From the moment he took the oath of office in July, newly elected councilman E. Junior Maldonado has had no trouble fitting into his role as the representative of the Downtown area of Jersey City. Aside from the fact that he has been living in Jersey City since he was two years old, Maldonado has a long history of political involvement that runs back to his adolescent years.
Maldonado joined the cross-country team at Dickinson High School when he was a freshman. Oddly enough, the decision to run long distance would later influence his decision to run for office. His coach’s brother, Paul Jordan, was running for mayor during that freshman year.
Maldonado helped out with the campaign, posting up flyers while seeing what politics was all about. “I did all the grunt work,” Maldonado said.
Now 45 years old, Maldonado is serving his first term as a member of the city’s nine-member City Council. But his experience and knowledge of government has been growing from the time he campaigned for Jordan as a teenager.
For eight years, Maldonado was an investigator for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s office, giving him a solid background in community law enforcement. He primarily dealt with narcotics cases and special investigations.
In 1989, he threw his proverbial hat into the political ring and ran for Downtown councilman, but lost in a narrow margin to Jaime Vasquez. However, he wound up occupying a role in the administration anyway when Mayor Anthony Cucci appointed him to the Housing Authority. As a board member, he gained valuable experience and insight into another aspect of municipal government while dealing with one of Jersey City’s biggest issues: Affordable housing.
During his tenure on the board of the Housing Authority, the administration passed the Curries Woods project, which replaced high-rise public housing buildings with low-income townhouses. “It knocked down a big crime area at once,” Maldonado recalled recently. Because of the success of this project, the councilman hopes to see a similar plan develop for the remaining public housing buildings, like the A. Harry Moore projects. “My goal with public housing is to get all the residential sites to look like Curries Woods,” he said.
Maldonado also served as an aide to former Councilman Ben Lopez from 1981 to 1983, where he did more than grunt work. “I pretty much handled the day-to-day operations,” Maldonado said. “It gave me a vast amount of knowledge of what a councilperson needs to know.”
In 1993, Maldonado ran again for a seat on the City Council, but lost for a second time. But he continued to gain political savvy regardless, serving as a ward leader for the city’s Democratic Party from 1992 to 1997, in which he took care of the logistics behind organizing party events for the area.
In the past election, Maldonado was asked to run again under County Freeholder William O’ Dea’s ticket. In the end, O’Dea decided not to run and current Mayor Glenn Cunningham asked him to join his ticket. Maldonado won, replacing former Downtown Councilman Mariano Vega, who won a new spot as at-large councilman. Rather than representing one ward, at-large councilpeople represent the entire city. There are three of them on the council.
Maldonado also works full-time for the Hudson County Improvement Authority as the chief enforcement officer, a job he has held for the past 11 years. The job requires him to oversee the trash hauling companies and confirm that they are following all regulations.
Putting all these pieces together, Maldonado feels right at home in his new position on the City Council.
“The toughest part is being able to keep up with all the phone calls and the letters,” he said. But Maldonado has figured out the best way to keep up – by working long hours.
Following his day job, Maldonado rushes to his office at City Hall where he handles his district’s business from 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. “It’s a part-time job,” he said, “but I put in full-time hours.”
As councilman for the Downtown area, Maldonado represents the booming waterfront developments as well as some well-preserved historic parts of the city. Whatever office space was vacant on the waterfront has been snatched up since the attack on the World Trade Center.
“We want to continue the waterfront development, especially after what has happened,” Maldonado said.
Maldonado also has found himself in a unique position as the newly elected chairman of the city’s Redevelopment Agency. He understands what growth is feasible in the downtown area. “The two [positions] seem to go hand in hand,” he said.
As a councilman, Maldonado is responsible for paying attention to the problems addressed by residents in his district, and, when possible, helping to resolve them. Maldonado is also serving as a liaison to the Police Department for the City Council, reporting on the needs of the department. His former occupation as an investigator put him in a good position for this role. Recently, he noted that the department needs an updated mobile communications system. The mobile unit is a van that allows the Police Department to operate a communications base at different sites when emergencies arise.
According to the Police Department, the one currently in use is outdated. So far, Maldonado has received a letter from Sen. Robert Torricelli that guaranteed that the “Senate FY’02 Commerce Justice and State Appropriations Bill included $1 million towards the purchase of a new public safety communications system” for Jersey City.
As far as working with the community, Maldonado recently helped lead a cleanup of Lafayette Park, an area that was overwhelmed with litter.
Commenting on his community efforts, Maldonado said, “The only thing you take with you is your reputation, and I want to go to the grave with a good one.”