Quote:...shoot the messenger(s).

Hey BrightMoments you should have your own Web site.You never fail to tell the story in as visual and forthright as possible.
As Healy likes to say "I IS WHAT IT IS"

Quote:

Au contraire, mon fraire. Having lived here during McCann's mayoralty and 25+ years of others, the article is a very balanced portrait of recent shenanigans and anyone who's been around McCann knows how direct his statements quoted in this article can be right on target.

I know you have only recently moved to JC in the last few years, so what exactly do you find in this article that is "...trashing jersey City" and why do you find the article "politically motivated"?

Here are further words from the Editor of Politics Magazine, William Brennan, on staff writer Doug Daniels, excellent article:

Quote:

Quote:

I don't think it's "true" that Jersey City stinks more than places with chemical plants (like Elizabeth) and we are not in the armpit of the armpit! -- It isn't some joke to imagine coming here to vacation for a weekend! "Wait Wait don't tell me" is a weekend show for suburban idiots -- I like John Waters but he was just a guest pimping something.

I think the Politics' Magazine article and likely this radio segment trashing jersey City, are just politically motivated! Way to go whoever is behind it -- just another stereotypical smearing of Jersey!

Quote:

Quote:

I love "Wait, Wait" AND John Waters!

The Truth Hurts.

I love "Wait, Wait" but now maybe I hate it. Can't blame 'em though, since it's the truth. John Waters is all about Baltimore, which just makes the whole thing hurt even more.

As for the article, well, at least JC was called an "endearing joke."

I hate "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" but I happened to catch it today...

From their website:
"Cult film director John Waters plays our game called, "You're the most corrupt city in the entire nation." Three questions about Jersey City, N.J. based on an article in Politics magazine."

You can click on the link below to listen (4th segment down)
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=35

============================
Here is the Jersey Journal story from back in May on this "Politics Magazine" article:
============================
Ex-Mayor McCann: I don't get parking tickets

by The Jersey Journal
Friday May 02, 2008

Jersey City's long history of colorful, corrupt characters -- a history that is still being written -- earned it a cover story in this month's Politics magazine.
Politics magazine

Writer Doug Daniels gets Mayor Jerramiah Healy and former mayors Gerald McCann and Bret Schundler to dish about the city's often cutthroat politics. It also looks back on Frank Hague, Paul Byrne and, most recently, Robert Janiszewski.

Of course, none of it is news to avid readers of The Jersey Journal.

The article captures some candid moments with McCann, who reveals he spent his time in federal prison reading "every title on the New York Times bestseller list" and that, even now, the current school board member doesn't get parking tickets.

While there is certainly much to applaud in the city's development, the article notes Jersey City's reputation is still mostly owed to its politics.

John Weingart, of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, says: "Jersey City might be a joke, but it's become an endearing joke."

Did he just call us a joke?



==================================
Here is the article from Politics Magazine:
===================================
http://www.campaignsandelections.com/uploads/Jersey%20City.pdf

Welcome to Jersey City Politics: It's Been Rough, Corrupt and Downright Weird For Over a Century

By Doug Daniels
Politics Magazine
04/29/08

??People always ask me how I spent my time in prison, and I say, ?I just read a lot,'" Jerry tells me as we trundle along the Jersey City streets in his Volvo. "They would get you any book you asked for, so I ended up reading every title on the New York Times bestseller list," he explains with the tone of satisfaction one might detect in somebody who feels they've gotten a really good deal.

It's an overcast afternoon in northern New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, and we're driving towards the prep school where Jerry now coaches boys track.

We pull up to the curb and he suggests we get out and chat on the sidewalk. Parked illegally, he proclaims "I don't get parking tickets" in his north Jersey accent before springing from the driver's seat.

