Over the course of the last month, the Hudson County rumor mill has been rife with talk that Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who’s facing a lawsuit that seeks to remove him from office, is preparing to resign.  

Last night, Healy sought to squelch that talk.   

“I’m not resigning.  Not only am I not resigning, but no way in hell am I resigning because Lou Manzo has brought an absurd application addressed to the Monmouth County prosecutor’s office to remove an elected Hudson county official,” said Healy in a phone interview with PolitickerNJ.  “I’m not only not resigning, I am running for mayor again in seven months.”

Former Assemblyman Lou Manzo, a potential mayoral rival for Healy in next year’s mayoral race, has sought to apply the same standard to Healy’s 2006 disorderly conduct conviction that was applied to Newark Councilwoman Dana Rone, who was removed from office after a judge found that she invoked her office with the arresting police officers.

Healy has repeatedly said that he never invoked his office to try to get special treatment during his arrest, though grand jury testimony from arresting officers contradicts that.  Healy, for his part, argues that the testimony was not true.

Healy said that he’s heard rumors that he was either going to resign or not seek another term since his 2004 campaign. 

“This is like the fourth wave of this resignation bull----, and that’s exactly what it is,” he said.