It's time for Insight, an inside view of what's happening in South Jersey. Join your hosts, Anthony Fenucci and Jim [Music] Quinn, as QVC brings you Insight with Anthony and Jim.
Good evening everyone and welcome to Inside with the Mayor. It's Jim Quinn along with Mayor Anthony Ponucci from the great city of Vinland and mayor I was with your good friend Lou Magazoo the other day and he's doing a lot of work in Vinand and was talking to people
and he of course he finally had the right title for this guy. America's man. I'll take it. I'll take it. Tell you what, you look great. I'm so proud of you. You know, you really do. You look fantastic. Keeping the weight off, trying to stay fit, do some exercising,
and you know, just keeping extremely active, which is a good thing. Um, so it really helps and thank you. I um tell people, you know, the suntan from the sunroof helps and um kind of like a cat most days, but uh it helps uh make the gray hair not look so bad.
Well, you should go see my hair person. She makes my my gray hair look good. I love it. That is great. I'm glad to hear that. I was with Lou today, as a matter of fact. Yeah, he was in working with one of his clients on some um residential development things that are looking they're looking at in violin.
So, yeah, a lot of good stuff on the horizon for sure. How's Hans Lambert? How's he doing? He's doing well. Um I uh saw him today um driving down Landis Avenue and I happened to talk to him through text for a minute and um he's doing good. You know, busy, you know,
his projects are busy. He's got a lot of stuff going on. Um you know, Hans, he's always got something in the frying. Yeah, he does. What I mean, what a wonderful job he's done at, you know, East Atlanta over near the uh Nukem Hospital property, everything there.
It's just been he's a resilient man. He hung in there a long time through multiple administrations until you got there. Yeah. Brutal. Um when um Mayor Bermudez wouldn't support that project when he was mayor and you know we really had to get involved as a city council to
get it to move forward and and and frankly you know people said oh there's no need for that. He filled up in no time. Built two more had got those filled and still has a waiting. So I don't know. I I I think he was on to something here. I do too. Senior housing
is important. Well, it sure is. I remember first time I met Hans, my cousin Joe Barufi, who's the mayor of Buuna. He was with me today. Was he really? Yes. I saw him today too. Yes. Well, you've seen all You know what? I had a good day today. I got to see everybody. Yeah, that's super. Joe looked great, too. I just talked to him.
It's It's interesting. We've been fortunate. Uh the county of Cumberland has hired us to do the county commission meetings. Okay. They are the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. and Joe Perui with Burough Buuna in Landisville
and New Buuna Men and Landisville. Uh we do their council meeting and it's the last Monday. But anyway, what ended up happening for this month is because the last Monday of the month's Memorial Day, Joe was going to move it till Tuesday
and I said, "Joe, we got the county on Tuesday." So, we're going to have the Buuna Council meeting on this coming Monday. So, Oh, very nice. and that way everybody will be able to to be there. But boy, you know, I I'm sure you know it, but I'm so proud of my cousin Joe.
His uh wife Jill Mhm. is the reason he and I are cousins. She's Harry K's daughter, right? And uh it was great to be at Harry's 90th birthday party a few months ago. God bless. See one of your buddies there, Father uh
Bnosi Steve. He went to St. Augustine Prep Bernazi. Bernazi. Oh yes, absolutely. He was a few years behind me. Great young man, isn't he though? Yeah, great young man. Yeah, he's uh in Collinswood actually where he is now. And sometime we got to meet my buddy
David um Dave David Rivera. Oh yeah, the construction Dave. No, this Dave is a priest. Oh, different Dave Rivera. Okay. Yeah, he actually Dave and I and he's about Steve's age. They're both a little behind me. Right. Dave uh grew up in
Camden with uh Camden Catholic or one of the Catholic high schools up there. Okay. But he's now the pastor of St. Joe of Hamilton as well as St. Andrews in Hamilton and just a great well super guy. Great church community there in Hamilton. Unbelievable. You ever been to
St. Joe Hamilton church? My sister used to teach many years ago at St. Joe's in Hamilton. And then of course I've been in the church over the years for like the festival and the masses especially you know as a young man I used to go over every year with my mom uh to the mass and then you know when you get there as you're older and you're going
to the festivals you still stop into the church and you know and stop and pray. But what a great church. What a great church community. I've had the uh pleasure of attending mass there for different reasons over the years. Um and just um Hamilton's a great town though.
Oh it is, isn't it? It's a great next to Blind. It's one of the best around. I mean, they've got some really great restaurants. I love the NAS wine bar, Ilanos. It was after I went up to mass with Father Dave 5:00 and I had never been in St. Joe. My goodness, it's a
giant church. I mean, it's big. It's Yes, it is beautiful. So I stayed for mass and after mass what I really liked about David is he's well most of the Italians are too but he's Puerto Rican but they many of my Puerto Rican friends are very warm and friendly and he just
loves people. He's hugging him shaking her hand and all that stuff and then afterwards he and I went to Ilanos for dinner and we walk in and it's it's father father it's almost as popular as you were. It was great. I said man they really love you here but he's such a
nice person. I'm so glad because there's a shrinkage of priests who know that how tough it is to find. You're not kidding. I'd love to meet him. Yeah, I that would be great. In fact, maybe sometime I could bring him. So, I coach Rodeo's son owns that now. Yes, he does. Yeah. Um and I understand he's been doing a
phenomenal job. I've yet to get out there since he's taken over ownership. My sister was there with my mom and my brother-in-law and family uh not that long ago and said it was very, very good. It is. So, I'm happy to hear that. And of course, his son-in-law owns Anatas. Yes. Wine. Yeah. In Hamilton.
