I don't know how long any of you have been living there, but I in grew up in Bayonne and went to private high school and college in Jersey City in the 60's and I've gottta' tell you, it looks like absolutely NOTHING has changed in 40 years, at least as far as the city government is concerned. I just saw the 'cops drinking on duty' video on the Ch 11 News, and ( yawn).... so? Maybe you expected something different?

The reputation of the city back then was that the entirety of Municipal Government was so corrupt, there was nothing that could be done about it. Were they wrong? Seems to me you guys had an election a few years ago where you couldn't even give away the job of mayor!

As I like to say to my friends now, " I grew up in Hudson County New Jersey, where they invented Democratic machine politics, along with the stone axe, in 12B.C. ." " In Hudson County, you're born a Democrat, you die a Democrat and you vote Democratic from the grave - frequently."

My best judgment is that the way they held onto power back then was through corruption, plain and simple.
I would imagine that the only way that is ever going to change
is through the classical 'democratic process' ( no pun intended).

I personally feel that the process of the revitalization of downtown, and particularly the waterfront, as an extension of lower Manhattan, will (has already started to? ) bring in enough upstanding, intelligent, civic minded and economically independent residents who actually might embrace ' functional city government' as a realistic possibility. Since I now reside in Manhattan, I, unfortunately can't be part of that.

Just as a parting note, I have another anecdote which will illustrate how 'bad' it was back then. When I was in high school we were assigned different topics for a report to be given in history/civics class. One kid was supposed to write about the legendary JC mayor Frank "I AM the law" Hague. ( Admittedtly and openly accepted by everyone at the time as having been the personification of corruption in local government).
One day, when we were all asked to report on how our individual projects were going, this kid stood up and said that he was having a really hard time with his topic. He said that when he went to the library, he wasn't able to locate any books on the man because, even though there were some listed in the catalog, he was told that all the copies were missing, and presumed STOLEN! bayonneboy