Issue 191: A vote of no confidence
Plus: good news!, some new ideas on the campaign trail, a lengthy ICYMI, and TWO ferals of the week to make up for all the weeks I forgot to include one!
Good morning! For all JC residents hoping that the rain will hold off and allow the St. Patrick’s Day parade to happen, I think you’re in luck. Here’s your weekly newsletter and I hope you’re doing really well! — Amy
A celebration!
Look, we need some good news around here, right? So let’s start with this item:
This Thursday, JC Together is hosting a “water celebration” to celebrate the conclusion of a very long project they’ve been involved in, on Thursday March 20th from 9:15-10:15am at PS 30 Andrew D. Sullivan School (171 Seaview Avenue). From an Instagram post from the group:
Clean Water for Every Student in Jersey City—Mission Accomplished! 🎉
After years of hard work, @jerseycity_together, alongside Jersey City Public Schools, the Jersey City Municipal Utilities Authority, and many others, has made it happen—1,169 brand-new drinking fountains installed across every JCBOE school and early childhood learning center!
This victory didn’t happen overnight. It took persistent community advocacy, collaboration with city agencies, and a shared commitment to making sure every student has access to clean, safe drinking water. Together, we turned this goal into reality!
Since 2018, JC Together has been pushing to install this new hardware in our public schools to ensure all JCPS students have access to safe, clean water. And finally, that project is complete.
From a press mailing about the event:
Community members are welcome, yet we hope they RSVP for planning purposes. Parking is available at the JCEA parking lot off of JFK and westbound Neptune Ave, a half-block from PS 30.
The program will feature PS 30 students, JC Together leaders, a JCPS video presenting the impact of this project district-wide, and brief remarks from City, JCMUA and JCBOE leaders. But mostly, it is a celebration of a community collaboration that proved to be solutions-focused, inspired by student initiative, with progress monitored persistently by JC Together leaders.
To RSVP, go here: https://www.njtogether.org/education
Vote of no-confidence for Shea
This week, the city council passed a vote of no-confidence for Public Safety Director Jim Shea. From an article on TapInto:
City directors are often brought before the city council by the business administrator to explain various pieces of legislation that are brought before the body. These officials, however, are not answerable to the council according to the legislation that directs Jersey City’s form of government.
[…]
The effort was led by Councilman Frank Gilmore, a well-established critic of the Fulop Administration. He read off what he said were a litany of requests by residents and council members that went unanswered by Shea over several years, noting that the council’s ability to hold directors accountable is voided by the fact that none of these directors have to be reappointed and, so, do not need to get the council vote.
Requests for information varied from traffic issues to closed firehouses, Gilmore continued, have gone unanswered, even when submitted by members of the city council.
Just as some background, Shea was hired in 2013 to oversee both Jersey City’s police department and also the fire department. Going back to 2013, the announcement of his appointment in the Jersey Journal read:
A New York City deputy police chief is Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s pick to be the city’s public-safety director.
James Shea, 51, of Highland Mills, N.Y., was selected after a “nationwide” search performed by a firm headed by Howard Safir, a former police and fire commissioner in New York City.
Also from that article:
NY1 says Shea played an instrumental role in creating a training program for the NYPD's controversial "stop and frisk" program, [ed note: that link no longer works] which critics say leads to untold numbers of black and Hispanic men being stopped and frisked for no reason. Shea today said the policy doesn't exist, adding that officers are permitted to stop someone in the course of an investigation if they believe that person is committing a crime.
“But a policy where they, police officers, have to do it, or have a certain number they have to do … not only is it bad policing, there’s no legal basis for it,” he said.
As a mayoral candidate, Fulop said he is opposed to stop-and-frisk.
A little more back history: Shea’s brother is Dermot Shea, who was the Commissioner of the NYPD until 2022. Just from some very cursory poking around online, it looks like there’s quite a few members of the Shea family who wound up going into law enforcement, but I’m going to say that’s not that unusual. Coming from a working class Irish family in Queens, which the Shea brothers definitely did, this was a pretty straightforward path that a lot of similar families took, with law enforcement being an enticing route to climb up the ladder and out of their humble beginnings. (Jim Shea would go on to earn just under $190k as a starting salary for public safety director, along with holding on to his $125k annual pension from his time in the NYPD.)
