While he’s always been something of a political maverick, State Sen. and Union City Mayor Brian Stack seems a bit out of sorts these days.
The most recent sign of it came during a parade in North Hudson earlier this month, when Stack allegedly charged up to West New York Freeholder Jose Munoz and wanted Munoz to leave.
Reports vary on what exactly was said. Munoz claims Stack appeared ready to duke it out with him – a somewhat comical idea, considering that Munoz is a much larger man than Stack.
Munoz said Stack kept saying that if Munoz loved Sacco so much – referring to State Sen. and North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco, with whom Stack has often been at odds – Munoz should go march in a North Bergen parade.
Munoz refused to leave, even after parade organizers asked him to. He wound up finding a spot in another part of the parade.
Stack’s staff, however, gave a whole different spin on the scene. They say it was Munoz who instigated the confrontation, not Stack, and that the matter never escalated to the threat of violence.
“Jose came over beating his chest,” one source said. “Brian didn’t go over to him.”
Both Munoz and Stack people accuse the other side of using foul language, which is why organizers might have sought to cool things down by keeping the two men separated.
At the end of the parade, sheriff’s officers drove Munos home. He was not allowed to mount the platform with other dignitaries, which is customary when public officials show up at parades in Union City.
Even former West New York Mayor Sal Vega got his moment in the sun at one point, and there is no love lost between Vega and Stack.
Underlying all this are the persistent bad feelings between Stack and the Hudson County Democratic Organization. Stack’s people are convinced that Munoz is acting under orders from HCDO bigwigs, and is being a good soldier in an ongoing political guerilla war most people are pretending isn’t taking place.
Munoz could not be certain, but the confrontation appears to have its roots in his leading the opposition to Union City’s attempt to have a Board of Freeholders meeting held in that town later this year.
At the freeholder meeting on Aug. 9, Munoz said he opposed making the move to serve the interests of one mayor, meaning Stack.
Tilo Rivas, the freeholder from Union City, argued that this could be the first of a number of visits to local municipalities so that people might better understand what the county is doing for the taxes collected every year.
But other freeholders said this was something that already been tried, and for the most part, it failed. Freeholder Bill O’Dea said that while moving the meeting to a new location makes sense where there is a critical issue on the agenda, such as the proposal to do away with sports in the Schools of Technology last year, for the most part uprooting the staff and taking away their computers, copiers, and other equipment was largely a waste of effort – since in the past, the meetings did not generate the expected curious crowds.
Several people connected with the HCDO believe that the whole point of moving the freeholder meeting to Union City was so that Stack could fill the chambers with his followers and use it as a platform to bash the HCDO.
HCDO people say that this isn’t the only time Stack has allegedly lashed out against other political figures. They say Stack was angry at Assemblyman Ruben Ramos a few months ago when Stack could not deliver the state legislative votes he promised to support Gov. Christopher Christie’s pension reform. While the governor managed to convince Senate Pres. Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver to go along with the changes, Stack was unable to move local Democrats, leaving him with more than a little egg on his face after all the state aid Christie has sent his way over the last few years.
Stack may also be the one state senator in New Jersey who isn’t on good terms with either of his Assembly runningmates.
Some members of the HCDO apparently have been spreading rumors that Stack’s Assembly runningmate Sean Connors has his eye on taking Stack’s state Senate seat in the future.
“They just put that out there to drive Brian nuts,” one insider said. “They know that Brian is always worried about it. But Sean doesn’t want to be state senator; he wants to be mayor of Jersey City. He didn’t even want to run for state Assembly; he wanted to run for freeholder.”
Reports suggest that Stack doesn’t have particularly good relationships with many political bigwigs, such as Jersey City Mayor Jeremiah Healy and the more than amiable Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise.
Stack people, however, are convinced that Healy, DeGise, Sacco, and others have been actively working against him.
Part of this may have to do with Stack’s apparent interest in supporting Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop for mayor in the 2013 election. Stack recently attended a Fulop fundraiser at the beer garden in Jersey City, where Stack all but said he would back Fulop.
Although Stack doesn’t officially become the state senator for the large portion of Jersey City until January, his staff said he is already doing outreach in the new districts of Jersey City Heights.
“We put out 20,000 pieces of literature this week encouraging residents to contact us if they have a problem,” said one of his people.