- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of State of Affairs with Steve Adubato has been provided by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

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New Jersey Institute of Technology.

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Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - We're now joined by Wes Mathews who's President and CEO of Choose New Jersey.

Good to see you, Wes.

- Thanks, Steve.

Thanks for having me on.

- Our pleasure.

It's the first time we've had you but we've been talking about Choose for a long time.

As we put up the website, tell everyone what Choose New Jersey is and why it matters.

- You bet.

Choose New Jersey is the state's leading non-governmental economic development organization.

We help attract businesses to the state.

We help promote New Jersey as the best place in the country to work, live, and play.

We do everything from leading, organizing governor-led trade missions overseas, recruiting companies globally, also based in other states in the United States find their home in New Jersey.

- So this is interesting.

It's a non-governmental entity.

The government entity that you work very closely with is the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Is that fair to say?

- You bet, yeah.

We work hand in glove with the NJEDA.

- Yeah and Tim Sullivan and his team there.

Let me ask you this Wes.

Jose Lozano, your predecessor was with us many, many times.

And we've talked about these issues, particularly in terms of attracting companies from other countries.

But your background in the US Foreign Service, it strikes me that there's gotta be a connection here.

Meaning, what exactly is your background and how is it potentially connected to your ability and Choose's ability to attract companies from other countries?

- Right, yeah.

I, you know, I couldn't ask for a better set of life experiences to lead me to this job.

I'm extremely fortunate to have served as a US Foreign Service Officer for the last 13 years representing America's interests overseas.

My family and I have served in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa.

And as a diplomat, I focused on economic affairs.

So the underlying premise of that is strengthening America's core economic interests in the foreign country I was posted to.

That involved everything from deepening trade and investment flows, both finding markets for US companies overseas, but also attracting foreign direct investment from abroad to these shores.

My work also focused on enhancing our partnerships with critical countries such as Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, and everything from cybersecurity, protecting critical infrastructure, ensuring the free flow of crude oil to global markets.

All while, frankly championing American values of fairness, equality, and the overarching tenets of democracy.

It was an incredible career.

And I look to leverage those set of experiences and contexts as Choose's next CEO.

- Yeah, but, but, Wes, I'm sorry for interrupting but this is what's so interesting.

And it's challenging to ask this question but I'm gonna do it anyway.

We're taping this in March.

What's going on in the Ukraine is devastating on so many levels and it's changing by the minute.

However, there is a question, not a larger question because there is nothing more important than what's happening to the people in the Ukraine as we speak.

When there is that kind of war going on and in Europe and NATO forces are involved and we don't even know what the United States' involvement's gonna be.

We pray for the people of Ukraine.

That being said, how does that impact Choose's work in terms of engaging in international activities to attract folks to New Jersey?

Does that get put to the side?

- Yeah, you're right.

It's all connected.

And when there's, you know, our thoughts, prayers, support goes to the people of Ukraine and the war that's been brought to their doorstep that they did not ask for.

When things like that happen, obviously our work in particular markets is not as important as the issues of life and death, war and peace.

At the same time, the impacts of that war have knock-on effects not just throughout Europe, but also looking the other way throughout the Middle East, throughout Asia, how it impacts oil prices as we've seen the cost of gasoline increase.

As those displacements happen in the global economy, I think Choose is poised and will be better poised in the years ahead to try to take advantage of companies that are looking to maybe look for stabler shores.

So I think that's where, that's where our value add.

That's where a core advantage of ours is.

- Bringing it closer to home, Wes, I'm curious about this.

Real quick, I wanna plug this before we come back to this domestic question.

There's an NJ, BioNJ and EDA as leading along with Choose is leading a conference 2022 BIO International Convention.

Is this actually in San Diego?

- It is.

- And when is that happening?

- It's happening in June.

- I believe it's in June.

And what happens, and again, put up the website for people who want to find out more.

What's supposed to happen at a convention like that?

- Yeah, so one, I think coming out of a two-year-long pandemic, the desire for people to meet and to discuss issues of import to them is higher than it's ever seen.

I mean, you've seen Delta stats just earlier today about how the appetite for flight demand is just through the roof.

So at a conference like that, traditionally New Jersey has been a strong advocate and supporter of the BIO International Conference.

We, as the home of several life science pharmaceutical companies, we are a champion not just of that conference but of the value proposition that we bring to the table.

It is a tremendous value add for us.

You will see our team along with the EDA's team and other representatives of the state government there not just waving our flag but also meeting with companies and foreign delegations.

It has, this particular conference has one of the highest foreign delegation participation rates in the country.

So, as foreign companies look to relocate or expand their businesses overseas, there really is no better market than what we have in the Garden State to offer a BIO life science pharmaceutical company.

- Before I let you go, real quick, could I get a minute or less on offshore wind?

What is the opportunity from an economic perspective of offshore wind, please, Wes?

