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Thanks for the good laugh Suan. Now belly up and I will buy you

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Conners can give Healy a run for his money .. in terms of being stupid and corrupt.

Assemblyman Conners will be the next Mayor, Dr. Epps may run on his ticket.

When rat, Suan Coners and his god Nutzy Mccan start sucking up to peeple they don't like you know the good ship *Hic* is taking on water. Suan and nutzy have been having dinner with Stack at the Coach house for months and just recently Suan contacted Fulop and said he wanted to talk which is pretty funny cause Coners has been bad mouthing Fulop for years. But then he badmouthed Healy and Stack too. I hope Fulop thinks long and hard about taking this creep on. What does it say about you when your besties are x-felons and drunks you are contantly getting city and county jobs for? Oh yeah is he going to get his latest girl friend a nice cushy tax payer funded job like he did the last two?

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

I bet SF is laughing his butt off as are the new members of the BoE. Dr. Epps was a disaster - his complete incompetence in leading the JCPS has not only prepared him, but also qualified him to be Gerry's tool, and once on the council, he'll define useful idiot. He has the experience, the personality, and the achievements ...

At the same time, all jokes aside, this shows the stress Gerry is under. He is weak, has nothing to show, and the demographics of the city is changing. Of course, throwing in a couple of hundred (thousands) of votes from the dearly departed can tip the outcome of the election, he needs a plattform and right know he is clearly grasping at any straws. Incorporating into a re-election strategy the (just) firing of the incompetent Dr. Epps is at best an act of complete desperation ...

Can you imagine the extent of the housecleaning, the burning of files, and the sudden and unexplained disappearance of harddrives, back-ups and other evidence that the current administration will have to do once they are kicked out from City Hall? All the corruption, all the nepotism, all the incompetence ...

Healy courts ex-Superintendent Epps as running mate
Will controversial search for his replacement cast shadow over 2013 race?

by E. Assata Wright
Reporter staff writer - July 8, 2012

Will the controversy surrounding the selection of Dr. Marcia Lyles as the next Jersey City superintendent of schools still resonate with voters heading to the polls in May 2013 for the mayor and council elections?

By that time, Lyles will be completing her first year on the job, and the rancor surrounding her selection may have receded into the background as more immediate issues take center stage in the campaign.

But it was confirmed last week that the reelection campaign of Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy has approached former superintendent Dr. Charles Epps to run on his slate as an at-large City Council candidate.

This suggests the Healy campaign believes voters will still be fired up about the school board?s selection of Lyles. Allegations that school board members were pressured to hire Lyles, and anger that the board did not include acting school superintendent Franklin Walker as a finalist, could damage the campaign of Healy?s opponent, Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop.

For the past three years, Fulop and his allies have made education reform and overhauling the local school district a priority, which he planned to use as a centerpiece of his 2013 mayoral campaign. Since 2010, Fulop has put together and endorsed three Board of Education slates, all of which were elected.

Fulop?s candidates largely campaigned on the promise that Epps needed to be removed and replaced following a national candidate search. Last year the school board negotiated a separation agreement with Epps that paved the way for a national search for his replacement, culminating with the selection of Lyles.

The Epps factor

Last week several Healy allies confirmed that Epps has been approached to run for one of three at-large seats on Healy?s slate. Efforts to reach Epps for a comment were unsuccessful.

Epps was the superintendent of schools in Jersey City for 18 years and presided over a period of high dropout rates and low test scores in the district. Despite this, Epps continues to have many supporters among parents who believe he was unfairly blamed for some of the district?s problems and unfairly forced out as superintendent.

?[Epps] can win, especially in this atmosphere,? said one Healy ally last week, referring to the acrimony surrounding the superintendent search process. ?He can do well in several parts of this city.?

?Epps is open to it. We?re talking to him,? confirmed another Healy ally. ?He?d do very well in Society Hill.?

A spokesperson for Healy?s campaign declined to confirm whether Epps has been approached to run on the mayor?s ticket.

?We?re raising money, building a staff, and considering a council slate that will continue moving Jersey City forward,? said Joshua Henne. Healy?s full official slate might not be finalized and announced until after the New Year.