His appointment coincided with the city consolidating the police force and fire department under one umbrella, the Department of Public Safety. Consolidating the two like this was a thing Fulop did with several city departments when he first came in as mayor, with the promise that it would save taxpayers money and streamline services.
Shea has been involved in a number of controversies over the years. But things started out pretty amicably at least with the council, and I was able to find this article from 2018, where several council members were vigorously defending him from criticism. From the Jersey Journal:
Shea often butts heads with rank-and-file officers -- the local police union has called him an "absentee" leader because of his out-of-town trips -- and the department has faced at least two major investigations by outside law enforcement. One of them was a probe of a high-speed, lengthy police pursuit in June that ended in a fiery car crash on Tonnelle Avenue. Officers were caught on tape kicking an innocent man who was the victim of the crash, and has since signaled he will sue the city for $25 million.
Twenty officers in the last two years have been charged with criminal acts, including former Police Chief Phil Zacche. Two officers face attempted murder charges stemming from the June pursuit.
Council members defended the public safety director to The Jersey Journal, saying they don't believe he should be held responsible for the actions of the officers accused of criminal acts. Council President Rolando Lavarro noted the conspiracy at the heart of the off-duty scam began years before Shea was hired.
"There was a culture there and they're changing the culture," Lavarro said. "I think there's efforts in working with the feds on this stuff to investigate all of these criminal acts."
Ward C Councilman Rich Boggiano, a retired police detective, has frequently criticized the Fulop administration's handling of the police department while defending Shea from those critiques. Boggiano said Wednesday that Shea should not be blamed for the acts of specific police officers.
"I don't think it had anything to do with Jim Shea," he said. "It's the people who did the illegal acts. You can do things and sometimes the bosses don't know. You can work for a bank and steal money as a teller and the president doesn't know it."
But there were other issues along the way. In 2022, “An aide to Jersey City Public Safety Director Jim Shea and another man have been charged with breaking a man’s jaw in 2020 after accusing him of breaking into one of their vehicles.” In 2020, “Police officers in New Jersey used batons and pepper spray to break up a crowd during an ugly caught-on-video street brawl involving dozens of people that resulted in six arrests, according to reports.” In 2017, “12 police officers […] were placed on modified duty four months ago amid a federal probe of the police department have been suspended with pay.” There were additional incidents, none of them too egregious I guess (?) but also, not so great either.
By far the biggest controversy that Shea was implicated in was the death of Andrew Washington, a mentally ill man whose family was well known to law enforcement and the neighborhood as being a family in need of assistance; they were also known to be compliant and helpful to the police. And yet, despite all of this, Washington was tragically killed by the police his family had called to check in on him, in his own home while having a mental health episode. To many, Shea’s position as the ultimate authority over the police means that he should stand to answer questions in Washington’s death and in the training JCPD receive as it relates to dealing with people in crisis. Washington’s family is now suing the city.
But what seems to have brought about this vote of no confidence — which is purely an admonishment from the council and doesn’t carry with it any actual repercussions — wasn’t really any of these incidents. It was that Shea is accused of regularly not responding to council members’ requests for information or police response. Council members complained — and have been complaining for some time — about requesting information and assistance and getting nowhere, and their frustration led to this vote. The vote came down to Frank Gilmore, Rich Boggiano, James Solomon, Denise Ridley, Daniel Rivera, and Joyce Watterman all voting yes, Amy DeGise voting no, and Yousef Saleh and Mira Prinz-Arey abstaining.
I’m mentioning all this old history with Shea to point out that I don’t think this vote came out of nowhere, nor do I think it was completely politically motivated. Everything that happens at a city council meeting is going to have at least some politics intermingled (and that’s especially true if the top guy in a city is running for governor) but it does sound like the council has some genuine reason to be concerned for some time. (To be honest, a few more questions asked of him over the time of his tenure would make me feel better about the job they’re doing, given that there were some pretty serious incidents years before any raised issues of him not sharing info with the council. But at least they’re pushing now.)
It’s totally unclear what happens next. There’s no indication that Fulop is going to make any moves based on this vote, and given the amount of time it would take to find someone new for the position and fill it, it might just make more sense to wait til we’ve picked a new mayor and let that person start the process.
Some new ideas on the campaign trail
On Wednesday, something very strange happened. Two of the candidates for mayor — both of whom I’d largely given up on — suddenly came out with some pretty interesting ideas. And while neither of them have really convinced me to vote for them based on this alone, I am really happy to see some different issues raised and officially entered into the conversation as this race slowly heats up.
