Gerald McCann

Dawn Zimmer became the second woman to serve as a mayor in Hudson County.  The other arrived in office under similar circumstances: Marilyn Roman, served three months as mayor of Jersey City after Gerald McCann was ousted following his 1992 criminal conviction.  If Zimmer runs in a November special election and wins, she will be the first woman to win a mayoral election in the 168-year history of Hudson County.

If Dawn Zimmer's narrow 244 vote lead in the Hoboken mayoral race holds, she will become the first woman to win election as mayor in the 168-year history of Hudson County.  The only other woman mayor in Hudson was Marilyn Roman, who served three months as Mayor of Jersey City after Gerald McCann was ousted following his 1992 criminal conviction.

Jersey City is expected to consider a change to their form of government that would move from May non-partisan elections to partisan elections, with a June primary and a November general, according to sources close to the Hudson County Democratic leadership.  Democrats were slightly alarmed earlier this year when former Mayor Bret Schundler, a conservative Republican, was emerging as the strongest potential challenger to Mayor Jerramiah Healy, the Hudson County Democratic Chairman.  A partisan election would make only the Democratic primary relevant.

Sources say that the idea to switch from non-partisan to partisan was initially offered to Healy by George Norcross, the South Jersey Democratic leader.  Camden and Gloucester Township have also moved from non-partisan to partisan local elections.  Democrats feel their Gloucester Township mayoral candidate, former Assemblyman David Mayer, has a better chance to oust Republican incumbent Cindy Rau-Hatton in November than he would have in May.

Following the criminal conviction of Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann in 1992, nineteen candidates filed to run in a November non-partisan special election to fill the remaining nine months of his term.  Among the candidates were: Bret Schundler, a Republican who had run a strong race against State Sen. Edward O'Connor (D-Jersey City) the year before; Hudson County Freeholder Louis Manzo; and former Jersey City Democratic Chairman Allen Manzo.  Louis and Allen Manzo were brothers.

Allen Manzo was a McCann ally, and Louis Manzo was a political foe of the Mayor.

At first, the Manzo brothers argued about slogans.  Louis Manzo went on the ballot as "An Honest Difference," while Allen Manzo filed with "An Honest Change."  Louis Manzo lost a court challenge seeking to invalidate his brother's petitions, and then changed his slogan to "The Real Manzo."  Allen Manzo got the top ballot slot; Louis Manzo was somewhere in the middle.

The real turning point in the campaign came when their mother, Mary Manzo, endorsed Louis Manzo and taped a TV ad urging Jersey City voters to vote for "The Real Manzo."

Jersey City voters have ousted Anthony Cucci, a former Mayor, from his seat on the Board of Education.  Cucci defeated incumbent Gerald McCann in 1985, but lost his re-election bid in a rematch with McCann four years later.  

Richard Kanka, who helped push legislators to create Megan's Law after his nine-year-old daughter was murdered by a convicted sex offender living in their neighborhood, won a seat on the Hamilton Township Board of Education.

If Jerramiah Healy wins re-election in 2009, he would become the first Democratic mayor of Jersey City to win a second consecutive four-year term since Thomas Whelan was re-elected in 1969.

Former Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann is back: he won a school board race last week, fifteen years after being forced from office following his criminal conviction. He is due to take office on Monday, but the Jersey Journal is reporting that McCann is already calling for the ouster of Tom Favia, the head of the local teachers union.

Favia says the Jersey City Educaton Association spent $10,000 in support of three candidates -- incumbent Angel Valentin, former NBA player Terry Dehere, and Jenny Garcia. Valentin and Dehere won, but McCann beat Garcia by just 21 votes.

Add to that list of New Jersey disappearances including the arm of Chad Pennington, the glassworks of Trenton, and the Haunted Mansion of Long Branch the mysterious 2007 district 31 Senate candidacy of Sean Cotter.

Assemblyman Louis Manzo, himself a candidate for state Senate in district 31, says real estate developer Cotter told him Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy offered Cotter jobs in exchange for Cotter’s help in entering the Senate race as a spoiler. Healy -- who along with the Hudson County Democratic Organization -- backs Manzo’s chief rival Sandra Bolden Cunningham, calls the charge an outright falsehood.

Last Friday, on the same day Manzo said his legal team was going to make the information public in a Newark courtroom where Manzo was challenging the legitimacy of Cunningham’s primary petition, Cotter abruptly exited the Senate race with a fax to the state Division of Elections Office.

Former Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann, who was forced to vacate his office in 1992 following his criminal conviction, lost narrowly leads in his bid for a political comeback in a race for the Jersey City Board of Education election.  He trailed Jenny Garcia by 53 votes on the machine count, but leads by 25 votes after absentee ballots were counted. The top votegetter was Terry Dehere, 35, who played for three NBA teams between 1993 and 1999. Incumbent Angel Valentin was re-elected.

Former Jersey City Mayor Anthony Cucci easily won re-election to his seat on the Board of Education this week. Cucci, defeated incumbent Gerald McCann in 1985 and then lost a rematch four years later, was the top vote-getter among the fourteen candidates for three seats. He ran way ahead of all other candidates.