- Yeah, I mean, so the offshore wind industry is going to be a significant driving factor in the overall state's economy for decades to come, particularly in South Jersey.

I think they are uniquely positioned to become America's capital for offshore wind.

New Jersey - Are we talking jobs here, too, Wes?

Sorry for interrupting.

Are we talking about a significant number of jobs?

- You bet.

On the conservative side I would say hundreds of good-paying union jobs.

My colleagues across the hall here at the EDA might say that's being way too conservative.

- But your confident that it will create jobs?

- I am absolutely certain when you are talking about creating a new industry in this state there is no way that you will not create hundreds, if not thousands of well-paying jobs up and down the spectrum.

- Listen, folks, you check out the website at Choose New Jersey.

It's been up throughout the entire program.

Wes, I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

Not the last time.

Thank you, Wes.

- Thanks, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

We're honored to be joined by State Senator Vin Gopal from Monmouth County, a Democrat, he's the Conference Chair of the Democratic Party in the Senate and also Chair of the Senate Education Committee.

Senator, thank you for joining us first of all - Thank you, Steve.

- Listen, there's a whole range of issues, and there's another segment we did with the Senator about a whole range of important issues, particularly around emotional, excuse me, mental, behavioral health issues regarding our kids.

I want to talk about a different education issue, if you will.

School funding.

What, from the governor's budget address, what do you take, particularly as the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee?

What is the most significant takeaway for you as it relates to state funding to our public schools, and how the governor's budget proposal impacts that, Senator?

- So there are, historical and significant investments in public education in the tunes of tens of millions of dollars, new, probably the highest amount, full pension payments for public workers and our teachers.

So I think we're heading the right direction.

There's also a part the governor put in for $20 million, which I hope the legislature will increase for those districts that did lose funding from the S2 School Funding Formula, to apply for those funds.

And I hope we will also see an increase.

Former Senate president Sweeney championed the need to increase extra ordinary special education funding.

We're at about 90% right now.

I'm hoping the legislature's budget will bring that to 95%, so optimistic.

Unfortunately, you do have some districts around the state that lost enrollment over the last several years.

So their funding has gone down.

- Senator, let me ask you this.

It's been years that people have talked about, many people have talked about the need as it relates to, I'll connect property taxes to our schools, that the biggest cost, the biggest contributor to our property taxes is our local schools.

Fair to say, Senator?

- Yes.

- Okay.

So very small communities, with one superintendent, one deputy superintendent, one high school, et cetera, et cetera.

You get the whole idea.

Many have argued that consolidating, merging smaller school districts will save money, and potentially reduce the cost of government, and in turn, our local property tax bill.

How serious is that effort in a state that is obsessed with, as you know, home rule which is, my kid will go to our neighborhood school in our town, and don't mess with that.

Am I overstating that Senator?

- You're right.

It's a complicated issue.

We have over 600 plus school districts, 565 towns, hundreds of housing authorities.

So naturally when we have thousands of individual elements of government that all operate on their own, you're going to have costs.

Now there have been some studies that show some of the smaller districts have been more efficient than some of the larger ones.

That said, I think we need to look at all the services.

That's what's crazy, when all these different districts share snow removal, IT, healthcare consul, healthcare contracts, waste management, we are talking about thousands of different vendors that when we have 600 plus school districts, all operating on their own without pooling together, without doing bidding together, it causes real problems.

Even looking at the cafeteria contracts, everyone is negotiating on their own.

So, Steve, it's the old saying, everybody hates Congress, but they always vote for their own Congress person.

It's the same concept here.

Everyone loves the idea of consolidation, just don't do it in my backyard.

It's something we're going to have to tackle, but without a doubt, studies have shown there have been significant savings, when we look to share services and, or consolidate.

- Real quick, before I get off this subject.

Should state government mandate, force very small, based on a certain population figure, a certain number of students, force very small school districts to merge or should that be a voluntary effort?

- Right now under Senator Sweeney's former proposal, which I joined him and Senator Oroho, it was heavily incentivized.

I'm not there on forced yet, but I think we need to start, we need to start getting closer to it.

I was very disappointed to see, even though the state was incredibly giving a lot of financial incentives for those districts just to study shared services and consolidation.

Basically the state would pay for the study on how few districts took advantage of that.

So it's a big issue, and not to jump off top, but we'll look all across joint municipal courts, there's hundreds of areas we have to do this in, and the state needs to get more aggressive, and it's not going to lower the quality of services.

- Yeah.

Let me try that one.

On the issue of affordability, the governor has proposed tax rebates for both homeowners and renters based on a certain, I'm not going to go into the details, you can look at NJ.Com, look at other news sources to find out the details, but it's capped at a certain level for renters and for homeowners.