Mussab Ali called for a free bus service. In an article on HudPost:
Mussab Ali, a candidate for Jersey City mayor, has unveiled a proposal to create a free city bus network aimed at improving transit access. His plan includes four main routes connecting Journal Square and Downtown with The Heights, West Side, Bergen-Lafayette, and Greenville. According to Ali’s plan, the buses would feature signal priority, GPS tracking, and automatic ticketing enforcement.
“Jersey City’s transportation system is not keeping up with our needs,” Ali said. “We must upgrade our system so that it serves all residents of Jersey City. I will not stop fighting until we have a world-class system that is a model for cities everywhere.”
Ali said the system would be funded through “state and federal grants, revenue from parking and traffic violations, and advertising.” He also called for increased weekend PATH service, an extension to Newark Airport and Marion, and ensuring that congestion pricing revenue benefits Jersey City commuters. “Our transit system should work for the people of Jersey City, not just be a pass-through to New York,” he said.
I agree with literally everything that’s written here except that I have serious doubts that state/federal grants (to which I would ask WHAT FEDERAL GRANTS — anyone counting on federal money at this exact moment is in denial with what’s happening in DC at this exact moment) and advertising would go very far in paying for it (I have literally no idea how much revenue is generated from parking and traffic violations but unless it’s a whole lot, that doesn’t sound great either). Which is to say I think his plan absolutely will not work without either serious tax hikes or cuts in other services… but I’m still glad to have the idea in the mix. More on that in a second.
Jim McGreevey, meanwhile, released a statement to Hudson County View with his estimate to replace our water and sewer infrastructure: $6.35 billion. From that statement:
Citing both government and private reports, McGreevey continues that approximately 50 percent of the Jersey City water and sewer lines must be replaced.
He suggests covering the expensive costs via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the EPA and FEMA grants, the New Jersey State Infrastructure Bank, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as well as long-term, low-interest loans.
“Jersey City must replace aging sewer and water piping within the next decade. Delays will increase emergency repair costs and negatively impact residents. While Downtown and Journal Square have transformed, we must recognize the strain on our utilities,” McGreevey further stated.
This is interesting. I genuinely don’t doubt that he’s right about a lot of this infrastructure needing to be updated — as pointed out in a press release he sent to media outlets (including this newsletter), he states that “Jersey City’s oldest water pipe was built in 1874.” It’s still slightly unclear to me where, specifically, he’s getting the number that fully fifty percent of the infrastructure needs to be replaced, as this is not cited in the mailing. He mentions “government and private reports” but doesn’t say what those are, exactly, when they were done, or if they were specifically about JC or cities in general, or what exactly. (In his press mailing, he also lays out a plan to completely replace everything, rather than just repair it, which he says would cost $10.7 billion.)
My misgivings about his lack of proof doesn’t mean he’s wrong. I think we can all agree our water and sewer system is very old, and we’ve probably all seen examples of it failing. I have no doubt that it does need to be fixed and in a perfect world we’d update it all. All I’m saying is, before we commit to spending billions, I’d feel better seeing some studies to back that up, as well as hearing more details about the logistics and pros and cons of repairing vs replacing the whole thing. This is an absolutely massive undertaking and before anyone takes the job on, I’d like to hear a lot more.
So here we have two ideas: one (Ali’s) I think is great except for his plan to pay for it which doesn’t sound promising, and the other (McGreevey’s) I’d like considerably more info on before we do anything, but there’s probably a lot to it. Which is to say I’m not 100% sold on either idea, but here’s why I think it’s great we’re talking about them: election season is a time to pitch big ideas to the public and bat them around to see what will actually work. We’re never going to get any kind of change in this city if we don’t at least allow ourselves to think outside of the box, even if for a short while.
For several months now, the JC election has been bogged down with talk about beat cops, litter cleanup, the vague notion of “affordability” and other perennial classics that candidates always talk about every four years and nothing ever changes (I mean, I agree it would be great if we could resolve these issues, but I’ve long since given up hope and now my reptile brain is craving something exciting and innovative). At least if we’re going to all go vote on issues where nothing will ever happen, they can at least be something new and different, you know? Maybe some good will come of it. Maybe we’ll iron out the issues with these plans over the next few months. And who knows, maybe they’ll actually lead somewhere good.
