Dwight Brown

Essex County Democratic Chairman Philip Thigpen is getting ready to run for office: he says he expected to become his party's candidate for Register of Deeds and Mortgages.  The organization supported Newark Central Ward Democratic Chairman Dwight Brown for Register in the June primary after incumbent Carole Graves declined to seek re-election.  But Brown died unexpectedly over the summer, leaving Democrats without a candidate to face Republican Terriann Moore Abrams, a former South Orange Village Trustee.

The post has a $91,650 annual salary and is a five-year term.

Essex and Hudson are the last counties to have an elected Register of Deeds and Mortgages.  In the other nineteen counties, the County Clerk performs their duties.  Camden eliminated the position after Republican Susan Rose won the post in 1990.  Union got rid of the post in 1995 when the incumbent, Joanne Rajoppi, ran for County Clerk. 

Four years after Democrat Gerard DeStefano ousted longtime GOP Passaic County Register Frank Sylvester in 1996, the Republican-controlled Legislature eliminated his job.  They did it with the ultimate political cover: Passaic voters had passed a non-binding referendum urging the post be absorbed into the Office of the County Clerk (then held by Republican Ronnie Nochimson).

The Hudson County Register is Willie Flood, who is also a Jersey City Councilwoman.

Thigpen, a former Freeholder and fixture in local politics since the 1960's, would be under no obligation to give up his chairmanship.  Eight other County Chairs are elected officials.

But some Democrats say Thigpen might give up the party post.  Phil Alagia, the Chief of Staff to Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and the political director of Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election campaign, is a potential candidate for Essex County Democratic Chairman.

Alagia says he supports Thigpen.

"There is no one in Essex County who can do a better job of moving the Essex County Democratic Party forward then Chairman Thigpen," Alagia told PolitickerNJ.com.  It is my understanding that he will stay as chairman and he has my support 100 percent. 

North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato, left, and Gov. Jon Corzine last year.

NEWARK - It was a day of celebration in the Central Ward for North Ward stalwart Steve Adubato, who personally cut the ribbon on the Robert Treat Academy-Central on William Street for kindergarteners and first graders.

Adubato nearly a year ago read in Barack Obama's presidential victory a macrocosm of his own efforts citywide.

The way the North Warder figured, if Obama as an African American could secure entire white voter towns, then why should Adubato as a white feel trepidatious about going full bore in areas where black voters dominate; areas like the Central Ward, for example, where the end of the Mayor Sharpe James era left a political crater that both Adubato and James successor Mayor Cory Booker both eagerly tried to fill.

Newark is composed of five wards, and although a phys ed teacher by trade, James knew math well enough to know that if he controlled three wards, he could maintain control of his domain, and he did: the West, the South and the Central.

His departure from the scene two years ago tilted more South Ward power into the hands of Payne family, and enabled state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) to consolidate power in the West.

Council President Mildred Crump, left, with her ally, School Board member Nakea White.

NEWARK- Along with the South Ward, where organizer Ras Baraka is building to mount an aggressive challenge of South Ward Councilman Oscar James II, the central ward again looms as a battleground in the Newark 2010 municipal race, with one candidate a definite go and two others hovering near the starting gate.

The Booker Team's filing report shows the mayor listing freshman School Board member Nakea White as his ticket mate for central ward council, but White won't comment about whether that means she's a lock to run next year.

That may be in no small part because Central Ward Councilman Charles Bell says he's ready to run to secure a full term after defeating Booker's candidate last year in a special election war.

His decision is not definitive, but very close.

Central Ward Democratic Chairman Dwight Brown.

NEWARK - The American Flag stood at half mast today at the North Ward Center to salute a soldier of Newark.

Central Ward Democratic Committee Chairman Dwight Brown died this morning of a heart attack, PolitickerNJ.com has learned.

A Vietnam veteran and career military man who retired from the Newark Housing Authority to work at the North Ward Center in June of 1996, Mr. Brown, 61, was "at the top of his game" politically at the time of his death, according to North Ward political operative Phil Alagia.

"We were playing poker last night and we were having a good time," said Alagia. "When I heard the news today, I was shocked."

"Newark lost a leader who was especially focused on developing his home, the Central Ward," said North Ward Democratic Leader Steve Adubato, Sr., who co-founded the North Ward Center, which consists of five private learning and healthcare instituions, where Mr. Brown served as chief perating officer. 

One year ago, Mr. Brown defeated Jermaine James to become chairman of the pivotal Central Ward.

An appellate court judge yesterday upheld Superior Court Mary Costello’s ruling that the candidate for Essex County Register of Deeds and Mortgages running with District 28 Assembly candidate Craig Stanley won’ be allowed on the June 2nd Democratic Primary ballot. 

