Now that the new City Council and re-elected mayor will be sworn in on July 1, what do residents want to see them accomplish?
“The streets are rough…it’s bad for anyone who has a car,” said Michelle Walch, a two-year Paulus Hook resident who was walking near the Exchange Place PATH station Tuesday.
Eight-year resident Eileen Spadavecchia said, “For people who have children, it’s hard now that the rents have gone up. It’s forcing us to have to move to Union City or Bayonne, but my work is here, and I don’t really want to.” She said she’d like to see more affordable housing.
As a whole, residents said they’d like to see more affordable housing, fewer potholes, and a better response to crime.
On July 1, Jerramiah Healy will be sworn in to serve a four-year term as mayor. Also, nine City Council members will be sworn into their positions, with a new council president to be chosen from among them.Here to serve you
Mayor Healy and eight of the city council members were elected in the May 10 primary election. Michael Sottolano was elected to Ward A this past Tuesday in a runoff (see sidebar).
The council members will serve until their term ends on June 30, 2009. They are: Sottolano in Ward A, Mary Spinello in Ward B, Steve Lipski in Ward C, William Gaughan in Ward D, Steven Fulop in Ward E, Viola Richardson in Ward F, and Peter Brennan, Willie Flood, and Mariano Vega in at-large seats serving the entire city.
Some of those were incumbents: Lipski, Richardson, Gaughan, Brennan and Vega. Flood served previously as a City Councilwoman at-large from 1981 to 1989.
The council will consider proposals from the mayor and from themselves at twice-monthly meetings. If the council approves the mayor’s ordinances or laws, the mayor will sign them officially into effect.
There are an estimated 240,000 people who reside within the borders of New Jersey’s second largest populated city.
Housing, potholes, crime
Both longtime residents and newcomers shared their hopes for their city in interviews last week.
Catherine Grimm is a third-generation Jersey City resident who lives on Waverly Street, and is a constant presence at most City Council meeting and block association gatherings. Grimm, represented by Ward C Councilman Steve Lipski, wants the city to preserve its families.
“Developers are coming in here building housing for a transient population,” she said. “That is not how Jersey City once was, when people came here wanting to raise family.”
Of the government, she said, “I would like to see them become ethical and moral….they are so arrogant and powerful. Why they can’t be ethical and moral?”
Grimm also wants to see both mayor and city council work to make more open space for the public rather than allow land to be purchased by builders. “This is the responsibility of the council and the mayor to be responsible for the people, not the developers,” she said.
Deniene Morant has resided in Jersey City for all 38 years of her life. Morant currently lives on Pacific Avenue in the Bergen Lafayette section of the city, represented by Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson. Morant is a member of resident groups such as the Morris Canal Coalition and the Communipaw Avenue Block Association.
Morant sees affordable housing as a key issue, especially in the Bergen-Lafayette area from Halladay Street to Grand Street, where a whopping 42 development projects are currently slated to be built over the next few years.
“First of all, in Ward F and the Morris Canal area, we would like to see some more affordable housing come in,” said Morant. “We do have a lot of development slated for that area, but the affordable portion is very small. We need to get that increased for the people who live here, like the seniors and people who were born here, that want to stay here.”
Morant added, “[The mayor and the City Council] really need to consider the tax abatements and all the other things they are entertaining.”
Morant also want to see more police presence, especially for combating the presence of gangs and drug dealing, and address the city’s decaying infrastructure.
Pankaj Kapadia is a 19-year resident who currently lives with his family in Jersey City Heights on Hutton Street near Central Avenue. His representative on the City Council is Ward D Councilman William Gaughan.
Kapadia works as a refrigerator mechanic for University Hospital in Newark and is the president of the Public School No. 8 Neighborhood Block Association and is a Hudson County Democratic commiteeman.
Kapadia wants a greater police presence on Palisade Avenue.
“I want to see more safety in the city, more police monitoring with the drug dealing especially on Palisade Avenue,” said Kapadia. Kapadia said recently, a stolen car crashed into a parked car nearby, and it took police over an hour to come to the scene of the accident.
And Kapadia also cited that old bugaboo that has been afflicting Jersey City for what seems like eons – potholes.
“Mayor Healy and the City Council need to take care of the potholes that I see on Hutton Street, Franklin Street and several other streets in the Heights,” he said.
New residents, artists
The city has seen an influx of new residents over the last five years.
Photographer Jim Legge has lived in Jersey City for six years, transplanted from Manhattan. A self-employed computer consultant, Legge is also involved heavily in the Jersey City arts scene. He is resident of Storms Avenue, represented by newly elected Ward B City Councilwoman Mary Spinello.
Legge said that Mayor Healy, like mayors before him, has lost touch to some degree with the majority of the population.
“Healy has lost his focus on the people who don’t live near the gold coast,” said Legge. “This city should not be another Manhattan dormitory.”
Legge went on to explain Healy was “pandering” to developers building for short-term residents.
Legge also recalled living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan back in the 1980s when there was a burgeoning arts scene, and those who did not make a lot of money were able to survive and form a community.
“Now whenever I visit the area around Tompkins Square Park, I see nothing but skyscrapers,” said Legge. He said Jersey City’s government should make the city more hospitable to artists, and preserve more open space.
Police speak out
Two Jersey City police officers, both of who wanted to remain anonymous, were on patrol in Exchange Place last week. They said they would like to see new police stations being built in the city since the existing police stations “are more than 100 years old and locker rooms are falling apart” and probably “weren’t designed to even be police stations.”
“It’s a quality of life issue,” said one of the officers. “The city’s population is growing, and we don’t have the manpower we need. We’re always chasing the bad guys, but don’t have time to do other things.”
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com
Sottolano beats DeSoto hands down
In Tuesday’s Jersey City council runoff, the results were overwhelming for Michael Sottolano, former head of the city’s information technology division, who won over former city attorney Karen DeSoto.
Sottolano received 1,787 votes, which amounted to 68 percent of the total votes cast in that election, while DeSoto received 829 votes, or 31 percent.
Sottolano, who ran on Mayor Jerramiah Healy’s ticket, is one of the seven candidates allied with Healy who won office.
He starts a four-year term on July 1, while DeSoto will have to start rebuilding her life to some degree. She is facing a well-publicized lawsuit filed by Anthony Scaffidi, her former boyfriend and an alleged Genovese crime family associate, for $1.2 million in assets that Scaffidi claims he signed over to her based on advice she gave him to avoid federal seizure.
DeSoto, as reported in the Newark Star-Ledger last week, filed for bankruptcy as she was seeking protection for claims by creditors for over $130,000.
She currently lives in Jersey City with her family. – RK
What do YOU want? Now that new JC council is complete, residents share their hopes
