HUDSON COUNTY — Courthousenews.com has an interesting story today. It says that Jersey City’s parking director recently filed a suit claiming that Mayor Jerramiah Healy told him not to allow tickets to be issued after 6 p.m., so that voters would be more favorable to his re-election bid this past spring. When he disobeyed, he was let go, according to the suit.
With Hoboken’s former parking director being indicted last Friday, that’s two big Hudson County parking issues in one week! Think some of our towns have a parking problem?
The courthouse news reports:
“JERSEY CITY, N.J. (CN) – Jersey City Mayor Jeremiah Healy ordered the city’s parking director not to issue tickets after 6 p.m., to curry favor with voters during Healy’s re-election campaign, and [allegedly] had the parking official fired when a few of his officers violated the illegal order, the former official claims in Hudson County Court….”
Well, what’s the evidence? The story continues:
“Despite this, Russ says, some officers did issue a few tickets. He says Healy became ‘livid’ when he heard this. He claims the mayor was ‘eating at a local restaurant and witnessed parking tickets being issued by enforcement officers’ after 6 p.m. and had another city employee leave a voice mail on Russ’s phone, saying that the mayor was ‘pissed.'”
(Technically, according to the local daily paper, Russ’ contract expired last November and he stayed on temporarily until he was replaced by former Councilwoman Mary Spinello this past April.)
We hope he still has the voice mail. That’d help his case.
Did JC mayor try to curry favors with parking ticket violators?
