Fulop gets signatures for Jersey City ethics referendum

Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop turned in enough signatures yesterday to put a pair of ethics reform referendums on the ballot in November, a move that may be seen as the opening salvo in his potential 2009 mayoral campaign.

If the signatures are confirmed by the City Clerk and the initiatives are passed by the voters, Jersey City - which for over a century has been infamous for political corruption, backroom deals and cronyism-- would have some of the strictest ethics measures in the state. 

Seriously. 

One of the initiatives would ban City Council members from accepting more than one public salary or pension.  The other would bar officials from giving out no-bid contracts to vendors who made campaign contributions within a year of the contract's start date.

Fulop, a 31-year-old Wall Street trader who takes no council salary, said he turned in 1,800 signatures - more than the required 1,550 - but has thousands more on reserve should anyone seek to challenge their validity.

"Based on the numbers that we've got there's no way it's not going on the ballot in November," he said. 

The council will have 20 days after the signatures are verified to enact the initiatives instead of allowing it to proceed to a vote.  That may be unlikely, since six of the nine council members - Bill Gaughan, Mariano Vega, Jr., Mary Spinello, Peter Brennan, Willie Flood and Viola Richardson - hold additional public jobs to supplement their $30,000 part-time council salaries.  And they already rejected earlier, stricter versions of the proposals in September by a vote of 6-1, with two abstentions. 

But Fulop said that, facing a ballot question that could force the reform, the members may be inclined to compromise and come up with something acceptable to the initiatives' Committee of Petitioners.

"As this thing gets closer it's more of a reality.  Action in some regard is necessitated, otherwise there will be action taken without their control. We'll see how it shakes out," he said.

The initiatives, however, serve more than one purpose.  Fulop, who's popular in his downtown-dominated Ward E, hopes to improve his name recognition in other parts of the city, where polling shows that he's not well-known.

"Downtown I poll great, but in the rest of the city I have a name recognition issue. It's obviously solvable, but this will probably incrementally improve that," said Fulop.

And a look at the Committee of Petitioners shows the potential makings of a political slate.  It includes Shelly Skinner, who plans to run for Fulop's council seat (regardless of whether he runs for mayor or not) and Jimmy Carroll, who's expressed interest in running for council in the Heights ward.

"I'd be disingenuous if I said it didn't touch on (the political) aspect as well," said Fulop.  "It's given us a good opportunity to gauge support, stretch our legs a little bit as it relates to volunteers, gathering signatures -- all important aspects are far as political organizing."

Not to mention "incrementally improve" name recognition that Fulop admits is lacking outside of downtown, according to recent polling.    

Opposition to the ballot measures often takes on an anti-elitist tinge.  Detractors, including Mayor Jerramiah Healy, argue that, while Fulop is comfortable enough with his salary in finance not to have to work more than one public job, others need more than a $30,000 salary to make a living (Fulop, for his part, said that his ultimate goal is to make the council full-time and significantly increase members' salaries like in New York and Newark). 

"I can just picture somebody with a family of two or four trying to raise a family on that," said Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano, who's retired.  Sottolano also said that it's unfair to bar accepting other public salaries while allowing members to hold jobs in the public sector, and that Fulop's referendum is political grandstanding. 

"What is the difference between two public salaries, than a public salary, working for a bank or a finance institution that does business with the government?" he said. 

Healy also opposes Fulop's idea on the grounds that banning contractors from contributing would open up office runs to only those who could self-finance. 

"It creates a situation where the only people allowed on the playing field of elected office are going to be those who are independently wealthy enough to finance their own campaign, thus locking out probably 99 percent of the population in Jersey City," he wrote in a November letter to the Jersey Journal. 

But Fulop said that candidates don't have to just solicit from contractors with business before the city.

"Jerry's argument is for the average person to fundraise he needs to be able to solicit people who have government contracts. He's arguing my point. That's exactly what we want to stop," he said.