With the mayoral elections still nine months away, two potential candidates have emerged as likely challengers to Mayor Anthony Russo’s bid for a third term in office. They are City Councilman Dave Roberts, a local restaurant owner who has been a forceful anti-Russo critic on the council in recent years, and Michael Lenz, a CPA, real estate consultant and former school board president.
The mayor and three council-at-large candidates are up for election May 8.
Russo, who was first elected mayor in 1993, announced his intention last spring to seek a third term in office. While neither Roberts nor Lenz has announced a candidacy officially, both men have begun to line up supporters and both say that they will soon begin to raise the funds necessary to try and take City Hall.
Roberts’ campaign opened up a headquarters at 511 Willow Ave. last week. “At this point there are very few reasons that I would turn around,” Roberts said Tuesday. “But there are still some conversations that I am having and I don’t want to say anything officially at this point.”
Although Lenz was serious enough about a potential bid to spend three hours discussing the possibility Monday, he said that he may wait up until the March 15 filing deadline to make a final decision.
“If I saw another candidate who was willing to listen to everybody in the city, I would probably support that person,” Lenz said. “But so far that person has not appeared, so I am keeping my options open.”
Russo said last week that he will run “strongly on my record, which I believe stands up to the record of any other mayor in the country.” He pointed to lower taxes, more parks and stronger schools as a part of his record of achievement while in office.
Different ideas
Russo’s opponents say that there are lingering problems that need to be addressed.
Roberts promised that his candidacy will not be timid in pointing them out. “Some of my supporters say ‘Dave, don’t rock the boat!'” he said while drinking an orange juice at East L.A., the Washington Street restaurant he owns. “But at this point in my career, I am not going to keep my mouth shut.”
Roberts has been discussing a potential bid for mayor for more than a year, and the potential addition of Lenz complicates the political landscape.
Roberts and Lenz frequently have found themselves on the same side of issues over the last few years, pitted against the mayor and his allies on the council. Both tend to sprinkle their political patter with references to the city’s “over-development,” the need for “perimeter parking structures” and the importance of cutting “political favors” out of the process of governing the city.
Although they rarely mention Russo by name, this sort of talk is considered pointed criticism of the Russo administration.
The mayor dismissed the criticism last week by saying that “these people just throw stones; they don’t come up with solutions.”
Russo said, “What we have is not called over-development, it is called economic development. And it is what every urban area strives for.” Without it, he said, his administration would not have been able to overcome a gaping structural deficit inherited from the previous administration.
Russo also pointed to his credentials as an early activist opposed to over-development on the waterfront as further evidence of his willingness to draw a line in the sand when it comes to developers.
Fighting for the same votes
There appears to be some concern in the Roberts camp that if Lenz runs, the two candidates would be fighting over the same anti-Russo voters.
“The forces of machine politics must be happy to see that our efforts are being diluted,” said Roberts, shaking his head.
Lenz, for his part, said that he does not agree with the premise that he and Roberts are cut from the same cloth. Lenz went out of his way to try and portray the potential three-man contest as a match-up that pitted his vision of “good government” against a “machine style” vision shared by Russo and Roberts.
“Russo claims to be a reformer,” explained Lenz after taking a deep breath. “And frequently he has been. Based on his voting record over the last year, Dave Roberts has been a true reformer. But there is a difference between being a reformer when it suits you politically and being grounded in the principals of good government. The first principal of good government should be what is best for the city. If you look at the city over the last 20 years, I do not think that standard applies to anyone.”
Roberts, for his part, expressed some anti-machine ideas. Among the points his campaign will focus on, he said, is the “double standard” that he says seems to apply in town: one set of rules for public servants and another set for the public.
“I get very annoyed when special orders come down from police headquarters to crack down on double parking and they do it in a very draconian manner,” said Roberts, who has sat on the council for 15 years. “And then you go over to police headquarters and they are all double parked out there. And it is not just the police. There are some people in public service – not everyone, because some do a very good job – but there are some that do not seem to understand that the public comes first. That would change if I were mayor.”
Lenz noted that during his own tenure on the Board of Education, he never did anything to help himself, while his opponents are “machine-style politicians.” He admitted he’d had “tumultuous” times on the board. “I’ve made my share of political errors,” said Lenz. Lenz and his allies on the board had caused much controversy in 1994 when they suspended the district’s popular superintendent of schools, Dr. Edwin Duroy, who was the first Hispanic superintendent in the state of New Jersey. The charges were non-criminal and related to complex budgetary matters. A new board majority reinstated Duroy.
“I think that anyone who looks at what I have done will agree that it has never been done to help myself or my friends,” Lenz said. “All of the other candidates are old-style, machine style politicians, who, when in office, will reward their friends and themselves. Look, I don’t see the point in replacing Bob Murray [the city council attorney with ties to Russo] with Donald Scarinci [a lawyer with ties to Roberts] and friends. Is that meaningful change?”
Expensive race
Like most elections these days, this race will be expensive. The mayor says that he already has $100,000 in his war chest. He plans to spend between $300,000 and $400,000 on the race. Roberts would not say what he expected to raise.
“We won’t be able to match the mayor dollar for dollar,” Roberts explained, pointing out that the mayor has an edge since developers and city contractors would be likely to contribute to his campaign to protect their self-interests.
Lenz said that he hoped to raise $150,000.
Some runningmates announced
In addition to raising money, the candidates will spend the coming months finalizing their slates of three at-large council candidates.
City Councilman Tony Soares, an ally of Roberts, said last week that he plans to run on Roberts’ ticket. Soares described Roberts as “Hoboken’s own Jon Corzine.” Corzine is a self-made millionaire running for a New Jersey Senate seat. Corzine has noted that he does not need to take money from special interests. Roberts, who has done well financially with his business ventures in town, has said that he is running out of an interest in good government and not out of self-interest.
Informed sources said that aside from Soares, Roberts’ slate is likely to include Augusta Pryzygoda, a longtime activist and former 1st Ward council candidate, and Carmelo Garcia, a local bank employee with strong ties to the city’s Latino community. Although Roberts and Soares said that the two activists were being considered for the ticket, they said that final decisions had yet to be made.
Russo said Wednesday that he would be running with incumbent City Council President Nellie Moyeno and At-Large City Councilman Stephen Hudock. He had not yet chosen a third candidate.
“I want the council people to be involved in the selection of the third candidate,” Russo explained. “We are going to have some informal get-togethers with people who might fill out the ticket soon. There are about 10 people being considered. From there we will make a short list and make a final announcement in either February or March.”
Lenz said he was not sure he will run with a full ticket.
Perennial political candidate and Frank Sinatra enthusiast Ed Shirak, Jr., who has run for mayor once and the city council twice before, said that he was inclined to sit this one out, although he said that he had not yet made his final decision.
“As they say in baseball, three strikes and you are out,” he explained.
But then, the thought of having slammed the door seemed a bit much. Shirak quickly added, “Frank tried and failed a number of times before getting it right. So you never know. But right now, no, I am not planning on it.”