Jerramiah Healy

Daniel Levin, founder and past president of Civic JC, a citywide good government organization, announced today that he is a candidate for Jersey City mayor.

"I am running for mayor of Jersey City as a clear and distinct alternative to both the past administration and current candidates," said Levin, who is challenging Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy.

"I will bring the public back into the decision-making processes of Jersey City government, lead a more open, transparent, responsible government accountable to constituents, reduce conflicts of interest through campaign finance and ethical code reforms, advance an alternative economic vision for the city that will provide needed jobs for our inner-city residents, and make Jersey City a better employer through sound management practices," Levin added.

He said in the coming months, he intends to build a coalition of reform-minded council candidates and run with a full council slate.

Former Assemblyman and potential Jersey City mayoral candidate Lou Manzo plans to air three commercials for his public advocacy office this month.

Two of the commercials explain the role and accomplishments of the office he set up last year, which occupies his old legislative office space. The other ad will take a critical look at Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy.

“I don’t know that it’s negative on Healy. It’s just pointing out that he’s not attentive to conducting business as a mayor and if you have a problem you can always get us.”

Ostensibly, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy and Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop are engaged in a polite exchange of ideas. In reality, the two are enmeshed an early battle for political positioning before next year’s mayoral race, with mutual contempt lurking barely beneath the surface.

Healy yesterday proposed an amendment to Fulop’s anti-pay-to-play ballot initiative that would, in effect, take it off the ballot in November if passed. Healy wants candidates to file financial disclosures. If they have a net worth of $2 million or make over $500,000 a year, he thinks they should be exempt from a ban on taking contributions from vendors that do business with the city.

Although Jersey City Municipal Clerk Robert Byrne has sided with the city against one of Councilman Steve Fulop’s ballot initiatives, the signatures for his anti-pay-to-play intiative were certified today.

But that initiative might not make it on the ballot after all if Mayor Jerramiah Healy has his way, depriving Fulop of a chance to make his case directly to the voters of Jersey City.

Healy wrote a letter today to Byrne, members of the city council and Fulop’s legal team proposing an amendment to Fulop’s pay-to-play initiative.

In the battle of the ballot initiatives, Jersey City Municipal Clerk Robert Byrne ruled against Councilman Steve Fulop today, deciding that a petition for an ordinance he wanted to put before voters in November that would bar council members from accepting more than one public salary did not have enough signatures to get on the ballot.

Fulop said today that he intends to challenge the decision in front of a judge.

“We’re going to fight. We think we have a strong standing on this, and we’re going to go to court,” he said.

Last week, Jersey City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis filed an 11th hour challenge to Councilman Steve Fulop’s signatures to put one of his two reform initiatives on the ballot.

Today, Fulop shot back with by presenting his side of the legal argument to Municipal Clerk Robert Byrne, written by attorney and Brian M. Nelson.  He also submitted an extra 600 signatures. 

Fulop, who’s considering a mayoral bid next May, has spent the greater part of the last year collecting signatures for two initiatives for November’s general election: one bars contractors that do business with the city from donating to public officials.  The other, which was challenged by Matsikoudis, would bar city council members from accepting more than one taxpayer-funded salary (Six of the nine council members hold more than one public job, while Councilman Steve Lipski runs a charter school). 

The big race to watch in Jersey City next year is for mayor, but the politics of that contest are already spilling out into the legislature.

The recent buzz is that Jersey City Incinerator Authority CEO Oren Dabney is being positioned for an Assembly run in District 31 by State Sen. Sandra Cunningham, who herself is said to be considering a mayoral bid next year.

Reached for comment yesterday, Dabney wouldn’t commit one way or the other, but admitted that he’s mulling the possibility.

“I’ll do anything possible that’s going to benefit the city of Jersey City, period,” he said. “I haven’t made any decisions on anything at this point. So if anyone is giving information such as that I must be well-liked.”

Former Assemblyman Lou Manzo, a potential Jersey City mayoral hopeful for next year, thinks he might have a short cut to kicking Mayor Jerramiah Healy out of office.

Manzo plans to hire an attorney through his public advocacy office to review whether a judge’s decision that Newark Councilwoman Dana Rone should forfeit her office after her obsruction of justice conviction parallels that of Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who was convicted of disorderly conduct over a 2006 incident in Bradley Beach.

“My advocacy office is actually going to review it and see if it does apply. And if it does, we’re going to take a civil action on it,” said Manzo.

At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano: Politicker photo 

HOBOKEN - Even members of his inner circle swear that they don’t yet know whether Mayor Dave Roberts plans to run for a third term in 2009.

Whatever his intentions, other Hoboken diehards are surfacing. No one’s announced yet, but fierce political battles now will undoubtedly have political consequences next year in this city stung by the embarrassment of a state takeover of its finances.

There are all of the usual speculations surrounding possible candidates. A sighting of former Councilwoman Carol Marsh at a municipal meeting provokes the conclusion in come corners that she’s definitely running. A recent inundation of photos of Mayor Roberts on the Hoboken website prompts someone else to opine that Roberts is running - bet on it.

Businessman and neighborhood kid made good Frank "Pupie" Raia?

Of course, he’s running, say Hoboken insiders. He always runs, and no doubt he will perpetuate his longstanding animus this year with Councilman Michael Russo, who clubbed him last year in their 3rd ward showdown.

Two nights and two incidents, both ultimately leading to convictions of two elected Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy: Politicker photoofficials from New Jersey’s two biggest towns.

But while Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy today wished Newark Councilwoman Dana Rone the best, and said he hopes she is successful in her effort to remain on the City Council when she faces a Superior Court Judge Aug. 5, his office specified that his conviction and Rone’s are different.

In fact, in the words of Healy press secretary Jennifer Morrill, the cases are polar opposite.

While the court found Rone guilty of disorderly conduct after it determined that she intimidated a police officer and attempted to use her Central Ward Councilwoman status to circumvent the law on Dec. 20, 2006, Healy in his Bradley Beach dust-up with cops in June of 2007 did not attempt to exert the influence of his office on the situation, Morrill said.