And there's a reason. Jerry McCann, now in his late 50's, was mayor of Jersey City twice, serving from 1981 to 1985, and then again from 1989 to 1992, when his tenure in City Hall met with an abrupt demise. McCann, who still vehemently maintains his innocence, was convicted on charges of fraud relating to a loan scam, and was hauled off to federal prison in Pennsylvania where he served more than two years behind bars. The central figures responsible for sending him up the river were two rising New Jersey Republicans named Michael Chertoff and Samuel Alito, both of whom McCann still assails as vicious, politically motivated witch-hunters. "We're going to send Mr. Chertoff back to preparing wills," McCann was quoted as saying at the time.

"Maybe I can find him a job driving a garbage truck in Jersey City." McCann, who still appears to wield some political influence in the city, now sits on the Jersey City School Board, although his election to the post last year was challenged in court. In dispute were some votes McCann received from local nursing homes in which many of the residents were infirm, unfit or otherwise incapacitated. One resident in particular-the father of the current mayor's chief of staff-generated controversy when he claimed to have been tricked into voting for McCann. The situation quickly devolved into personal acrimony, with McCann leveling counter-accusations at the mayor's chief of staff for being a "bad son" guilty of parental abandonment. According to McCann, the elderly gentleman's testimony crumbled under questioning, and along with it, the case against him.

After only a few minutes with McCann, it's easy to see how he could find success in the gritty realm of Jersey City politics. He possesses a certain level of unconscious authenticity and humor that the average guy on the street would find appealing. Yet, sprinkled among the endless tales of bar fights, power struggles and campaign jackassery, there are also frequent glimmers of a sophisticated and almost encyclopedic knowledge of New Jersey politics. McCann also makes no effort to conceal his affection for the way the game is played in his hometown. "Politics is a big deal in Jersey City," he says. "Everywhere else the national pastime might be baseball, but in Jersey City the pastime is politics."

It's a pastime that, for more than a century, has often involved brutal tactics and its own set of rules. While cities like Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Providence are legendary for their corruption and shady political figures, Jersey City, which serves as the seat of Hudson County, has its own long history of sordid politics-one that often exceeds any standard measure of absurdity. Take, for instance, this New York Times headline:

JERSEY CITY CORRUPTION

HOW ITS PRESS AND PUBLIC MEN HAVE BETRAYED IT

The story describes a hopeless cesspool in which corrupt judges, law enforcement officials, politicians and the press all interact to operate with equal disregard for law, ethics or the public good. But the Times story cataloguing such effronteries to the citizens of Jersey City wasn't written in recent years, or even in the 20th century. It ran on Oct. 14, 1889, and laments, even then, a legacy of corruption.

From that period into the early part of the 20th century, Jersey City thrived as a manufacturing center fueled predominantly by immigrants. But corruption and incompetence quickly led to an environment of urban decay, some of which remains today.

The politics of Jersey City truly achieved infamy during Frank Hague's years as mayor from 1917 to 1947. Hague was legendary for his opulent lifestyle, and despite an annual salary of about $8,000, he was reportedly worth $10 million by the time he died on New Year's Day, 1956.

One of the more visible displays of Hague's corruption involved his "partners desk" in the mayor's office that was used specifically to elicit bribes. Seated at his desk, Hague would slide the massive center drawer forward, causing it to emerge from the front, allowing visitors to deposit envelopes of cash before it was drawn back in, as if the mayor were a drive-through bank teller. Today, the infamous piece of furniture is on display in City Hall as a relic of the city's heritage.

"I actually used to use the desk, but it eventually became more of a curiosity than a true, functioning desk, so I gave it up," says City Clerk Robert Byrne. "Leave it to a politician to find a sinister use for a seemingly benign partners desk." (Here's another layer of Jersey City history: Byrne's father was a ward leader during the Hague era, and that his late brother Paul, a Jersey City resident and powerful insider in Hudson County politics, had been involved in a government bribery scandal. In 2005, as Paul Byrne's sentencing loomed, the 59-year-old diabetic passed away.)

In the decades since the Hague era, the system of bossism and political machinery that Hague installed continued to prove resilient. And Jersey City has maintained its standing as a place where the rules don't apply.