Have you been there, too? Yeah. I love that place. I've been to a number of events. The chairs are the most comfortable. So comfortable to get in and you don't want to get out. That's true. Yeah. No, I really And of course, Azland has a lot of great restaurants. So does Hamilton, especially as small as Hamilton is. But uh some really good
canoli in Hamilton right there down the block from Manadas at Maninos. Oh, I it's a weakness. Um, and I have my traditional time of year where I have certain dates that I go out there specifically for their canoli. Um, and Gabby does a phenomenal job out there.
Um, with her canoli and stuff and and then of course if you're at Anatas and you're picking something up, it's nice. And it's a great spot if you're a people watcher. Yes. You know, cuz Anatas has all those windows and then you go, you know, and it's still Hamilton's downtown still has that uh throwback feel to it.
It does, doesn't it? Yeah. It's almost like it's never lost its charm that way. Exactly. And you know, it's interesting. Milville, at least when I was mayor, we had that throwback charm. Place was busy. Now it's half empty. And yet Hamilton is still busy. And it's amazing. Great job. You know, and for
Millville, Milville has so much potential. It's got, you know, it's like raw clay, right? It can really be molded. And your downtown is great cuz your street's not super wide. Like Landis Avenue is too wide to talk to each other across the street. Yeah. Exactly. And you know, back when you
know, you had um the Fridays. Yeah, exactly. The Fridays were great. We would go over um you had a lot of good restaurants there, a lot of good bars. There was not a lot of trouble. Um No. You know, very rarely. Um but you could go over for a few hours and come back towards Vinland. Or if you were out for
the night and you were hopping, you know, from Vinland to Milville and then Milville back to Vinand or, you know, or vice versa. If you went to Bridton first and you worked your way to Milville, then back home to Vinland to make your last stop wherever it was going to be. you could do that. I those days are it's a shame they're they're gone right now,
but they can come back with, you know, you know, the right um the right leadership and and the right business sense for people. Milville's got their election coming up in November. And I just hope and pray that five really good people get into all five seats are up. That's the stupid commission form of
government. That's it's amazing, folks. In Millville, you've got the worst form of government in the state of New Jersey. There's only four of you left. Everybody else has what we have here in Vinland and Bridton and Sele and everywhere is the mayor council form of
government where Milville is so messed up. I tell the story that one year Chad Goodwin was super guy was the mayor. I thought did a great job. The backgrounds were like you did insurance accounting, you know, it was really a great guy. So I go to the booth and I got my five
votes and I get check my first vote. Well, my fifth vote I give to another fell, nice fella, but not meant to be the mayor. Boom, he goes right to the top. He's the mayor. And it's like, oh my god, it almost killed him. I mean, he's a friend of mine. The blood pressure was off the chart. Just wasn't his cup of tea. But because of this
screwed up form of government Milville has, you have no idea who's going to be the mayor. I mean, in fairness, you know, I mean, at least like you, you went through the school board, you went through council, you worked your way up, you had experience. The people the first two people that finished in Milville had
no experience whatsoever in government at all and nice people but by God it takes some learning process and go through budgets and you know things like that but it's scary. I think there's almost 20 people running and other than Joey Derella uh who's the only one that
has a lot of experience you know but I don't know what's going to happen from there. I like you may roamic but yeah I'm not sure you know what's going to happen in that. That'll be an interesting but 20 people, five become the commissioners and then each one top
vote getters mayor, second top vote getters vice mayor and then they each have their own department. But the one thing I found with a commission form of government when I was there I tried to get a petition started to change the form of government to mar but the commissioners didn't want to change it
and the reason is each commissioner is like a mini mayor of his own department. So like if you're the department head of public safety, no one except that commissioner has any power over public safety. The mayor doesn't, no one does. So each department has its own power.
