Issue 155: The Farmers Market at Lincoln Park is back!
Also, why is voter turnout so grim part two, what is happening in NJ10, a Girl Scout story, and more!
Good morning! Today’s newsletter has a little something for everyone — an event, some politics, a cute story, and more! Enjoy your weekend and thank you for reading! — Amy
The Farmers Market at Lincoln Park
Hooray! Today is the first day of the new season of the Farmers Market at Lincoln Park! Fresh veggies, eggs, and more will be at the park, near West Side Avenue and St. Al’s Church from 10am to 2pm. Returning vendor Circle Brook Farms has fantastic (and very reasonably priced) organic veggies, spices, and eggs. Ma-Xuxu will have homemade Mexican pastries, cookies, and corn tortillas; new vendors Empabake will have empanadas, and Present Day Goods will have a variety of handmade soaps and body butters. Plus, fun for the kids with local performer Mr. Balloons!
Meanwhile, if you’d rather join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and get your produce and eggs that way, JC Harvest CSA (formerly Downtown CSA) now offers pickups at the Lincoln Park Farmer's Market on Sundays 10-2, via Circle Brook Farms. Check out their website to “purchase different levels of locally grown organic vegetable shares, "eco-grown" fruit shares, mushrooms, flowers and eggs from free-range hens. All sourced from Sussex County, NJ.” This can be a really fun and easy way to get your groceries as well as supporting local farmers.
This market is a real treat to visit and I look forward to the start of it every year. It is, admittedly, one of the smaller farmers markets in the city, but it has a huge heart and the vendors are terrific. If you’re around, come by and check it out — and say hello to your neighbors.
What is happening in NJ10??
If you live in the tenth congressional district, you might be thinking to yourself, Hey, isn’t my congressman dead and also don’t we have an election coming up real soon?
And yes, you’d be right. My series about why voter turnout is so low is below this post, but man — if ever I’ve felt like this newsletter was some kind of weird performance art/commentary on the futility of NJ politics, this would be it. Gee, I wonder why voter turnout is so low???? Hey, let’s talk about what’s going on in the tenth district.
The primary is on July 16th and here’s what we know:
Party leadership, including Ras Baraka and the family of Donald Payne, are lining up behind candidate and Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver;
One of the candidates, Derek Armstead, was quoted in an article where he made a wildly anti-semitic statement;
The other candidates… well, there’s very little. If you’re not actively searching for it, it’s really not out there — there’s been almost no coverage in the local media on the various candidates, no debates scheduled, and with little time to fundraise and then turn around mailings, it’s not looking good that we’ll find out too much more, unless another one or two of them embarrasses themselves like Armstead above, and then maybe it’ll show up in the news.
We have just over a month to go before we knock the primary Democratic field from eleven candidates down to one and there’s very little information to work with, even if you’re me and you’ve been actively searching for details. No one seems to be trying too hard to run for this spot, or if they are, I guess they’re keeping it really low key.
Before we go any further, let’s dig in for a second into the process that will be used to pick a replacement for Payne. As mentioned, the primary is Tuesday, July 16th; the final election (this will be between one of the eleven Democratic candidates who wins the primary and the one Republican candidate who is the presumptive nominee, Carmen Bucco) is on Wednesday (for some reason), September 18th. Oh, you want low voter turnout? Try making your election on a Wednesday in September. Good job, everyone.
But wait, there’s more. Whoever wins that election won’t be sworn in until the new year. Which means the spot will be vacant for months until then, until/unless party leaders pick a replacement to fill the spot. The way that works is that they have until August 29th to have a convention in which they pick a replacement. From this article, and to the best that I understand what is happening, here’s how that will work [****** please see below!!******]:
Who can vote [in that convention]?
County committee members from the 18 municipalities in New Jersey’s 10th congressional district. It will be up to the rules adopted by the county chairs to decide if appointed county committee members may vote, and if so, the deadline to certify a list of official voters. Essex County Democratic county committee members are on the ballot this year.
How many votes are needed to win?
That depends on how many seats are filled, and how many county committee members show up. There are 1,084 possible votes from the 542 voting districts in the 10th. More than half of the county committee votes, if filled, come from Essex County, with Newark making up almost 22% of them. Jersey City has 198 possible votes, followed by East Orange (110), and Union Township (100).