Do you believe, because we had your colleagues, Senator Bucco, a Republican, Senator Bramnick, a Republican who said these rebates don't make sense, that we should A, do it now, the governor is proposing we do it later in the calendar year starting on July 1st, which is the beginning of the fiscal year, but here's the point, they're saying that we need to give more money back, do it now, and we should not be sending checks to people.

What do you think?

- I think that's a little hypocritical.

We've seen elected officials in both parties.

- Excuse me, they're arguing for a tax credit, but go ahead.

- Yeah.

We've seen elected officials in both parties do it.

They have a point that we do need actual structural change, and this can't be a one or two time gimmick.

But I do think, absolutely, rebates will help people, checks in the mail will help people.

People are struggling right now with inflation and high gas taxes, and of course, property taxes, so it will help.

But that said, we should also be taking some of that money to see how we can put some permanent, long-term structural changes, whatever that looks like.

- Senator I'd like, I'll let you go in a minute.

And by the way, the Senator did two interviews with us back to back, so I can't thank him enough for that.

Charter schools.

A short response to this, the governor, while granting some expansion of charter schools, has limited the expansion of certain charter schools, particularly in urban areas that want to go increase more grades, go from middle school to high school, et cetera, et cetera.

Your view on how much more we should be expanding charter schools, which are public but not public, public, meaning they're a little bit different.

Go ahead, Senator.

- Yeah.

I think we saw under the Christie administration, just a rapid growth of charters, and the Murphy administration's even more like a status quo, renew but don't expand.

I think we have to have a holistic approach.

We know that charter schools have worked to really well in some of our communities in the state, specifically some, - Some have, some haven't, but go ahead.

- Right.

Some have, some haven't, right.

But some have worked really well and they need to be rewarded.

And those that haven't, need to go in the other direction, but I think the state, and I think, you're going to see the Senate Education Committee do a hearing on charter schools eventually, but it has to be a holistic statewide approach.

Right now it seems a little too piecemeal - State Senator Vin Gopal who is the Chair, the Conference Chair of the Democratic Party in the Senate, and also the Chair of the Senate Education Committee.

Senator, I cannot thank you enough for taking this much time with us.

Appreciate it.

- Thank you so much.

- Stay with us, we'll right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Yes, we have her back.

She is Dr. Chris Pernell.

You've seen her on a whole range of broadcasts, including national broadcasts in which she is one of the top public health experts in the nation.

She is Dr. Chris Pernell, Chief Strategic and Integration Health Equity Officer at University Hospital.

Good to see you, Dr. Pernell.

- Good to be with you.

- You've been with us many times throughout this pandemic.

We're going into May 2022, be seen little bit after.

Most significant lesson for you, takeaway for you, of these two-plus years.

- Wow, Steve, there are so many lessons, but I think the first and foremost lesson is the fundamental understanding of the importance of health equity to all of our lives, to not only the lives of those who are in the Black and Brown community, but if we are to achieve the fullness of health and life outcomes, we need to center all strategies and all public health and preparedness strategies around health equity.

Otherwise, when crises strike, they expose that, unfortunately, underbelly of disparities that cause disproportionate loss of life, disability, and morbidity.

- Dr., beyond all the clinical and medical issues associated with COVID, and we've talked about this before, you've talked about it in other broadcasts, as well, the very personal and powerful connection for you and COVID.

Please.

- So, you know, it's been two years since I lost my dad.

I lost my dad on April 13th, 2020, and since losing my father, I've lost several other relatives, I should say.

My sister is a long COVID survivor.

I've enrolled in a COVID-19 vaccine trial.

Basically I'm saying all of that, is that COVID has had both a personal and professional impact on me, and that's true for so many people.

That is why there are lessons that we can't afford not to learn, because there are lives that've been lost, and our nation is still dealing with grief.

I know my family, we still deal with grief, but collectively, we're nearing the one million mark.

I think we've already passed it, but with our formal counting, we're nearing that one million mark of lives that have been lost across the United States.

That is an immense impact, and so I will never forget my father, and I know others will never forget their loved ones.

But I hope that, collectively, we don't forget their sacrifice, unfortunately.

That's what it felt like, because in the beginning, we knew so little and we weren't prepared like we should've been, and hopefully going forward, public health is going to have the right priority and health equity will have the right priority that it deserves in this country.

- Dr. Pernell, what do you believe it actually means to, quote, be prepared for the next public health challenge, crisis, pandemic, whatever?

What does it really mean?

What do we have to do?

Be specific, please.

- Definitely, very good question.

So first and foremost, we need to make sure that our local and state public health departments are adequately funded, they're funded to do proper public health surveillance, whether that is active or passive forms, meaning we can track infections, we can track cases, we know how to do contact-tracing, contact-tracing across multiple, diverse, and inclusive communities, meaning that we know what indicators and what metrics are most important.

Are we watching wastewater surveillance?

Do we have access to vaccines?