That's not necessarily a good thing cuz it's not working. And you can see in Noval they're losing cops there. Crime is increasing. There's all kind of problems going on. And yet, you know, who do you turn to? I mean, and I know the public safety director had no experience whatsoever ever in any of
those fields, you know, and it's just not to me. Well, it's sad. You're right. Because they can't they can't function um like most good governments do, right? And um and and that's very difficult because if if all you're worried about
and you're consumed by the power, the authority of your individual department, what about the betterment of the city? What about the betterment of all your constituents, the people that live there, um the people that are doing business there, and then the people that are looking to come in there and possibly live or do business there? You
you you don't have that for them. Um and I know that's difficult and I know unfortunately Mayor Ramick's been dealing with the um uh the hard time in recruiting police officers and I think they may have just settled a contract recently that that helped maybe a little bit with salary, I've heard. Um but
that's a big deal, too. But you can only afford to pay so much if you don't have enough ratables to back it up. Exactly. You know, it's it's a challenge in that respect. And you know, um it and if you don't have public safety, who wants to invest in your community? Yeah. Exactly. Right. And Milville is
such a a great town and and I tell you, I envy parts of Milville because you have waterway. You got the river, you got the lake, you know, Laurel Lake and Union Lake. That that lakefront along the area where there's roadway should be flooded. pardon the pun with businesses
and restaurants and and bars and and and different levels of of you know entertainment you know for people that are there because in there you go to the shore I go to the shore we like being near the water well you know what if you're in your own backyard and it's I
don't know springtime early summer fall when the weather's nice and you're sitting there waterfront um wouldn't it be nice I'd be trying to attract another you know yacht boat facility in there somehow. Maybe you're not going to have a Silverton Marina like you did many years ago when they built the yachts there, but you could you could house
something. There's other boat manufacturers. There's other ways to, you know, to entice them, but but they need some help. And and unfortunately, I I I see sometimes the um lack of collaboration on that commission. Um and there's a lot of infighting and then
that that goes a long way and and and hurting you. So, you know, hopefully um you know, things will move in the right direction and um you know, and they can, you know, be able to get a group that will support each other for the betterment of Milville. And honestly, I would assume that the commission itself
could vote out that form of government and vote in a new form or does it have to go to referendum? Has to go to referendum. Yeah. Yep. And like I say, it was tough because with my guys, it's like, oh, I don't want to go up my department. I don't want to go up my department. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's why you have and in fact speaking of the
river, City Park, which is right across the river, recently had a killing. A woman was killed at at City Park shots. Jeez. I mean, do you really, you know, you like go, "Oh my god, I don't know if I want to go down there." I mean, even after the football games, there's been gunshots. And I don't know if I've ever
told you this story. I would not make a good NRA member. I think no one except police should have guns. But I know. Oh, no. No. I I have a right to my gun. Okay, if you need it, I guess you do. But that's why we have police. But anyway, um, as you look at the guns, I
spoke as the mayor in 2001 at a candlelight vigil for a young man who was shot and killed in his home. They went right in his house into his bedroom, shot and killed. Was obviously gang rel or drugreated, I suspect. Anyway, one of the ministers asked me to
come and speak and I did and I went out and extended my condolences to the w the mother and to a sister and then I spoke to the crowd about 50 people and I said the following and this is the way I feel. I said I feel strongly anyone possessing an illegal gun should do 3 to
5 years in prison. I come off the steps of the of the porch there. One of the police officers comes over to me. He said, "Hey, mayor, half the people you just said that to right now are packing guns." I said, "Oh my god." He said, "I'm telling you." And then I said the same thing at the high school to a history class and a big kid who lived in
the neighborhood raised his hand. I said, "Yeah." He said, "Hey, mayor, you live where I live, you'd want to have a gun." I'm thinking, "Oh my god, is this terrible? This is horrible." But I remember being in England or in I'm sorry, in Disney World many years ago, 30 years ago, I guess, or whatever. I'm
standing in line and in front of me are a family of four from Great Britain. Okay. And the woman turned to me and she said, "Can you explain something to me?" I said, "What's that, man?" She said, "My sons are 18 and 20 years old. They can't have a drink in the United States where, you know, we are in Florida." And
I said, "Yeah." She said, "But yet, you can go over to that sporting goods store and buy guns." I said, "Welcome to America, land of opportunity." And I know there's a lot of people out there that totally disagree with me, but I just don't see them doing any help. I mean, I thank God, you know, we have
police departments, state police, local police, and things like that, but it's not going to change. I mean, you got the NRA is so powerful. I could never win as a Republican. I think of that because that's what they support. The NRA, the NRA, and I guess, yeah, okay, maybe you
need it. But from what I've seen a lot of those things where person has a gun in the house, one of the kids in the house accidentally shoots somebody or shoots themselves. It's I've never had a gun in my house. I don't want a gun in my house. And I thank God we have police, you know, to Oh, listen. You're absolutely right. I mean, and I could
tell you, you know, as hunter, you know, we grew up in a hunting family and and this is what, you know, we've done. So, we've learned to respect firearms and and what to do and not to do. Um, I do not believe in illegal gun ownership in any way, shape, or form. If you shouldn't have it, you shouldn't have
it. And, um, especially if it's illegal or it's, you know, homemade and things of that nature. No. and the uzies. Do you really need an AR-15? You know, listen, you know, it's it's a shame because people bad apples ruin everything for
every bunch, right? Including something like that. You know, you have competitive shooters, you have recreational shooters, you have people that are just gun enthusiasts. And frankly, they get a bad rap, some of them, because of the mishandling that other people have that are careless with
their firearms. even the legal ones that they're very careless with. Um, and that's just that's just not good. You know, I've gone through training. I've gone through um a number of courses, you know, to learn different things because if you ever encounter something, you want to be able to be prepared to to
handle that versus, you know, being so frightened of it. But that's the problem. You know, too many bad apples have weapons. Um, and it's frankly some of them have weapons that outdone the police officers. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I had a friend, her ex-husband had 12 guns. His
buddy had 100 guns. He said, "Oh, that's really good. We need 100 guns." I mean, I don't have a problem with people going out hunting. They're shotguns usually, you know, they go out and they rifle shotgun, which is fine sport. People love that. Sure. And that's that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. I've
never had the interest in it, but I understand that's a sport that people enjoy. Yeah. And that's fine. But you don't need an AR-15 or newsy or something to go out and shoot deer. you know, you you use the gun. No, you're that's a lot of deer. You're sure is, but unfortunately when that's used in
mass shootings and I tell you what, just Google or uh Siri, how many murders there are in England, Ireland, France, etc. Very, very few. You know why? They don't have guns. I mean, I'm not saying there are some illegal guns. Oh, I'm
sure there are. But generally, it's not prevalent and it's just something that that occurs. But anyway, we come back, we're going to stop talking about guns. We're going to talk about some of the great things going on in the city of Ireland, and we'll be back right after these messages.
