Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy today called former council candidate Jimmy King’s residency challenge to newly sworn in Councilwoman Nidia Rivera Lopez “sour grapes to the 10th power.”  

“This is an effort to achieve through the courts what couldn’t be achieved through the election process, and you know, the election wasn’t even close,” said Healy just after being sworn in to a second full term as mayor.  “Her not living here is a joke.  She of course lives here. She does have a house in Florida.”

Lopez, who ran on Healy’s slate, beat King, who ran on former Assemblyman Lou Manzo’s, on the first ballot.  Manzo and his at-large running mate, former Hudson County Sheriff Joseph Cassidy, tried to knock Healy out of the race through legal challenges, alleging that he tried to use his position as Jersey City Mayor to dissuade Bradley Beach police officers from arresting him for obstruction of justice in 2006.

“It seems to be a pattern of that ticket,” said Healy.  “Now Jimmy has lost the election handily – an historic election, by the way – to the first Latina in the history of this city….I think there were five or six candidates, and she won on the first ballot.”

“And by the way, [King’s challenge has] no chance of success.”