Are we able to dispatch and distribute those vaccines deep into community, especially communities that are saddled with health inequities and are facing concentrated poverty?

Do we have access to rapid testing, not only rapid testing that people can have access to in their homes, but rapid testing at pharmacies, rapid testing at hospitals, rapid testing at federally qualified health centers?

We need to have that full gamut, that full gamut of preparedness and that toolkit, and those are just some of those mitigation strategies, and I haven't even talked about access to masks.

Like where are masks available?

Can a person go get a free mask?

What are filtration systems?

And that's what I'm talk about when I say preparedness.

- Well, connect water filtration systems to COVID.

- Well, I'm, when I refer to filtration, I'm talking about filtering air.

- Oh, not water, but air filtration.

- Yes, air, air.

We know that COVID is an airborne disease, and if you recall, at the beginning of the pandemic, there was this back-and-forth dispute about whether or not COVID was being spread by airborne transmission or by the standard respiratory droplet transmission.

We took far too long to conclusively say that COVID is spread by airborne transmission, meaning that people are bringing, breathing in infected air.

So we wanna make sure that our schools, we wanna make sure that our places of employment, that they have adequate filtration system, adequate ventilation, so that people can be safe and protected.

We're more likely to have that in a hospital, but we need to make sure that that is through all facets of life, especially in those communities where people were disproportionately impacted.

So that's what I'm talking about with preparedness.

- Okay, so I'm gonna complicate this a little bit more for you, for all of us.

But as you know, people have been coming to you for answers, as if you have all the answers, as if anyone has all the answers.

First question.

The, quote, confusing, end-quote, messaging, often from public health agencies, on every level of government, including the CDC, A, to what extent has, to what extent do confusing messages about what we should and shouldn't be doing, where we are, where we're not, what the rules are, what's flexible, what's up to you, is that just the nature of what happens when, quote, we really don't know?

- Well, look, we were living through a very unprecedented time at the very beginning of this crisis, and there was a lot that we did not know.

So I wanna separate that portion of time from where we are today and where we have been in recent history.

What I can say, though, we unfortunately, in public health, and we must display accountability, Steve, we unfortunately, in public health, have at times communicated things with confidence that we did not yet know with confidence, and then we gave people very convoluted ways of understanding when to mask and when not to mask, very convoluted ways of understanding how long should you quarantine if you have been exposed, or how long should you isolate, if indeed you have tested positive.

We need to do better with public health communication, especially around risk communication and around crisis communication.

It is okay to say when you don't know something confidently.

And how-- - Stay on that there-- - To understand that.

- I'm sorry for interrupting.

Dr. Chris, is it okay, and is it, in fact, appropriate and the right thing to do for certain government agencies in the area of health to say, at certain times, quote, we don't know?

- Yes.

- A and B, was there tremendous pressure to act like we knew, or they knew, whomever, but didn't know, because we want answers?

But what happens if you don't know what the answer is, but then you act like you know and, oh, no, but never mind?

Never mind.

That's changed.

Of course it's changed.

Tell us.

- Yeah, we have to-- - Is it okay to say, "We don't know?"

- Yes, we have to help people understand that, in a crisis, things are moving so fast, right?

We, in healthcare, in other industries, have described it as a VUCA environment.

It's volatile.

It's uncertain.

It's complex.

It's ambiguous.

We have to be up-front and level with the American public and say, "Look, this is what we do know.

"This is how we know what we know.

"And this is what is still unknown.

"But these are the metrics or the indicators "that we are watching to help us inform our understanding."

When we get more in the habit, in the practice, of explaining how we're able to arrive at solutions, how we're able to arrive as interventions, how we evaluate data, I think the public will be more willing to accept that there are certain things we will not know with certainty.

And then we also, we circumvent, or we preempt, the possibility that misinformation and disinformation can be spread so readily.

So yes, we have to do better at risk and crisis communication in public health.

That's the bottom line.

- Dr. Chris Pernell's also gonna be joining us on a very important panel discussion, talking about the impact of COVID, particularly in urban communities.

Dr. Chris Pernell.

You can see, check out, we put up Dr. Pernell's information so people can find out about her on social media.

But her appearances, not just on public broadcasting, but on other venues, has been so important for two-plus years.

Dr. Chris Pernell is the Chief Strategic Integration and Health Equity Officer at University Hospital, one of our healthcare underwriters.

I wanna thank you so much, Dr. Chris.

All the best.

- Always.

Thanks, Steve.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato.

That's Dr. Chris Pernell.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato Is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

MD Advantage Insurance Company.

New Jersey Institute of Technology.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Veolia.

Operating Engineers, local 825.

NJM Insurance Group.

And by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by Meadowlands Chamber.

(Sounds of Water) - (Narrator) Most people don'’t think of where there water comes from.

But we do.

Veolia, more than water.

Resourcing the world.