His inclusion as a council candidate next year could galvanize support for Healy?s slate.

?I think there are a lot of parents that would vote for him,? said parent Vanessa Symms. ?I might vote for him. I feel more comfortable with him than Steve Fulop. So, yeah, I think that would be a good idea putting him on the ticket. And I campaign for people I like, too. I?d support Healy if he did that.?

A number of parents who supported Epps and Walker echoed this sentiment last week.

Superintendent issue ?not going away?

Some longtime Fulop allies say they are reconsidering their support for his 2013 mayoral run in light of how the superintendent search process was handled by the school trustees he endorsed.

?I absolutely promise you this will still be an issue next year,? said Josephine Paige, a downtown resident who recently wrote an open letter to Fulop on why she has withdrawn her support from his campaign. ?This issue is not going away. It is not dying. The actions taken by the board is not going away. He is going to lose other support because of this. I?m the one who has spoken out thus far. But as more information comes out there will be other people rethinking their support of Steve Fulop.?

Another Fulop supporter, who asked that his name not be used, also said he is ?seriously reconsidering? his support of Fulop ?in light of what has happened with the school board over the last two months.?

Lyles? affiliation with the Broad Superintendents Academy, he said, ?is not in the best interests of the Jersey City public schools,? and he believes that Fulop played a behind-the scenes role in her selection. The Broad Academy is funded by private backers who favor school choice options, including charter schools and vouchers. This affiliation with controversial school choice options has led critics of Broad Academy to question whether its graduates are firmly committed to public education. Such criticism has been leveled at Lyles, although at a public forum in Jersey City last month she described herself as a public school advocate.

Fulop has repeatedly denied that he lobbied for Lyles to get the superintendent job. And despite the loss of some political support, the mayoral contender is undeterred.

?Good government, which puts the residents first, is good politics and I wouldn?t change anything,? Fulop said. ?I don?t base decisions on what is good for my election or what?s politically easy. If I was looking to my campaign, I would do what most other elected officials do, which is do nothing and hope for re-election. But I believe we can have an impact and the status quo is not acceptable. The [Board of Education] candidates said they would look for transformational change. They said they would do a national search. They are following through on what people elected them to do.?

He said he ?admired? the board for ?fighting for what?s right? and said Healy?s involvement in education at this time is little more than a political ploy for votes

http://hudsonreporter.com/view/full_s ... ndary_stories_left_column

Steve Fulop is probably laughing himself silly over this. Epps was a complete disaster for the public school system of Jersey City, so why ANYONE would think he could effectively help to govern even a portion of this city is a complete mystery to me. And if you've ever heard him speak in public (I have) you'd wonder if he'd even made it through 8th grade, much less an advanced degree.

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Once you're a "made man" in Hudson County, you're taken care of like family, a crime family that is. Just look at Lipski's career: utter humiliation and resignation, followed by getting a $65k gig running the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation after a year of "no pay penance". Fulop spikes the attempt to bump him up to $95k so he's shuttled to another tit of the Hudson County sow, a assistant principal job in Harrison. Gotta keep that county pension building up. Half these guys couldn't get a job as janitor outside Hudson County.

so this guy will be like a case of herpes. You will never be rid of him.

After the great job Epps did with the schools his level of "expertise" will fit perfectly with Team Healy.

And of course he needs the Council gig to supplement the small buyout and pension he received after leaving the BOE.

Cunningham would bleed Healy tremendously. It would end up being a run-off between her and Fulop.

Charlie Epps - that would be awesome!

...Interesting indeed... Now if Cunningham runs we will have a Soap Opera election. Stay tuned.

Jul 08, 2012 | Hudson Reporter

Epps for Jersey City council?

Perhaps seeking to take advantage of dissatisfaction with the way the Jersey City School Board selected its new superintendent, and to hammer home the fact that the school board has close ties to his mayoral opponent Jersey City Councilman Steven Fulop, Mayor Jerramiah Healy may be seeking to get former Schools Superintendent Charles Epps to run on his ticket as a council candidate.

Healy appears to be seeking ways to take advantage of cracks in the Fulop for Mayor campaign, including possibly enticing former Fulop allies to his camp.