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introduce you to him. New Life Church, Milville, New Jersey. It's time for Insight, an inside view of what's happening in South Jersey. Join your hosts Anthony Fenucci and Jim [Music]
Quinn as QVC brings you Insight with Anthony and Jim. Welcome back to Insight. Jim Quinn along with Mayor Anthony Fenucci from the city of Ireland. And we're going to stop talking about guns and all that. We're going to start talking about some other good things that are going on in
the city of now. Mayor, I know the last time we were here was exciting news about the convention center and how is that progressing? Doing good. They're um they're in process now of getting the uh the facility prepped and ready to go. Um tons of inquiries
um you know from people that want to book the convention center. So for the many people that were critical and said that's never going to work on Landis Avenue. Well, it's going to work. Yeah. Because it's I mean they'll be booked solid before you know it. Uh so it's amazing. But Sandy's department's doing
a great job and and getting all that together and um it won't be long before we have it fully outfitted and and ready to go. So, that's just been a great thing. It's been a lot of positive buzz um recently. I don't know if you saw the travel and leisure um article that came
out on Violent. Yes. Yeah. It's great because a lot of times you see those things on the internet and they're some fake news source that either throws you under the bus and says you're the worst community ever or there's someone that says, "Oh, this is the greatest community ever." Well, guess what? We got a legitimate source that came in and
talked about us in in the Northeast here being, you know, one of the, you know, best places to retire um and live because of the cost of living, the quality of life, you know, um all the uh all the solid infrastructure, what we have tax rateable base, what we have for
transportation and and they also noted that all the improvements that have been done in the city um in the last 8 years or so and then things that we have on tap, which was just it It was such a pleasure to to see a credible news source like that or an outlet really
give us a positive plug. Yeah. Well, that's why I mean we talk about all the great things that are happening in we're not making them up. Drive around. Look on my way here today. I keep looking at David Construction Company's beautiful five homes on Lincoln Avenue and I'm
sure they're already sold. And you know, like I said, the time I went out to Pwick uh to meet my Phillies ticket agent, I spent a whole bunch of time out Hansbridge Road and all in East Land. I went, "Oh my god, look at all the farming. I don't even think about that cuz I don't usually get out that way."
But I mean, you've got everything. 69 square miles of everything from farming to industry. You talk about industrial park, it's it is packed and you know, just all the good things and all the good people that are involved with it. It's just really wonderful. One of the
things I wanted to talk to you a little bit about is um I had um yeah, okay, I'll think about it. Uh the the county director from Salem County, Ben Luri Ben was on my show and
I know that they're excited about working with the city of Leland on the broadband and I had the opportunity to talk to Tony Quickigley. In fact, I said to Tony, I'd love to meet him. tell everybody who Tony quickly is. And so Tony is the head of uh the city's IS department. Um and the I is department
takes a a number of roles on and it's not just plugging your computer in and getting your phones operational. In Violin, it's a lot different because we have I pledged many years ago when I ran for mayor the first time to become what we called a smarter city. And not just a smart city, if you will, cuz the
connotation of smart city is kind of geared around one thing in many people's minds. But a smarter city is efficiencies and it's all through, you know, technology- based initiatives. And Tony spearheaded all of those for us, has done a fantastic job, including the fact that we're, you know, ramping up
for our own broadband network um which we will have in place um in the very near future. And that's incredible. So he's done a great job with his team in um working on the broadband infrastructure uh implementation of the plan. Uh also upgrades to our fiber
optic network through the violent electric uh utility as well. Um they've looked at customer service interfaces that are completely new and different and more efficient now. Different portals to get on through the web to do everything. We redesigned our website, our social media. uh we put a real
presence out there on all the important uh platforms that were there which we did through public relations and partnership and collaboration with is uh we've been doing different things with our my vinand app where you whip out your smartphone and you could pay your taxes you can find out about what's
going on in the city calendar you know different tidbits and blurbs about activities there's content that's constantly there when you come into city hall now um remember years ago in the old city hall where you had um just like the board with the little letters you put in there for you go to this floor
and it's this guy and that one electronic now it's uh screens like your display monitors now it's digital and then things rotate so we have static things to let you know what floor um you know electric utility is what floor customer service is what floor the mayor
is um which is great but then we have other ones that rotate and have different messages on the messaging board every day when visitors come to city hall now if you come in and you have a meeting with me and you want to talk about bringing your business here where you're going to walk in and as you're walking in at some point it's
going to rotate and say welcome Jim Quinn you know Quinn broadcasting and thank you for coming to city hall today in the city of island your picture's probably going to be there and you're going to come in and people are going to know that you're coming it's going to be advertised that you're there and you know and we try to do these things to
really highlight what's going on and sometimes you know companies are very private you know they may not want that they'll give us an advance like hey listen we want to have a very quiet meeting because we're looking at this. We can't disclose location. So, you don't do that. But in many cases, we're able to do that and really honor people. We had a a visitor from the Italian
consulate in this year, you know, who came in um and he was there. So, we were able to highlight that and he walked in and was he was floored to see his picture and his name up there and the flags and he's like, "Oh my goodness." And that, believe it or not, that circulated all through the city hall and through our various departments outside
of city hall, which then circulated in the community. and they said, "How in the world did did that happen?" So, it helps create a buzz. Um, but it's also much easier for people to be accessible now. And we try to be accessible with technology for those people that cannot
get to city hall. Either they don't have transportation, they're infirmed, they have a disability, whatever it may be. So, there's a lot going on. So, so Tony and his team have really, really done a lot um to help us in what we've been doing in city hall, and I'm forever grateful um for his leadership there.
