Jerramiah Healy

Steve Fulop won't run for Mayor of Jersey City next year. Instead, he'll seek re-election to the City Council.

Jersey City Councilman Steven Fulop has decided against a bid for Mayor of Jersey City in 2009, according to sources close to the reform Democrat.  Louis Manzo, a former Assemblyman and Hudson County Freeholder who has made four unsuccessful bids for Mayor, is expected to enter the race to unseat Jerramiah Healy.  The incumbent, the Hudson County Democratic Chairman and an early supporter of Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency, is viewed as the favorite to win re-election in the May non-partisan municipal race.

State Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Jersey City) could face a primary when she seeks re-election in two years.

The primary is a year and a half away, but state Sen. Sandra B. Cunningham (D-Jersey City) is in danger of being tossed off the Hudson County Democratic Organization's (HCDO) line in 2011.

That development could spark an intra-party fight like the one that engulfed Hudson County politics two and a half years ago, when a challenge by then-Assemblyman and Union City Mayor Brian Stack to former Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny's (D-Hoboken) had county-wide implications.  Back then, Cunningham kept the seat of former state Sen. Joseph Doria (D-Bayonne) for the HCDO, fending off a challenge by former Assemblyman Louis Manzo (D-Jersey City), who was backed by the rival Democratic organization led by Stack. 

That conflagration died down after the 2007 primary election, but Cunningham's decision in June to block Gov. Jon Corzine's appointment of Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has - at least for the time being - turned the party apparatus against her.

"I've seen smaller things spark forest fires here in Hudson County," said DeGise.

DeGise said he had the support of all 12 Hudson County mayors for the Port Authority spot.  With so much of the Port Authority's infrastructure in Hudson County - the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the Bayonne Bridge, most of the New Jersey portion of the PATH system, the Auto Marine terminal in Bayonne - DeGise said that the county should have a representative on the board of commissioners.

"Just one person - I think it's a curious system that allows for one person to block the will of a ton of others. But that's the system," he said.

Speculation that Corzine would appoint Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage to the post instead - a political ally of state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth), who is Cunningham's Trenton mentor - did not come to fruition.

There is no love lost between DeGise and Cunningham.  In 2001, Cunningham defeated DeGise in a non-partisan contest for mayor of Jersey City.  Glenn Cunningham died four years later, but the hard feelings between DeGise and Sandra Cunningham remained - so much so that it was considered no small feat for Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy and HCDO operatives to get them to run on the same ticket in 2007.

Still, while he doesn't hide his anger at Cunningham, DeGise thinks a public fight can be avoided.

"Diplomacy should always be used before a sledgehammer," he said.  "I can remember back now to '07, and the spark between Bernie Kenny and Brian Stack over the Senate seat just blew up into a county-wide fight, and I really to this day believe that better diplomacy could have been used to avoid that."

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, right, with Assemblywoman Joan Quigley (D-Jersey City) and Assemblyman Vincent Prieto (D-Secaucus)

HARRISON - Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy agrees that North Hudson will be selfishly motivated to land decent numbers for Gov. Jon Corzine next Tuesday. 
 
But South Hudson?
 
"Corzine will be fine," said the Jersey City mayor, refusing to go into detail. "I think he wins the election by two points."
 
At the heart of North Hudson Democratic Party turnout is a fierce warlord rivalry between state Sen. Nicholas Sacco (D-North Bergen) and state Sen. Brian P. Stack (D-Union City) for northern bragging rights.
 
In addition, operatives are confident that a mayoral race in Hoboken will drive numbers up in that overwhelmingly Democratic town and help the incumbent governor.

But broken local infrastructure in South Hudson (Jersey City and Bayonne), owing to summertime corruption busts; and political standoffs taking the heart out of intraparty rivalry mere months after local elections in Jersey City, dog the party, despite county coordinator Jason O'Donnell's best attempts to revitalize those towns for the governor and despite Obama hoopla.

Caroline Kennedy, and Democratic State Party Chairman Joe Cryan

BELMAR - Appearing Wednesday night here at the Barclay in support of Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, Caroline Kennedy reached back to 1980 when her late uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy, campaigned for the presidency and won the Democratic Primary in New Jersey.

"I remember campaigning with Teddy in Elizabeth, Jersey City and Hoboken, and that victory you gave to him meant the most to him," said Kennedy, recalling other campaign visits throughout the years too, but dwelling on that Jersey win, when incumbent President Jimmy Carter defeated her uncle in 24 of 34 primaries but failed to turn him back here.

When Corzine mentioned how the senator, who died on August 25th after battling brain cancer, stood in the same spot in 2005 to help Corzine in his first run for the governorship, State Party Chairman Joe Cryan choked up at the memory before the governor added, "Nobody looks out for Jon Corzine like this Irishman, Joe Cryan."

There was sustained applause for Cryan and the late Kennedy from this Irish-American crowd that packed the split-level bar and banquet hall a block away from the capital beach for a community hovering at near 16% of the total population in New Jersey, for whom Caroline Kennedy remains a beloved symbol.

