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Could it be "things were good, very good" under Clinton and a general economic boom coming out of a recession? Was the growth of JC simply a measure of what a hole it was in before?

You're a economic conservative, how do you condone the financial shenanigans he used to pay operating budget expenses with debt?

Welcome back Bret Schundler. Is your corpooration counsel going to be Sean Connolly? He was a great choice last time walking around with his silly looking derby and permanent beer puss. Better yet maybe Healy can give him that job, he would fit in well with this administration too. Seriously though If Schundler comes back Fulop is going to hand him his head in a basket! (politically speaking).

Welcome back Bret Schundler. Is your corpooration counsel going to be Sean Connolly? He was a great choice last time walking around with his silly looking derby and permanent beer puss. Better yet maybe Healy can give him that job, he would fit in well with this administration too. Seriously though If Schundler comes back Fulop is going to hand him his head in a basket! (politically speaking).

Welcome back Bret Schundler. Is your corpooration counsel going to be Sean Connolly? He was a great choice last time walking around with his derby and permanent beer puss. Better yet maybe Healy can give him that job, he would fit in well with this administration too. Seriously though If Schundler comes back Fulop is going to hand him his head in a basket! (politically speaking).

http://www.isc.hbs.edu/pdf/ICEF_2005.11.15.pdf

#1 in jobs, #1 in wage growth during his tenure vs. the other 99 largest cities in the country, 1995-2003. (Was mayor from 93-01)

But I guess Harvard is a neo con bastion.

(one quick note- to the NEO REPUBLICAN commenter- do you know what a neo con is? I'd look it up before throwing it around. Looks stupid.)

Don't care about Schundler one way or the other, but let's at least have some honesty in the discussion- By at least one metric- employment & wage growth- things were good, very good, under Brett Schundler.


GWB

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How is the shell games he played with budgets, authorities, utility asset sales, and bonds "good government"? The train wreck he created to balance his budgets on the backs of future ones will be with us for decades.

And if you think we haven't been complaining about Healy being a disaster you haven't been paying attention.

And just when they all agree it couldn't get any worse:

it's our boy Brett again!!


Makes a person wanna move.

Schundler was the only mayor in a hundred years to leave office poorer than when he got in. And aside from the Corrados, none of his inner circle benefited (the same can't be said for the nomenclatura who Schundler mistakenly thought he could bring around and who got the lions share of perks). Fact is Schuncler did a lot of good- JCPD was more efficient, NID improved quality of life, etc. The anti Bret venom is just a cover for those who fear good governement. I mean how else to explain the angry tone that surpasses any of the criticism of Healy or Cunningham who have been absolute disasters?

They think the REAL tax payers of Jersey City are a bunch of IDIOTS. The waste of TAX dollars was unbelievable. Privitizing the library with a million + dollar contract whose bright idea came from Joan lovero and Sonia Araujo. Taxpayers need to mind the store better next time around and keep Schundler out of City Hall. We need better options...anybody know of any REAL, honest, politicians these days? We definitly need them if we can find any.

No, we did and will not forget what happened in the past.

It's good to see Brett rearing his Neo-republican head. He can now use Jersey City as a stepping stone again as he seeks higher office. Why don't you just stay Statewide you phony? Because State Republicans won't have him, after he backstabbed Donald Defrancisco.

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Corrado already has a cushy job. ACK !!!

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Not so fast my friend.

Saint Bret was very good at selling off City assets and one time budget gimmicks to keep from raising taxes. But all the while he was cutting the City work force and diminishing City services. Don't believe the spin of the Bret Kool Aid Brigade that he made the City more efficient, it simply isn't true.

And Bret ran the City like any other Hudson County pol. He doled out patronage to incompetents like Nancy Harrigan, Austin Harrold and the Alzheimers-By-The-Sea Gaynor Gang in order to win votes.

He was fortunate that his only real competition during those years was Louie the Loser Manzo.

Oh no! Let me see I can just see it now, Schundler back in City Hall, along with Greg Corrado with a cushy job raking in the dough...our dough. And MORE tax abatements to MORE developers...great!!!

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I don't think a republican and social conservative running for JC mayor would be the same as the president we currently have. Its nice to know that you only vote party lines and not individuals.

I don't know much about Schundler, I'd have to wait and see what his stances are on JC topics.

Same here. At least JC could have some competition for the Democratic machine.

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If he runs, he's got my vote, no question about it.

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Yea, just what we need. Let's elect another executive that we'd like to have a beer with.

Face facts, JC. Schundler is a Republican and a social conservative. Not someone I would want to see as mayor let alone governor.

And while we're on the topic of governors, what's with all the vitriol toward Corzine? Those who criticize his budget need to put up or shut up. Everyone complains about high taxes but no one wants to cut anything in the budget or accept the fact that driving your damn cars needs to be made more expensive so that the price reflects the costs to our society.

I had a chance to interview him and he definitely is a geniune person. Whether all his plans and ideas panned out is debatable.

But he managed the city pretty well. Crime was down. Tax collection was up. And i agree that giving tax abatements to corporations was a short term solution that should have been used sparingly but those who came into office after him have done a much worse job on that front.

Also, whether you hated him or liked him most agreed he was an honest fellow. I mean there had to have been a reason why the people would have voted in a Republican in the heart of democractic bastion. Also, he does alot of good work on the grassroots level.

Again, i think Jersey lost out by not having him as Governor.

