Newark City Councilman Augusto Amador no longer wants to be considered a member of Team Booker after the Mayor Cory Booker ran County Committee candidates against him and his East Ward allies. There are also reports that State Senator Ronald Rice is negotiating a deal with Newark Democratic leader Steve Adubato to keep Freeholder Blonnie Watson as Central Ward Democratic Chairman. Booker is backing Jermaine James for the post, and Dwight Brown is also running.

NEWARK - State Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) leaves Democratic Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) operates on Election Day.Party headquarters at the Robert Treat Hotel to head back to the streets.

"I want to be out there," he says.

His son, West Ward Councilman Ron Rice, meanwhile, already is - driving from polling place to polling place in his ward and finding turnout sluggish at best.

First elected to the Newark City Council the same year Frank Lautenberg became a U.S. senator - 1982 - the elder Rice, and his son both back the re-election of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) over U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews.

North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato heads into the Flamboyan this morning for a report on voter turnout. 

NEWARK - The Essex County Democratic Committee want voters to make a beeline to the "B" line in today’s election, which features battles at all levels in a political environment that so far can be characterized by very low-turnout.

County Executive Joe DiVincenzoNEWARK - The Essex County Executive and Newark’s senior senator today both panned a proposal by North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato and a few others to dump County Chairman Phil Thigpen in favor of a longtime member of Adubato’s inner circle.

County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) pledged their full support for Thigpen, and denounced Adubato’s attempted power play to deliver the chairmanship to his friend, Adrianne Davis.

"Steve’s a guy who wants his epitaph to be, ‘I controlled everything in my life,’ but he’s just a guy with a big ego, who wants everyone to kiss his behind like we’re out here picking a bunch of cotton bales, black, white and Latino, all of us," Rice said. "To hell with Steve."

Himself a longtime Adubato ally who came up out of the North Ward, DiVincenzo stopped short of Rice’s all-out assault on his friend and political mentor, but was clear in his disapproval.

Gov. Jon Corzine in Newark today 

NEWARK - Gov. Jon Corzine stood with Assemblyman Albert Coutinho (D-Newark), Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer (D-Newark) and other lawmakers in the East Ward today and promised to back legislation to pay for new urban schools construction.

"We need action before June 30th, so that we can fulfill our Constitutional obligation to provide our children with a thorough and efficient education," said the governor, moments after taking a tour of the Oliver Street Elementary School.

Coutinho, an Ironbound native who cosponsored the legislation with Spencer, described dilapidated and overcrowded conditions in the facility.

South Ward Councilman Oscar James II in headquarters.

NEWARK- Oscar James II doesn’t know if he can win this primary fight down here in Newark’s South Ward, but if he can hold Lautenberg to a stand-off, and other ground-level Andrews allies in northern New Jersey can do the same, maybe South Jersey can deliver big for the underdog.

That’s the plan anyway.

In the meantime, there’s another war he’s fighting.

A two-year councilman representing the most sprawling ward in the city, James knows U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) is a longshot in his challenge of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). But as the Booker Team leader in the south, James wants to help bust apart the Payne family machine that has long controlled ward politics.

RICE-WHELAN BILL TO ENSURE TRAINING FOR HOSPITAL TRUSTEES APPROVED

TRENTON – A bill sponsored by Senators Ronald L. Rice and Jim Whelan which would guarantee that hospital trustees in New Jersey receive the appropriate training to prepare them for the job was approved by the Senate today by a vote of 35-2.

“New Jersey’s hospitals, particularly in many urban areas, are in crisis,” said Senator Rice, D-Essex. “Recently, it seems that every time I open the newspaper, I read about another hospital – serving mostly uninsured or the working poor – which is shutting its doors, because it cannot afford to continue to provide health care in the Garden State. Whether this is a sign of the times or an effect of sky-rocketing health care costs, we need well-trained hospital trustees who are prepared to roll with the punches and can navigate hospitals down the rough road ahead.”

CUNNINGHAM-RICE BILL TO ENSURE NOTIFICATION OF HOSPITAL CLOSURES TO LOCAL LEADERS ADVANCES

TRENTON – A bill sponsored by Senators Sandra Bolden Cunningham and Ronald L. Rice which would require the Department of Health and Senior Services to provide written notification to local leaders when a hospital in their municipality files with the department to close was unanimously approved by the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee today.

“Recently, with the closing of Greenville Hospital in Jersey City, I’ve seen firsthand that time is of the essence when it comes to mobilizing the community to fight for a health care facility,” said Senator Cunningham, D-Hudson. “Local leaders need to be given every chance to work to keep a hospital open if it serves a major need in the community, or prepare local residents for life after closure. This bill gives elected leaders ample warning to work with their constituents for a health care solution that meets the needs of the neighborhood.”

North Ward Councilman David Lyons in his campaign headquarters on Monday night. 

IRVINGTON - Gene Etchison approaches a sprawling old house on the corner of Clinton Avenue and tells the resident when he steps outside, "I love your grass. It’s cut real nice. I love to lie down in the grass, that’s why I always notice it when I go by here."

The man shakes the candidate's hand. He knows it’s the day before Election Day.

He confesses he has a problem with the way Mayor Wayne Smith’s administration is running the town, and he tells Etchison he’d like to go to Town Hall and tell them they need to improve the sanitation department - and everything else for that matter, but he just doesn’t have the energy anymore.

Ward Two Councilman Steve Rovell 

BELLEVILLE - Less than a week before Election Day, both sides open up with everything they’ve got, and the resulting facial expressions and body language indicate that some of the shots have landed.

A glossy mail piece hits the tightknit blue collar neighborhoods off Franklin Avenue that run up against the Parkway on the other side. The man whose face appears in unflattering photos on those mailers storms to the microphone at a rally for him and his running mates.

"It’s pure and utter B.S.," cries Ward Two Councilman Steve Rovell, referring to challenger Mario Drozdz’s charges that Rovell was part of a team that increased taxes $10 million in thee years, indulged in political favoritism and hired nearly a million dollar’s worth of town employees who don’t live in Belleville.