Anthony Chiappone

Having briefly appeased some conservatives, including Sen. Gerald Cardinale (R-Bergen), with his budget address last month, Gov. Jon Corzine’s administration now faces an uprising from the green wing of the state’s progressives, including the New Jersey Sierra Club.

CHIAPPONE, SMITH TAKE OATHS OF OFFICE ON JANUARY 8
New Legislative Teammates Strong Advocates for Hudson County

(TRENTON) – Hudson County residents gained two new advocates in state government when Assemblymen-elect Anthony Chiappone and Harvey Smith took their oaths of office on January 8 to represent the 31st Legislative District in the General Assembly.

Upon Joseph Doria's resignation as Mayor of Bayonne, City Council President Vincent Lo Re is expected to become Acting Mayor for about thirty days.  Lo Re could continue in the role until the May 2008 Special Election to fill the remaining two years of Doria's term, or he could be replaced by Terrence Malloy, a career city employee who now serves as Bayonne's Business Administrator.  A Doria rival, City Councilman Anthony Chiappone, who is likely to win a State Assembly seat in November, is expected to mull a mayoral bid.

The Jersey Journal is reporting that the New Jersey State Police has begun a background check on State Senator and Bayonne Mayor Joseph Doria, who has been rumored as a possible candidate for Commissioner of Community Affairs.  Doria's name has been in the mix for the DCA post since Susan Bass Levin left to become Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Bayonne Councilman Tony Chiappone’s campaign team at his Bayonne headquarters on Broadway Avenue confirm that about 1,500 voters in Bayonne and 1,185 in Jersey City’s Ward F had turned out to vote as of 1 p.m.

Joseph Doria is the topic of speculation these days, with rumors that he might be headed to Governor Jon Corzine's cabinet as Commissioner of Community Affairs. But don't expect the veteran legislator -- who is not seeking re-election to the Senate this year -- to make any career decisions before Tuesday's Democratic primary.

Some Democrats say that Doria is very much under consideration for a cabinet post (Susan Bass Levin is departing soon to become Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey), but several close friends say Doria has told them that he isn't entirely interested. Of course, that could be Doria being Doria.

Who wins this district 31 Assembly race in Bayonne comes down to whether voters approve of the general direction here since the city suffered the closure of the Military Ocean Terminal in 2000, or whether the slow rebuilding effort has largely been a bust, overcast by a perception of not enough people-power at the bargaining table.

On that latter side of Broadway Avenue is photographer Anthony Chiappone, a determinedly gadfly Bayonne City Councilman who built a reputation as a government watchdog with his local cable television program before getting into political office himself in the 1990s, jousting with veteran Bayonne Mayor (and state Senator) Joseph Doria, and later allying with maverick Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham.

A few blocks up on the other side of the street stands the rival campaign headquarters of attorney Nicholas Chiaravalloti. A former Doria staffer who came out of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish, filing papers in Doria’s Assembly office as a boy, Chiaravalloti worked his way up in adulthood to become state director for U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez before resigning a month ago to focus on this campaign.

Elvis impersonator Michael Albanese told the Star-Ledger's Tom Moran last week that he has been offered a taxpayer-funded job in exchange for dropping a criminal complaint against Anthony Chiappone, the Hudson County Democratic Organization candidate for State Assembly in the 31st district.  Albanese worked for Chiappone when he served as an Assemblyman in 2004.

The state Division of Elections office says Nicholas Chiaravallotti and Shelia Newton-Moses, candidates for the General Assembly in the 31st district, filed their petitions wrong in time for Monday’s primary deadline.

"They filed for the general election," said spokesman David Wald. "It’s unclear what the division is going to do. We have confirmed the petitions were accepted for the general election."

Chiaravalloti acknowledged that his petitions incorrectly, but noted that he submitted signatures for both the general and the primary -- and that when the Division of Elections throws out the ones he filed for the general, he still has plenty to qualify for the -- and Newton-Moses says she does too, he said.

Bayonne Councilman Anthony Chiappone has not done well in politics since 2003, when he scored an upset victory for the Democratic Assembly nomination -- ousting twelve-term incumbent Joseph Doria on a ticket that dealt a rare loss for the Hudson County Democratic Organization. Chiappone went to the Assembly on the coattails of Glenn Cunningham, the Mayor of Jersey City who won a seat in the State Senate over the objections of the HCDO. But when Cunningham died unexpectedly in June 2004, Democrats picked Doria, the Mayor of Bayonne and Chiappone's local rival, to take the Senate seat. Chiappone ran as an Independent in a November 2004 special election, losing to Doria by a 67%-21% margin in a four-candidate race; Bayonne voters preferred Doria by a 61%-37% margin. Chiappone's '03 running mate, Assemblyman Louis Manzo, ran for re-election on the HCDO line in 2005 with Charles Epps, the Jersey City Superintendent of Schools. Chiappone ran off the line with Bill Ayala, Cunningham's former Chief of Staff, but lost the Democratic primary by more than a 2-1 margin. Now Chiappone is up for re-election to the Bayonne City Council. Doria, seeking re-election to a third term as Mayor, has recruited a full slate of Council candidates in his effort to unseat Chiappone. Chiappone's expected running mate, Ricky Pasquale, dropped out of the race this week, leaving the incumbent alone on the ballot. Pasquale works as a landscaper for the Bayonne Department of Public Works, and apparently did not realize until recently that serving on the City Council might be a conflict.