Parking, corruption, crime, development, education and politics were on everyone’s mind last year. These were the top stories in each town this past year.
Countywide
Indictments – In early October, Former County Executive Robert Janiszewski appeared in federal court in Newark. He admitted that he took more than $100,000 in cash bribes. During the plea hearing, Janiszewski admitted he took cash bribe payments in return for approving Hudson County contracts to Dr. Oscar Sandoval, who supplies psychological services to several Hudson County facilities. According to Janiszewski, these contracts amounted to somewhere between $800,000 and $1.5 million. Sandoval has not been charged.
In early November, Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon was indicted for charges that she passed cash bribes from a county vendor to Janiszewski.
After resigning his seat as freeholder, then taking back his resignation after being re-elected, Freeholder Bill Braker was charged in December with accepting cash bribes. According to the charges filed by U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, bribes were allegedly paid to Braker by a vendor supplying psychiatric services to several county facilities including inmates at the County Correctional Facility in Kearny, the Youth Detention Center in Secaucus, and patients at Meadowview Hospital in Secaucus.
Davila-Colon and Braker have both pleaded not guilty to their charges.
Guttenberg
New officials – In Guttenberg, it would be safe to call 2002 the Year of the Revolving Door. There was so much transition and change among the elected officials that one might need a scorecard to keep up with all the juggling.
First, Councilman Ed Huebsch decided that he would not seek re-election in 2002. Then, a private auditor revealed that there were some improprieties within the township’s payroll system that led to the resignations of former Chief Financial Officer John Florentino and former two-term Councilman Carlos Garcia.
Garcia’s resignation enabled Guttenberg Mayor David Delle Donna to suggest the appointment of Ramon de la Cruz, a former political Delle Donna foe, to replace Garcia on the council.
However, de la Cruz’ stay on the council was short-lived. After winning the Democratic nomination in June, de la Cruz resigned to take a position on Gov. Jim McGreevey’s cabinet, becoming the state director of Election Law.
Tom Barnes, who also gained the Democratic nomination in June, running on the same ticket with de la Cruz, was eventually tabbed to replace him as councilman. Jennifer Credidio eventually replaced de la Cruz on the ballot and both Barnes and Credidio were elected into office in the general municipal election in November.
Hoboken
Parking problem – In Hoboken, parking, or the lack thereof, was on every resident and politician’s mind this past year. Relations between the city and the Hoboken Parking Authority started out 2002 on a sour note when the city included $2 million in payments from the Parking Authority as a revenue item in its 2002-2003 budget without asking the Parking Authority first. After emergency meetings and tense confrontations between the council and HPA, the two bodies agreed for the city to sell a plot of land to the HPA for $1.5 million.
That was just the beginning of the demise of the HPA, the quasi-governmental agency that was founded 1969 and created for the purpose of building garages and managing the city’s parking spaces. During the turbulent year for the HPA, two commissioners, both appointed by Mayor David Roberts, resigned during the summer, both having had differences with the mayor on how to solve the parking crisis.
The council approved in spring new regulations that drastically revamped the city’s on-street parking program. The biggest change is that effective 24 hours a day, seven days a week on most city streets, one side of every street is now designated "Resident Permit Parking Only." In November, the city started booting cars that are in violation of the new policy.
In bigger news in November, the City Council voted to disband the HPA. Starting in January, it will be run by the city as a "parking utility," and the city will get to use its income and assume its debt.
Just as important in the world of Hoboken parking this year was the opening of the 324-car automated garage at 916 Garden St. In October, HPA officials started phasing in cars to the much-talked-about facility, making it the first operational totally automated garage of its kind in the United States. The garage had opened over two years late, with cost overruns, which Roberts said were over $5 million. At the Nov. 7 meeting of the lame-duck HPA board, the board voted to sell the garage to Feldman Equities of Floral Park, N.Y.
Development – It was also an eventful year for development. Global publishing giant John J. Wiley & Sons began to move its employees into its new corporate headquarters on River Street on July 1. In December, the City Council passed an ordinance that sets building guidelines for a new hotel and office building on the only undeveloped portion of the southern waterfront.
Another issue that came out in 2002 was the controversy over two 17-story towers on the city’s west side, 101 Marshall St. Angry residents of Hoboken and Jersey City flooded City Council meetings with their concerns that the project is too tall and will add to congestion and sewerage problems. Even though construction had already started, on July 1, litigation was initiated by a citizens’ group and by Hoboken and Jersey City.
