Wilda Diaz

Four candidates have emerged as likely contenders for an empty seat in the 19th Legislative District a week in front of a special Democratic Party convention to choose a successor to South Amboy Mayor Jack O'Leary.

O'Leary aborted his candidacy a week ago after failing to get in front of rolling headlines about his insurance business. He was the second candidate fielded by the Democrats this year, coming on the heels of Assemblyman Joe Vas (D-Perth Amboy), who nixed his reelection bid to focus on a slew of federal and state corruption charges leveled against him.

Now, seven days before the special convention on Sept. 2nd, it's a contest among former Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez, Vas partisan Arlene Acosta of Perth Amboy, healthcare advocate Jean Pierce of Woodbridge, and Woodbridge Councilman Charles Kenny.

Read More >

CARTERET - The barges and freighters come through here on their way to Raritan Bay and passing on the Friday before the Fourth of July, some of them give a blast to the crowd gathered at the Carteret Municipal Marina where Staten Island almost seems a strong sidearm throw away but where the band plays the obligatory Springsteen cover - lest anyone doubt this is the Jersey side of the river.

In this case it's "Pink Cadillac" as Gov. Jon Corzine heads through the corridor of tents mobbed with revelers eager for nighttime.

An old factory town literally split in half by the Turnpike, Carteret occupies a point on the Arthur Kill that looks like it could crack off with the weight of reinforced concrete and rustbelt reject silos, warehouses stacked almost to the water's edge and now clusters of condos. The feeling in the working class crowd Friday is more than upbeat on the eve of Independence Day, with plates of ethnic food reflective of more mixed culture than any one definable or dominant strain.

Politically it's not as commingled. 

While 12 of Middlesex County's 25 towns have more registered voters than Carteret, the 10,797 registereds here are 4-1 Democrat over Republican with half unaffiliated. 

Read More >

While South Amboy Mayor John O'Leary battles to prove he's done nothing wrong, the Middlesex County Democratic Party has made moves to replace him as a 19th Legislative District Assembly candidate --  just in case his efforts prove futile.
 
The state Attorney General's Office is reportedly investigating work with area towns by O'Leary's insurance brokerage firm, and work allegedly performed in South Amboy by the Baltimore-based insurance company Federal Hill Risk Management.  O'Leary has denied that the firm has any affiliation with the one he operates with his brother.

A replacement candidate for three term incumbent Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), who backed out of running for re-election amid federal and state corruption indictments, O'Leary received a subpoena last week - the result of an anonymous letter circulating in the district, which charges the 23-year mayor with abusing his office.

Insisting he's innocent, O'Leary has vowed to weather the bad news cycle and to clear his name. But sources close to party leaders say the Democrats don't want a firestorm in a safe Democratic district. Some Democrats want O'Leary to withdraw, an outcome that to some could prove fortuitous, given the early demands and subsequent frustration of the powerful Latino Leadership Alliance (LLA).

"I don't know the particulars about the O'Leary situation, but I have spoken in the past with (Middlesex County) Democratic Party Chairman Joe Spicuzzo indicating to him the importance of replacing Joe Vas with another Latino," said Martin Perez, the alliance's founder and executive director.

That didn't happen when the party nominated O'Leary without a challenge.
 
For the moment, "Mayor O'Leary maintains he hasn't done anything wrong, and right now there is no reason to believe he's going to get out of the race," said Spicuzzo. "He's talking it over with family and friends, but he maintains that he is in the race."

When Vas's re-election candidacy went belly up with the impact of corruption charges earlier this year, his conqueror in last year's mayoral race, Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz, faced the prospect of working with party leaders to select a successor to Vas from the district's second most populous town.

Insiders, including members of the LLA, told Diaz to field a Latino candidate from Perth Amboy, but the new mayor instead backed cross-the-river veteran O'Leary.

Now sources say Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Mathias Rodriguez is interested in running - in the event that O'Leary abandons his candidacy, and party leaders like him. Read More >

PERTH AMBOY - There were days over the course of her first year in office in which Mayor Wilda Diaz wondered whether she could run Perth Amboy for a full four years.

She began to get a deepening sense that the problems were too entrenched, the solutions too troublesome and, in some cases, too hurtful to the people.  

