Revised 6/17/2001
YEAH! YEAH! DEGISE IS GONE!
As it turned out, only 38,762 of the registered 105,393 JC voters, voted on May 8th.... That's 37%, an all time low... Sad but true... The candidates included Glenn Cunningham, Tom DeGise, Louis Manzo, Robert Cavanaugh, and Kevin Sluka. Since no one got 50% + 1 vote, there was a run-off on June 5th between former US Marshall Glenn Cunningham & City Council President Tom DeGise... both poor choices... the lesser of the evils... Glenn Cunningham...
Glenn Cunningham won by 2,651 votes. Funny but many feel that the ubiquitous "potholes" and the Tax Abatements issues did DeGise in... I agree plus all the neighborhood groups who fought the Schundler administration and knew that if DeGise got in it would be more of the same. Whatever it took to get DeGise out!!!!! The end of the Schundler regime'!!! DeGise's rhetoric, the Schundler brain washing of his "Slice of Heaven", all hollow.... Personally speaking I thought all the candidates did a poor job in educating the public on tax abatements. Even with this web site which illustrates the 20 year Sugar House tax abatement compared to new housing in the Heights & Greenville, they didn't pick up on it.... Examples make an issue real.... Who knows but if Lou Manzo had done a commercial on it, that may have propelled him into 2nd place and into the run-off. He trailed DeGise by less than 5% of the votes, 2000 votes. You can take a horse to water but..... It was very frustrating and indicative of the candidates lack of understanding of the issues.
Both finalists spent in excess of $1 Million each... Cunningham won with 22,232 votes, 53.17% of the 41,813 who voted... DeGise got 19,581 votes (46.83%).
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The Green Party of Hudson County mailed and faxed a questionnaire to all the candidates for Mayor and City Council. See their web site, www.hudsongreens.org/elections.htm for the individual responses... Sadly many opted not to respond but is that surprising? No responses came from the DeGise or Cunningham camps. Guess it took to much thought or maybe they didn't care...?
The Green Party of Hudson County, in an effort to better educate voters, has issued a list of Jersey City candidates that most closely reflects our values and vision for the betterment of our community. These suggestions are based on a number of factors including prior experiences with candidates, responses at public forums and campaign conduct, past performance in elected office and response to a questionnaire that the Green Party sponsored, see below. Please feel free to read all questionnaire responses in full at www.hudsongreens.org. If no candidate in a given position was worthy of suggestion, or if more than one candidate is deserving of mention, then they are designated as such.
A copy of the questionnaire that was sent to all candidates for Mayor and City Council AND the complete answers from all who responded in on the www.hudsongreens.org website.a Farewell Letter to Bret!
The deadline for mayoral petitions is past. Now there is no way for Mayor Schundler to run for re-election. The rumors of him dropping out of the governor’s race are wrong. I am so relieved! Ever since he became mayor, Jersey City and the people who live here have made tremendous sacrifices just so that Bret Schundler could become governor.
We’ve bonded beyond our means. We’ve abated our waterfront development until we can’t see straight. We’ve sold our water department to France and leased out our library system to Maryland. We’ve tossed our religious symbols into the political arena like so many hats. We’ve torn up streets, given up taxi stands and moved statues so that Journal Square would look good in commercials and brochures.
We’ve been bled dry by NID enforcers and parking authorities to make up for financial shenanigans. We’ve put up with the humiliation of festivals and parades and "slice of heaven" jokes and ethnic deputy mayors as if Jersey City were some gigantic pre-school that needed clowns and dancing dinosaurs to get along. We’ve let our beloved and respected police and fire departments be used as political piņatas. We’ve stood by patiently as our wonderful public schools and their teachers were dishonored and demeaned to placate the right-wing union bashers.
We’ve watched as our local cable programming was replaced by Schundler TV. And we remained silent as the mayor twisted and manipulated the state’s charter school laws to establish his own trophy school. We’ve averted our eyes as Mayor Schundler bragged about lowering our soaring property taxes and held our tongue as he blamed the state because his assertions didn’t match the truth.
We’re not complaining. We made these sacrifices gladly. But only gladly because it meant that one day Bret Schundler would be governor. Please, Mayor, don’t give up. Don’t look back. If you don’t win this year, you can run again in four years. Or what about the other forty-nine states? Maybe one of them would elect you governor. I mean, the further away you go, the fewer voters there will be who know you. That would really improve your chances. And we’ll all help. Sign me up for packing duty. I’ll work my fingers to the bone to load you and yours into the moving van of your choice. Give me a call.
Rosemarie Fagan
Jersey City
Published in the Editorial Section/ Letters, Jersey Journal 3/29/01
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