In the 19th, Vas fights for political survival

In any political weather, the name “Vas” on a campaign sign would inspire a particular dynamism, as in “you go” in the Spanish familiar form - and so the name went for 18 years as the formidable Joe Vas, Perth Amboy’s first Puerto Rican mayor, ran the waterfront town.

And yet now, nearly a year after he lost reelection locally, the danger for Assemblyman Joe Vas – same man, different title at stake - may be the inclination among a majority of committee people in this scrunch of blue collar and maritime Middlesex towns called the 19th District, to simply say “scram.”

Battered, Vas nevertheless doesn’t think it’s going to happen, and even appeared indomitable today, moments before heading into a caucus meeting of the Assembly Democrats, where he serves as deputy majority leader.

“Ask any committee member about me – not someone on the outside looking in and trying to rattle the cage – ask them about me and my district office,” he said.

Convinced the committee will see it his way at a party convention on March 25th at the Forge, Vas intends to stare down a cross-river challenge from South Amboy Mayor John T. O’Leary. Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) will also screen for one of two seats, but by all accounts, the powerful chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee should have little problem securing party support.

The same can’t be said of Vas – who’s had his fights, Barry Adler two years ago and Arlene Friscia before that, not to mention his first run for mayor when he came in as the underdog – who may yet be in his toughest.

“I’m proud of my tenure in Trenton,” he told PolitickerNJ.com. “As the prime sponsor of the School Reform Act, I created equity in the way the state funds public education. I brought in over $22 million more for our schools in the district, including $5 million for Woodbridge. …I co-sponsored a package of bills to help small businesses survive. My office spearheaded an Economic Development Summit as the economy worsened.”

But now a blender of grassroots and organizational political power threatens the five-year grip he has on his seat here at the Statehouse. 

For if the rangy and restless Vas inevitably commands attention with a combination of intellect, ego and energy, those qualities also propelled him into an ill-advised fight-the-power run for Congress in 2006, when he dazzled interrogators with his in-depth knowledge of issues, only to get flattened by a party-backed Albio Sires in the Democratic Primary and thereafter branded as a renegade.

With Vas further weakened following his mayoral loss to Diaz, and dogged by an ongoing state and federal probe of city finances under his watch that could blow up into an embarrassment, key pieces of the Middlesex County Democratic Organization may want to complete Mayor Wilda Diaz’s 2008 grassroots overthrow and extinguish him.

The Diaz campaign, it should be noted, received dollar donations down the final weeks’ stretch of her campaign from hardcore Sires backers still irritated by Vas’s primary challenge of two years earlier and only too happy to seize an opportunity to hammer the upstart mayor.

The 19th district numbers don’t naturally work in the assemblyman’s favor, as Sayreville claims 66 committee votes, Perth Amboy 62-64, Carteret 38, and South Amboy 18. Then there’s Woodbridge – the kingmaker – where roughly 140 committee members reside. 

Vas never thrilled Carteret or South Amboy; even his own allies say he’s diminished in Perth Amboy, where his conqueror, Diaz, looks to keep a new machine well-oiled with yet another Vas beat-down; and in Woodbridge, sources say he will likely find it more difficult to win a plurality of support in a town run by Mayor John McCormac, hardly a staunch ally.

“There are a lot of snowbirds in Woodbridge who are in Florida,” Vas protested. “At the last convention the number of Woodbridge committee members was down to 89. I’ve been in communication with Woodbridge committee people and I have strong relations there.” 

His opponent, the Mayor of South Amboy for 23 years and like Vas on the other side of the Raritan a champion of waterfront revitalization in his town, including $125 million in public grants and infrastructure improvements, O’Leary has repeatedly told the press he’s neither targeting Wisniewski nor Vas at the convention later this month. 

He just wants to win.

“I’m in this because we have to make New Jersey competitive for business again,” said O’Leary, 54, as he drove up to yet another committee person’s house in Carteret. “The state’s at the end of its rope. We have to create jobs to create revenues. It’s not a Republican message. I believe in universal healthcare and early childhood education. I’m a Democrat, but I’m a realist in today’s economy.”

At least one Diaz partisan, Perth Amboy Councilman Ken Balut, said the committee must vanquish Vas as a simple act of public service.

“Right now, we’re dealing with a $50 million over-budgeted municipal building from the Vas administration,” said Balut, who was sworn into office at the beginning of this year along with Diaz. “It’s a total disaster.”

A briefly in - and then out - candidate for governor in the Democratic Primary, Balut added, “The governor hasn’t done anything either. He’s only bailed out Newark, but he hasn’t done anything for Perth Amboy. We’ve been heroin addicts for years, now you suddenly cut us off and say ‘survive?’”

Balut’s blatant chest-thumping in the face of the governor could work in Vas’s favor, if the assemblyman and his allies- without much time now - can prove the new regime suffers perpetually from a case of anti-establishment fever, and that the party would do well to keep empowered on some level – and just in case - an admittedly humbled Vas. 

But opposition sources say the lawmaker’s too stubborn – and too dangerous – to be left standing. Moreover, most insiders say it will be tough to make such an argument against an old party pro like O'Leary.

Yet relentlessly making his case today, the assemblyman said cost overruns for the municipal project are about 6% - and the state permits up to 20%.  As for his 2006 sale of a city apartment building to a developer who a month later received a $360,000 city rehabilitation grant, Vas said, “The realtor applied to the city and the city council awarded the grant. Every possible requirement was met by the applicant.”  

For his part, O’Leary, a life and health insurance consultant, doesn’t deny he might at some point pursue a consulting contract in Perth Amboy with the Diaz administration. 

“I speak to Mayor Diaz,” said O’Leary. “She’s a neighboring mayor. I want my neighboring mayor to succeed. If I compete for an RFQ (request for quotation), I would follow the rules and regulations.”

If O’Leary loses at the convention, he won’t commit to not running off the line against Vas. “I’m not prepared to say at this point,” he said. “We’ll have to see what the outcome is.”

But if Vas loses, he’ll back down. 

“I will respect the wishes of the committee,” the assemblyman said. 

Less than a fourth of the district is made up of Latinos, and if Vas fails to get his party’s support, the Puerto Rican community specifically will suffer the fall of one of its own - again, and again from Vas - pain that might be mitigated by Diaz’s early presence as a rising Latina leader, but which for some can’t eradicate the sting of Cuban consolidation of power in both the U.S. Senate and Congress with Sires and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken).

Half Puerto Rican and half Portuguese, Vas smiled as he considered his home town, which he served well for years, according to friend and foe alike, but where perhaps he served too long, if the worst about him proves true.

“I was born and raised in Perth Amboy,” Vas said. “I remember. I remember when people were embarrassed to say that. They would say, ‘I’m from Middlesex.’ There is this personal animus for me, but I know that is not what public service is about.”

He rose from his desk to attend his caucus meeting.

Always the embodiment of some form of that verb “to go,” the question now for Vas as he faces the committee and O’Leary and the probe and his legacy, is where.