Corzine then invoked another Irish politician in the room, former Gov. Brendan Byrne, who occupied the chair of honor between Kennedy on one side, and a stage packed with Irish-American Mayors, including Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, on the other.

The last time Barack Obama was in New Jersey, he gave a shout out to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, calling him “the pride of New Jersey.”  That was July 16, the day five Jersey City police officers were shot in the line of duty.  Healy was also one of Obama’s leading New Jersey supporters in his bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination; he endorsed Obama while most of the state’s Democratic establishment was for Hillary Clinton.

Seven days after Obama’s visit, federal agents arrested a group of Hudson County politicians, some with close ties to Healy.  The next day, Healy acknowledged that he was the local official referred to in federal criminal complaints against Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, political consultant Jack Shaw, and Edward Cheatam, a former city housing authority commissioner. 

Now, as Obama returns to New Jersey to campaign for the governor’s re-election, expect him to stay away from Healy.  Democratic sources say that the White House had some problems with at least one of the Hudson County politicians on a guest list Democrats submitted for a VIP meet and greet with the President.

A week and a half ago, David Donnelly, then an aide to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, did not know there was going to be a vacancy on the Jersey City council.  

Last night, he was sworn in to fill it.  

“I certainly didn’t want to come to it this way,” said Donnelly.

Donnelly, 39, was recommended by Mayor Jerramiah Healy for the city’s Ward B council seat and approved by the council with seven yes votes and one abstention (Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson last night said she abstained because she felt the process was rushed).  

The seat opened up after Councilman Phil Kenny – on the job just six months – made a surprise guilty plea last Tuesday to accepting $5,000 in bribes from a federal informant posing as a crooked developer.  He resigned the next day.    

Kenny was another casualty of the July corruption sting that stung Jersey City particularly hard, taking out two of the top three finishers in the May mayoral campaign, the city council president, a deputy mayor and a number of other officials and political players.  Even Mayor Jerramiah Healy, never charged but named in a corruption complaint as “JC Official 4” and apparently under scrutiny by the FBI, did not escape the whiff of scandal. But Kenny was never arrested, and nobody knew that he was also caught up in the sweep.

Now Donnelly finds himself representing the city’s ethnically diverse west side, sometimes known as “the forgotten ward.”  If he wants to hold on to the seat for more than a year, he will have to win a special election next November. 

Jersey City mayoral aide David Donnelly has Mayor Jerramiah Healy’s support to succeed Phil Kenny on the Jersey City council, according to Dominick Pandolfo, the mayor’s chief of staff.

Kenny, who had been in office for about six months, resigned Wednesday from the Ward B seat – one day after pleading guilty to taking bribes from a federal informant who posed as a crooked developer.  

Donnelly’s mother, Mary, held the council seat until 2005.  

“The mayor has asked [Donnelly] to consider running,” said Pandolfo, who added that Donnelly agreed to do it.  “He’s ready to serve his ward like his mother did.”

Although it’s up to the council to pick Kenny’s replacement, seven of its eight remaining members are Healy allies.  

“It’s strictly the council’s decision.  The mayor is simply making a recommendation to the council,” said Pandolfo.  

There is speculation that David Donnelly, a special assistant to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, has quickly emerged as the leading candidate to replace Ward B Councilman Phil Kenny.  Kenny resigned this afternoon, one day after pleading guilty to taking bribes and slightly more than three months after taking office.  Donnelly worked as an aide to Edison Mayor Jun Choi before taking a job on Healy's staff two years ago.  His mother, Mary Donnelly, held the Ward B Council seat until her retirement in 2005.

Jersey City Jerramiah Healy is keeping his options open.  

Healy, who just won a second four year term in May, has filed paperwork for “Healy for Mayor 2013” with the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) on the advice of an accountant – not because he’s actually made up his mind about running for a third term.     

“I am not making any announcement.  Any announcement would not be made for a couple of years.  Right now I am focused on doing the job the citizens of Jersey City elected me to do -- which is to keep making the streets safer, to hold the line on taxes, to bring investment, development and jobs to our city and to work with the Board of Education to improve the quality of education for our children.  The only election we are focused on at this time is the re-election of Jon Corzine as Governor on November 3, 2009."

Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop says he will abstain on the council’s vote to reappoint Carl Czaplicki as the director of the Department of Housing, Economic Development and Commerce.  

Czaplicki, who was Mayor Jerramiah Healy’s chief of staff before taking on his current position, appears in the federal corruption complaint against political consultant Joseph Cardwell as “JC Official 3.”  

“I don’t think I can vote yes at this time until the situation is cleared,” said Fulop, who thinks that Czaplicki should be left on in an acting capacity.  “There is a cloud looming here, so I think the mayor/council should leave him as is until the situation is cleared further. There is no reason for the mayor to endorse or reject him today in light of the recent events until there is more info.”

Czaplicki has not been charged, but was a close political ally of Cardwell’s and figures prominently in the corruption complaint against him.  In it, Cardwell claims to be the middleman between Czaplicki and the FBI's cooperating witness, Solomon Dwek.