Noticias

Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation Thursday that splits the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs into two distinct cabinet departments, one for military affairs and the other for veterans affairs.

Issues concerning veterans, like housing, health care, mental health services, and benefits for veterans and their families, will be moved to the newly created Department of Veterans Affairs. The newly renamed Department of Military Affairs will continue to control military matters like the National Guard.

In the release, Murphy announced his intention to nominate Vincent Solomeno, the current deputy commissioner of veterans affairs, to lead the new Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Veterans have selflessly fought for our hard-earned freedoms as Americans,” Murphy said in the release. “By establishing a department solely dedicated to the needs of Veterans, we will continue to ensure they have a seat at the table and direct access to the support and resources they deserve. Our Veterans and their families deserve nothing less.”

Both statehouse chambers approved the legislation to split the department in bipartisan fashion on June 30th. The law takes effect 120 days after enactment, or Jan. 9, 2026.

“This realignment is a deliberate step toward strengthening operational efficiency, enhancing service delivery, and ensuring focused leadership in support of our Veterans and military communities,” said Brigadier General Yvonne Mays, the adjutant general of New Jersey and Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. “It underscores our unwavering commitment to provide each community with the dedicated resources, advocacy, and attention they deserve.”

Solomeno currently works as the administrator of veterans affairs for the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. He is a U.S. Army veteran and chairs the governor’s Challenge to Prevent Suicide Among Service Members, Veterans, and Their Families. Solomeno ran for state Senate in the 13th legislative district as a Democrat in 2021 and lost to state Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Little Silver).

“Vincent Solomeno has dedicated his career to serving our veterans and their families,” Murphy said. “His years of leadership and experience will help support our service members effectively. I am confident he will excel as the inaugural Commissioner of the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

“Under Governor Murphy’s leadership, the State of New Jersey continues to invest more, do more, and achieve more for Garden State veterans than at any time in our history,” Solomeno said. “I am privileged to work beside teams of dedicated public servants. We are committed to building a robust cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs worthy of those that we serve.”

The prime sponsors of the bill are state Sens. Joseph Vitale (D-Woodbridge) and Joseph Cryan (D-Union Twp), and Assemblymembers Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark), Robert Karabinchak (D-Edison), and Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth).

“This bill is about building a better, more responsive system for veterans in New Jersey—one that puts their needs first, strengthens accountability, and ensures that no one who served our country is left to struggle,” said Tucker, the chair of the Assembly Military and Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “By creating a standalone Department of Veterans Affairs, we’re making the kind of structural changes that will improve outcomes, restore trust, and honor the service of our veterans.”

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A school board member in Bergen County didn’t know she was up for re-election this year and never filed a nominating petition, but a Superior Court Judge allowed her on the ballot anyway.

Constantina Hanna, who was elected to a three-year term on the Carlstadt-East Rutherford Regional Board of Education in 2022, blamed the school board website, which improperly showed her term as expiring in December 2026.

Superior Court Judge Peter Geiger said Hanna acted in good faith and ordered her name to be included on the ballot.

Hanna, a public school teacher in Prospect Park, said that she had “consistently relied on the district’s official website and NJ School Boards member Portal to track the start and end dates of her term, and the inaccurate information posted there directly contributed to the missed deadline.”

“It is not only unfair to penalize a sitting board member for relying on official district records, but it also deprives the voters of East Rutherford of the opportunity to make a fully informed choice in a properly administered election,” Hanna said.

The website initially said Hanna’s term was 2023 to 2026.  Now it says: “Term: 01/01/2022- 12/31/2025 (Board seat certified in July 2025 for November 2025 ballot).”

She said denying her a place on the November 2025 ballot “would cause irreparable harm and deprive voters of the right to consider a fully qualified candidate who is deeply committed to the community of East Rutherford and who has approached her role as a board member with integrity, diligence and respect for the responsibilities entrusted in her over the last two terms,” Hanna stated in her election challenge.

Hanna also argued that it would “penalize a dedicated public servant for relying on the very systems meant to support transparency and accountability.”

The filing deadline was on July 28; Hanna filed her challenge on August 8, and Geiger issued his order seven days later.

No other candidates filed to run.

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24 years have passed, but often it feels like no time has passed at all. As a kid, I felt the world around me crumbling, but I just couldn’t understand what it meant or how it would impact my life. I felt the loss every day growing up in both the big moments and small. Having family dinners every night with one newly empty seat – I felt that. Going to my friends houses for sleepovers and meeting both of their parents – I felt that. Attending family gatherings knowing we were missing someone so important – I felt that.

It all felt so personal to me. Yet, more often than not, I got questions from new faces and strangers asking about my experience. My doctors, my teachers, and new people I met all over asked me about losing my father.

“Wow. How old were you?”
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for your family.”
“I knew someone that worked there, but luckily he wasn’t at work that day.”
“You must have been too young to remember anything.”

For years, the questions and the comments bothered me. I would always leave these conversations perplexed – why did anyone think it was okay to ask me about something so personal, so tragic? Why is everyone so interested in my father’s passing, and so comfortable talking to me about it? 24 years later I still get many of the same questions.

But it wasn’t until recently that it clicked. It wasn’t about me. Thousands of New Jerseyans across this state lost someone – their neighbor’s husband never came back home; their brother that worked in the North Tower never even had the chance to call his wife to say he wasn’t going to make it; or they knew a firefighter that went into the building as a hero, and never came out.

People weren’t just asking me to learn about my experience, but to share theirs. We all went through this tragedy together. As personal as it was for me, it wasn’t just mine. Thousands of people across this state felt the impact and the heartache. My life was changed forever, and so was theirs.

We ask people about their lives sometimes not just to learn about theirs, but to connect with our own. In times of tragedy we look for comfort in others and in our community. We long for togetherness and connection to make the really really bad in life feel not so alone.

I’m so fortunate that people have asked me about my father and to share my experience with 9/11. Every time I get asked a question about that day, I get to live on in his memory. I get to share everything he brought into this world – his kindness, his generosity, his sense of humor, and how much love he gave and how much he was loved. He only had 37 years to experience his life, and I have the rest of mine to share it.

I hope when we reflect on 9/11 and tragic events like that day, we also take it as an opportunity to realize we need each other. We need each other to celebrate our wins and our victories, and we really need each other to mourn our tragedies. 24 years later, and I hope we all reach out to someone today, impacted by this tragedy or another, and let them know – they are not alone. They are never alone. We are in this life, through the good and bad, together.

Theresa Furmato Velardi’s father, Paul James Furmato, was a trader and a vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

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