But the legal action was too little, too late. In August, Superior Court Judge Arthur D’Italia dismissed nearly every complaint. The judge said that said that the statute of limitations had expired long before any of the plaintiffs finally decided to litigate. The project originally had been approved on Oct. 28, 1998.
Jersey City
High-profile crimes – Jersey City experienced a number of high-profile crimes this year. There were two school shooting incidents in early November. In the first, a 15-year old Lincoln High School student shot a fellow student in the stomach in the school’s basement. The next day, two male students were found to be in possession of knives. Later in the week, three juveniles were injured in a drive-by shooting near Synder High School. None of the injuries were serious.
Fox Place was the scene of a brutal stabbing of three family members in August. A 5-year-old boy had awakened to find his mother, aunt and grandmother stabbed to death. One of the women was pregnant with twins, who also died. Arrested in the incident was Alim Hassan, the boy’s father, who was apprehended in Buffalo, N.Y. while trying to flee to Canada. Hassan was charged with murder.
Another murder was the killing of David DiFranco, a local bounty hunter who suffered from blunt force trauma while pursuing a suspect in the Greenville section of Jersey City. His assailants were later captured by police. And there were two men found burned to death in a car in November, reportedly in connection with a phone card scheme gone wrong. Also that month, a Jersey City resident was walking home from his job as a dishwasher in Hoboken and was killed near the border between the towns.
Despite a number of sensational killings in Jersey City, the number of murders six months into the year had been the same as last year’s rate, according to Assistant County Prosecutor Pat Raviola. In the year 2001, there were a total of 35 homicides in Hudson County, and of those, 24 had taken place in Jersey City. Seven months into 2002, there were 12 reported homicides in Jersey City, which was equal to half of the number for all 12 months of 2001.
Politics dominate – City Hall politics was one of the biggest stories in Jersey City for 2002. Confrontation between the City Council and Mayor Glenn Cunningham erupted at council meetings. The disputes varied on topics such as the council’s reluctance to approve the mayor’s appointments to city agencies and the creation of an investigative committee to look into spending in the mayor’s office.
The source of the conflict between Cunningham and the City Council reaches back to spring of last year and the Democratic primary to replace then Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski, who had resigned amid charges of corruption. Cunningham backed political veteran Bernard Hartnett, while his rival for control of the Hudson County Democratic Party, Rep. Bob Menendez, supported former Jersey City Council President Tom DeGise. Hartnett retained the spot in the June primary until he stepped down in November and was replaced by DeGise.
The conflict between Cunningham and Menendez boomeranged back to Jersey City, where the City Council, with the exception of Cunningham supporter Councilperson Viola Richardson, had aligned itself with Menendez. A war of words broke out between the council and the mayor, with political steps taken in the background by both parties.
In April, the council and Cunningham argued over the hiring of new firefighters. In mid-June, the rancor flared up again when the council passed a resolution creating a committee to investigate alleged impropriety in the mayor’s office. The resolution never specified names or actions and to date nothing has come from the investigating committee.
Rancor between the branches of the Jersey City legislature reached their peak beginning in September when Cunningham interrupted a vote by the council on his nomination to the Jersey City Redevelopment Committee. The mayor had nominated Rev. Ralph Brower, a Methodist minister who had served as the JCRA’s original vice president in 1979. The council tabled the nomination, stating Brower’s eye problems would keep him from carrying out his duties on the JCRA board. A large number of Brower and Cunningham supporters spoke in favor of the mayor’s nomination. Some even accused the council of racism. Meetings up to the end of the year have been marked by less contentious appeals for cooperation between the mayor and the council.
North Bergen
Corruption investigation continues – In December of 2001, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided North Bergen’s Town Hall, the offices of the township’s Municipal Utilities Authority (MUA), and the offices and homes of several other township officials, seizing hundreds of records.
Throughout 2002, the cloud of the probe hung over North Bergen as one official after another was implicated in a corruption investigation, leading to federal indictments and later, guilty pleas for their apparent participation in illegal activity.
By year’s end, the probe led to the downfall of former township administrator Joseph Auriemma, former Parks and Recreation Commissioner Peter Perez, former MUA Purchasing Agent Joseph Hernandez and former Public Safety Deputy Director Vincent Zappulla, all of whom pleaded guilty to charges. All four admitted that they either received cash or free work done at their homes by a contractor doing business with the town. Sources said that the contractor in each case may have been Leonard Farinola of Fresco Air Systems, who may have turned state’s evidence in the investigation and wore a wire to secure enough information to return indictments. Farinola has not been charged with a crime.
