CHARLOTTE DEFILIPPO

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State Sen. Raymond Lesniak, above, is unhappy with the way Attorney General Anne Milgram handled the prosecution of a Democratic Councilman from their district

ELIZABETH - Union County party allies of Gov. Jon Corzine are leveling hard charges at someone who's used to doing the charging herself: Attorney General Anne Milgram, whose pursuit of a voter fraud case against Roselle Council President Jamel Holley this month resulted in a virtual dead end.

"Disappointment is an understatement," state Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) said of Milgram, the Corzine administration's attorney general, for bringing charges against Holley in the first place.

Already feeling antagonized by the presence of corruption buster former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie in the governor's race, Democratic Party operatives in at least two or three of their base voter-rich regions, including Unon, have for months felt dogged by Milgram, who indicted Holley by accusation on Aug. 27th with illegally filling out portions of fewer than 30 absentee ballots.

In a Thursday letter to the Union County Local Source, Lesniak and his legislative colleagues, Assemblyman Joe Cryan (D-Union Twp.) and Assemblywoman Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth), ripped Milgram over what they see as her unjust targeting of Holley, which might have had ruinous consequences for a young man seen by his allies see as a comer in Union County Democratic Party politics.  

Hillside Mayor Joe Menza

A Superior Court Judge this afternoon in Elizabeth tossed the Hillside Township Council's request for a court injunction and restraining order against Mayor Joe Menza to prevent him from keeping three key cabinet members on the job and attending council meetings - at least until a court date on Sept. 2nd.

In office a little over a month and at odds early with the Township Council, Menza invoked his duty under the Faulkner Act when he selected a township attorney, acting business administrator and auditor.

The council by a 5-2 vote simultaneously maintained its right to oversee those hires, and moved to restrain Menza from making his appointments.   

"They wanted the judge to declare that my appointments were not valid until the court date, but the judge declined to do that, and my appointments will hold," Menza said.

The decision of a rookie Superior Court Judge to allow Rosemary McClave to enter a pre-trial intervention program (against the wishes of the Attorney General) and avoid the possible loss of her freedom and pension is likely to be second guessed by some reform oriented legislators.  Look for someone to introduce a bill that removes public officials from the PTI eligible list.  The 66-year-old McClave was indicted earlier this year for using former Assemblyman Neil Cohen's campaign funds to pay for personal items.

In a way, the allegations against McClave were similar to the ones against the late Anthony Impreveduto, who also got caught in 2004 using his campaign war chest to pay for personal expenses.  Impreveduto, the lone notch on Attorney General Peter Harvey's war on corruption belt, had to resign his Assembly seat, spend five years on probation, and pay some hefty fines - not that there's anything wrong with that. McClave gets to keep her day job as the municipal Treasurer for Teterboro, population 18, at least for now.

The state Attorney General's opposition to McClave's participation in the PTI program increases speculation that she did not help them with their long-running probe of McClave friend Charlotte DeFilippo, the Union County Democratic chair.

Some Democrats may wish Attorney General Anne Milgram would take the summer off, especially since it's an election year.  Instead, Milgram has been going after Democrats in Essex, Middlesex and Union counties.

The Star-Ledger reported tonight that investigators from Milgram's office seized a computer last week from the office of the Essex County Superintendent of Elections in connection to their indictment of Antonio Santana, a volunteer on the 2007 campaign of State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark).  Santana is accused of changing an absentee ballot in Ruiz's favor - a tactic that had no effect on the final results of the election.  But an investigation into the Ruiz campaign is an annoyance to her political mentor, Newark Democratic leader Stephen Adubato, and to Essex County, where Ruiz works as Deputy Chief of Staff to the County Executive. 

Milgram has also won an indictment against Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), and has been conducting a probe of Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DeFilippo.  State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan have formed a legal defense fund to help pay for DeFilippo's lawyers.

Lesniak and State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden), both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are battling with Milgram over her pick to run the state Division of Civil Rights, Chinh Le.  Lesniak and Scutari sent a letter to Gov. Jon Corzine complaining that Le is not licensed to practice law in New Jersey, according to a Star-Ledger report

Garrett Smith, the Democratic Mayor of Roselle, is open to endorsing Republican Christopher Christie or Independent Christopher Daggett in the fall gubernatorial race, sources say.  And Smith, who has been at odds with the Union County Democratic organization and Democratic County Chair Charlotte DeFilippo, has never met Daggett, but says he would be open to discussions regarding the selection of a Lt. Governor candidate.

Many insiders expect the new Mayor of Hillside, Joseph Menza (who is also a Democrat) to back Christie for Governor.  Menza won a runoff against DeFilippo's candidate last month by just six votes.  The Democratic Governors Association contributed more than $13,000 to Menza's opponent in the officially non-partisan election, and Christie sent volunteers to Hillside during the runoff to help turn out Republicans in support of Menza.

Roselle Mayor Garrett Smith

Roselle Mayor Garrett Smith needed this one, and so did the Union County Democratic Organization.
 
Those two mutually exclusive desires added up to one thing: a war.
 
