During its Monday caucus, the City Council mulled over construction projects that will collectively cost over $100 million.
In the smallest project, the City Council is being asked to award a $254,800 contract to Louis Gargiulo Co. Inc., of Jersey City, for exterior repairs to the Van Wagenen House (also known as The Apple Tree House) at 298 Academy St., which dates to 1740. Van Wagenen House is one of the city’s oldest buildings.
The building may have served as a meeting place for the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington in 1779, according to Wikipedia, and takes its name from a former apple orchard and cider press on the property. It’s listed on both the national and state registers of historic places.
Jersey City acquired the property, formerly occupied by the Quinn Funeral Home, in 1996 for $450,000. With some financial assistance from the New Jersey Historic Trust, the city spent more than $3 million on interior renovations of the building. That work was completed in 2014.
But at Tuesday night’s caucus, the City Council was told by Brian Weller, director of the city’s Division of Architecture, that the building needed repairs to stop deterioration of the structure’s exterior.
A memo Weller prepared for the council said the contractor would be asked to execute “removal of existing shutters and lattices for repair and/or replacement, repairing and painting of all exterior wood surfaces, landscaping maintenance of surrounding plant life, and regrading at the building foundation to improve drainage.”
When council members wondered whether any of the work would go above and beyond prior structural improvements, Weller said it would not. “It’s just ongoing maintenance,” Weller responded.
Ward C Councilman Richard Boggiano, who represents the Journal Square area containing the historic property, wondered about the quality of prior workmanship on the building. “That new roof they put on was imported from overseas, wasn’t it?” he asked.
According to city worksheets, Gargiulo’s bid was the lowest of four submitted. Other bidders were Paragon Restoration, of Kenilworth ($261,000); Mark Construction, of Wallington ($353,000); and P&K Contracting, Inc., of Jersey City ($659,450).
Although the price projected by Gargiulo was $254,800, the Division of Architecture is recommending allowing a “20 percent contingency” to be added on if deemed necessary. This which means that the total contract could go as high as $305,760 if permitted by the council.
In other business, the council discussed bonding $124,450,000 for various capital improvements including $23.75 million for the Loew’s Theater to transform it to a state-of-the-art entertainment center; $22.8 million to expand and repair the north and south police districts; $14.25 million to upgrade and relocate the 911 call center to the new Public Safety Building on Martin Luther King Drive; $14.25 million to reconstruct the municipal court on Summit Avenue; $11.4 million to renovate parks citywide; $9.5 million to resurface streets citywide; $4.75 million to help develop the new Skyway Park on the West Side; and $2.85 million to convert the City Hall plaza and rear parking lot to park space.
The City Council’s regular public meeting will take place tonight at 6 p.m. at 280 Grove Street.
Ward F Councilman Frank Gilmore and a coalition of local organizations have filed suit in the Superior Court of New Jersey to invalidate a controversial map that redrew the boundaries of Jersey City’s six wards.
The map was adopted by the Jersey City Ward Commission on January 22 despite overwhelming public opposition and claims that the Commission, headed by Mayoral Chief of Staff John Minella, had acted to disempower newly elected Ward F Councilman and mayoral critic Frank Gilmore.
In November, Gilmore defeated then Ward F Councilman Jermaine Robinson, a member of the mayor’s slate.
The new map removed a large portion of the Lafayette neighborhood, all of Liberty State Park, and several high profile developments from Ward F and placed them in Ward A, which is represented by Councilwoman Denise Ridley, also a member of Mayor Fulop’s slate.
The Lafayette neighborhood is often referred to as Bergen-Lafayette.
Said Chris Gadsden, spokesperson for Jersey City United Against the New Ward Map, and organizer of the community groups represented in the lawsuit, “Jersey City residents were appalled at the way in which our city was redistricted. We are united in our dedication to seeing this map changed to something more fair and reflective of who we are as a city.”
Jersey City Ward Map Approved on January 22, 2022
The 48-page, four-count complaint, filed on behalf of thirteen Jersey City groups and councilman Gilmore, alleges that the Commission failed to draw “compact” wards in violation of New Jersey’s law and constitution.
“Compactness of ward boundaries is essential to achieving the representational goals that justify the very need for wards in the first place, namely, to provide for greater representation of communities of interest bound together by common local interests and characteristics tied to their distinct neighborhoods,” say the attorneys.
Noting its “salamander-like” shape, the complaint alleges that Ward F “achieves an abysmal score on two of the most commonly used measures of compactness.”
“The Commission’s map,” say the attorneys, “splits apart historic neighborhoods and districts, splits buildings in half, fails to respect natural boundaries and topography, and otherwise breaks apart communities of interest in Jersey City.”