Yeah. very impressed with him. I spoke to him several times. Very very nice man and you know knows his internet knows the IT business for sure which is great to have you know. So really glad to see that. You know the other situation you have that's so wonderful folks as a
business coming to Vin they have their own electric utility and boy I don't hear good things about Atlantic Electric. Everywhere I go, people are government people are frustrated. They can't get things done that they need to do. And I know in the uh I had a fellow
who was thought to talking about buying get into that from you guys the uh computer storage place wanted to put it on my land in Upper Deerfield and to get the power he needed. They couldn't get the Atlantic electric. So I mean you having your own
electric utility obviously has better shot of controlling it and you know that's something and and that's something why don't you tell us about what's going on with that? There's some good movement on that for Oh definitely with the data center. Yeah. So it's tremendous and and and folks what Jim's talking about is having our own electric
utility allows us to be able to maneuver things a little bit differently. The one challenge we do have uh that continues to be an Achilles heel if you will is uh transmission lines and referring to you know the board of public utilities it hasn't really mandated these
infrastructure upgrades on the utilities or supplied them the ability to have assistance to do that over the years they've hampered them more so with regulation and restriction um which has hurt Atlantic in many cases because I think in their part of their defense for them to want to be able to do certain
things they have not had the ability to do it. Um, and then of course when you have a governing body such as a utility board, they really need to be driven on infrastructure um, continuing to be upgraded and maintained and unfortunately as political appointments
sometimes um, people don't really see it for what it is or they're there to fill a role and and they're not really being proactive in in helping to advance that for all the people of New Jersey who they're supposed to really be serving. Having said all that, uh, we've been
able to work out a deal and we've worked with Atlantic on their transmission lines and working on um, you know, some upgrade of their infrastructure to supply power to this data center that we've been blessed to have here in Violin that's being constructed now. Well, I'll tell you what, Rug's putting that up quick. Well, he is. You're not
kidding. He's amazing. John Rug is amazing. There's no holding him and Lorie back, you know. Oh, that's right. Lori. Oh, yeah. Listen, she's the boss. John, if you're watching, we know. Um, but it's true. They are a great team. Uh they work very very hard. Uh our community is extremely blessed to have
them here as people. Uh very blessed to have their business here as well. And um and frankly, you know, their vision and their um their inherent ability to continue to grow. You know, they're faithful people and and they believe in a plan. Boy, and to their credit, in fact, I don't know if you have Frank
Corpino. Yeah, I know Frank. Frank's a good friend of mine. And Frank was praising uh Lori and John recently. He said I cuz I was the mayor of Milville when he opened his uh superior walls in Milville and just great. I think my god this is neat. This is many many years
ago you know and uh Frank Corpino said the same thing. He said Jim I remember he had a pickup truck and he was like laying brick and all that stuff and now he's a very very successful person with Northeast Precast. It's just done amazing. And he and Lori have taken the
business from here all the way to Sky's the limit. And then on top of that, partnering Lori and he and Mike Trout uh partner with a golf course which is going to bring in highlevel people. The hotels that the uh what's Roth family,
thank you, are building. I mean, it's just fantastic how this community is going to keep growing. And and what's neat too is when people from outside the area, athletes, I mean, I know from two a friend of mine, the initial membership
is not real cheap. It's $250,000 plus sales tax, which makes it 266, I think. But like Philadelphia Phillies players are going to get the memberships and many people, my friend got two of them, one for him, one for Sun. And it's going to be a class act.
