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FRIDAY 03.25.16

ROCK
OF AGES
Former Def
Leppard and
Stone Temple
Pilots members
form new band.
jerseyalive!

Six Flags plan

for solar farm
gets go-ahead

JOBS RISE

AND FALL

Jackson Planning Board OKs proposal

that includes clear-cutting of trees
MIKE DAVIS @BYMIKEDAVIS

JACKSON From the top of the Nitro roller coaster

400 feet in the air, Six Flags Great Adventure visitors
may soon glimpse a sea of solar panels tucked into a
pocket of preserved forest.
After nearly a year of protests and outcry from residents and environmentalists, the Planning Board has
given Six Flags and KDC Solar LLC its blessing to clearcut nearly 15,000 trees on an undeveloped piece of park
property, where a 21-megawatt solar farm is to be built.
To a Wednesday night crowd of nearly 50 people,
many wearing white stickers reading dont kill the
Earth to save it, it was a disappointment.
This gives green energy a black eye. You cannot cut
down a forest for solar panels. Thats the opposite of being green, said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club of New Jersey, one of the groups formally obSee SOLAR, Page 4A

New Jerseys unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level

since August 2007. So why are so many workers unhappy?
MICHAEL L. DIAMOND
IN THE MONEY
New Jerseys job market last year
made it back to square one. It recovered
the 257,900 jobs that it lost in the Great
Recession. Its unemployment rate
dropped to 4.3 percent, back to where it
was in 2007. And Gov. Chris Christie
took a bow.
So why are so many so glum?
I worked at a company for 18 years, said Edward
Kertesz, 54, of Woodbridge, who lost his finance job

May
2015
+15,600

July
2015
+4,300

Dec.
2015
+12,400

Sept.
Aug.
2015
2015
+2,700 +3,000

Nov.
2015
+9,000

KATHLEEN HOPKINS @KHOPKINSAPP

New Jerseys not in great shape. To me, you cant claim

success right now because theres a lot more for us to do.

Feb.
2016
-8,600

Until we get, year after year, the kind of growth we looked at

in 2015, I dont think we can claim victory.
TOM BRACKEN

Jan.
2016
-15,700

PRESIDENT OF THE NEW JERSEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Get your tickets now!

Enjoy a night
of Orleans jazz
Head to the Stone Pony Sunday, April 10, for a rare treat:
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Tangiers Blue
Band with Danny Clinch. Visit APMFF.com for details.

Comedian Garry Shandling,

of Larry Sanders fame, dies
at age 66. STORY, 6B

ADVICE
CLASSIFIED
COMICS
LOCAL
MOVIES

JERSEY ALIVE
4D
JERSEY ALIVE
3A
JERSEY ALIVE

OBITUARIES
OPINION
SPORTS
WEATHER
YOUR MONEY

11A
14A
1C
8C
10A

VOLUME 137
NUMBER 73
SINCE 1879

THOMAS P. COSTELLO/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Six Flags Great Adventure plans to clear-cut trees on this

undeveloped piece of park property to build a solar farm.

Ex-Lakewood H.S.
football players
get prison terms

See JOBS, Page 4A

Oct.
2015
+19,800

A LOOK AT THE JOB

GROWTH IN NEW JERSEY
June
2015
+3,500

last August. You work your (tail) off, you do a real

good job, what does the company turn around and do?
They outsource our whole department to another company.
New Jerseys job market recovered from the
depths of the Great Recession, adding both high- and
low-paying jobs in 2015, even in sectors that had struggled mightily to gain ground. Its struggling financial
activities industry added 8,300 jobs. Its struggling
construction industry added 6,300 jobs. Even its struggling manufacturing industry stopped a long slide and

TOMS RIVER For $146.50 apiece, two former

Lakewood High School football players traded the prospect of college athletic scholarships for lengthy terms
in juvenile lockups for committing a series of armed
robberies in 2014.
Superior Court Judge Wendel E. Daniels on Thursday sentenced one of the former football players, Hassan Diawara, now 17, to 12 years in the custody of the
state Juvenile Justice Commission for robbing six people in four separate holdups in Toms River and Lakewood in the fall of 2014.
Daniels sentenced former football player Christopher Perpignan, now 18, the wheel man for the robbery
spree, to six years in the custody of the Juvenile Justice
Commission for his role.
See SENTENCES, Page 12A