On Tuesday, Hoboken voters will get the opportunity to elect a new governor, two city council members, one state senator and two state assembly members. The polls will open at 6 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. in Hoboken.
The Reporter has published profiles of the council candidates, gubernatorial candidates and State Senate and Assembly candidates over the last three weeks, which can be read at www.hobokenreporter.com or picked up at our offices at 14th and Washington streets during business hours.
One of the most hotly contested races with local interest is the city’s 4th Ward. Only residents of that ward, in the southwestern part of town, may vote in that election. Three candidates are running. The winner will serve on the nine-member City Council, which votes on issues related to development, parking, affordable housing, and taxes, and earn approximately $18,000 per year.
The 4th Ward includes the Hoboken Housing Authority (HHA) projects and some market-rate housing. HHA issues affect all Hobokenites, because it is their federal tax dollars that fund low-income housing.
One candidate in the 4th Ward is recent law school graduate and current Interim Councilman Christopher Campos. He is backed by Mayor David Roberts and City Council President Tony Soares and Council Vice-President Ruben Ramos Jr. Before being selected for the interim position on May 8, Campos had never held public office.
The second candidate is real estate consultant Michael Lenz. The former Board of Education president was recently Mayor Roberts’ campaign manager, but broke with that team to run against Roberts’ candidate in the ward.
As turbulent as the 4th Ward election has shaped up to be, the other council race that’s underway is not contentious. In the 6th Ward, which stretches to the central waterfront, interim Councilman A. Nino Giacchi is running unopposed. Giacchi replaced Mayor Roberts’ seat on the council when Roberts rose to the seat of the city’s chief executive. Giacchi is a lifelong 6th Ward resident and works as an attorney in Newark.
Also running is former City Council President Nellie Moyeno. She served as a two-term councilwoman until she was defeated by Mayor Robert’ Hoboken United ticket. In all three municipal elections that she entered, she ran on former Mayor Anthony Russo’s ticket. Moyeno was the city’s first Hispanic Affairs Officer from 1987 to 1989 and currently works for the parking contractor that runs the city’s three garages.
Giacchi will be alone on the ballot, but those 6th Ward residents that wish to vote for someone else can write in a candidate.
The same is true of the 4th Ward, where Sal DeMeo has launched a small-scale write-in campaign.
The council winners’ seats will be up for election again in 2003.
Low turnout has been predicted in Tuesday’s race, so candidates have been urging residents to exercise their freedom and vote.
Race for the governor’s office
In the New Jersey governor’s race, former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler has been lagging behind Democratic opponent Jim McGreevey, the mayor of Woodbridge, in the polls. For several months, they’ve clashed on issues such as abortion, gun laws and school funding.
The 44-year-old Democrat, McGreevey, has spent the summer and fall promoting an agenda of improving schools, bettering public safety, focusing on the environment, and reforming auto insurance, health care and high property taxes – all the while rolling out a list of endorsements from public interest groups.
A political maverick, Schundler, managed to overcome the Democratic stronghold on Jersey City twice. And this year, he then went on to beat Bob Franks, the frontrunner for the Republican Party’s gubernatorial candidate, in the primary election despite the fact that he touted some right-wing views that were considered too extreme for the moderate voters of New Jersey. Those views have included his anti-abortion stance and early pronouncements about citizens’ right to carry a concealed weapon. Since then, he has promised not to change the existing New Jersey gun laws, and his stance on abortion has been buried under this election year’s primary focus: taxes and education.
Schundler points to McGreevey’s endorsements and says that McGreevey is too beholden to special interests.
State Senate seats
Thousands of residents in the state’s 33rd District will be able to vote for one state senator and two assemblymen. In this district which includes Hoboken, Union City, West New York, Weehawken, Guttenberg, and parts of Jersey City, two are vying for the State Senate.
In heavily Democratic Hudson County, the incumbents for both the State Senate and Assembly are all Democrats.
Republican candidate Nancy Gaynor of Jersey City is looking to unseat Democratic State Sen. Bernard Kenny (D-Hoboken), who has held the senator position since 1993.
Kenny served three terms in the state Assembly beginning in 1987, then filled the vacancy left by Rep. Robert Menendez (D-13 Dist.) in the senate when Menendez got elected to congress.
During his eight years in the senate, Kenny, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget and Appropriations committee, fought to secure state aid for property tax relief, to make sure that the state’s new Welfare program retained food stamps for legal aliens and to provide funding for school districts with charter schools.
Gaynor served as Jersey City’s Ward C, or Journal Square, councilwoman during former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler’s first term has said that she is committed to property tax relief, school choice and the revitalization of urban areas.
Assembly seats
West New York Mayor Albio Sires, a Democrat, is looking to win his second term as assemblyman in this election. Joining him on the Democratic ticket is Union City Revenue and Finance Commissioner Rafael Fraguela, looking to take Garcia’s seat.
Garcia decided not to run for another term after being forced to resign from his position as mayor of Union City in Oct. 2000 rather than face a recall election.
During his first term as assemblyman, Sires was appointed to the Assembly Budget Committee and has fought in the areas of gun control, property tax relief and education.
Fraguela, who has served on the Union City Board of Commissioners since 1993 and was a former president of the city’s Board of Education, said that he will try to work with the state Board of Education if elected in November.
Two Republican candidates on the Bret Schundler gubernatorial ticket running for the two assembly seats are Helen Pinoargotty and Sergio Alonso.
Pinoargotty, of West New York, is active in many non-profit organizations and owns a small business. Alonso of Union City is a Vietnam War veteran who earned a Combat Infantry Badge, the Presidential Unit Citation and the Service Medal while serving in Southeast Asia.