Jersey City Councilman Bill Gaughan and former Mayor Gerry McCann (sometimes called “Merry Gerry”) have been exchanging political blows in the press over the last few weeks, mirroring a popular British beachside puppet performance called a Punch and Judy Show.
In the traditional hand-puppet show, Mr. Punch wears a jester’s garb with a hunchback and a hooked nose and a curved chin, and carries a big bat that he freely uses on other characters in the play.
Gaughan claimed McCann did campaign work during the hours he was employed at the Jersey City Municipal Utilities Authority, an accusation McCann has denied. But Gaughan, in swinging his big bat at prominent political players, is seeking to undermine the political strategists that helped Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham gain power and a seat on the state Senate – and Gaughan makes no secret of the fact that he wants Cunningham out of City Hall.
“We have to get rid of this mayor,” he said during a brief interview last week.
Although many people have problems with the Cunningham administration, most concede that Cunningham is a personable, even likeable human being who just happened to surround himself with a clutch of people who are far less likeable.
The Cunningham Kingdom, as one critic called it, is made up of one king, one queen, and numerous princes – princes who have divided up the kingdom into their own turfs. People like Jimmy King (prince of the Parking Authority), Gene Drayton (prince of the Housing Authority and other havens of patronage), Bobby Jackson (prince of the press and various city contracts), and Joe Cardwell (prince of everything else) often operate as if they speak for the mayor and occasionally put Cunningham in various embarrassing positions such as the Troy Washington Housing Authority debacle and various problems associated with Mark Munley of Economic Development.
Gaughan’s attack on McCann, however, alluded to the loose alliance that allowed freelancing political operative McCann to help orchestrate a successful state Senate and Assembly primary last year. By overlapping the campaigns of Jersey City’s Lou Manzo and Bayonne’s Councilman Anthony Chiappone for Assembly with Cunningham’s bid for state Senate, McCann took advantage of racial voting patterns and other demographic issues that allowed the three to squeak into office.
But Gaughan disputes the idea that Cunningham can remain aloof from the activities of these princes, saying that sooner or later Cunningham has to face the music.
“He keeps them there, and so he’s to blame,” Gaughan said.
Gaughan was particularly concerned about a political hiring at the MUA in which a retired police officer was appointed assistant executive director.
“I have nothing against the officer, but the position wasn’t needed,” Gaughan said. “In fact, the executive director didn’t even know anyone was hired to be his assistant, and didn’t ask for an assistant.”
Gaughan, as councilman, has also questioned some of the MUA’s budgeting practices, such as carrying over costs between two yearly budgets, a practice that was recently controversial in Hoboken.
Gaughan and McCann recently crossed paths at the White Horse Tavern in Jersey City where each occupied an end of the long bar, trading dark stares typical of many, many historic Irish feuds settled over drinks and verbal barbs.
“It was like having the shootout at the OK Coral, but without the weapons,” one person present said.
They might have been giants
Three notable political figures were ushered from this mortal coil during the last two weeks, and each left his mark on the Hudson County landscape in different ways: Jack Finn, Paul Costello and Mike Gallo.
John Joseph “Jack” Finn Jr., 68, a successful corporate executive, is considered the architect of the 1970s political reform moment that drove Jersey City Mayor and political boss Tom Whelan out of office and led to the eventual election of Jersey City Mayor Paul Jordan.
As chairman of the Community Action Council created in 1971, Finn became the face of political reform and a major player on the political scene, and later became instrumental in helping Brendan Byrne become governor of New Jersey. Although he was very active in civic life and changed the course of government in Hudson County, he refused offers to run for office, even proposals that he might become mayor.
“He never took a contract and he never sought anything for personal benefit,” one source said. “He was the Don Quixote of Hudson politics.”
About the same time as Finn learned he was suffering from cancer, he served as his younger brother’s best man. “He was the General Patton of the political reform movement in New Jersey,” said Paul J. Byrne.
Paul Costello, who passed away at 79, served as an aide for Rep. Frank Guarini and Rep. Robert Menendez, as well as chief of staff for then Freeholder Neil Carroll. This life-long resident of Bayonne could boast of friendship and loyalty to the present and past mayors of his hometown, including Dennis Collins and Joseph V. Doria.
He has been described at the ultimate good political soldier, who was content to help people he believed in to achieve office without seeking an office himself, a man whose communication skills were so great he could befriend nearly anyone he met.
Hours before Mike Gallo’s death, he was seen eating steak Ruth’s Chris in Weehawken, a happy meal after a political fundraising event for Rep. Bob Menendez. Always a loyal soldier, Gallo’s claim to fame revolved around the dispute to take over Hank Gallo’s Jersey City freeholder seat in 1997. Mike Gallo, a leader in Ward C in Jersey City, was backed by Beth Janiszewski – wife of then County Executive Robert Janiszewski – against upstart Jersey City Councilman Bill O’Dea. Mike Gallo lost the seat by one committee vote.
Tidbits from around the county
Over dinner at Edwards Steak House on Marion Boulevard, Mayor Cunningham gave praise to State Sen. Bernard Kenny and the stand Kenny took against the Catholic church on stem cell research, calling Kenny’s move a “bold and courageous act.”
Kenny’s move has also inspired renewed cordial relations with Hoboken Councilman Tony Soares, whom Kenny invited to his fund-raiser.
In Secaucus, Assemblyman Anthony Impreveduto suffered the indignity of a raid by representatives of the state police. He is part of an investigation over alleged misuse of campaign funds.
Inside sources in Trenton said the matter is not as serious as headlines make it out to be, and Impreveduto will be issued a “guideline” letter which will require him to pay back the money used and issue him a fine.
Impreveduto, who serves as the Secaucus Democratic municipal chairman, is involved in a curious political triangle on the Secaucus Board of Education, where the recent reorganization and appointment of committee seats made some political observers wonder about the flow chart of loyalty.
Prior to the 1999 agreement between Impreveduto and then-independent Democrat Dennis Elwell (now mayor), the Board of Education was divided along party lines with Democratic insiders battling to maintain control of the board against a coalition of independents. The 1999 agreement, however, created a new level of loyalties in which some members may be loyal to Impreveduto, others loyal to Elwell, while still others are against them both. But determining just who is on whose side is no longer an easy task – although committee assignments did dump many of the independents into relatively unimportant assignments such as the policy committee.