Her 2008 grassroots take-down of City Hall fixture Mayor/Assemblyman Joe Vas proved to be but the beginning of an ongoing and intensifying drama in which Diaz and her administration uncovered an inherited $10.6 million budget shortfall and helped state and federal authorities pull together a corruption case against Vas.

"On this stage last July I could never have envisioned that we would discover a financial crisis so deep, or a web of tangled deals so wide," Diaz said tonight in her first state of the city address at Perth Amboy High School, where she attended school and graduated.

Once running and now continuing to insist on honest and open government, the new mayor in this first year enacted unpoplar measures to reverse course on a local miasma made doubly injurious on residents here by a national recession. Her policies have included a 26% tax increase, water rate increases, wage freezes and layoffs of municipal employees.

Read More >

NEW BRUNSWICK – Midway into Gov. Jon Corzine’s speech to the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey (LLANJ), a powerful and expanding grassroots organization celebrating its tenth anniversary, the door flung open and former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie strode into the room. 

He took a seat.

Murmurs ensued. 

The two men had shared a stage at Newark’s North Ward Center, and now they were once again in close proximity with the potential for their general election showdown building as Corzine rattled off what he argued were his achievements of particular interest to the Latino community before a receptive crowd of LLANJ members.

Moments later, Christie would seemingly bash Corzine in his absence and make his own case for why Latinos should consider his candidacy, basing his argument in part on his record of choosing minorities for jobs at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and on his commitment to dramatic public education reform. 

Read More >

Congratulations to Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy), who becomes the first sitting legislator to be indicted by both federal and state grand juries under the current State Constitution.  The state indictment of Mims Hackett (D-Orange) came after his arrest on federal corruption charges and after his resignation from the State Assembly.

Read More >

HOBOKEN - Not many elected officials have announced their support for a given mayoral candidate in this intensified contest with no obvious favorite, but this week Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz threw her name behind 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason.

Energized by the prospect of a woman in office in the square mile city, while also recognizing Raul Morales, one of Mason’s three running mates, the Middlesex mayor wrote a letter to voters on Mason’s behalf.

Diaz last year shocked the New Jersey political establishment when she upended longtime Mayor Joe Vas, who was indicted earlier this year by the state Attorney General’s Office on theft and bid-rigging charges.

Read More >

PERTH AMBOY – Although his blue collar campaign for governor never materialized this year, Councilman Ken Balut still nurses irritation over his city’s longstanding tendency to get gypped on state and federal aid and generally outmuscled by urban behemoths like Newark and Paterson. 

Balut’s through with Democrats who associated with former Perth Amboy Mayor Joe Vas, and that includes incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine and former Gov. James McGreevey, whom he lumps in the same failed era with Vas, indicted last month on state corruption charges amid rumors of forthcoming indictments connected to the old regime. 

It was Corzine’s state Attorney General Anne Milgram who goes into the books as the one who indicted Vas on theft and bid-rigging charges but, “I’m voting for (former U.S. Attorney) Chris Christie,” the disillusioned Balut told PolitickerNJ.com. “We need somebody in the governor’s office who’s going to go after corruption.” 

Mayor Wilda Diaz, who ran on a ticket with Balut, backs Corzine. 

Read More >

Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz reacted to the news today that Jeffrey D. Gumbs, former director of human services and recreation super under former Mayor Joseph Vas, admitted submitting fraudulent invoices to the city to pay for personal expenses for both himself and Vas.

“My administration has zero tolerance for anyone in city government who violates the trust and confidence of the people that we are here to serve,” Diaz said in a statement. As we have stated previously, we have been cooperating fully with law enforcement authorities throughout their investigations and will continue to do so."

Read More >

Another name for the list of potential Democratic candidates for Lt. Governor, according to one party leader, is former state Commerce Secretary Virginia Bauer. She first appeared in the public eye as an advocate for 9/11 families after her husband was among the casualties of the attack on the World Trade Center.  She later became state Lottery Director and now serves as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.  Bauer is a senior vice president at Covenant House, and in 2007 married Donald Steckroth, a federal bankruptcy judge.

There are some leaders among the Democratic base who are strongly pushing Gov. Jon Corzine to consider a woman as his running mate.  Other possible candidates often mentioned by Democratic insiders include Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen), Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), Assemblywoman Pamela Rosen Lampitt (D-Cherry Hill), Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells, and Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz.

Read More >