As members of the Jersey City Council debated the opening of the Martin Luther King Drive Community Center Wednesday night, a five-foot yellow chicken stood in the back of the council chambers.
Accompanied by Mircalla Wozniak from the Vincent Militello for State Senate campaign, the chicken wore a sign that read “Why won’t you debate, Mr. Smith? Are you chicken?”
The sign was addressed to council president L. Harvey Smith, who is running for the Democratic nomination for State Senate in the 31st District, along with Bayonne attorney Militello and Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham. Both Cunningham and Smith had declined to debate publicly with Militello on Channel 12 television. The chicken eventually confronted Smith, who had his picture taken with the avian protestor.
The presence of the chicken failed to distract the council from a debate on the opening of the Martin Luther King Drive Community Center.
According to council members Steve Lipski and E. Junior Maldonado, Cunningham approached the two council members earlier in the week at the conclusion of Jersey City Redevelopment Board meeting and requested their cooperation in an early opening of the Center on June 1. Maldonado is the chairman of the JCRD, while Lipski is the vice-chair.
“The mayor asked us for the keys to the Center,” said Lipski.
But Maldonado stated that Cunningham wanted to open the Center, which is the property of the JCRD, two days before the state senate primary election that Cunningham is engaged in with Smith and Militello. Maldonado added that it seemed like staging the event would be purely political.
The council members refused to give Cunningham the keys to the Center.
They also withdrew a resolution looking for non-profit tenants for the Center because, they said, they wanted to learn more about some groups that had already expressed interest.
The resolution would have authorized the advertisement of requests for proposals for one-year leases for non-profit entities to use the Center. According to Corporation Counsel Alex Booth, the council had yet to receive specific enough information on the groups that were looking at the Center.
Both Lipski and Maldonado stated after the meeting that Councilperson Viola Richardson had actively been searching for tenants for the Center, but nothing certain had been established.
When interviewed on Friday, Richardson said there were seven potential tenants for the Center, but that none of them were officially signed on to a lease.
“There are a dance company, a male mentoring program and a day care program looking into leasing at the Center,” Richardson said.
Richardson complained that the Council’s withdrawal of the resolution was motivated to spite the mayor.
“There is no need to hold a project in my ward hostage just because some members of the council can’t get along with the mayor,” Richardson stated.
Speaking for the mayor, Chief of Staff Bill Ayala denied that the mayor had made a demand for cooperation from the councilmen.
“We just wanted to have an event to celebrate the opening of a place that would be good for Jersey City,” said Ayala. “We did not try to politicize the opening.”
“If this is not political, why don’t they try to open the Center after the elections?” asked Lipski.
The council also was upset because without a tenant renting the space, there would be no income to pay off debt service on the facility, Maldonado and Lipski said. As soon as the Center opens, the city has to start paying the debt service on it.
Maldonado said the total cost on the Center, including debt service, was approximately $5 million.
“The debt is for about 20 to 30 years,” added Maldonado. “We estimate the yearly debt service to $400,000.”
Ayala said the mayor, in wanting to open the Center on June 1, wanted to move forward with the improvement of the Martin Luther King Drive portion of Jersey City.
Addressing the matter of getting a tenant for the Center, Smith suggested the Jersey City Board of Education rent out a floor of the Center for education purposes and allow others to lease the rest of the facility.
“That was my position in 1996 when we started work, and that is my position now,” said Smith.
Maldonado added the facility will be opened at some time in July when the Center’s ownership is scheduled to be transferred from the JCRD to the city itself. Smith said the Council withdrew the resolution to allow the Council to look at possible tenants for the facility.
Investigations on hold
The Council also put on hold proposed investigations in to the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation. At the May 14 meeting, the Council instructed Booth to draw up resolutions granting the Council investigatory power to examine the EDC’s appropriation of state funds to the city’s Special Improvement Districts.
A special improvement district is a group of businesses that pool resources to make improvements to their business districts. In Jersey City, the EDC administers matching funds from the state to the SIDs’ budgets. The Central Avenue SID’s president, Mike Yun, complained that the EDC had shorted SID on money from the state.
Lipski said the Council was putting off the investigation until the June 3 elections are over so as not to create the belief that the investigations were politically motivated.
The chicken that visited the Council Chambers Wednesday night was inhabited by Militello campaign employee Mari Ane Ibrahim, 16, of Bayonne. In her chicken costume, she had also confronted Cunningham Tuesday afternoon at City Hall about the mayor’s reluctance to debate with Militello. Ayala said on Wednesday that Cunningham would be open to a debate with Militello before the June 3 election.
The chicken, along with Wozniak, spoke to Smith after the meeting. Reportedly, Smith had his photo taken with the chicken, but made no comment about debating.