It's going to be phenomenal. and it's going to draw lots of people to come out and watch these celebrities and all the great golfers playing. In fact, I got to talk to my son who's the vice president of NPC sports to see if we could do uh some of our golf tournaments here at Violin, which would be fabulous. It
really would. Well, when you think about all the jobs that were created based upon that project, you know, there was a lot of critics early on, too, that said, "Oh, it's a private course. I'll never be able to be on the course and what's it going to do for the community?" Well, you took a space that was once a
sand mine. Yes. Right. That had very little use left in it. Absolutely. And the topography of the ground was just all over the place. And you know, they took a gamble on moving a lot of earth to do something different when they put their pre-cast plant there. Let alone the vision for a golf course, which is a
very environmentally friendly initiative, right? And great business. Beautiful. And let alone dumping the amount of money they're dumping into this place, but the construction jobs, the skilled skilled labor jobs that are on there and will continue to be there because of the, you know, how you
monitor wells, how you cut the grass. And I know that kind of sounds very simple, but for a golf course of that caliber, cutting the grass exactly perfect is extremely important, especially the greens. Yeah. Right. So, um, you know, that's important. And then
the general maintenance that goes on there. And then of course, you know, electrical work and plumbing work. And then food and beverage positions that are there. And then all the people that work for those purveyors that provide food and um you know and and wine or
beer or water or soda. All these people live and breathe and pay their taxes and their mortgages and their rent here, right? And they're going to be gainfully employed by that as well because it's an ancillary detachment to the business. You know his attorney, Mike Fringer.
Yeah, I met Mike at the phenomenal. Yeah, super. I met him at the Phillies Hall of Fame one night. We were talking and uh John Nuke, who I just think he just celebrated his birthday yesterday. Happy birthday, John. And I mean, you know, and Will or Hal Noon, a
super uh surveying type guy. He does all that kind of stuff. He's got so many great people. In fact, Frank Corpino and I were talking about the other night. He goes, "Jim, he's got some of the best people." And he and we started going down the list and to his to John and Lor's credit, they've got great people
working for them that know what they're doing. We're some of the best. John was one of the best engineers I ever had in the city of Milville. Of course, we lost when I got out, we lost to the county, but did a fabulous job there. And uh you did you know he has triplet girls.
Triplet. Oh my goodness. Oh boy. I pray for you, John. Um, and but he's a another, you're right, another great guy. Yeah. Uh, their CFO Mike Tkin is a wonderful guy. Oh, what about the You he stole my accountant. Oh, Preiosi. Yes.
Yes. Yeah. Matt's over there. Um, you know, another great young man. Oh, yeah. Jimmy Boy. H. And again, like you have people working and getting a great wage and benefits, you know, and they're accomplishing things and and they don't
realize the impact that this has had. So for all the people that were so critical, Yeah. Here you go. Now you look at the adjacent property and all of a sudden now they're with all the notoriety this place has got, now you've got a a international worldass data
center. Yeah. planting its flag literally right here in Vinland. And because of it and because of our smarter city initiative and all the branding and marketing we've done collectively to talk about being a smarter city and what we want to do with technology here, we
we became the perfect attraction for folks like this. And again, we were very grateful for John and Lory's investment in the community because they weren't afraid to take it on. And now what we've done and what our jobs are to protect this community and build this community and and have the resources and the
financial ability to do things. Well, this is what you've done. And by the way, for people that don't understand what this data center is going to do, the construction alone there and again all the, you know, the different trades that work on these things, you know, are there. The computer industry
that the amount of money that goes into these things is absolutely incredible. millions. Oh my god, hundreds and hundreds of millions. Like that could be a billion dollar deal when it's all done with construction and computer equipment. And by the way, these computer companies and a lot of the chips are made here in America and
there's different things that that are there. Well, now that's going to lead to another building on that site which will be either data or cloud driven. It could lead to something else on that site cuz there's several buildings there. And wielding that kind of power, that's a game changer for not just Violent but
for the entire region. Yeah, this has a truly regional effect here that is so positive that it's unbelievable. And again, people just don't sometimes they're shortsighted or they don't see what the bigger picture is. But this is important because, you know, when I took
over office, we had come through a bad re-evaluation in violin where we lost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions in tax ratables. Holy cow. You know how Reval is. A third of the people are happy because their tax went down. A third stayed the same. Yeah. And then a
third went up, right? But unfortunately, there was a lot of the valuation was so out of whack and violent, it was it was bad. So our goal was to try to climb out of a hole because we the appeals process took years and years and years cuz it started under Mayor Romano's
administration carried into the first four years of my administration through appeals and settling appeals. You still have a couple hangovers here and there that just happened, but that's how long it takes to get rid of these things, right? 8 n 10 years. Well, now violence
ratable base is $3.9 billion. Oh, that's fantastic. And thank God we did everything that we did because coming out of co and looking at where we are now in the world with the inflationary costs, had we not done what we needed to do, a city of this size would have been crippled. Yeah, crippled. Good point.
And fortunately, we've been able to do it. We've been able to save some money along the way. um you know we've done it with little impact to the tax rate um over the years and it's it's been substantially better than it's ever been and now with when this comes online and these things
happen our goal is to get over the 4 billion mark at some point very in the very near future with our ratables and I'd love to eclipse that and you know and once I get there now I'm going to be pushing the gas pedal down to go further over that with more development with the the you know the new things that you're
talking about that John Rug is putting the value of that is phenomenal. And you know, it's it's wonderful to see. And of course, again, you've got your own electric company. You've got the, you know, John and Lorie who really are putting out all kinds of great things. Whatever they touch turns to gold, and
they've done a super job and uh just really and and they're good people. They give back to the community, care, and stuff like that, which is fabulous to see. And I mean, I've been to a benefit that they ran, you know, for veterans. It was Patriot. Yes, exactly. And uh I
imagine now with the new place, they'll have a banquet facility sort of like Eastland has and you know be able to go there and you know just a lot of wonderful things. We are at a great restaurant here in the city of Ireland. It's the Queen restaurant and it's one of my favorites and uh I'll tell you
what I well I was here recently with my friend Charles Flickinger and the two of us walked out. This is a total bill was $32. He and I both got the $15 meals.
