East Orange

East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser

Credited with presiding over a renaissance in his home town, veteran Mayor Robert Bowser is trying to stare down self-styled Obama upstart Kevin Taylor in East Orange.

Running with some money behind him, Taylor has organized for months in his challenge of the three-term incumbent. Over the course of the last two weeks, the well-funded Bowser kicked his field operation into overdrive.

A local business developer, the 50-year old Taylor has run for mayor twice before. 

This week, his campaign submitted 1,400 absentee ballots, 600 of which were rendered useless after Bowser’s team issued a challenge.

EAST ORANGE - Former Assemblyman Willis Edwards intends to run for mayor of East Orange next year, he told PolitickerNJ.com.

"I would bet my house on it, although I have made no formal announcement at this time," said Edwards, an executive with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and adjunct professor at William Paterson University.

For 12 years, Mayor Robert Bowser, 74, has served as chief executive of this Essex County city, population 74,000.

Edwards, who is in his late 30's, said he appreciates Bowser's leadership and notes with pride the resurgence of the 3.9-square mile city under the leadership of the long-serving mayor.

RICE OUTRAGED AT TREATMENT OF WELFARE RECIPIENTS IN EAST ORANGE

Chair of Legislative Black Caucus Calls for Hearings on Motel Housing for Welfare Recipients

EAST ORANGE - Senator Ronald L. Rice, Chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, announced today that he would be calling for legislative and Caucus hearings on the deplorable living conditions of many welfare recipients living in transitional housing in motels, highlighted by the recent emergency evacuation of a motel in East Orange which was deemed "unfit for human occupation."

"We cannot cast aside our responsibility, as a State, to provide for our residents in need and condemn them to living in sub-human conditions," said Senator Rice, D-Essex. "In the case of the Lincoln Motel in East Orange, 26 welfare recipients, most of whom had been placed by the Newark's welfare office, all had to be uprooted during the holiday season, because they were living in horrible living conditions, all while the owner of the motel collected $1500 a month for each resident to house them. There is so much wrong with this picture that it's sickening, and we need to figure out who is responsible, and how do we avoid something like this in the future."

Former State Senator Norman Robertson says he has no intention of seeking the Republican nomination for United States Senator in 2008. A former Passaic County Freeholder, Robertson was elected to the Senate in 1997 after defeating five-term incumbent Joseph Bubba in the GOP primary. He lost his bid for a second term to Democrat Nia Gill in 2001 after redistricting made the 34th district virtually unwinnable for a Republican by adding East Orange and Montclair.

Among the unsolved murders profiled in the Star-Ledger today was Harry Dudkin, a 78-year-old Assistant Essex County Prosecutor who was killed on March 5, 1987 at his family stationary store in East Orange. "At first, detectives theorized that he had fallen and hit his head, but an autopsy the next day uncovered a .38-caliber slug in his head," the Star-Ledger wrote. "By the time detectives canvassed the neighborhood, the crime was two days old." Only then did investigators realize that the store's daily receipts were missing.

About forty years before his murder, Dudkin almost went to Congress. He was the Democratic candidate for the House in 1948 against five-term Congressman Robert Winthrop Kean, the father of the future Governor and grandfather of the '06 U.S. Senate candidate. President Harry Truman called for his election during a campaign appearance in Newark on October 6, but on Election Day he lost to Kean by 4,737 votes -- 53%-45%. He ran again against Kean in 1950, but lost by 8,598 votes -- 54%-46%.

Add one more item to the list of Hamlet Goore's foibles -- he must have a bad sense of direction. When the Attorney General's live-in boyfriend found himself in need of a Motor Vehicles Commission office to straighten out a mess with his drivers license and car registration, he travelled miles out of his way to go to Elizabeth.

The MVC has offices in North Bergen, where Goore lives, and also in Irvington, where he works. If Goore, for some reason, didn't want to use the local office in North Bergen (located 1.37 miles from his home), the MVC has seven offices closer to his home than Elizabeth: Jersey City, Lodi, Englewood, Wallington, Newark, East Orange, Bayonne. If Goore was going during his lunch hour (he works for the Township of Irvington), and didn't (for some reason) want to use the local office located 1/2 mile from his office, he could have made it to East Orange, Newark or Sprinfield faster than Elizabeth.

OLIVER APPOINTED TO ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP POST
Assemblywoman also to Serve as Vice Chair of Human Services Committee,
Member of Higher Ed, Labor Panels