Candidates for the November special election for the at-large council seat have begun to declare. As expected, two familiar faces at public meetings announced last week that they would seek to fill the unexpired term of Anthony Chiappone, who resigned in April.
Stan Marko and Leonard Kantor, who had previously hinted at a run, made it official, joining a field that includes Debra Noble and John Cupo.
They are seeking to unseat Councilman Terrence Ruane – who was named to fill the position in a disputed council vote last May.
Ruane was named to the seat in May, and though he has yet to officially launch his campaign, he said after his swearing in that he intends to run on Nov. 8 for the unexpired term and again in the May election for a full four-year term.
The winner of the special election will take office immediately after the results are verified and will remain as councilperson until July 1, 2010, when the winner of the regular municipal election is sworn in.
Marko makes his move
Although Stan Marko has become something of a fixture at public meetings, he said he was motivated after a confrontation between then Mayor Joseph Doria and Councilman Anthony Chiappone in 1997.
Chiappone was holding up passage of the municipal budget in order to get promises for future budget cuts. Doria sent out a statement with resident’s tax bills pointing out how much taxes would rise if Chiappone did not vote for a Doria-backed proposal. City employees fearing the loss of their jobs and taxpayers fearing a hefty hike in their taxes flooded the council chambers in an effort to intimidate Chiappone into “Doing the right thing.”
While classic political drama, the moment pushed Marko into getting involved, and began a two-year learning process in which he began to question how government operated and on what taxpayer money is being spent. It is an odyssey that had led him to finally decide to run for office.
Born and raised in Bayonne, Marko has a hard time describing exactly what he does for a living since he has done so many things over his 25-year stint with a small New York firm.
“I’m a numbers guy,” he said, describing some of his duties as managing accounts.
This involvement with numbers and finance is part of his motivation for running for office. He wants to know just how the city of Bayonne can spend as much as $30 million more than it collects in revenue each year.
“We have to do better than that,” he said.
One area in which he believes the city squanders money is in the hiring of professional consultants, and he will seek to find out why the city doesn’t have qualified people of its own instead. He said pay to play may be part of this, consultants giving campaign contributions in exchange for city contracts.
As with Noble, Marko believes that ordinary citizens do not have enough access to government, and he would work to assure that they do.
Why this election?
“How can you have a mayor threatening to sue the city council when he can’t get his way?” – Stan Marko
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“How can you have a mayor threatening to sue the city council when he can’t get his way?” he said.
He believes someone has to step up and take a stand, and though he is sure that there may be more qualified people who can, none of those he considers more qualified are running, so he must.
Kantor declares
When Leonard Kantor ran for mayor in 2006, he said he would take a lie detector test to prove his honesty to the public.
“I believe anyone from mayor on up should take a lie detector test,” he said, offering to take the test again as a candidate for the at-large council seat. “I strongly believe that all other candidates running for office should do likewise.”
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 resident of Bayonne, Kantor attended local schools and entered 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 almost 25 years, Kantor is a retired Bayonne police officer, who served from 1961 to 1980.
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.
Like Marko, Kantor was partly motivated to run in this election because of the circumstances surrounding Chiappone’s resignation earlier this year.
In behind the scenes political maneuvering, county Democrats agreed to support Chiappone’s reelection to the state assembly only if he agreed to give up his council seat.
But behind each of his runs for political office is his desire to reduce city property taxes, he said, believing that he can “invigorate with innovative idea to reduce debt and increase our city finances.”
“I’m talking common sense,” he said. “It is a time to change the way we do government. Jesus kicked out the money lenders from the temple. They took up a new home in City Hall. It is time to kick them out of there.”
Kantor said taxpayers have seen a tax increase every year in Bayonne for the last 32 years.
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.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.