As former New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne, who served from 1974-1982, joked, "I'd like to be buried in Jersey City so I can remain active in Democratic politics," a clear reference to a tradition of deceased voters participating in elections from beyond the grave.

Not that there weren't reform efforts from time to time, but they were typically pursued by a handful of do-gooders and community activists whose agendas were in stark contrast to those of the politicians who would run on promises of honest government, only to slip back into the old, dubious traditions of Boss Hague.

Consider another New York Times story from 1971, about the conviction of Jersey City Mayor Thomas J. Whelan and his accomplices in a county-wide extortion conspiracy:

WHELAN AND 2 GET 15 YEARS IN PRISON

Judge Assails Jersey City Corruption

Federal Judge Robert Shaw, who handed down the sentences, denounced the defendants and the Hudson County Democratic organization as a "rotten system whose sole function was to enrich itself."

To be sure, not all of the characters at the helm of city government have won renown for sleazy politics. Some are notable for their weird personal indiscretions.

Jerramiah T. Healy, the city's current mayor, has endured stinging ridicule for embarrassing behavior that still draws snickers from just about anybody you ask outside the mayor's office.

In 2004, during a special mayoral election that Healy ultimately won, photos depicting the future mayor nude and drunkenly slumped on his front stoop were widely publicized after a neighbor with a camera phone captured several shots of him in full, unattired glory. According to Healy, he ambled outside fully clothed after consuming half a dozen beers to investigate a suspicious noise, then passed out as a result of suffering from diabetes. Healy blasted his political enemies-including McCann, who was advising another candidate at the time-for exploiting the photos for political gain. McCann denies any involvement.

"The only person involved with Healy's nude photos was Healy," McCann says. "He was nude. Nobody made him nude, he took his clothes off!"

Oddly enough, this wasn't Healy's first foray into the drunken nudist lifestyle. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to a disorderly persons charge after reportedly getting into a naked scuffle with police, this time on the front porch of his vacation home on the Jersey shore.

That 2004 special election, prompted when Mayor Glenn Cunningham suffered a fatal heart attack, produced a crowded circus atmosphere and an interesting assortment of candidates, including one who lived in his campaign van up until Election Day, driving each night to a different locale to avoid being strafed with eggs.

Healy, who was later elected to a full term in a record landslide, declined to talk with me about the naked incidents, or about being found guilty last summer of charges stemming from an altercation he had in 2006 with a police officer outside a bar. But he did point, fairly, to a host of positive developments the city is experiencing.

New York City's growth is tumbling over into areas of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, and Jersey City is similarly benefiting from businesses that want more affordable office space, and from those who seek less expensive housing. "People can get to downtown or midtown Manhattan in a matter of minutes by very reasonably priced public transportation," Healy says. "So we're the gateway to the cultural, commercial and financial center of the world."

A snapshot of Jersey City today offers mixed visuals-some bleak neighborhoods that haven't yet caught up with the sections that boast charm and prosperity along the river and near City Hall. The area surrounding the Grove Street Port Authority station, just up the street from City Hall, has transformed dramatically over the past 10 or 20 years, with new highrises, restaurants and bars that create a bustling pedestrian community.

In fact, Jersey City is poised to overtake Newark as the state's largest city. The close proximity to Manhattan has caused the city to become, in many ways, another borough of New York, with a steady influx of young professionals-particularly Wall Street types who can get to work in minutes-and prime commercial and residential real estate perched directly on the Hudson that has attracted big-shot developers like Donald Trump.

There's also no evidence that the city's reputation has hindered its development. "Jersey City might be a joke, but it's become an endearing joke," says John Weingart, associate director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. "There's an affection for the strange characters and personalities, mainly because there's a sense that the people's business is actually getting done."

Still, Mayor Healy is quick to acknowledge the city's reputation for rough politics. "They play hardball here in Jersey City, and throughout Hudson County," Healy says, leaning back in his desk chair. "In 1997, when I was running for mayor, somebody actually cut the brake line and the fuel line on my car." Healy says a catastrophe was averted when the sabotage was brought to his attention by the guy who changed his oil.

