on to talk to us about it.

We look forward to seeing how these projects look as they roll out.

Project manager for the Rutgers Center for Urban Policy Research.

Thanks so much.

Thank you so much for having me.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagas for the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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