Does a candidate need 50% plus one to win?
It’s New Jersey, so election laws are reliably silent. The Essex, Hudson, and Union county chairs would likely work out a set of rules that would be adopted by the county committee in advance of the vote. It’s too early to predict how the election will be conducted. Last year, when the Democratic county committee in the 27th legislative district met to pick new candidates, there were no runoffs; the top vote-getter was to win no matter how many candidates were in the race and the winning percentage. In the event of a tie, there would likely have been a revote, but that was at the chairman’s discretion.
In other words, this is a huge mess, and we have several months there where the person who is representing us in congress is really anyone’s guess.
I don’t know — I feel like in a different country or circumstance this could be really fun and weird and like we could get some really interesting person representing us for a few months, like Cicciolina in the Italian Parliament or something, but instead it’s just going to result in some completely brain dead and out of touch friend of a party bigwig who needs some resume fodder warming the seat and meanwhile good luck with actually having anything resembling representation in Congress during a really crucial time, let alone constituent services. And then given that the vote for the final person is split over eleven different people about whom we know very little and well, even I’m thinking about not even bothering to show up to vote. What a mess.
Here is a list of the websites of the various candidates who are running for this spot. Finding many of them wasn’t easy — most of them didn’t turn up immediately in a google search — and most of their sites are lacking in any specifics (see below for my whole diatribe on what it means to be progressive these days). I mean you definitely won’t find information like “Jerry Walker is a part of the People’s Park Foundation, a nonprofit pushing for active recreation such as a multi-use sports field at Liberty State Park. The group is also linked to Liberty National CEO Paul Fireman” on these sites; all you’ll see is promotional, glowing copy written by each candidate’s team. But it’s something, I guess.
The final three candidates, Sheila Montague, Alberta Gordon, and Eugene Mazo, don’t seem to have websites for this race that I can find. For Montague, I’ve linked what seems to be an ad she filmed on YouTube. For Gordon, I’ve linked to her Q&A from New Jersey Globe (here’s a link to all the candidates’ questionnaires, or at least the ones that have turned theirs in).
As for Mazo — well, he’s a Rutgers professor. He’s only really running, far as we can tell, to test the limits of campaign slogans on the ballot, presumably in the interest of his academic research. From the Globe:
Mazo, a scholar of election law, has run for Congress several times before, utilizing unusual or provocative ballot slogans in order to challenge the state’s slogan restrictions. (In 2022, for example, he filed for the 8th congressional district using slogans like “Supported by the Governor” and “Endorsed by the New York Times,” statements that were not true.)
This year, Mazo filed at first with three ballot slogans referencing a variety of famous figures, fictional and real: “Vladimir Putin Is A Murderous Warmonger” in Essex County, “Xi Jinping Will Destroy Taiwan” in Hudson County, and “The James Bond of Newark” in Union County. But those were rejected by the Division of Elections; Putin and Xi, after all, had not granted Mazo their permission to use their names.
Mazo then switched to a trio of slogans that are nearly the same as, but not quite identical to, the official party slogans of the district’s county parties: “Essex County Democratic Commission, Inc.”, “Hudson County Democratic Corporation”, and “Normal Democratic Organization of Union County.”
He’s not really running and won’t campaign, but I kind of love him.
I have to say I’ve heard overall good things about LaMonica McIver — I haven’t heard much, but what I’ve heard from people in Newark that I know has been overall positive. Am I going on vibes because there’s very little info available? Absolutely. And that sucks and I wish I wasn’t. But it looks like this is what we’ve got for now.
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Update: I sent this out to readers later in the day:
Hello! Just a quick update…
I heard from someone who works closely with the Democratic Party in NJ10 that I got something mixed up in my article about how the replacement for Donald Payne will be picked. I wrote that voters would pick the replacement for the next term, and that party insiders would pick the replacement for now til January.
Winds up, I had that exactly backwards. I swear, it would make more sense than the way it’s really going to work, but here’s how it will work in reality:
The special election — the one that ordinary voters get to participate in — is technically only to fill the position from now til January. The candidate selected during the convention (which I described in the newsletter) will be to fill the position for the next two years.
