Fulop hits Healy for campaign use of city vehicle

Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop lashed out at Mayor Jerramiah Healy today for using a city vehicles as a campaign prop.

Fulop, who is running for reelection to his Ward E council seat, said that the Healy camp draped a rented incinerator authority truck with campaign banners during the local St. Patrick’s Day parade.  While technically legal, Fulop doubted that city vehicles would be made available for anyone else to rent for campaign purposes.  

“While it has been clarified that this is a long practice in Jersey City and the Mayor’s campaign acted within city policy set years ago, the renting of city vehicles in the future needs to stop immediately. Renting of city property is not only in bad taste but it sets a bad precedent” Fulop said in a statement. “Can anyone rent city vehicles to use for advertising or for fun? Would the Mayor support any and all candidates running for any office the opportunity to rent city vehicles for campaign purposes?”

Fulop’s statement was revised from an earlier, more condemning press release that also criticized the mayor for using the Jersey City Police Department’s logo in campaign literature.

Fulop, a fierce critic of Healy since first being elected to the council in 2005, had in recent months toned down his criticism of the incumbent, leading Healy mayoral rival Louis Manzo to accuse him of clamming up to keep Healy from making a real play for his seat.  

Assemblywoman Joan Quigley (D-Jersey City), a Healy supporter, said that the city's incinerator authority has been lending out its trucks as parade floats for four decades.

"When Jersey City was planning its first St. Patrick’s Day Parade (sometime in the 1960’s) Incinerator Authority trucks were offered to any legitimate group that wanted to have a float in the parade. I was president of the Jersey City Junior Woman’s Club at the time and our members made 10,000 pink carnations of Kleenex to decorate a Rose-Bowl-type float.  We prepared the truck in the Authority garage the night before and proudly rode it along the Boulevard the next day. We did similar things over the next few years," wrote Quigley in an email to PolitickerNJ.com. "So Mayor Healy is continuing a long tradition, which Councilman Fulop, being a newcomer, obviously knows nothing about."

In other Fulop-related news, Manzo said on Monday that he’s adding Joseph Tarazzi, who he said works as a concierge in Weehawken, to run against Fulop in Ward E.  Tarazzi has never run for elected office but has done a lot of volunteer work, according to Manzo.

As of Monday night, Tarazzi supporters were still gathering signatures to put him on the ballot.