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Schundler rammed some awful things down JC's throat, like creating "authorities" unaccountable to citizens to handle critical things like sewers. He did this primarily to balance his current budgets by "selling" the city's assets to the authority, which issued bonds to buy them. Get it? He borrowed to balance the budget, something he wasn't legitimately able to do.

from http://www.talkingpolitics.net/jc_mua.htm
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If you get water in your basement from crumbling sewers, Schundler bears some of the blame.

But who knows what stinkers we'll have to hold our nose and choose from come runoff time if Steve Fulop doesn't make the cut, presuming he runs. Schundler vs Healy?

I liked Schundler. Thought he was a decent fellow. I really think he would have made a great govenor. I mean we all know what happened with McGreevy and I can't wait for Corzine to go.

One thing i would like to see Schundler do if he runs and wins is to focus more on the poor and lower classes.

Schundler, 49, is doing the math again. 4 years in City Hall, then another run for governor, 4 years in Trenton, then the VP spot on Huckabee's "Gimme that old time religion" ticket. Then, the final move in 1600 Pennsylvania just in time to preside over the rapture. Nice work if you can get it.

Jersey City thrived under Schundler because NYC did - not because of any great management or leadership in City Hall. Just refer to http://www.stopbretschundler.com/ for more, albeit sometimes overwrought, details.

Every JC mayor in recent memory has sold out the future to pay for the present's bloated budget.

As a recent arrival, I voted for Schundler's 2nd term, I don't think I would do so again. But given our nonpartisan system of unlimited candidates and some of the of the possible horrific candidates that the fates might send up in runoff against Schundler, I can't rule out a vote for him. He may be a sacrosanct, self serving, blowhard, but at least he's not a drunken idiot.

Ex-Jersey City Mayor Eyes Return to City Hall

New York Times
By DAVID W. CHEN
March 16, 2008

BRET D. SCHUNDLER, the former Republican mayor of Jersey City who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2001 and again in 2005, says that he is thinking seriously about running for office again in 2009.

Only this time, the office would be his old one at City Hall.

In a recent interview, Mr. Schundler, who was mayor between 1992 and 2001, said that he was tempted to return to public life because of his concern over Jersey City?s escalating taxes and other quality-of-life issues. But he is still hesitating, he said, because of concerns that, if victorious, he would miss out on family life.

?I?ve been thinking about it for a long time,? he said. ?The thing that holds me back is I have a 16-year-old and a 9-year-old. The positive of running for mayor would be making a positive impact for Jersey City. The negative is the time away from family.?

Mr. Schundler, 49, now teaches public policy at the King?s College in Manhattan, a Christian-oriented school. He did not set a timetable for a decision, and he does have a lot of time to decide, since the election is more than a year away. But people close to Mr. Schundler say they believe (or maybe hope is the better word) that he will run, and try to unseat Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy, a Democrat who has been gearing up for re-election since he was first elected in 2005.

If nothing else, the mere whisperings of a Schundler candidacy have clearly riveted political insiders not only in Hudson County, but also throughout the state.

Such interest reflects a human fascination with the possible return of a former political Golden Boy and social conservative who was touted by the late William F. Buckley Jr. as a strong candidate for president in, yes, 2008.

But it also reflects just how important Jersey City ? which is on pace to eclipse Newark as New Jersey?s largest city ? has become, and how much it has changed since Mr. Schundler?s tenure, both because of and in spite of him.

?You can differ on the aesthetic sense, but there?s no doubt that Jersey City is now the skyline of New Jersey,? said Ingrid W. Reed, director of the Eagleton New Jersey Project at Rutgers.

What also makes a potential Schundler candidacy fascinating, Ms. Reed said, is the potential battle between Mr. Healy, a wily political veteran who is also the chairman of the legendary Hudson County Democratic Organization, and Mr. Schundler, whose hard-right positions on abortion and gun control would seemingly put him at odds with his strongly Democratic city.

?I think maybe he does have a chance of winning,? she said. ?If you want to look at this dispassionately, has Jersey City changed significantly so that Schundler could overcome the ideological baggage, and be seen as a leader of this large city and run a grass-roots campaign? And though Mayor Healy has captured the local political establishment, the question is, what is that, really, and how powerful is that??

Mr. Schundler, a former Wall Street broker and analyst, stunned the political world in 1992 when he won a special election to become mayor, the first Republican in decades to do so. He immediately injected a management-driven style to city government, earning plaudits ? and some criticism ? for fiscal maneuvers that academics say helped revive the city in the short-term, but at some long-term cost.

But a run could prove awkward because a lot of important Healy supporters ? like Hudson County Executive Thomas A. DeGise ? were Schundler allies in the 1990s.

Jersey City is also a different place than it was when Mr. Schundler presided. It is now chockablock (or perhaps choking, in the eyes of some) with development projects, and has attracted a lot of young professionals from Manhattan and Brooklyn. So naturally, you can expect that both Mr. Schundler and Mr. Healy would try to take credit.

When asked about the prospect of a challenge from Mr. Schundler, Mr. Healy declined to speculate, saying only that he was ?definitely running? and that ?everybody who meets the qualifications is entitled to run.?

Mr. Healy did take the opportunity, though, to list some of the arguments he is likely to make next year. He has focused (much like Cory A. Booker in Newark) on reducing crime, and the statistics are encouraging. He has also pushed hard for new development projects, especially on the city?s hardscrabble West Side.

As for the bugaboo of Jersey City life ? an increase in taxes by more than 20 percent over the last three years ? Mr. Healy said that the city has been hamstrung by forces beyond its control, like spiraling pension and health care costs and short-sighted decisions from previous administrations.

Mr. Schundler?s included.

?We?re still paying for those things, and I don?t want to blame him entirely,? Mr. Healy said. ?He?s not the only one. Some of this happened before him.?