Steve Adubato

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.”

Eddie Osborne and Newark Mayor Cory Booker today in the Central Ward: Politicker photo 

NEWARK - Mayor Cory Booker today said he stands with Eddie Osborne, business manager of Laborers Local 1153, who’s in a special Nov. 4th contest to succeed ousted Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone.

The money candidate in a 13-person race, Osborne enjoys state and countywide Labor connections, and he smiled happily as a force of orange-shirted Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) volunteers chanted his name: "Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!"

Booker used to be the councilman in this ward, and he remembered Osborne as a humble, hard-working family man.

"I was very blessed when I ran for Central Ward Council and a whole bunch of people stood up for a reform movement that started a decade ago," Booker said, standing with Osborne in a vacant lot slated to become First Street Park.

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.

Former Councilman Charles Bell: Politicker photo 

NEWARK - The crowded race for a vacant Central Ward Council seat features a veteran with the stalwart backing of Newark’s gray-haired fathers, versus a labor-cash infused newcomer who may or may not receive support from a wobbling Mayor Cory Booker.

Thirteen candidates hope to fill the seat an assignment judge separated from Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone after Rone this summer exhausted her appeals process going back to a 2006 obstruction of justice case.

But apparent frontrunner Charles Bell sees his chief challenger - both for Obama affection and for the local council seat - as fellow labor brother Eddie Osborne, whose billboards and signs laden with Obama iconography have hit the Central Ward like an orange blizzard.

The Osborne campaign sizes up the contest similarly.

In their sights, they see Bell, a former councilman, school board member for nearly 30 years and retired labor official with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers Union, who combines name ID and an alliance with time-tested political infrastructure.

Adrianne Davis: Politicker photo 

NEWARK - Newly retired from her nearly 20-year career as clerk of the Essex County Freeholder Board, Adrianne Davis this month assumed her role as executive director of the North Ward Center.

It’s a return to her roots for the member of the 1963 Newark Teachers’ Union, who coordinated buses that carried activists to Washington, D.C. to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech.

The former high school teacher helped found the North Ward Center in 1970 with her friend and fellow teacher, Steve Adubato.

"What Steve sought to do was stabilize the North Ward with programs that served the Italian population that lived here," said Davis, a native of the West Ward, who ran the early secretarial training program and worked as the North Ward Center’s administrator.

He cut an unprepossessing figure as he made the rounds of open bar fiestas and happy hours in Denver, hobnobbing with the governor here, buttonholing some bigshot fundraiser there.

He smiled through the whispers and rumors.

But at the Democratic National Convention last month, bad feelings inevitably saturated the atmosphere of powerhouse Bergen County Democratic Organization Chairman Joseph Ferriero, the man who likens the make-up of his county organization to the way the ingredients go together in Coca-Cola.

The news that FBI agents stormed his office came just days before the start of the convention, prompting state Democratic leaders to field uncomfortable questions about Ferriero even as they were packing their bags and hightailing it for the upscale Inverness Hotel.

State Party Chairman Joseph Cryan told the media he wouldn’t ask the embattled party boss to stay home, and so there was Ferriero in Denver.

Never a big fan of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the powerful Democratic Party boss backed Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in the party’s presidential primary.

It’s no surprise, given his public comments the last few weeks regarding a possible replacement for former Central Ward Councilwoman Dana Rone.

But any doubt regarding where North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato stands in the special elections for her replacement on Nov. 4th evaporated on Saturday when Adubato prodded Charles Bell into a picture with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and local elected officials at the Flamboyan.

Running as part of Team Booker, Rone defeated incumbent Councilman Bell in the 2006 mayoral election. Citing Rone’s use of her public office to obstruct justice in December of 2007, an assignment judge this summer relieved Rone of her council seat and barred her from public office.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is scheduled to campaign for Barack Obama in Newark's North Ward on Saturday, Sept. 6th, according to Essex County insider, former State Democratic Party Chairman Ray Durkin.

Durkin is a personal friend of Richardson's and signed up as an early backer in last year's Democratic Primary.

North Ward Democratic leader Steve Adubato and his team are organizing the Richardson event, aimed at energizing Latino voters for the Democratic ticket on Nov. 4th.

NEWARK - Former Councilman Charles Bell is generating considerable support in the Central Ward as Newarkers continue to jockey for position in the event that former Councilwoman Dana Rone loses her appeals and does not return to the governing body.

"I did pick up the petitions and I had more than enough as of last night's gathering," Bell told PolitickerNJ.com. "I am running, yes, but at the same time, I'm hoping Miss. Rone is successful in her appeals. That would solve my problems, but if she is not successful I am prepared."

In the community room of the New Hope Baptist Church on Tuesday night, Bell received the blessing of Central Ward Democratic Committee Chairman Dwight Brown.

Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo: Politicker photo

NEWARK - Joseph DiVincenzo knows the joke is coming, and he fields it with a grin - the one broadcaster Steve Adubato, Jr., has delivered for years about how DiVincenzo tried out for more than a half dozen NFL teams and got cut by every one of them.

The fact that Brett Favre is now taking snaps for the Jets sets up Adubato’s new punch line.

"He’s even older than Joe D," Adubato cracks and the roomful of politicians at the Breakers laughs, and DiVincenzo a moment later stands at the microphone, giving a nod to Essex County Democratic Chairman Phil Thigpen, who’s out there in the audience somewhere.

"I’m with Phil Thigpen, not Steve Adubato," DiVincenzo says, a playful poke at his leader, the junior Adubato’s father, who tried to oust Thigpen as chairman earlier this year but ran into a public objection by DiVincenzo, who wanted Thigpen to remain as chair.

DiVincenzo prevailed.