I’ll keep this brief, but did want to let you know I made a mistake. I’ll be updating the web version of the original article as well. Sorry about this everyone!
— Amy
I truly apologize — I messed up. But man, this process is nuts.
Why is voter turnout so grim (part two)
Well, this project seems worthless and like a waste of time after writing the above, but let’s stick with it because, why not?
Update of the spreadsheet I’m working on: it’s far from done, but it’s now so long and unruly that taking a screenshot doesn’t seem like a great use of space in this newsletter. I’ve added columns for the individual wards and the votes cast, and I’m trying to break down each election that way as well. Hopefully soon, I will be able to chart this out on Tableau or something similar, which will help with the readability.
Overall (and I’m not done, so this could change) it seems as though we average about 59% for presidential elections, 28% for mayoral elections, and then the numbers dive off a cliff for anything else. Statewide positions — like assembly and state senator — do really, really badly. If one of those positions is alone on the ballot, you’re looking at about 12% turnout. Primaries are always abysmal.
The other thing that jumps out at me is that voter turnout seems very consistent across wards and from race to race since 2004. That’s odd, given how much Jersey City has changed during that time, both in terms of sheer population and also shifting demographics, not to mention changes in the system like Vote By Mail. Those percentages I gave above — they’re basically the same over and over throughout the last twenty years, despite all these shifts happening. I’m not sure why this is, and it’s bugging me.
Some ideas
Last week we talked about how registration and some other issues can be a barrier to voting. I heard from a number of readers who had suggestions of other ideas as well, and I wanted to touch on those this week. Here goes:
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What does “progressive” even mean anymore?
Somehow everyone running for office in this area is a “progressive.” It’s weird — in my neighborhood are several people who I know love Donald Trump (including one who is serving jail time for his participation in Jan 6th), a fair amount of “fiscal conservative/socially liberal” types, lots of people I’d peg to be moderate/mainstream Democrats who think Biden is doing great, some folks just a bit to the left of that, and then a handful of people way further out left. And yet, the term “progressive” seems to be applied to nearly every candidate running these days; ah yes, that amorphous term that replaced “liberal” once right wingers made that word toxic, even though no one can really nail down what the term means. Locally, it’s used to denote “not the machine” in some cases, or “the machine… but nice” in others. It’s a huge mess, and it’s become just a complete garbage word that means nothing at all. And it’s adding the confusion that voters have to deal with when they’re trying to learn about the differences between candidates.
Go to any of these websites and search for the word “progressive”: Here’s Craig Guy calling himself a progressive. Here’s Amy DeGise referring to herself as a progressive. Here’s a media outlet calling Democratic Socialist candidate Joel Brooks a progressive. Seems whether you’re a really entrenched, moderate Democrat who came up via the machine or a total outsider and member of the largest Socialist party in the US, you’re going to get the word “progressive” stuck to you at some point during your run, which only further complicates things for voters looking for information and works to flatten all the candidates into complete sameness. It’s not even something candidates can necessarily control — I couldn’t find any example of Brooks calling himself a “progressive,” but the press sure did.
As an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to “write promotional copy (125 words) for Candidate X who is running for mayor in a mid-sized city. Make it appealing to Democratic voters who are progressive,” and I got back:
🌟 Elect Candidate X for Mayor: A Champion of Progressive Values! 🌟
Ready for bold leadership in our city? Look no further than Candidate X, a dynamic advocate for progressive ideals. With a vision rooted in equality, sustainability, and community empowerment, Candidate X is poised to bring real change to our mid-sized city.
Committed to affordable housing initiatives, equitable education opportunities, and sustainable development, Candidate X embodies the Democratic values we hold dear. Their track record of activism and grassroots organizing speaks volumes about their dedication to uplifting every citizen.
Vote for Candidate X to ensure our city thrives with inclusivity, innovation, and compassion at its core. Together, let's build a future where everyone has a voice and opportunity. Join the movement for positive change—vote Candidate X for Mayor!