Two uh 16 for one, two for 30. So we got the two for 30. He got a meatloaf. I get the turkey. But they've got spaghetti with meatballs. They've got sauteed chicken scampy, sauteed calf sliver. A friend of mine, Ethan Aronoff, had that. I don't eat calf sliver. baked stuffed
shells, parmesan, grilled marinated chicken, eggplant parm, which is one of my favorites. I do get that as well. Uh baked homemade lasagna, baked ziti parmesan, Italian style meatloaf, which is what my friend Charles gets, chicken parmesan. They are some of the ones that
you can get those platters two for $30. And they are. And oh, by the way, you get a salad or you get soup, you get entree, you get vegetable, you get dessert, all of that for 15 bucks. You tell me where you going to go get that.
Nowhere. No. And and it's delicious. And the food's quality. It is. Well, you know that, Mary. You come a lot. And when I go home, of course, I've had that diet surgery, so I can only eat half of whatever they give me. So, for me, it cost me 750 a platter. have one here and one at home the next night or two nights
down the road. But and they're wonderful people here. They really are. Yaskele and his staff, Bati, who's one of my favorite people's here tonight. And the servers are excellent. And it's a beautiful, beautiful restaurant. They put a lot of money into this place. And you know, made it a very nice uh clean,
very clean establishment and um service is good, food's very good. Um and you know what? You can come in here any time of day and really order anything that you you want. Breakfast is one of my favorite. This is really my favorite stop for breakfast. Uh when we come in, I have a lot of, you know, different
like breakfast early morning meetings in here and um and it's nice and you get to see a lot of the same faces that come in, you know, your breakfast people and a great little crowd, but they they do a great job. They really do. I'm so proud of them. And I'll tell you, there's the the plates full of food. Isn't it
amazing? You know, they do they do real Italian sausage here for me, which I prefer as my breakfast sausage. um you know, you can get it spicy or not. And um you know, so they really they they've put some thought and care into uh their menu here at Queen on Lincoln. So yeah,
very happy that they're here. We'll be back with Insight with Mayor Anthony Fenucci right after these messages. More than a century ago, General Tire was born right here in America. Since then, we've made a name for ourselves by
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Milville, New Jersey. It's time for Insight, an inside view of what's happening in South Jersey. Join your hosts, Anthony Fenuji and Jim [Music] Quinn. As QVC brings you Insight with
Anthony and Jim. Welcome back to Insight. Jim Quinn along with Mayor Anthony Fenucci from the city of Vinland. talking about all the good things that are happening in vinyl and uh mayor getting back to the internet uh broadband situation. I know
you've been talking with Ben Lori too. So you're going to sort of head this up and then work with Salem County as well. So yeah, they they received a grant for their middle mile network, right? and uh which is slightly different than what my project is here for Violin because we're going to become an own our own internet
service provider where you know we begin you know from first mile to end mile um and however in that process uh and the grant money that they received and that Cumberland received we're looking at fiber rings to build out and then once
they're built out we will be able to um supply them wholesale internet directly to them so it'll be intergovernmental um it'll be more cost effective um it'll be easier for for them to supply and do whatever they're going to do with their their fiber network. Um you know, we could possibly look at at
operating and running their network. I don't know if we will or we won't yet. Um you know, depending on how that goes, they may need somebody uh private for that depending on on what our quote unquote bandwidth, not figuratively speaking, not literally speaking, will
be cuz we'll have unlimited um here the way the way it's working. Well, and it's nice cuz you already have an electric utility. You have the troll the trucks and things that you know you could use to put the internet in to the homes and all that stuff. That's fantastic. And this is technology jobs that are created
so they're they're good paying wage. You know, kids can come out of school that that have an understanding of that. There's customer service positions that are available there. Um there's going to be uh outside line technicians that handle fiber and that's all they do, you know, for that to troubleshoot and do that. then there's going to be
equipment. Again, just taking that smarter city concept and implementing it and taking it to the next level. Um, you know, this violin is is so unique in what we've done. Um, and listen, I can't draw. I can't sing. I can't either. I
can't play an instrument. I can't either. Right. Uh, I really can dance about that much. Right. So I didn't get a whole lot of, you know, natural talent in life. But what what the good Lord did give me, you know, was vision, right?
