Leonard Kantor is running for mayor in the May 2006 municipal election; although he does not yet for certain who else he will be running against.
Kantor has been a fixture in City Hall for years, although not one many city officials are happy with.
A self-declared fiscal watchdog, Kantor has frequently criticized city operations, grilling city officials as to why they did things, how much things cost, and whether other ways of doing things might benefit the taxpayers more.
A life long residents of Bayonne, Kantor attended local schools entering the United States Air Force after his graduation from Bayonne High School. He served from 1951 to 1953 and volunteered to serve in the Korean War.
A security specialist at Port Newark for the last 22 years, Kantor is a retired Bayonne police officer, who served from 1961 to 1980.
“I’ll leave the job when I’m elected to work as mayor full time,” he said.
Kantor has been an outspoken critic of administration policies for more than 35 years, and he has run for city council, once against Incumbent Anthony Chiappone.
“So I’m no newcomer,” he said, stressing his independence from political factions.
“I do my own writing, I stamp my own envelops,” he said.
In this election, Kantor is sounding an alarm of caution against the increasing debt the city has taken on, claiming that the city may be leaning too heavily on future development that may not cover the cost of what is being borrowed. Over time, the debt the city takes on today costs taxpayers many times the current benefit.
“When we borrow $30 million today, we are actually paying $90 million over the life of the bond,” he said.
He said he is concerned with the type of development that is being proposed for places like the former Military Ocean Terminal where housing is the largest component.
“We should be bringing in development that creates jobs, not development that brings in more people who will need services,” he said.
While Kantor said he is not opposed to having the Hudson Bergen Light Rail in Bayonne, he said its primary purpose should be to assist with transportation to and from jobs at the former Military Ocean Terminal.
Housing, he said, expands the city’s problems by creating increased needs for schools, police, fire, trash collection, water and sewerage.
“Right now we see people building everywhere, but we’re not bringing in jobs,” he said. “This also increases traffic congestion in the city.”
Kantor also said the city should be trimming costs of its spending by reducing the municipal payroll.
“The city payroll is just too high,” he said.
While he applauded the concept of the city stabilizing taxes, he said the city has yet to live up to that promise and that unless there are significant changes, the future will only bring more tax increases.
His vision for waterfront development would reduce the number and kind of residential units currently proposed for the MOTBY, and seek instead more high rise develop that would include many more stores, offices and other sources of employment. These tall structures loaded with viable businesses would also generate more in taxes than what is being proposed for the base currently and might well produce thousands of jobs to take the place of the jobs lost through vanishing industry in Bayonne.
“People know me and know that I tell it the way it is,” he said. “What you see is what you get. What I say. I mean. If I can’t help someone, I tell them. Politicians tell people what they want to hear. But I’m not a politician. But I do want our city to be the best city in the United States, and I believe that the form base can help us become that.”