That prompted Stanley, a former Assemblyman in the district now running against Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) and Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville), to fire off a letter to the State Commission on Investigations. 

“I want to see the process investigated,” said Stanley, whose running mate, Bonni Walston, failed to meet the threshold of 100 required signatures, according to the courts. 

In court last month, Stanley’s candidate was able to prove under the court’s scrutiny that she had 98 valid signatures.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker

NEWARK – Television star Oprah Winfrey’s decision this month to drop a $500,000 gift on Steve Adubato’s North Ward Center effectively stamps out the fuse on a standoff between the North Ward Democratic leader and Winfrey confidante Mayor Cory Booker, in a resolution that underscores the political strengths of the two main combatants.

If Adubato, native Newarker and a grizzled guru now in his seventies, proved his relevance by waging a war in the streets and alleys he has known since childhood, Booker the Bergen County outsider turned Newark activist and statewide star, proved his manna from Heaven connections. 

And the community won in the end, according to sources from both camps, as Adubato’s Blue Ribbon charter school, the Robert Treat Academy - whose students consistently rate higher math and science test scores than students in schools in all of urban New Jersey and all of Essex County - stands to get an unprecedented infusion of funds.

The contribution came with a back story.  

For almost as long as Booker’s been in office, Adubato poked, prodded, cajoled, and chest-thumped in the face of the young star’s particular power, and now sources close to the North Ward leader say he intends to endorse the first term mayor for reelection next year.

It’s been an odd relationship.

Taking a shot at the campaign run against him by the Laborers and the allies of Mayor Cory Booker, Central Ward Councilman Charles Bell at his swearing-on ceremony in City Hall last night noted gratefully that money and turkeys don’t vote.

The crack was a reference to Eddie Osborne campaign’s massive GOTV operation, which included the coordinated distribution to of hundreds of early Thanksgiving turkeys.

Officially assuming the seat left occupied by former Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone, Bell seized the opportunity to instruct the mayor, who was not in attendance.

The new councilman disapproved of the tone of the campaign, expressed in hand and pole signs with the words: “Charles Bell equals corruption and waste.”

Booker emerges from voting booth at University High School.

Newark – There’s a big show of Booker force in the Central Ward that even has hardened campaign veterans backing former Councilman Charles Bell doing an early gutcheck .

“It’s David and Goliath,”’ says Central Ward Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Brown, watching the fusion of unions working for Mayor Cory Booker’s candidate and their fellow Laborer, Eddie Osborne, overrun the giant Central Ward, pop. 58,000.

“Their forces outnumber us, 10-1,” says Brown. “And they’ve got a drag operation going, hoping new Obama voters are going to drag down the ballot to vote for Osborne. I’ve been telling people not to confront them. Just stay in your spots. We can’t win if we confront them. They’re too many of them.”

Mary Rone, Central Ward council candidate

NEWARK – As the juggernaut campaigns of Charles Bell and Eddie Osborne hit each other at full speed in the Central Ward, Mary Rone mounts a grassroots operation from below that she hopes will knock both of the bigger operations to their knees on Nov. 4th.

“I’m going to win it for the people,” says the community activist, who with her late husband, James Rone, advocated for fair housing in the city going back to the late 1960s. “I’ve had enough of the ring-kissing style of politics, and I know the people of the Central Ward have too.”

She comes at the campaign with an extra burst of motivation.

Thirteen candidates are vying in a special election to fill the seat of Rone’s daughter, former Councilwoman Dana Rone, whom an assignment judge removed in August after determining that the councilwoman used her office to impede the work of Rutgers University cops in a Dec. 2006 traffic incident involving her nephew.

“You could say Dana losing her seat was my fault,” says the older Rone. “I instilled in her what my family instilled in me. If a family member is in distress, you help them. That’s all it was. It’s not about her improperly using her authority. My daughter is very protective, both of her community – and of her own family.”

Laborers' business manager Eddie Osborne: Politicker file photo 

NEWARK - The old guard's gauntlet down, Mayor Cory Booker seeks to stem the local losses of the past few months by making a stand with the campaign of Central Ward Council candidate Eddie Osborne. 

Booker on Monday will officially endorse labor leader Osborne for Central Ward Council, according to Newark sources.

One of 13 candidates seeking to replace ousted Councilwoman Dana Rone, Osborne this week said he didn't know if he would receive Booker's backing.

"But I definitely would like to have it," he told PolitickerNJ.com.

Sources say an 18-day Osborne/Booker lit-blitz starts in the ward tomorrow, as Booker's soldiers join union workers in an effort to propel Osborne past apparent frontrunner, former Councilman Charles Bell.