The recent appointment of several current and former Hudson County officials to boards or jobs in Secaucus raises speculation as to whether the county is finally taking notice of a community that is the third highest taxpayer into the county’s yearly budget.
Last week, Hudson County Improvement Authority Chairman John Shinnick was appointed to the Secaucus Library Board. Joining him on the library board as a representative of the schools superintendent is David Drummeler, one-time chief of staff to County Executive Robert Janiszewski. If this is not coincidental enough, former HCIA Executive Director Tom Calvanico was hired by Secaucus as a special funding agent to the state.
This sudden discovery of Secaucus may indeed be the fault of Former Hudson County Administrator Geoff Perselay, who discovered Secaucus several years ago when he helped broker a deal for bus shelters (including some on county roads) and a more controversial billboard deal that involved aides to Gov. Jim McGreevey.
Perselay must have accidentally dropped the driving directions to Secaucus during his routine rounds of Hudson County department heads, which allowed others to follow in his footsteps.
Prior to Perselay’s arrival, most county officials could hardly locate Secaucus on the map. While Hudson County has historically maintained many of its institutions in Secaucus, including Meadowview’s geriatric and psychiatric hospitals (as well as several drug treatment facilities, the juvenile detention center and the county Department of Health), most county workers saw everything west of the Meadowview campus as a wasteland of meadows.
Department directors like Mariano Vega followed the groove of their daily commute down Secaucus Road to County Avenue and back daily in an almost unconscious haze. Although Director Carol Ann Wilson once worked in the Secaucus school system, even she was a rare visitor.
In fact, there was a reason why Janiszewski held so many of his secret meetings in Secaucus eateries over the years. He understood the extreme unlikelihood of anyone recognizing him.
Since discovering Perselay’s driving instructions, Secaucus has seen a steady stream of former Janiszewski allies, including state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, whose contract as a tax appeal attorney was renewed this year. Lesniak, however, has benefited Secaucus well with legislation that expanded the term of office for Secaucus public officials without benefit of a local referendum.
If Beth Janiszewski had not recently been spotted in a supermarket in Tannersville, N.Y., where she and Bobby J still had a ski lodge, you might suspect they would retire on their pensions to Secaucus as well. In fact, the only county officials who seem unaware of Perselay’s driving instructions are County Executive Tom DeGise and his driver and Chief of Staff Bill Gaughan, who got lost during last year’s library grand opening.
Torricelli’s take on the election
Bob Torricelli was among the top fundraisers for presidential candidate John Kerry to meet in New York City last week. Prior to that, he met Richard Rinnerman, a prominent Hudson County stock wizard who was one of President Bill Clinton’s top funders and a close friend of U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine.
During an hour-long interview with Torricelli in Jersey City two weeks ago, the former U.S. senator said he had done fundraising for Dick Gephardt and Kerry, but has been a firm supporter of Kerry from very early on in the campaign.
“John Kerry has the stuff that can beat George Bush in the general election,” Torricelli said. “I’ve seen John working. He is tough and dedicated. He is also smart and well-organized.”
Torricelli said one of the key issues in the presidential campaign will be the Bush Administration’s lack of credibility – especially concerning the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
“The U.S. Senate supported Bush based on promises the president made to build an international coalition, and on the assurances that Iraq was mounting weapons of mass destruction,” Torricelli said. “Neither was accurate.”
Torricelli said part of the Senate’s trust was based on Bush’s father’s efforts in the first Gulf War in 1991.
“I was the sponsor of the legislation in the House of Representatives that authorized the invasion in 1991,” he said. “This president let us down.”
Torricelli grew up supporting the war in Vietnam – turning against it only when the cost of it threatened to undermine civil and economic order at home. He claimed this week that Bush’s lack of credibility could undermine the public’s faith in the United States government and the future ability of young people to support the defense of the nation. He called the war too complex to say whether or not the United States should have invaded. “Removing Saddam was a good thing, but misleading the public about the details was wrong,” he said.
Torricelli added, “But the war is not the only issue. There is also the question of the president’s irresponsible handling of the federal budget. In a single term, he has turned the United States from a nation with a national surplus to one with the largest deficit in history. This is nothing short or irresponsible and it is a mismanagement of the economy.” The president’s increasing deficit spending will be an issue that Democrats will exploit as well as Bush’s Patriot Act, which Torricelli claims “tramples on American civil liberties.”
Torricelli, whose foreign policy experience is extensive, also pointed to Bush’s foreign trade agreements, which Torricelli said “are not fair to the American worker.”
“This is a change in the balance of trade,” he said. “This president has turned us from a nation committed to free trade by making unbalanced treaties that discriminate against our own workers.”