The U.S. Attorney’s office says that the investigation is ongoing and active, so further indictments could be forthcoming in 2003.
Secaucus
School bond passed – Earlier this year, Secaucus voters passed a $14 million referendum to expand and upgrade its schools, and to build a 1,000-seat auditorium at the high school/middle school complex.
The school district, which has 1,800 total students, sought $9.9 million on the first question to renovate and expand the middle/school high school complex, with some repairs to two elementary schools. The second question asked for slightly over $4 million to construct an auditorium – a project left out from the original high school construction plans in the early 1970s.
School officials will get back about $4.1 million of the approved $14 million bond thanks to the state’s $8.6 billion school construction act passed in 2000, under which the state guarantees a refund of up to 40 percent of approved projects.
Most of the renovation work will be done over the summer, with the work on the auditorium continuing beyond September, 2003. Science labs, however, will not be ready until September of 2004. School officials predicted that the auditorium would become a focal point of community programs.
Meanwhile, the Secaucus Town Council has moved ahead with plans of its own that include the construction of a recreation center near the new auditorium.
Union City
Quality of life – Union City Mayor and Hudson County Freeholder Brian Stack has been on a campaign for the last year to improve the "quality of life" in Union City. He has focused especially on issues related to the bars in town.
The Union City commissioners passed an ordinance on Feb. 5 that closes city bars at 2 a.m., one hour earlier than they used to.
At a Feb. 5 commissioner’s meeting, the Union City Bar Owners’ Association Attorney Robert Mayerovic said, "The association understands the need of the mayor and commissioners to deal with the quality of life issues in the city, but please, show us the statistics. Where are the hot spots? Tell us where they are and let us respond."
A visibly angered mayor responded, "The police calls are in the thousands [to the police station between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.] The hot spots are well-known. If the bar owners don’t know where the problem is, then we do have a big problem in the city."
The ordinance passed.
In November, a representative of Union City nightclubs and taverns came before the board seeking to have the 2 a.m. closing time rescinded for one night – New Year’s Eve. This idea was nixed by the board.
The commissioners have been using their authority to hear cases of possible liquor license violations at their meetings. At their most recent meeting, they suspended a restaurant’s liquor license for 30 days because it was said to be hosting live bands and acting like a nightclub, and they gave a liquor store a 45-day suspension for allegedly selling alcohol to minors.
Weehawken
First contested mayoral – In May of 2002, a rarity took place in Weehawken – an actual contested election between two full tickets of candidates. After three terms as mayor during which he had run unopposed, Mayor Richard Turner and his Township Council ran as the "Weehawken and You" ticket. But they received opposition from a slate of five candidates under the "Weehawken Initiative Now," or "WIN," banner. "WIN" had concerns about the size of the impending Roseland development on the waterfront, among other issues.
While the campaign became heated at times, it turned out that Weehawken voters appreciated the work of Turner and his colleagues, as all five incumbents were swept into office by a landslide victory that was nearly four-to-one.
The historic victory, the largest in the history of Weehawken politics, enabled Turner to secure his seat for the next four years. This will be a transitional period for the township, as the proposed $500 million Port Imperial South waterfront development by Roseland Properties, Inc. continues to take shape along the Hudson River landscape. It will contain 1,643 residential units, a hotel, a shopping center, and an assisted living center.
West New York
Development all around – The City of West New York has seen luxury development on the waterfront, but at the same time, the city has also opened new public low-income housing further inland.
On Oct. 16, the city dedicated the Chris Jackman Towers on Fillmore and 60th streets. The building has 108 units, 83 of which are designated as affordable housing units, with the rest being offered at "market rate."
Said Sires at the dedication, "All you read about is how people can’t afford to live, but here you have a beautiful building that gives people the choice between one- and two-bedroom units at a fair price. It’s exactly what the community needs. It fits like a glove."
Waterfront development also moved forward in the past year with the completion of three projects: The "Riverside West" condominiums, the "Riverbend Condominium," and a two-mile section of riverfront walkway that stretches from Weehawken to West New York.
As part of an agreement between the developer, Short Hills-based Roseland Properties and the West New York Board of Commissioners, $516,000 was donated by Roseland at a ribbon-cutting ceremony this month to the West New York Affordable Housing Trust fund. That way, the town can build more projects like Jackman Towers.
Said Mayor Sires, "This is such a special occasion. From the outset, there was nothing on this waterfront. I remember riding around down here with the commissioners and there was nothing here. We agreed that any development that happened here had to benefit the people."