WEST NEW YORK, NORTH BERGEN, AND BEYOND – Count Wiley, a member of the Board of Commissioners in West New York, has launched a recall election against Mayor Felix Roque, who was arrested in May for involvement with alleged hacking into an opponent’s political website. However, Wiley now has to deal with corruption allegations closer to home.
Last week, former North Bergen Department of Public Works Superintendent James Wiley – who is Count Wiley’s father — pled guilty to using North Bergen town employees for his household chores, for personal projects at his home, and for political campaign work while the township paid them. Sometimes, they even earned overtime. Wiley had been superintendent of the DPW for 17 years.
This week, Count Wiley was asked if he thought his father’s actions would affect his chances as mayor.
He answered simply, “No, it won’t.”
He added, “I love my father to death. I don’t condone what my father did. He is an individual as everyone else, but I have no control over the decisions he made. It has no bearing on anything I would do in West New York and my records prove that. Whatever decisions I have made have been for the people and not for myself.”
As for his father’s future, he said, “We’re here to support him because that’s what a family does. He did something wrong and he’s paying the price for it.”
For more on the recall election effort, read the upcoming edition of the West New York Reporter.
For more on James Wiley, read last weekend’s North Bergen Reporter (scroll to the bottom of hudsonreporter.com.) – Gennarose Pope
WNY commissioner and mayoral hopeful Wiley responds to father’s guilty plea