Beyond Ward F, the attorneys argue that the division of the Paulus Hook neighborhood between Wards F and E and the division of Newport between Wards E and D ignored “natural boundaries.” The map also violated “building integrity” says the complaint. “Residents who live literally in the same building as one another find themselves in different wards to be represented by different councilpersons.”
As an alternative, the attorneys created a ward map that they claim “achieves much better population deviation, is significantly more compact, splits many less neighborhoods and historic districts, does not split buildings, preserves communities of interest, respects natural boundaries and topography, relocates approximately 15,000 less residents from their prior ward boundaries, and otherwise better adheres to traditional principles of redistricting.”
The lawsuit alleges the violation of the free speech and association rights of the plaintiff-groups, who were denied their right “to elect a candidate of their choice.”
In addition, “The Commission retaliated against Plaintiff Frank E. Gilmore, as an individual and in his official capacity as Councilman of Ward F, for his advocacy and association with certain neighborhood groups in violation of his free speech and associational rights under the New Jersey Constitution.”
The Commission, says the complaint, also violated New Jersey’s Open Public Meeting Act by illegally excluding the public from attending and participating in certain meetings held by the Commission prior to its January 22, 2022 meeting.
The lawsuit asks the court to invalidate the Commission’s map and to order the drawing of a new one that complies with the Municipal Ward Law and the New Jersey Constitution.
The plaintiffs are represented by Renee Steinhagen of New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center, Brett M. Pugach and Yael Bromberg of Bromberg Law, and William Matsikoudis of Matsikoudis and Fanciullo.
It was January 2021, and Melissa Ulto was pushing Councilman Rolando Lavarro to run for mayor.
“Come on man, it’s time to move past the rhetoric and actually do something … challenge this guy,” she recalls telling him. “I’ll run your campaign digitally, I’ll do all of your marketing, your digital strategy, I’ll run your live streams, I’ll do the website … whatever you need. But we’ve got to get going.”
Ultimately, Lavarro begged off. But in May, a political newbie with minimal name recognition and even less money, named Lewis Spears, jumped into the race, taking on Mayor Steven M. Fulop, who was running for a third term.
“When I heard that Lewis was going to run, I reached out to his campaign and volunteered my services” Ulto recalls.
“Fulop running unopposed didn’t sit well with me. I never like to see an election where there’s someone unopposed because a democracy is not being utilized.”
Ulto has just released a video case study that looks back at what she believes she and the Spears campaign were able to accomplish together.
Ulto runs her own shop and describes herself as a digital content producer, digital display designer, filmmaker, photographer, and video artist. She works on everything from luxury brands like Diesel, Rag & Bone and Omega Swatch to nonprofits like Hudson Pride. “The luxury brand work helps support the nonprofit and social justice work I do.”
What did she learn from her work with Spears? “I learned that local efforts can really make an impact if you are engaging voters directly and repetitively.”
Melissa Ulto
Ulto managed Spears’ bi-weekly live streams in which he fielded questions from voters. “A lot of people tuned in … they were asking questions…they were engaged.” The streams proved so successful, they made them weekly.
But, she said, “I learned how interconnected and full of collusion the Hudson County political machine is and how dirty Jersey City politics is.”
“The fact that Fulop didn’t show up for the Ward F debate was so indicative of the entitlement and dismissiveness of a certain class of people in Hudson County politics who pay lip service to social justice but really don’t give a shit. And you can quote me directly on that. They don’t give a shit.”
Ulto teaches content production to kids in local public schools. “Last semester I was at P.S. 14. We should be ashamed as a city that a school for our children exists in that condition … there’s mold on the wall … it’s horrible. This semester I’m teaching at Hoboken Charter, and it’s a night-and-day situation. That scares me. Money is not being spent where it needs to be spent.”
“The case study is important because it shows local people engaging. If we had had a year, we would have won.”
With scarcely a peep from Jersey City’s taxpayers, a City Council majority voted last night to increase each member’s salary from $60,000 to $85,000 and the council president’s pay from $65,000 to $90,000.
In another split vote, the council also adopted amendments to the Morris Canal Redevelopment Plan that will clear the way for the city Planning Board to entertain an application by developer Louis Mont to build an apartment building up to 17 stories high at 417 Communipaw Ave. next to Berry Lane Park on Garfield Avenue.
On the pay measure, three members—Councilperson-at-large Amy DeGise, Ward E Councilman James Solomon and Ward F Councilman Frank Gilmore—dissented. Those voting for the raises reasoned that Jersey City was a “growing” city, with more residents needing more attention. They said they were putting in more time to serve those needs.
Jeanne Daly, the only public participant who spoke on the issue, said: “I’m not quite sure if [council members] should be asking for a raise right now,” given that many people have struggled under the pandemic including police officers who take on work that’s more dangerous” than council members. Daly also questioned whether council members with other full-time employment can do both jobs.