And the ability to be um a consensus builder and a team builder and and imparting um my my thoughts and my vision to people to take things across the finish line. And that's always been my goal for Vinland. And that's frankly
why I've stayed in public office at home. And I've never desired to uh run outside, you know, of of the city of for anything. You know, I applaud our our folks that do all that. For me, I wanted to stay within our four corners because,
uh, Violin was so good to me and and growing up as a young man, so good to my family, so good to my businesses, uh, so good in supporting me even when I had businesses outside the city. People would travel for miles to come do business with us. And I've never forgotten that. So for me, my ultimate
goal in public service was always to do something to, as we call for stronger violent or violent strong. Senator Ta and I talk about it. We I created this hashtag about 9 years ago and I said, "This is it. It's violent strong." Well, this was important to me and it means something to me and that's why my heart
and soul is is in it. Much like you, you know, you stay in office and you're trying to make things at your home so much better and you want to be impactful, you know, and let's be real, you're never going to make everybody happy. you know, fortunately around 70% of the people are happy with what I'm doing and I appreciate that and I will
forever love them for their support all these years. Um, and when when I'm finally done and and and you know and hang my hat up and hopefully we're able to get somebody good to come behind me at some point in the future that maybe can take this to another level from where I've taken it. But they will have
a beautiful, beautiful canvas to paint a picture on. That's for sure. You know, unfortunately I didn't have that luxury when I came in. Not to be critical of my predecessors, but our focuses were completely different. Um, and for me, it's infrastructure, it's job growth, it's
quality, it's quality of life. Um, and it's the important things. It's cleanliness in the city, it's law enforcement driven, it's public public responders um driven. And and they were important to me as well as also keeping um faith in the community, you know,
because a lot of times people have forgotten, you know, that faith plays a big part here. here. We're a very religious community. Yes, for sure. And it's important and and they're and you know, the clergy are stakeholders here and the parishioners are stakeholders here and and that's important and it's a big message. We had National Day of
Prayer last week. Um, and you know, and I I take some criticism sometimes because I allow it to continue to take place on the city hall steps where all the pastors come in from all over and fantastic, you know, and they have the ability to do that. And um, and and I believe in that, you know, um, just as I
believe in someone that doesn't want to practice their faith, or doesn't believe, that's okay. You know, this is the United States of America and we are entitled. Exactly. All opinions are welcomed, especially here. tell everybody about the great news about the pope. Yeah. So, for anybody that's not
sure, we got a new pope today, which is uh amazing. Uh happened a little bit quicker than I thought it was going to be. I was very happy, surprised. Yeah. Second vote and they approved him. So, for us as Roman Catholics, it's obviously a very big deal. It's the leader of the church for us. Um it's a
world recognized figure. The unique thing is it's the first time it's ever been someone from the United States. Isn't that amazing? I know. I just saw that. Wow. I didn't realize we'd never had an American pope before. No. And and then it's tied back locally because he's a graduate of Villanova, right? So he's
and he's also an Augustinian frier. So you know he's from the Order of St. Augustine, which of course I most people know I went to St. Augustine Prep. So the Augustinian order is very near and dear to my heart. I'm still very active with the school and and and in the mission. Uh this was really um frankly
mindblowing a little bit today. Yeah. Um because we you haven't seen an Augustinian in there really in a very very long time. Um and and uh they've had influence, but the Augustininian order hasn't always been the the order of choice over there, right? Let alone
someone from the United States, which has never happened before um in in all these years. So today was a very important day in the Catholic Church and honestly it its impact has been felt frankly all over the world. Um and watching you know uh our news and then
Italian news you have people that have made a pilgrimage there that aren't even Catholic to come be there and wait and see what was going to happen which is interesting to me. Yeah it is, isn't it? Of course it only happens every so many years when the pope passes away and this
guy's young. He's only 69. I know which is good because you know frankly that gives you hopefully longer term sustainable leadership maybe you know so you hope that you know you pray and hope that you know he does a great job which I'm I'm sure he will um the well educated man speaks a number of
languages um you know and again if he's a solid leader in the church that's going to resonate in so many different ways um around the world um and be impactful here in the United States. So that's a big deal today. Um, and um, and honestly, I'm kind of glad
it wasn't a long drawn out concrete. Yeah, me too. Um, because let's be real, you know, for as much as we love the church and I'm a Roman Catholic and and you know, and cut from Augustininian cloth, there's a lot of politics in the church. Yeah. you know and I'm sure there was a lot of politics at play in
the decision-m around this and um you know which is is very difficult but you know the church was a very political animal in its day you know and a lot of those popes um over a number of years weren't necessarily religious right you know they were families that had a lot of money and a lot of influence in
Europe and a lot of power um and and they were running that particular position you know uh obviously you know post St. Peter, but um it it's really a a good thing and I I think that you know it'll be a good direction and um and I'm glad there's stability at the helm
again. Yeah, me too. Well, Mayor, thank you so much for coming in. Always good to see you. You look so good. Keep good work. I'm proud of you. Appreciate it. And folks, things are going very well in Vinland and you've heard some of the great things that are going to be happening and every day there's
something new and something good that's coming to the city of Vinland. So, we want to thank you for joining us. Ryan Herowski, thank you for producing the show today and we hope you'll have a great evening. Take care and happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there on Sunday. Take care. Goodbye,
everybody. This has been a QVC television production in association with our partners and sponsors. QBC broadcasts on Comcast cable channel 22 and live streams its programming on Facebook and YouTube. All rights reserved by Quinn Media and QBC. programming that serves the South Jersey
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