State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Middletown) is urging Gov. Mikie Sherrill to redirect approximately $4.25 million in previously appropriated state funds for a Newark office he says has sponsored antisemitic speakers and recently participated in a controversial public festival.
In a letter sent Wednesday, O’Scanlon asked Sherrill to cancel the remaining balances from fiscal 2024, 2025 and 2026 appropriations for the Brick City Peace Collective, a Newark city office, and use the money for other state priorities.
“I’m glad you proposed a budget that finally eliminated new appropriations for the Newark City office,” O’Scanlon wrote. “But doling out the remaining $4.25 million in taxpayer money already set aside for the office will make you complicit in funding its next antisemitic event or tasteless festival.”
O’Scanlon, the Senate Republican budget officer, previously asked former Gov. Phil Murphy to withdraw funding after the office sponsored antisemitic speakers and honored an antisemitic poet on Oct. 7, 2023, the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, according to his letter.
His latest request follows the office’s participation in a 24-hour “peace festival” that temporarily closed Broad Street in Newark last week. O’Scanlon criticized the event’s featured performance by rap artist Bunna B, whose music, he said, included graphic sexual references, profanity and racial slurs.
The senator said the city amplified the performance as part of a public street event where children were present. He cited a video posted on Newark’s official Instagram account under the headline, “Newark showed up for Bunna B!”
“Neither you nor I are prudes,” O’Scanlon wrote, “but presumably we can agree that using $4.25 million in state taxpayer funds to support an organization that promotes this sort of material in a public setting—particularly one accessible to children—is profoundly irresponsible.”
O’Scanlon also referred to videos circulating on social media that he said appeared to show street fights, disorder and chaos surrounding the festival.
“Sponsoring and honoring antisemites nearly three years ago was grossly irresponsible,” O’Scanlon wrote. “Shutting down traffic last week for a public event that included vulgar performances … is completely unacceptable. Enough is enough.”
The letter does not specify how much money remains available to the Brick City Peace Collective or identify the state budget language that would allow the administration to redirect the funds.
O’Scanlon asked Sherrill to give “meaning to the talk of affordability” by directing the money toward programs that benefit New Jersey taxpayers instead of what he called a politically driven “pork process.”
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