Council President Joyce Watterman asked for the pay ordinance to be amended to allow individual members to “opt out” of the raise if they so desired. In order to voluntarily refuse the raise, City Corporation Counsel Peter Baker said, a council member would provide written notice to the city human resources director and business administrator “30 days prior to the effective date of the ordinance.”
Councilwoman-at-large Amy DeGise
Watterman said she’s “always been an advocate for people to get fair wages” and “for people getting paid for what they’re worth.” She described her job as a “24-hour-day, seven-day-a-week operation … I see the work that we do, [and] I want to make residents proud of who they elect.” No matter what you do, Watterman added, “somebody will always object.”
In defending his “yes” vote, Councilman-at-large Daniel Rivera said he texts his colleagues to alert them “anytime there’s a fire or murder” in any part of the city. “This group works hard—make no mistake about it,” he added.
For many residents, a council member is “someone’s best and last hope,” said Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh, prompting the city’s elected representatives to be available at all hours of the day so that even this pay raise “can’t compensate you for putting in a seven-days-a-week job.”
But Gilmore said that in the prior years he’s worked for the city [in recreation], he’s seen hard-working employees passed over for raises they deserved in favor of others who were politically connected. Responding to colleagues’ justifying the raises on the grounds that Jersey City has attained Class 1A status by virtue of its population ascent, Gilmore said,“We were growing then, and we’re growing now.”
DeGise said that while she feels that council members “deserve to be compensated” in line with colleagues in other Class 1A cities, it wasn’t the right time for Jersey City to be awarding these pay hikes.
Ward F Councilman Frank Gilmore
After the meeting, the Jersey City Times asked the dissenters if they’d be taking the opt-out. Solomon said he would while Gilmore and DeGise said they’d be donating the pay differential to community groups; Gilmore said he’d want his contributions used for things like charities and scholarships while DeGise said she’d distribute the funds to youth groups.
In consideration of what has been a controversial land use issue, the council voted 7-2, with Gilmore and Solomon dissenting, to activate an ordinance amending the Morris Canal Redevelopment Plan from its tabled agenda and then voted 6-3, with Boggiano, Gilmore and Solomon opposed, to adopt the amendments.
Since December 2020, following litigation by community dissenters upset over the impact the proposed tower would have on the neighborhood and the questionable value of a recreational component the developer would set aside for the city’s use, a court compelled the Planning Board and the city to reexamine its prior approvals of the amendments to the redevelopment plan as to whether it clashed with the city’s master plan.
Corporation Counsel Baker told the council that part of the court mandate was to determine if the prior actions by the city and Planning Board were arbitrary and capricious. In his judgement, Baker said, they were not. Moreover, Baker said, “Defeating the ordinance could open the city to potential legal liability.”
With the developer watching from the audience, Gilmore said that for the council majority to act now, while he and community members were still in discussions with the developer on a possible compromise as to the height and configuration of the apartment building, showed “a blatant disrespect” for the neighborhood.
“This takes the negotiating power out of the community’s hands,” Gilmore said.
Ridley, who, after a re-drawing of the city ward maps, now finds herself representing that neighborhood, said: “I understand the councilman’s concerns and I’m making a commitment to continue to work with him [to negotiate with the developer].” She said she was hoping that Mont would still agree to reduce the size of the building. And remember, she added, it is the Planning Board that will have the final say about the structure’s height.
Ward E Councilman James Solomon
Solomon noted that the site targeted for redevelopment, which is informally known as “Steel Tech,” and called “Morris Canal Park Manor” by the developer was originally designed to be an extension of Berry Lane Park. “I don’t feel evidence of the community’s support for that was ever presented,” he said.
During the public comment period, neighborhood resident June Jones, who spearheaded the litigation challenging the size and scope of the project, said she was “very concerned” about the council’s action. She referenced the superior court’s having directed the city to research whether the amendments to the Morris Canal redevelopment plan square with the city’s master plan. They don’t, she said, because “the master plan does not allow [buildings of] 17 stories” for that area. “We want responsible development,” she said.
Veronica Sutton, a third-generation Jersey City resident and a local realtor, cautioned that the city, through policies that cater to high-rise developers, is creating “an environment of renters” instead of promoting “home ownership” as a way forward for impoverished families.
Last to speak was former Ward F Councilman Jermaine Robinson who said that during the past three years, he attended dozens of meetings on the Morris Canal redevelopment project to try to secure more recreational opportunities for children in Ward F.
“But I’m standing on this side of the dais now,” he said, “because I failed miserably; it wasn’t enough. We’re failing our kids. Seventeen stories? Yeah, maybe that’s too big, but we’ll finally get Jersey City’s first recreation center with classrooms, too.”