I then added, “Ok this is good, but add bikes and street safety to the mix,” and got back this:
🌟 Elect Candidate X for Mayor: A Champion of Progressive Values and Street Safety! 🌟
Ready for bold leadership in our city? Look no further than Candidate X, a dynamic advocate for progressive ideals and safer streets for all. With a vision rooted in equality, sustainability, and community empowerment, Candidate X is poised to bring real change to our mid-sized city.
Committed to affordable housing initiatives, equitable education opportunities, and sustainable development, Candidate X embodies the Democratic values we hold dear. Their dedication extends to promoting bike-friendly infrastructure and enhancing street safety measures, ensuring our neighborhoods are accessible and secure for everyone.
Vote for Candidate X to ensure our city thrives with inclusivity, innovation, and compassion, with safe streets and bike-friendly pathways at the forefront. Join the movement for positive change—vote Candidate X for Mayor!
…which honestly, this sounds like the copy that accompanied every candidate who has run in Wards D or E in the last decade, possibly also parts of JSQ (well, except Boggiano — who may be the only successful politician in the JC area to completely reject the “progressive” title, which is actually pretty interesting now that I think about it). For the rest of the city, maybe add a little spice into your copy about also creating parking, and you’d be in business. Notice how I didn’t even need to nudge it to include “affordable housing initiatives,” “sustainability,” “community empowerment,” “sustainable development,” and “equitable education opportunities.” These words, unfortunately, mean absolutely nothing now without actual specifics to back them up.
My point is, these very real issues that are genuinely very important have become meaningless buzzwords devoid of all power and meaning they once had, and voters know it. It potentially misleads the public and adds to the confusion that voters feel when even beginning to contemplate who to support, or the frustration they feel when they try to understand why the person they voted for isn’t living up to what they felt they were promised they’d be. “Politicians use slick language” is hardly news. But none of this is helping when we try to get people serious about showing up to vote.
There is also, in this mix, the fact of “hey, what if you’re a voter and you’re not a progressive at all?” As mentioned in the beginning of this section, there’s plenty of people in JC who aren’t. It would make absolutely zero sense to have the “most diverse city in America” where somehow, magically, every voter only ever wants progressive candidates. I plan on returning to this issue at another time.
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Low voter turnout is a strategy
This one cannot be ignored.
It does not matter how a ballot is designed or who has the most endorsements or whatever; if, in the end, the only people who show up to vote are city/county workers, the machine candidate will win every time.
It is understandable that if you work for a system — as in literally: if you go to work every day, 9-5, and your employment/benefits/retirement/healthcare is tied to that system — you’re probably going to be resistant to change. The idea of bringing in a new boss or series of bosses can be terrifying. Even if you don’t like your job right now and know it isn’t working well, the idea of leaping in to the unknown and replacing key people with people you’ve never seen before can be terrifying. It’s often just easiest to go with the devil you know instead of the one you don’t.
So, if you’re the machine, it’s in your best interest to not draw too much attention to yourself as you’re running. The more debates you have, the more interviews you participate in, the more attention the other candidates get as well. Why take that risk? Campaign quietly and to groups that you know can drive votes out to you; leave everyone else in the public alone. If your race bring out 5% turnout, who cares as long as a majority of those votes are for you?
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Negative campaigning
This really came into play in the recent congressional race in NJ08, and there’s been a fair amount of study about it. Negative campaigning now makes up a majority of spending when it comes to buying ads for candidates nationwide, and yet it doesn’t actually seem to do much other than annoy and turn off voters. From an academic think tank that studies these things:
[…W]hile there may be strategic incentives for candidates to engage in negative campaigning, evidence from decades of research suggests it is a “monkey’s paw” for attackers. For any reduction achieved in an opponent’s base, a similar or greater reduction will generally occur in the base of the attacker. Furthermore, negative campaigning is a net societal strain, hampering trust in government, inflaming intergroup rivalries, and stoking online toxicity. The speculative benefits of negative campaigning are not worth the cost, and candidates should look elsewhere for effective campaign strategies.
There’s actually been an enormous amount of studies done on these kinds of tactics. It seems that overall, proof is lacking that negative campaigning keeps voters away on Election Day, but it certainly doesn’t encourage them to show up either. And, as stated above, it usually works to also poison the image of the person making the attack.
