City Council President Joyce Watterman says she will join a growing field of candidates running to replace Mayor Steven Fulop. Fulop, who is running for governor, has said this will be his last term.
Watterman made the announcement on Tuesday in an interview with the Jersey Journal, telling the paper that she is in the race because, thus far, the only candidates are two older white men. “That is why I am in the race,” she responded when asked about former governor James McGreevey and County Commissioner Bill O’Dea who both announced their candidacies for mayor this month.
Watterman was first elected to an at-large council seat in 2013 as a member of the “Team Fulop” slate and has been a close Fulop ally ever since. She became the first Black female city council president in 2020 following the departure of Rolando Lavarro, who had fallen out with the mayor.
Watterman grew up the Marion Gardens housing project on the West Side where she met her husband to whom she’s been married for forty years. A pastor at Continuous Flow Christian Center on Monticello Avenue, Watterman, 65, graduated from Somerset Christian College with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Organizational Leadership and Associate of Arts in Biblical Studies. She went on to graduate with a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership from Pillar College.
In a 2021 interview with the Jersey City Times she described her experience having the first of her three children as a teenager. “I tell young women, if you have a child out of wedlock your life still can be positive. I handled it with the help of my mother. You have to have a good support system.”
She said she was particularly proud of her work on affordable housing, parks and the development of the City Hall Annex on Martin Luther King Drive.
Watterman told the Journal that her priorities as mayor would be transparency, schools and limiting property taxes.
Watterman will have her work cut out for her. McGreevey is backed by the powerful Hudson County Democratic Organization and received an endorsement from The Laborers International Union of North America. O’Dea, while viewed as something of a renegade by the HCDO, has assembled a sizable following owing to his 38 years in government. On Wednesday he received an endorsement from Teamsters Local 560.
The field my get more crowded. Ward E Councilman James Solomon and former Board of Education Mussab Ali have both indicated an interest in running for Fulop’s job.