Below is a letter sent by the Journal Square Community Association to members of the Jersey City Municipal Council and the city clerk asking that they “immediately implement hybrid in-person/virtual city council meetings.” Unlike Hoboken and Newark, Council President Joyce Watterman has not committed to holding such meetings.
To:Joyce Watterman, Council President, Amy DeGise, Councilperson At Large, Daniel Rivera, Councilperson At Large, Denise Ridley, Ward A Councilperson, Mira Prinz-Arey, Ward B Councilperson, Richard Boggiano, Ward C Councilperson, Yousef J. Saleh, Ward D Councilperson, James Solomon, Ward E Councilperson, Frank E. Gilmore, Ward F Councilperson, Sean Gallagher, City Clerk
cc:Mayor Steven Fulop
March 2, 2022
Re: Call for Hybrid City Council Meetings
We, the Board of the Journal Square Community Association, are writing to urge you to immediately implement hybrid in-person/virtual city council meetings.
Over the past two years, as residents had to retreat under Covid-19 restrictions, we witnessed Jersey City residents become more engaged in their community. While the pandemic created many disruptions, it has also ushered in new approaches that have fostered greater civic engagement. Several City Council meetings have seen hundreds of speakers calling in to speak on topics as varied as housing, policing, and our city budget.
As we look to shape our new normal, all of the gains that have been made during the pandemic cannot be undone. Already we know that it is challenging for working families, especially women and women of color, to be able to make time to attend community meetings. Women have borne the disproportionate brunt of the challenges resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, an overwhelming number of women had to leave the workforce due to caregiving responsibilities. Even without a pandemic, we know that working families and women are often juggling multiple jobs and responsibilities that make it challenging to participate in civic life. We must make civic participation easier for residents, not harder. Hybrid meetings are one way to do this.
In addition, hybrid meetings would offer people with disabilities, who may not easily be able to make it to City Hall, an opportunity to remain engaged and share their voice in our community.
Finally, there are still many residents who are immunocompromised and who cannot attend meetings, either because they are unable to be vaccinated or because, even after having been vaccinated, public meetings could present a risk to their health. The city must make every effort to make this reasonable accommodation for our residents.
We are heartened to see neighboring Hoboken and Newark committing to hybrid city council meetings. It is our hope that Jersey City will follow and make the necessary investments to host hybrid meetings moving forward.
Open to all residents of Jersey City, the Journal Square Community Association represents the diverse Journal Square community and advocates for the rights and interests of residents of the Journal Square area. The Journal Square Community Association is among the largest community and neighborhood associations in Jersey City.
We look forward to hearing from you on this important matter, not just for the residents of Journal Square but for the nearly 300,000 residents of our great city.
Jovina Johnson, President
Tom Zuppa, Vice President
Bill Armbruster, Secretary
Mia Scanga, Treasurer
At-Large Trustees: Kevin Bing, Sumit Galhotra, Dario Gutierrez, Chris Lamm, Leticia Villalon-Soler
A former payroll clerk for the Jersey City Department of Recreation was sentenced to prison today in connection with a scheme to inflate payroll hours for certain former part-time and seasonal employees who were her relatives or personal associates.
According to Acting Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, Angela Rivera, 42, of Jersey City, who formerly worked as a payroll clerk and senior analyst for the Jersey City Department of Recreation, stole $80,553 between December 2016 and February 2018.
Rivera altered timekeeping spreadsheets for the employees involved, causing paychecks to be issued that reflected additional hours the employees did not actually work. A number of those paychecks were deposited into Rivera’s personal account after she forged the employees’ signatures to endorse the checks over to her. Others were deposited into accounts controlled by the employees named on the checks.
Rivera was sentenced to three years in state prison by Superior Court Judge Vincent J. Militello in Hudson County. Rivera had pleaded guilty on January 27, 2021 to a charge of second-degree theft by unlawful taking. She is required to pay full restitution to the city and is permanently barred from public employment.
Rivera had been charged in an investigation by attorneys and detectives in the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA), which began with a referral from the Jersey City Department of Recreation. When the recreation department initially learned of the alleged misconduct, they completed an internal audit and referred the matter to OPIA.
“Government officials and employees have a duty to handle public funds with honesty and integrity,” said Acting Attorney General Platkin. “If they breach that duty, we will hold them accountable.”
“The Office of Public Integrity and Accountability is working hard to deter this type of dishonest conduct and enforce a culture of integrity in government,” said OPIA Executive Director Thomas Eicher. “We urge anyone with information about official misconduct and abuse of public resources to contact us confidentially. We’ll pursue all leads to ensure that those responsible are investigated and prosecuted.”