Two feral cats of the week!!!!!
Ok I am so excited — we got two this week!
First, from a reader:
What a beauty!!! I love that the riders of the Danforth Street stop have adopted him/her! (I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this is not a true feral but rather a neighborhood cat who probably has a home and is also working the sweet people of Danforth to get a little extra food and love. Hey if I could, I would! Go get those treats, Lil Danny/Dani!!! Also if someone wants to start an Instagram account for this cat, that would be great.)
Normally that would be it for Feral of the Week but I was leaving my place the other day and happened to wander into the following scene:
Eeeeeee!!! This cat was all snuggled into the leaves on my neighbor’s lawn and enjoying the sunlight. Too cute not to share. (There was actually a THIRD Feral of the Week but I’m being smart and holding onto that one for next week. But let’s say that spring is here and our local cat population is living their best life enjoying it! And we should be too!)
ICYMI
Slice of Culture, a local news and arts site, found a Jersey City business owner who has been at an ICE jail/detention facility in PA for months. [Link]
James Solomon announced Rolando Lavarro for Council-at-large. Lavarro, the former Fulop slate Council-at-large member served as council president for four years, only to come out against the Fulop admin; he then ran as an independent in 2021 and came in sixth place out of seven candidates.
Meanwhile, Joyce Watterman announced Rev. Tami Weaver-Henry for Council-at-large. With the addition of Weaver-Henry, four out of five of the candidates running with Watterman are ordained religious leaders of some kind (this includes Watterman herself).
Bill O’Dea and Jim McGreevey briefly got into the ring (to box? wrestle? a combo of both? I leave that for you to decide) and John Heinis has video to prove it.
By the way, candidates are out these days, trying to get signatures to qualify for the ballot. You can sign for any candidate running for citywide office (so, mayor or council-at-large) and for a candidate for city council in the ward where you live. Just note, you can’t sign for more candidates than you can vote for, meaning: you can sign for one mayoral candidate, one council candidate, and three council-at-large candidates. (If you accidentally sign for more than one candidate or did before you realized, don’t worry — you won’t get into any trouble. However, your signature won’t count, and it’ll be a pain for the candidates, so try not to do it!)
Local activists are trying to push the mayor for a more complete statement on ICE in Jersey City. Check out their petition to him here.
Jersey City Council narrowly OKs $162k engineering contract for Heights bike lane
The Jersey City St. Patrick’s Day Parade kicks off today (Sunday) at Dickinson High at 1pm. The parade eventually ends at City Hall around 3pm. I’m at least a mile+ from the parade route and I can assure you that the bagpipes have started in earnest already at quarter of 11.
Also from JC Together (I separated this out from the water celebration to hopefully make this as clear as possible): “Wednesday afternoon/evening, March 19 at 5:30: the JCBOE has scheduled its workshop/consideration of the Preliminary FY2026 Budget for 5:30, followed by their Regular March Meeting. The Preliminary F2026 Budget is due to the NJ Dept. of Education's County Executive on March 19. As with past years, after the County Executive approves the bottom-line numbers, there is a "Public Hearing" currently scheduled for April 16 [emphasis mine], and then the Final FY2026 Budget is considered for approval by early May....all subject to the state passing its budget by the end of June.” Ok, I think this means the budget gets explained to the public on the same day it’s due (which doesn’t seem great, but ok), but that there is a hearing people can attend a few weeks later and give testimony at if they feel strongly about any of the items in that budget. I’m just putting this item here in case you want to mark your calendars for that hearing on April 16th — we all know the budget is getting slashed, and the news won’t be great. I’ll see what I can find out about what, specifically, is being cut, and fill you in the best I can next week.
Also! I went to get my passport renewed at the Hudson County Clerk’s office and I just wanted to mention that if you’ve been putting off this task because of fears of how unpleasant it might be, don’t. I timed it: I was in and out of the door having successfully submitted all my paperwork in a mere ten minutes. The office was super professional and streamlined; it was as painless and as simple as it could possibly be. Be sure to make an appointment ahead of time (I was able to get an appointment just a few days after I called about it — while there are stories of delays of weeks or months in other parts of the country, I only really had to worry about aligning their schedule with mine). Really, the whole situation could not have been easier. I might not have put it off as long as I did had I known sooner — so don’t wait!