I hope he hits-up the developers through levies and taxes and makes a start on our sewers, that is only getting worse with these new estates and high rise apartment buildings.

He's got a lot to fix. Let's hope he does it.

There is most certainly a new sheriff in town

Steven Fulop rocks.

Jersey City mayor-elect says police restructuring, teen recreation, abatements policy top agenda

By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal
May 21, 2013 at 10:08 AM

Jersey City Mayor-elect Steve Fulop plans to be just as "hands-on" a mayor as he was a councilman, Fulop said Friday during his first wide-ranging interview since he defeated Mayor Jerramiah Healy on Tuesday.

Fulop, 36, who rarely goes a minute without checking email or messages on his phone, said he trained a lot of his campaign volunteers to be as responsive as he is, and he'll bring that same kind of alertness to City Hall starting July 1.

"There will be a culture of responsiveness that's going to be much more apparent than there is now," he told editors of The Jersey Journal.

Last Tuesday, Fulop won a long and hard-fought campaign against Healy, during which Fulop, currently the Downtown councilman, promised to change City Hall and seek to make Jersey City the best mid-size city in the nation.

His first duties as mayor will be to implement Police Department restructuring, developing additional summer recreation opportunities for teens, and instituting a new system for awarding long-term tax breaks to developers.

As for who will run the city under his administration, Fulop didn't offer any names, aside from his campaign manager, John Thieroff. Fulop declined to specify what role Thieroff will play, adding that he made no commitments to anyone during the campaign and he doesn't intend to summarily ax Healy allies.

"I'm not looking to come in to be a butcher for the sake of being a butcher, vindictive," he said.

Fulop won every ward in the city except Ward F, according to official election results. He lost Ward F by about 50 votes, but the margin of defeat was much more lopsided in the Bergen-Lafayette section of the ward.

Asked whether he thinks he needs to work on convincing voters in Bergen-Lafayette that he will work for them, Fulop said many of his proposals -- to decrease crime, to encourage development in areas aside from the waterfront -- are targeted to improve the lives of residents there.

He also intends to be a resident there soon. A longtime denizen of Downtown, Fulop has sold his Paulus Hook walkup and is seeking to buy a home in Bergen-Lafayette.

"It's a strong signal, is really what I think," he said. "I want to have a commitment to the area beyond just saying it."

For now, Fulop has more campaign work to do: six council races have yet to be decided, since no candidate except Downtown Councilwoman-elect Candice Osborne won more than 50 percent of the vote. And there's an upcoming vote to decide who will be chair of the Hudson County Democratic Party.

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