Four relatives and associates of Rivera’s who allegedly took part in the scheme were charged by summons on January 6, 2020 with theft by unlawful taking for allegedly depositing paychecks into accounts they controlled that they knew reflected work hours that had been fraudulently inflated by Rivera. On Jan. 27, 2021, the court admitted them into the Pre-Trial Intervention program, subject to payment of full restitution. If those defendants successfully complete PTI, the charges against them will be dismissed.
OPIA has a toll-free Tipline 1-844-OPIA-TIPS for the public to report corruption. The AG’s Office has an Anti-Corruption Reward Program that offers a reward of up to $25,000 for tips leading to a conviction for a crime involving public corruption. Information is posted here.
Also Highlights Achievements and Plans in Redevelopment, Recreation, and Housing
In his seventh annual State of the City address as mayor—and with the pandemic seemingly in his rearview mirror —Mayor Steven Fulop declared investing in open space to be his “personal priority” for 2022. He also gave outsize time during Tuesday’s 32-minute speech to various achievements and plans in the areas of redevelopment, recreation, and housing.
“I think we all can agree that this pandemic has opened our eyes to the importance of open space more so than ever before,” Fulop said early on his presentation. “Parks are no longer a luxury … rather they have become a necessity….That’s why I’m pleased to announce the launch of a new year-long initiative in 2022 called ‘The Year of Open Space,’ he added before declaring investing in open space to be his “personal priority because the return on these investments is invaluable.”
While the mayor offered no specifics in terms of the budget for such an initiative or the location of the new sites or the extent to which the new lands would feature trees and plants rather than ballfields and cement malls, he did say his goal was to create “more innovative, non-traditional open spaces … such as pocket parks, pedestrian malls, plazas, and other open areas.”
Mayor Fulop went on to list a number of parks he said the city had created under his administration. “Access to open space improves residents’ mental and physical health, it improves property values, it improves environmental impacts, it increases community engagement and other intangible benefits,” he explained.
The mayor’s speech was also notable for its discussion of redevelopment—particularly in areas “away from the waterfront,” a phrase he used repeatedly. With help in narration from Jersey City Director of Housing, Economic Development, and Commerce Annisia Cialone, Fulop drew attention to two projects: Bayfront and Journal Square.
“Today, we continue to build on the promise I made to you eight years ago when I first took office … to attract interest and development away from the waterfront and help realize Jersey City’s full potential in each of our neighborhoods,” he said.
In the context of Bayfront, Cialone mentioned the city’s passage in 2021 of an inclusionary zoning ordinance requiring developers to set aside 10 to 15 percent of new units as “affordable.” Indeed, the IZO was mentioned multiple times during the mayor’s speech.
When discussing Journal Square, the mayor talked about the substance of those projects—the opening of a satellite of the Parisian museum Centre Pompidou and the renovation of the Loew’s theater—while also enthusing about what those projects would do for Jersey City’s world image.
The Centre Pompidou, he said, would consist of “highlights of Europe’s largest art collection” and put Jersey City (and New Jersey) “on the global stage.” He said the Loew’s “will compete with NYC venues attracting big talent and regional audiences while also setting the stage for aspiring local performers.”
Throughout his speech, Mayor Fulop yielded the spotlight to his department heads. Director of the Department of Recreation and Youth Development Lucinda McLaughlin ticked off a list of accomplishments including building a retractable roof above the swimming pool at Pershing Field (which had been in the works for 20 years, she said) and, in response to Covid-19, having greatly expanded the number of activities the department now runs for young people.
“We had basketball, soccer, boxing, track. You name it, we were running it, and our programs were filled with youth getting up getting moving, getting away from their screens enjoying the city,” McLaughlin said.
According to McLaughlin the city now serves 8,000 children in Jersey City either as their employer for summer jobs or as the sponsor of an athletic program or other leisure activity. Also in 2021, she said, the city increased its recreational programming for children with special needs.
The mayor together with the executive director of the Jersey City Housing Authority, Vivian Brady-Phillips, also detailed the many initiatives the Housing Authority runs. Characterizing the authority’s work as “affordable housing plus,” Brady-Phillips mentioned the many services the authority provides such as senior “congregant” meals and the numerous partnerships the authority has with organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club, Head Start, and Aerofarm—all in the name of “community services and community empowerment.” Indeed, Aerofarms, which operates indoor vertical gardening facilities, was mentioned twice and at length during the mayor’s address. The city contracted with Aerofarms for approximately $1 million in June 2020 to establish ten sites throughout the city.
Mayor Fulop also addressed taxes, governance, public safety, and infrastructure improvements (among other broad topics) during his speech. He reminded residents that they received a tax cut in 2021, describing it as “one of our greatest accomplishments” during this past year.
Early in the address he also announced a pilot budgeting program that would “directly involve residents in the city’s spending decisions,” he said.