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Anyway, more on this topic soon. I’m going to keep picking away at this — there’s a lot to cover.
A Girl Scout Love Connection?
My friends over at Girl Scout Troop 12912 reached out with a sweet story that I wanted to share with you. And, perhaps, maybe something more?
It seems the girls were out one day, selling their cookies, and having a bit of a tough time moving their final boxes, when a mysterious stranger — en route to a blind date — made an appearance. As Troop Leader Jodi told me:
Sales were slow and steady when, in our 2nd hour of the sale, a well-dressed man in a suit walked up to our table and said he was happy to see us there - so he had someone to chat with as he nervously waited for his date to arrive, someone he had never met before.
He then asked if we still donate cookies to the US Military. I responded “We do! All cookies donated in the presale go to a non-profit that sends cookies to active military in the field, and we can accept such donations now, too.” He went on to share that, when he was on active duty, he loved receiving those cookies and it had meant a lot to him.
He went on to ask: "If I buy some cookies, can you make sure they get to the US Marine Corp?" and we replied "Yes, absolutely." He then made a payment by Venmo and walked away.
Checking the Venmo payment a moment later, we saw it was for $500!!! That's enough to cover 83 boxes of cookies!
As I showed our scout, Sarah, she asked "Do you think he made a mistake?" We saw him pacing and checking his phone nearby so I called out - "Thank you for your donation! Are you sure the amount is correct? He smiled and said "It's correct." We replied "OK, thank you so much! We'll be sure cookies get to USMC".
We counted our remaining cookies and his payment had sold us out! So, we closed up the sale and sent him well wishes via Venmo, too.
On Monday, the troop delivered the boxes to a Marine recruitment center in Jersey City on Bergen Ave, and they will get them to the troops on active duty right now.
You’d think the cute story would end there, and maybe it should, but let’s take this a step further: once the cookies were dropped off at the center, the troop leader sent the mysterious man a note on Venmo letting him know and inquiring how his date went. He was happy to hear about the cookies being dropped off, but sadly reported the date didn’t go well.
Ok, now you know where this is all headed. Forgive me.
Ladies. We have in our midst a guy who, admittedly, we don’t know that much about. We know he really loves cookies and used to be a Marine and is generous and single. Also, I have his name — I decided not to put him on blast in this post even though I technically have permission to mention him — and I lightly Googled him and he doesn’t seem to be an obvious serial killer and does seem to be gainfully employed. I’d guess (hopefully I have the right guy) he’s in his 30s/40s.
But: [not a serial killer]/[loves cookies]/[well-dressed]/[employed] — let’s just say that epic romances have started on much thinner ice and with much less substance. So: if you would like your contact info to be passed onto this man, respond to this newsletter with a LinkedIn profile or something similar, and I can pass that on to the troop leader to pass onto him. I know LinkedIn is the absolute opposite of all that is romantic and dreamy, but I also figured it would be probably the best way to keep me, the readers of this newsletter, and the entire Girl Scouts of America from getting too up in your business, while still connecting you and potentially introducing you to this guy (other, non-sexy social media profiles and/or web presences are fine as well). Come on, single ladies — there’s still time to get a summer romance started. Let’s get a really happy ending to this story!
ICYMI
Several PTA orgs in the city have come up with a petition to ask the JCBOE for some basic changes to how they run their meetings. These seem pretty commonsense and honestly, something has to be done to get this board to run at least somewhat reasonably, so please consider signing it.
The city council this week introduced a resolution to get the payroll tax resolution enforced. Yes, we’ve gotten to the point where that’s two distinct steps: one calling for a tax and the other enforcing the collection of the tax years later, apparently. More on that here.
“The Jersey City Council unexpectedly voted down an $80,000 contract for a lawyer to represent the city in the lawsuit filed by Portside Towers and Equity Residential in federal court following the urging of some building residents at last night’s meeting. […] While the political disclosure form attached to the resolution indicated that the firm had given $4,900 to Mayor Steven Fulop’s campaign for governor, Weller also pointed out that they gave $20,000 (two separate $10,000 donations) to the Coalition for Progress linked to Fulop’s statewide run.” Full story here.
hey let me know if you need Tableau access, i can help