Ever since former Assemblyman Neil Cohen's (D-Roselle) career went belly up amid charges of keeping child porn on his computer, the battle lines for local party control intensified here in his town, which, depending on your perspective, is either a buffer for Westfield against the danger-zone of Elizabeth or a buffer for Elizabeth against the whitebread excesses of Cranford and Westfield.
 
A mild-mannered wonk in Trenton, Cohen could get tough in his hometown as head of the local party. He wasn't beyond delivering full-blown, profanity-laced public dress-downs to recalcitrant committee members as he dealt with the ongoing headache of Smith, a charismatic independent Democrat, originally from Jersey City, who built his name as head of a thriving local basketball league before seeking his first term as mayor in 2003.
 
Smith and Cohen could grudgingly come together to beat on Republicans in presidential or gubernatorial general elections, but mostly they embroiled themselves in a Roselle battle-royale with themselves as chief antagonists.

Menza addressses the crowd.

HILLSIDE - This little, oft-dispected town practically buried under a criss-cross of highways in the muscled-up arms of Newark on one side and Elizabeth on the other today showed little sign of breaking a four-year standoff between mayor and council as Joe Menza assumed the oath of office several hours before the council's reorganization meeting this evening.

Real estate developer Menza beat the local Democratic Party machine on May 12th when he defeated At-Large Councilman Jerome Jewell, a staunch ally of local party chair Charlotte DeFilippo, who also runs the county party.

DeFillipo allies still controls five seats on the seven-member governing body, but Menza kicked off his mayoralty by letting the crowd of 150 people here know that under the Faulkner Act, it is his responsibility to prepare and submit an annual operating budget and to sign all contracts, and he doesn't intend to abdicate those powers.

On the contrary, "The buck stops right here, you can expect that from me," announced the new mayor, moments after taking the oath at the prompting of substitute Township Judge Geoffrey Gechtman.

Hillside Mayor-elect Joe Menza

When Joe Menza defeated Councilman Jerome Jewell by fewer than ten votes to become mayor of Hillside, he did so as a perennial challenger to the local Democratic Party machine, and he remains an outsider even on the day of his swearing-in ceremony tomorrow.

"By law, I have to be appointed by noon," said Menza. "It's 12 o'clock every year, but they made it very clear they want the council re-organization meeting and the mayor's swearing-in separate."

So the council re-organizes at 6 p.m., six hours after Menza takes the oath.

Menza's team blames Clerk Janet Vlaisaljevic, an ally of local party Chair Charlotte DeFilippo, for chopping the ceremonies in half and leaving Menza in the unadvertised early slot without the benefit of a re-ordered local legislature and official town infrastructure to lend support.  

Union County GOP Chairman Phil Morin

Stepping over the stunned, melted-down infrastructure of a Democratic Party machine that failed to elect Jerome Jewell in the Hillside mayor's race yesterday, Union County Republican Chairman Phil Morin seized on real estate developer Joe Menza's victory as a symbolic statement in the "backyard" of Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DeFilippo.

The fact that GOP gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie poured bodies into the Union County town, and personally cut a robocall on Menza's behalf even as the Democratic Governor's Association (DGA) channeled dollars into the Union County town to buttress Jewell gave Morin a special pride in the unofficial outcome.

"While Menza's slate didn't win, his victory sent a message to Union County that Union will be a battleground in 2009," said Morin. "We're very proud of the fact that Union County Republicans and Chris Christie were able to assist the Menza campaign in getting him across the finish line in this runoff."

Morin had reached out personally to Menza campaign strategist John O'Shea to see if there was any way in which his organization could assist in Menza's independent battle with Jewell and DeFilippo, who lives in Hillside and serves as the town's municipal Democratic Party chair in addition to her county party duties.

The two runoff elections for Mayor yesterday are exceedingly close and it will probably take a Judge to decide who the winners are.  In Hoboken, Peter Cammarano leads Dawn Zimmer by 67 votes, 6,043 to 5,976, with about 80 provisional ballots to be counted.  Zimmer led the machine voting by 244 votes, but Cammarano took the lead after absentee ballots have been counted.  

In Hillside, unofficial results show outsider Joseph Menza with a six vote lead, 1,705 to 1,699, over Councilman Jerome Jewell, with a reported ten provisional ballots that will be counted today.  

Cammarano has one clear advantage in a recount and a legal discussion over provisional ballots: his law partner is Angelo Genova, one of the state's top election law experts.  Jewell has the backing of Hillside Democratic Municipal Chair Charlotte DeFilippo, who is also the Union County Democratic Chair.

If Menza holds his lead in the non-partisan race, it would be a stunning defeat for the Democratic Governor's Association (DGA), which contributed more than $10,000 to ensure Jewell's election.  Menza received some help from Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie, so sent some volunteers his way last week in a bid to get Hillside Republicans to oppose Jewell.  

Menza's council candidates lost to Jewell's slate, so even if Menza's lead holds and he becomes mayor, the council will remain in the hands of the local Democratic Party machine.  

In Jersey City, two City Council incumbents backed by Mayor Jerramiah Healy easily won their runoff elections.  Healy allies now occupy every City Council seat but the one held by Steven Fulop.