“We want you, the residents, to tell us which community projects you want to see funded. Our team will convert the community-driven ideas into concrete proposals with defined, scope timeline, and cost. We’re committed to making the municipal budgeting process more accessible and transparent,” he added.
Mayor Fulop spent considerable time discussing public safety and heralded beefed-up police and fire departments and the appointment of the city’s first Black woman to head the police department, among other things, as major accomplishments during 2021. He did not discuss the city’s crime rate. According to FBI data, crime increased over 15 percent during Mayor Fulop’s first two terms.
Finally, Mayor Fulop presented an update on the state of Jersey City’s infrastructure mentioning throughout his address what he considered the importance of sustainability and “green” initiatives. Examples of the city’s commitment to these principles were the city’s new added bike lanes and electric vehicle charging stations, its fleet of electric garbage trucks, its “resiliency master plan,” and its new underground sewer infrastructure to prevent flooding.
Members Also Address Housing Authority Labor Complaints and Vote to Withhold Pay to Covid Test Vendor
At Thursday’s City Council meeting, council intern Aleyna Kilic testified about a recent call to the city’s 911 operators that went unacknowledged for seven minutes.
Kilic, who works for Councilman-at-Large Daniel Rivera, said she and a friend went to the Pershing Field ice rink on Sunday, Feb. 6, to skate where, she said, they and others were attacked by an intruder. “My friend got the brunt of it,” she said.
Problems with Jersey City’s 911 system have previously been reported.
As the incident unfolded, Kilic said she tried twice to reach someone at 911, to no avail. “I let it ring six seconds and I got no answer,” she recalled. “I called again, this time for seven seconds with same result.”
A co-worker at the rink also called, Kilic said, “and she let it ring … 32 seconds — twice,” but no one answered, she said. “All the while, my friend was getting attacked,” Kilic added.
Kilic said that seven minutes later she got a call from a non-emergency number asking “if she had an emergency.” By that time, she said, the incident was over, and the ambulance had taken her wounded friend to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a concussion.
“I just wanted to bring this to the council’s attention,” Kilic said. “There needs to be some accountability and I think [Public Safety] Director [James] Shea needs to speak out about it because I know this is not a single incident. This [non-response by 9-1-1] has happened to countless numbers of Jersey City residents in the past year…. Seven minutes can mean life or death for someone….”
Acting City Business Administrator John Metro said the city’s 911 call logs can be checked to see what, if any, calls came in to the system during the times specified and how they were handled. Whether or not any type of corrective action is needed would be Shea’s decision, he said.
Ward C Councilman Richard Boggiano, a retired Jersey City police officer whose ward includes Pershing Field, assured Kilic that a police report had been filed on the incident.
The council also heard complaints about strained labor-management relations involving the Jersey City Housing Authority and union employees. A delegation of the JCHA Employees Association voiced gripes about low wages, short-staffing and poor working conditions.
Union vice president Zaheer Aziz said that employees who have worked on-site all through the pandemic are being offered a 2.2% a year pay hike over three years while two high-level managers who continue to work from home are getting raises of $35,000 and $29,000, respectively.
Aziz said the JCHA is making it tough for both workers and the 7,000 on-site residents by providing minimal staffing and materials to handle repairs to apartments. “We have no electrician, no sewer cleaner and only one carpenter,” he said.
Union employee Telissa Dowling told the council the JCHA is no longer rated a “high-performing housing authority,” probably the result of what appears to be the JCHA’s policy of “forcing [employees] to take early retirement” and allowing apartments to fall into disrepair so that they can be transferred to private management ownership, thereby putting the availability of the city’s affordable housing stock “at peril.”
The union urged the council to investigate how the JCHA is using its budget. In response, Metro said the authority’s budgets “go through a rigorous federal audit,” the results of which “can impact its future funding.”
Several council members assured the union its plea wouldn’t be ignored.
As part of a continuing labor dispute between the developers of a residential tower at 70 Columbus Dr. and Service Employees International Union 32B, union porter Wilian Argueta spoke to protest the firing of a co-worker for speaking out against “bad working conditions.” Union representatives have pressed their complaints at prior council meetings.
In other business, a council majority turned aside a request by Bespoke Health LLC, of New York, for payment of an “emergency contract award” of $2.5 million “to provide Covid-19 tests to Jersey City residents as part of the city’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic” during a five-week period in January.
Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh said that, despite repeated requests by the council, “We haven’t seen an itemized list of expenditures by the company….I’m going to draw a red line here….I want to see how many tests have been given to account for [the money sought].”
Agreed, said Ward E Councilman James Solomon, adding, “We’ve asked for a breakdown of costs for months and haven’t seen anything.”
