Vincent Capuana

Schaer campaigns for Blanco on Election Day

PASSAIC – Yesterday’s mayoral victory by physician Alex Blanco in a 62 percent turnout election depended heavily on the endorsement of Acting Mayor/Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic).

The city is split in half, with the 3rd and 2nd wards on the south side of town and 4th and 1st wards to the north.

In the heart of Schaer’s Orthodox Jewish community, Ward 3 totals show that Blanco earned 1,965 of his 3,859 total votes, according to the Passaic City Clerk’s Office.

That’s where nearly a third of the city’s total 25,543 registered voters are concentrated.

PASSAIC - Physician Alex Blanco won the mayor's contest here tonight, defeating runner-up Vincent Capuana by 400 votes.

Blanco won with 3,872 or 28.01 percent of the vote.

Capuana received 3,465 votes, Jose Sandoval received 2,741 votes, Jose Garcia received 2,626 and Carl Ellen received 1,052 votes.

PASSAIC - Physician Alex Blanco leads the pack here in the mayors' race with five districts left to be counted.

In a five-man race, School Board President Vincent Capuana is currently in second place, trailing Blanco by 300 votes.

Rivals: School Board President Vincent Capuana, left, and Acting Mayor/Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic)

PASSAIC – Opposing forces converge on School No. 3 in the Third Ward, the local political base of Acting Mayor/Assemblyman Gary Schaer.

Schaer and his ally, mayoral candidate Dr. Alex Blanco, greet people in front of the school as they head in to vote.

A car door slams and a slender man jumps the curb.

It’s School Board President Vincent Capuana, one of Blanco’s rivals in the mayors’ contest.

“We’ve been here in Gary’s base since this morning,” confides one of Capuana’s backers. “He moves, we move.”

In at least two special elections for mayor on Nov. 4th – in Passaic and Bayonne - attroney and big money Democratic Party donor Donald Scarinci stands to lose money if the other side wins.

In Passaic, Scarinci’s powerful firm, Scarinci and Hollenbeck, has the lucrative city attorney contract, with a base salary as high as $600,000 annually, not including add-ons.

City supervisor Vincent Capuana says if elected mayor he would look at trimming the firm from the payroll.

Countering that claim on the day he endorsed former School Board President Alex Blanco, Acting Mayor Gary Schaer said Capuana’s designs on in-house legal work likely wouldn’t save the city money.

In Bayonne, Scarinci represents Fidelco-Roseland Property, a residential developer of the Bayonne peninsula, site of the former Military Ocean Terminal.

Acting Mayor Gary Schaer: Politicker file photo

PASSAIC - With his career at the state level apparently in ascendency, a handful of Trenton allies didn’t think Assemblyman Gary Schaer(D-Passaic), the new chairman of the Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee, should get in the middle of this ground-level, five-man mayor’s contest.

Other factors are already at work, none of them good, including a jailed former mayor, two busted former councilmen who are still visible in city politics, a third councilman defiantly digging in on the governing body against federal corruption charges, and an impaneled grand jury, which each day threatens to intrude on the campaign process by toppling yet another public official.

Moreover, some of the candidates competing - seemingly nice guys - in any event seemed too close to the man everyone still refers to around here as "Sammy," as in Sammy Rivera, the former mayor who had a good run for about five years before corruption caught up with him in his second term and the feds bagged him on bribery charges.

Former School Board President Alex Blanco: Politicker photo

Passaic mayoral candidate Alex Blanco says he is not the high-ranking public official implicated in a new indictment of former Councilman Jonathan Soto.  

Federal prosecutors added to Soto’s indictment yesterday, alleging the former councilman received cash payments from undercover agents posing as health insurance contractors. The government says Soto received money in exchange for exercising his official authority to secure business with the City of Passaic, including the Board of Education.

Blanco, who served as school board president during the time, insisted he never played any role in the case.

"I absolutely deny any involvement in that, and I unequivocally deny that Mr. Soto solicited any payments on my behalf," said Blanco, who called Wednesday’s news regarding Soto "shocking."

Jose Sandoval is self funding his bid for Mayor of Passaic
In his filing this week with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), Passaic real estate developer Jose Sandoval showed the richest mayoral campaign, although he slightly trails city supervisor/School Board President Vincent Capuana in cash on-hand. Sandoval lent his campaign $47,830, which is entirely how he’s funded his run. He reported a closing balance of $1,007.85.

Capuana has raised $10,633, and reported a closing balance of $2,116.58. City Councilman/landlord Joe Garcia reported $18,800 raised, which includes a self-loan to his campaign in the amount of $7,500. He closed this period with $539.45 in the bank.

Marcellus Jackson, who resigned his seat as a Passaic City Councilman after admitting that he took $26,000 in bribes from an undercover FBI agent, remains involved in politics as a he awaits sentencing.  According to a report by PolitickerNJ.com's Max Pizarro, Passaic mayoral candidate Vincent Capuana has ackowledged that Jackson has been volunteering on his campaign.  Last night, he worked the door at a Capuana fundraiser collecting money from donors. “Twenty years of friendship are 20 years of friendship,” said Capuana campaign manager Jose Alex Ybarra told Pizarro.   “Loyalty is very big with many of us.” 

Mayoral candidate Carl Ellen: Politicker photoPASSAIC - One candidate’s revelation that someone offered him a bribe to get out of the mayor’s race has touched off a battle of words between the campaigns of two old friends, who grew up in the same neighborhood here.

Carl Ellen, a candidate for mayor in the City of Passaic, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office today postponed until next Thursday what Ellen described as his scheduled Grand Jury appearance.

"I was told to appear at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Trenton at 10 a.m.," said the candidate.

Ellen yesterday said he received a subpoena from U.S. Attorney Chris Christie’s office to answer questions about a $25,000 bribe the local businessman said someone offered him as a reward for getting out of the mayor’s race.