Jerramiah Healy

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.

There is a growing consensus among Democrats that Gov. Jon Corzine needs U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) to put Hudson County together for him.  Hudson is Menendez's base: he was Mayor of Union City, Assemblyman, State Senator, Congressman and Hudson County Democratic Chairman before leaving local politics to take a seat in the Senate.  There is speculation that Menendez will show up at a tomorrow's weekly meeting of the Hudson County Democratic Organization to talk to the mayors - with whom political power rests in Hudson - about Corzine's re-election campaign.

Some Democrats fear that Hudson County Democrats might be too weakened by recent events to replicate the 61,640 vote margin they delivered in for Corzine in 2005. There is chaos in Hoboken and Secaucus, where mayors have resigned following their arrests on federal corruption charges last month. The new Hoboken Mayor, Dawn Zimmer, is less than enthralled with the governor, her constituent; Secaucus Democrats have no candidate for Mayor and the local organization is backing an independent candidate who had been challenging Dennis Elwell. In Bayonne, some supporters of former Mayor Joseph Doria are unhappy because Corzine asked Doria to resign his cabinet post just hours after the FBI raided his home and office; ironically, Corzine is taking heat for throwing Doria under the bus and the beneficiary of that could be Christie, the bus driver.

Jersey City Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop has never made his mayoral aspirations a secret, but with Mayor Jerramiah Healy being visited by the FBI, he acknowledges the possibility that he may have to run sooner than he expected to.

“I think whether Healy stays or goes is out of my control. We are preparing for the case that he does step down,” said Fulop, who is holding a $20 per head fundraiser at the Zeppelin Hall Beer Garden in downtown Jersey City tonight.  

Fulop is also preparing for two possible future City Council vacancies: the at-large seat of Council President Mariano Vega, who was arrested for allegedly taking bribes in July; and the Ward C seat of Nidia Lopez, who is facing a lawsuit that claims she’s technically a resident of Orlando, Fla.  

Although Fulop does not have an interest in running for Vega’s at-large seat if it opens up, he wants to be able to help another candidate. 

Although FBI agents paid Mayor Jerramiah Healy a visit at his Bradley Beach home last month, they did not search it, the Mayor’s office insisted today.

The AP reported today that Healy said FBI agents searched his shore home.   Not so, said Healy spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill in a statement, attributing the mixup to miscommunication. 

“Due to an apparent miscommunication between Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy and Associated Press reporter Victor Epstein, the AP is inaccurately reporting a story on the wire,” she said.  “Neither Mayor Healy’s home nor his office has been searched by the FBI and any news agency reporting such would be absolutely inaccurate.”

The FBI visited Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy at City Hall yesterday and at his Bradley Beach summer home last month, the Jersey Journal reports in a front page story today.

The paper reported that six to eight agents made the rounds at City Hall yesterday, visiting the offices of the business administrator, tax assessor, tax collector and city clerk.  

Healy was not among the dozens of public officials arrested on corruption charges in July, but he has acknowledged meeting with twice with the FBI’s informant.  Some of the officials who were charged, including Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini – who was Healy’s campaign treasurer – allegedly planned to funnel Dwek’s bribes into Healy’s reelection account.  

The Jersey City Reporter  last week reported that the FBI also visited Healy at his office on Wednesday, July 22 -- one day before the corruption arrests.  

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy still supports Ward C Councilwoman Nidia Lopez, who is facing a lawsuit over whether she is a Florida or Jersey City resident.

Healy did not want to go into specifics because a law case “is winding its way through the courts and we will await the resolution,” but he said he was “confident that Nidia Lopez is a resident of Jersey City’s Ward C.

In a deposition released yesterday, Lopez reveals that she did not pay New Jersey income taxes in 2006 and 2007 although her business operated exclusively here.   Although an attorney who’s representing the plaintiff Norrice Raymaker said Lopez did not pay taxes here in 2008, Lopez's lawyer, William Northgrave, said in the transcript of the deposition that she filed for an extension for that year.    

Lopez is not the only member of Mayor Healy’s slate in May’s municipal election who is facing heat.   Council President Mariano Vega was arrested on corruption charges in July, but has proclaimed his innocence and refuses to resign.   

An attorney for an unsuccessful Jersey City council candidate says that the city's current Ward C Councilwoman has two identities: Nidia Lopez, the Jersey City resident and politician, and Nidia Boehringer, the Florida resident and taxpayer.

"She's gone to great lengths to maintain these different personas and make it look like she lived in both places," said Diana Jeffrey, who represents Norrice Raymaker -- the third place Ward C Council candidate in the May municipal election -- in her lawsuit that charges Lopez is actually a Florida resident.

Jeffrey's law partner, Howard Myerowitz, deposed Lopez on Monday, and while the transcript of the deposition will not be available until tonight, Jeffrey shared some of her findings.

Among the most startling, according to Jeffrey, was Lopez's disclosure that she files her taxes in Florida, where there is no state income tax, even though she says her business - Nidia Boehringer Consulting - is based in New Jersey.  Jeffrey said that Lopez has not paid New Jersey income taxes since at least 2006. 

"She avoids paying New Jersey income tax by relying on her Florida persona," said Jeffrey. "She maintained under oath that New Jersey is her primary residence, and admitted under oath that Nidia Boehringer Consultants operates exclusively in New Jersey, that she works exclusively in New Jersey, but that she files her tax returns in Florida under the name Boehringer." 

Lopez has been under scrutiny since June, when Jimmy King, the second place candidate for her council seat in the May municipal election, filed suit alleging that she was a resident of the Sunshine State.  The crux of his case was that Lopez took property exemptions on her Florida home that required her to be a permanent resident of that state.  Florida has since charged tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes that state authorities says Lopez owes for incorrectly taking the exemptions. 

Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone (D-Bayonne) today fired back at Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden), who yesterday called on him to resign after he was indicted for allegedly funneling his aides' state-issued checks into his personal and campaign bank accounts.  

“There is a ‘presumption of innocence’ which is a constitutional right of anyone charged.  In your capacity as Speaker, as a fellow lawmaker, you have chosen to ignore that basic democratic philosophy and constitutional right because of an assumption of guilt and not of innocence,” wrote Chiappone.

One day after being indicted -- but not arrested -- Chiappone was back in his legislative office.

“Of course working without pay and benefits,” he said in a phone interview.  Those were also suspended by Roberts, who took away his committee assignments as well.

Chiappone, who is serving his second non-consecutive term and running for reelection, proclaimed his innocence and said he will not resign.

In his letter to Roberts, he went on to say that “my years of service and dedication to the public that has voted me into office warrants that I receive that basic consideration, yes even in spit of the inconvenience and ‘embarrassment’ that the ‘party’ may have to endure… And while I respect you as the Speaker of the House, no one man should determine who should resign.  The directive to serve or not to serve should come only from the voters."