But the council, by majority vote, did approve a payment of $77,000 to McKesson Medical Surgical, of Fairfield, for the purchase and delivery of Covid test kits for the Department of Public Safety. The tests were purchased due to the rise of Covid cases and were for a combination Covid and the flu. A resolution backup sheet said: “Because of the emergency, time did not permit obtaining of formal quotes and [the city] OEM (Office of Emergency Management) secured [a] vendor that could ship Covid tests immediately.”
The council also approved the 2022 Jackson Hill Main Street Special Improvement District assessment roll and budget and adopted a resolution paying tribute to the memory of Ioanis Ioakimidis, a Greek immigrant who, with his spouse Stella Stefanidou, owned and operated Stella’s Pizzeria on Grove Street for more than 45 years. The couple had also been active members of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church.
At Tuesday’s Jersey City Municipal Council caucus meeting, council members vented frustration about public parking in the Heights, poor service offered by the Via transit shuttle, and incorrect billings of residents by the Municipal Utilities Authority.
But they were silent on what, if anything, they’d do about a proposed pay raise for themselves or whether they’d ratify changes to a contentious redevelopment plan to convert an industrial site to luxury apartments next to Berry Lane Park. Both items are listed for consideration at the Feb. 24 council meeting.
At the caucus, Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh griped that many of his constituents have continued to struggle finding overnight parking along the Central Avenue corridor ever since the city Parking Authority, an arm of the city Public Safety Department, converted a public metered lot to reserved parking for Authority employees and police vehicles.
Saleh said the Authority closed off the lot to the public and removed meters from 26 public parking spaces. “It boggles my mind how [the Parking Authority] could willy-nilly change the lot without getting our approval,” he said.
Meanwhile, he added, the lot has become a safety hazard for area residents, with homeless individuals setting up “camps” there. A fight between two homeless men ended with a killing on the Cambridge Avenue side of the lot in July 2021.
He said residents also have to compete with seven to 10 U.S. postal trucks taking up curbside spots around the perimeter area of the Parking Authority on Central Avenue. At one time, he said, the trucks parked in an adjacent lot of a fast-food eatery; now they are back on the street.
John Metro, acting city business administrator, said he’d research the matter.
On another transit-related front, several members of the governing body questioned the quality of service being delivered by Via Jersey City, the on-demand intra-city shuttle van that has been offered to local residents, workers and visitors in partnership with the city since late September 2019.
Ward F Councilman Frank Gilmore said he’s gotten reports of extended wait times for pickups and of Via vans sitting idle while parked in lots in the city’s isolated Caven Point section—presumably as a staging area.
Ward A Councilwoman Denise Ridley said Greenville residents have complained to her that pickups they thought had been arranged had been erroneously canceled by the company, causing confusion and requiring them to wait even longer to receive service.
Barkha Patel, the city’s senior transportation planner, responded that the average wait time “has been hovering at around 20 minutes” rather than the 15 minutes Via had projected when it designed the program for Jersey City.
She said the company had lost drivers due to the pandemic but that it intends to hire more to make up the deficit, particularly since rider demand has escalated.
“We’re seeing 12,000 to 13,000 riders per week” on average, Patel said. She also noted, “There shouldn’t be more than a few vans” parked in Caven Point during peak hours.
Council members peppered John Folk, fiscal officer for the city’s Municipal Utilities Authority, with questions about whether homeowners could expect refunds for added sewerage service fees on their water bills.
Folk said that, as of 2021, property owners have been billed for this service on the basis of a rate formula keyed to household water usage. Problems developed, he said, because the MUA didn’t have a breakdown of the city’s housing stock in terms of number of residential units per household, which, he said contributed to faulty billings.
A single-family homeowner can expect to pay an annual fee of $150—or $12.50 per month—for solid waste service, and with each additional household unit, the fee is adjusted upward, Folk said. He indicated homeowners can expect the agency to adjust their bills going forward according to whether they had overpaid or underpaid.
Ward B Councilwoman Mira Prinz-Arey recommended that the MUA post on its website a detailed explanation of the billing issue and/or include that explanation with the next batch of water bills it mails to property owners.
The city’s handling of Covid-19 testing drew criticism from Ward E Councilman James Solomon, who questioned a $2 million bill submitted by Bespoke Health LLC, the New York-based firm hired to help direct the city’s response to the pandemic.
The council is being asked to authorize an “emergency contract award” to Bespoke for rapid Covid-19 testing of residents during a 13-week period. A city Health and Human Services Department representative explained that “massive delays in testing and long lines [at local testing sites]” had prompted the city to seek to hire Bespoke for this “emergency response.”
Solomon said that, despite numerous requests, the council has yet to receive a breakdown of costs for all of Bespoke’s billings.
“What is going on? Why don’t we put this [service] out to bid?” he asked.