?It?s a great move,? said one political observer said

Recently, in what some call another brilliant move, Healy showed up at a fundraiser for state senator and Union City Mayor Brian Stack, who prior to this had been thought to be leaning towards supporting Fulop?s mayoral bid.

?Of course, I?m going to go there,? Healy said. ?He is the state senator for half the city and I should have a good relationship with him and Senator [Sandra] Cunningham, who represents the other half of Jersey City.?

Healy, who still has yet to put together his organization for reelection, has been seen to date as the underdog, but many believe that Fulop may be running out of steam, and that Healy may be able to pull off his reelection bid after all.

?All he has to do is get into a run off with Fulop to stand a chance of winning,? said one source, claiming that people will rally to Healy if they see him as a viable choice, especially if it means they can protect their patronage jobs.

Healy may also be reaching out to Assemblyman Sean Connors as a possible Ward D candidate, putting pressure on Fulop, who is seen weak in some of the outlying parts of the city. This may be why a meeting between Fulop and Connors is being brokered.

Rift over sheriff?s hiring

A political rift appears to be opening between some Hudson County mayors, the county executive and Hudson County Sheriff Frank Schillari.

While it is unlikely that the rift will get so wide as to cause Democrats to seek another candidate for sheriff, the fight is over the hiring of investigators and whose choice that should be. Many of the mayors and apparently also the county executive appear to want some say in the hiring of these non-union and non-civil service positions, while the sheriff apparently believes that as sheriff hiring is his prerogative.

Schillari, who is supported strongly by state Senator and North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco, has made some political enemies ? including apparently state Sen. Stack, who apparently thought a Union City resident was going to be a deputy sheriff. But for the most part, this is a battle over priorities, and few are predicting Schillari losing his seat over this.

The Hoboken mayoral

The once united opposition to Mayor Dawn Zimmer seems to have fallen onto hard times as next May?s election looms.

?Everybody wants to be mayor, but nobody can be if everybody runs,? said one political source.

While the most obvious choice for running against Zimmer is state Assemblyman Ruben Ramos, not everybody is in his camp ? and he would need a united front to win.

Councilman Michael Russo apparently supports Ramos, but this has put him at odds with his very close associate Councilwoman Terri Castellano, who apparently thinks she would make a viable candidate ? and indeed she would.

Frank Raia, who has run for mayor previously, and has served on the Board of Education in the past, is rumored to have the support of Councilwoman Beth Mason. But Raia has not yet made up his mind if he intends to run for mayor or city council.

Mason and Raia became fast allies during the special election for Fourth Ward when they helped Tim Occhipinti overthrow Councilman Michael Lenz.

?They?ve agree to work together and have a friendship, and they will support the same candidates for mayor and council and the Board of Education,? a source close to Mason said. ?But who that candidate is, it hasn?t been decided yet.?

There is even some support from the business community for Freeholder Anthony Romano, who said he would not run in an election where there were too many candidates.

But anti-Zimmer people say there will not likely be a divided field for next May?s election, and that eight people that include Ramos, Raia, Mason, Russo, Romano, Castellano, Democratic Chairman Jamie Cryan, and Occhipinti are meeting regularly, and out of these meetings will emerge a slate for November?s Board of Education election as well as choices for mayor and council next May.

Rumors of firings in West New York unfounded

Someone began a rumor that West New York Mayor Felix Roque went on a firing spree this week, saying he allegedly removed people from the city's administrative office, the Department of Public Works, and the Police Department. And while sources confirmed that employees were in fact let go or left, it was for reasons other than the rumored political slaughter, including retirement.

Gov. Christopher Christie made reference to Roque?s legal troubles without mentioning his name in his weekly radio show in late June. Christie stated that any mayor should step down when he or she is indicted for a crime.

Although Roque and his son have been charged with allegedly hacking into their political opponents? website, no indictment has yet been issued ? and most likely won?t be issued, if at all -- until after the summer.

?Things slow down in the summer,? one source said.

But don?t expect Roque to resign even if indicted ? especially if he honestly believes he didn?t do anything wrong

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