"I mean, this could have just been a horrible confluence of events, because you're out drivin' your car, and your brakes don't work, and you're leaking fuel," Healy says, nodding his head in disbelief. "And I had young kids at the time that I was constantly driving around to track meets and basketball games and everywhere else. But that's the type of thing that happens here."

Healy is clear that he believes his opponent-then-Mayor Bret Schundler, who served from 1992 to 2001-had nothing to do with the incident. Schundler, a conservative Republican who managed to get elected mayor despite the daunting 6 percent Republican registration in Jersey City, says he doesn't remember ever hearing about Healy's brake line story.

"That kind of stuff had been part of Jersey City's political culture, but I think it got tampered down very dramatically with me being mayor," Schundler says. "And I'm not sure it's really come back as bad as it used to be."

Schundler, who has expressed potential interest in challenging Healy next year and returning to City Hall, is an interesting exception to the rule in Jersey City politics. He was once viewed as an up-and-coming GOP figure on the national stage, despite having been a Democrat most of his life. The late William F. Buckley Jr. once commented that Schundler would even be a strong presidential candidate in 2008.

At the time of McCann's conviction, says Schundler, "the Democratic machine broke into factions, and that gave me an opportunity to move in and offer voters a fresh direction." Schundler's two unsuccessful runs for governor have dampened any talk of his rapid ascension up the political food chain, but he's still clearly proud of his time as mayor.

"Normally a Republican would never get elected here, so I wouldn't have been able to win unless people had finally reached a breaking point, and were willing to say, ?I don't care if he's a Republican, I just want somebody who will clean up the mess.'"

Jersey City is certainly not an anomaly within Hudson County when it comes to twisted political behavior. The bribery scandal that involved Paul Byrne, the city clerk's brother, had actually centered around Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski. Janiszewski, who had served as county executive for 13 years, abruptly resigned and disappeared in 2001, his whereabouts a huge mystery.

Rumors abounded that Janiszewski had entered into the witness protection program, when, in February 2002, a reporter from the Jersey Journal discovered Janiszewski working at a ski shop in upstate New York.

It turns out Janiszewski had been cooperating with the FBI in a government corruption investigation, after being caught accepting bribes. As a result, Janiszewski agreed to wear a wire and set up some of his closest friends in what was ultimately exposed as an intricate and sordid web of sex, corruption, betrayal and bribery, involving cash and an assortment of prescription drugs, including Viagra.

While Healy, McCann and Schundler are all interested in discussing Jersey City's progress, and the roles they've played in it, McCann, more than the others, still seems to revel in the raw, smash-mouth realities of the city's politics, and never opts to shy away from a battle.

As McCann stands on the sidewalk and offers an animated re-creation of a fight he got into on the subway his first weekend home from prison, a fire truck goes screaming by, momentarily disrupting his rhythm. "They're just goin' to lunch," he jokes, immediately transitioning into a story about another more recent conflict that demonstrates his enduring presence in city government.

"In a newspaper article recently, the chief of the fire department attacked me, so I responded and I completely cut him up. He retired three days later, after I was finished with him," McCann says triumphantly, explaining that he had ignited tremendous anger within the fire department after criticizing the system of promoting firefighters to captain-a system he suggests is connected to donations made to Healy.

Realizing I'm late meeting the mayor a few blocks away at City Hall, McCann calmly motions to his car. "Don't worry, I'll drive ya over there," he says as we climb back in and roar away. We cruise past City Hall, however, and McCann pulls around the block. "You don't want to be seen getting out of here. They know this car," he says.

Then, a moment before I slam the door shut and we part ways, McCann shifts thoughts, as if remembering to tell me something he'd neglected earlier. "I've been blessed with three amazing daughters and a great life," he says. "I don't have any regrets." Then he wheels off into the Jersey City skyline.

Doug Daniels is a staff writer at Politics magazine.

For the latest campaign news head to our homepage at www.campaignsandelections.com