Solomon was referring also to a $15 million contract the city awarded Bespoke last month to administer Covid-19 vaccinations.
Metro told the council his office has received more detailed billing information from Bespoke but that it’s close to 100 pages. “We’re just going through it for possible redactions” before sharing the contents with the council, Metro said.
In other matters, the council heard Public Safety Director James Shea give a ringing endorsement of two security-related expenditures, one for $185,000 for a 5-day tactical, incident-response exercise and de-escalation program run by Tomahawk Defense LLC, of Nashville, Tenn.; and another for $31,212 to Zistos Corp., of Holbrook, N.Y., for cameras equipped with telescoping rods that can view under doors or around corners.
Shea said the Tomahawk training program, which the city has used for the past eight years, has proved its worth many times over as evidenced, for example, last weekend when police and emergency personnel “handled by textbook” an emotionally disturbed person who tried to harm himself and also burn down a building.
“We’re very happy with the [training] results and how it’s improved our officers’ performance,” he said.
According to Shea, the specialized cameras also helped officers respond well to a situation six months ago in which a man had barricaded himself in a building trying to harm others.
Republicans and Democrats adopted new legislative district boundaries Friday, their bipartisan vote an unprecedented compromise for a commission that has historically relied on a court-appointed tiebreaker to end partisan gridlock.
The adopted map is likely to favor Republicans by making some competitive districts friendlier to the minority party and pitting four Democratic senators against each other in two districts. It will remain in place for about a decade and start after the November 2023 election, when all 120 legislative seats are up for grabs.
“We all said we were looking to end in a day where everyone would be proud and we would do something potentially historic and give the residents of the state a map they could all be proud of,” said Al Barlas, who chaired the panel’s Republican delegation. “And I think we did that today.”
The New Jersey Apportionment Commission approved the compromise map in a 9-2 vote. Former state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., a Republican, and Democratic West New York Commissioner Cosmo Cirillo each voted no, saying the commission should have taken more time to negotiate the final boundaries.
The map includes one majority-Black district and two majority-Hispanic districts, as well as one Black influence district and three Hispanic influence districts. Influence districts are ones where a specific voting bloc, often based on race, is large enough to meaningfully affect the outcome of a district election.
People of color account for a majority of the population in 10 other districts, Barlas said.
That falls short of the number sought by advocates.
“We wanted 20 majority people of color districts because we have a state that is half people of color. We didn’t get there. We got to 17,” said Matt Duffey, special counsel for redistricting at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. “It does look like have a number, maybe two or three other districts, that are really close, which would be great.”
Incumbent shuffle may boost Legislature’s diversity
The new district map may force a faceoff between Hudson County Democratic Sens. Nicholas Sacco and Brian Stack by putting North Bergen, where Sacco is mayor, and Union City, where Stack is mayor, into one legislative district, the 33rd.
LeRoy Jones, who chairs the commission’s Democratic delegation and the statewide party, defended the move by saying “consensus cannot be achieved without compromise from all parties.”
“Many of our commissioners and party leaders were left with very difficult choices, which includes some very longtime and very well-respected Democratic state senators who now find themselves in the same district,” Jones said.
Moving Stack’s home to a new district will leave a vacant Senate seat in a district made up of Hoboken and parts of Jersey City that could boost diversity in the Legislature’s upper chamber. The redrawn district is represented in the Assembly by Assemblyman Raj Mukherji, who is one of just six Asian legislators in the state, and Assemblywoman Annette Chaparro.
A proposal by the commission’s Democratic delegation to split Jersey City across three legislative districts did not make it into the final map.
Sens. Nia Gill and Richard Codey, both Essex County Democrats, will find themselves competing for a single Senate seat in the 27th district, which now includes suburban Essex County towns and the city of Clifton.
Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex) will remain in the 27th after lines are redrawn, though that district will now include Montclair — where Assemblyman Tom Giblin lives — and no longer include South Orange, home of Assemblywoman Mila Jasey. Jasey’s town was moved to the 28th District, one of two Newark-based legislative districts.
The commission’s intent to adopt a compromise map and the details of that plan were first reported by the New Jersey Globe.
Most other districts saw less drastic changes than those proposed in a Republican map released for public comment earlier this month.
The 11th District — the only district in the state where one party holds the Senate and another holds Assembly seats — will grow slightly more Democratic. The commission did not put Neptune City and Neptune Township into separate districts, as had been proposed.
The 16th District, where Democrats now hold all three seats after Sen. Andrew Zwicker flipped the Senate seat for the party in November, is set to grow slightly more Republican.
The new map will move Assemblyman Brian Bergen into the 26th District with Sen. Joe Pennacchio and Assemblyman Jay Webber, grouping some of the state’s most conservative Republicans in a single district.
