Posted by Jay Stevens, The Urban Times News on January 05, 2004 at 10:09:16:

The Urban Times News
By Jay Stevens--email:jstevens@urbantimesnews.com

L. HARVEY SMITH MAY MAKE HISTORY-THE HARD WAY

We are holding our breath and biting our nails on this one because it could really be epic. Imagine, our own African American Jersey City Council President Leonard Harvey Smith being sanctioned by a federal judge for racism. It could turn out that way as the NAACP presses charges of racially motivated, selective, discriminatory election challenges by the Hudson County Democratic Organization.

Harvey appears to be vulnerable as he is heard in one deposition acknowledging that even if every vote he challenged turned out to be invalid, it would not have made any difference to the outcome of the primary election last June. “But it is my right. It is my right.” Smith insisted on his rights, but seemed to care very little for the rights of African American voters that his suit attempted to disenfranchise.

Smith ran against Jersey City Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham in that election for 31st District Senator and lost. Like other defeated HCDO candidates, Smith filed his own suit seeking to overturn the results of the election. That is when he told attorneys for Cunningham that even if everything he charged in his suit were true, it would not have altered the outcome of the election. But Smith persisted in his suit along with the others, principally ex-Assemblyman Joe Doria, Mayor of Bayonne.

Why would somebody continue with a suit after admitting to their adversary that they knew they could not win? We guess, again, like Flip Wilson, The Devil made him do it. We certainly hope the Devil will give Harvey a job, because so far, the HCDO has not. But the Devil, cleverly disguised as a mild mannered undertaker from Jersey City’s Heights has been buzzing in Harvey’s ear about who knows what. But that seems to be enough to have gotten Harvey to put himself in a position that no thinking African American elected official would want to be in.

Indications are that it could happen. Individual officials and members of the HCDO have been named as well as the organization itself, and that includes Harvey. Harvey could wind up in the ludicrous position of being an African American elected official sanctioned for racially discrimination against—Yep, you got it—African American voters by none other than the NAACP. Harvey may live with that.

Since Harvey is the only African American with the Gaughan-DeGise gang, he provides the “cover.” If Harvey would break and run for freedom the racism there would be starkly exposed for all the world to plainly see. But there is Harvey going along for the ride. We are willing to bet that if the Ku Klux Klan were to open an office here in Hudson County and conduct a membership drive, a number of African Americans would want to sign up, and Mr. Smith would, no doubt become a card-carrying member. Where is Roger Jones, where is Ed Cheatham and where are all other free-thinking Negroes? Please step forward!

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING BADGES

We recently we sent one of our reporters to have breakfast with high ranking officials of the Cunningham administration. The reporter came back reeling, incoherent, incredulous and aghast. The reporter said that one of the officials at the breakfast meeting told him that if not for the scurrilous garbage published in these pages there would not be so much political strife here in our fair county. We made him repeat this several times, wording our question differently each time, coming at it from different angles on each approach.

It was clear that the reporter had indeed been told that Urban Times News was to blame for the lack of peace and harmony between the warring factions of the Democratic Party here in Hudson, the banana county. We want to tell you in no uncertain terms just in case anybody else believes this, that this rag you are reading right now is “The Little Newspaper That Could”—and does. If not for Urban Times News all we would have around here is The World According to Organized Crime. That is, reality interpreted loosely by the Hudson County Democratic Organization, and regurgitated in the pages of the Jersey Journal, faithfully parroted by ace reporters like Earl “Ugly Duckling” Morgan, paid police informer. We would be plunged into medieval darkness and feudalism. As it is, we have only partial daylight and closet feudalism, a system of political patronage that has been controlling elections in Hudson County for generations. That, together with “No Bid” contracts up to the state level for generations and corruption has become systemic part of the structure and operation of our government.

Urban Times News has the temerity to write openly and stridently about it. There are upwards of $700 Million dollars missing, unaccounted for, from the accounts of the County of Hudson. About $400 Million of it is a result of the operation of one autonomous agency of the county, The Hudson County Improvement Authority alone. The State of New Jersey is willing to reimburse the County government substantial amounts of money, $50 Million or more for certain expenses. The County government, headed by County Executive Tom DeGise, and his Chief of staff William A. Gaughan have done nothing to recover these funds. Why is that? You may ask.

Because they’ve got a good thing going and they do not want to mess with it. To receive the state funds, there would have to be a state audit of the HCIA. An audit would reveal that there are hundreds of millions of dollars missing, and that, dear reader would be a real headache. Besides, it is taxpayer money anyway, and we can always get some more of that, can’t we? Another reporter just asked one of our guys for information to help him with a story he is doing about a $2.2 Million increase in the County payroll since ol’ Dirty Neck Tom DeGise took office as County Executive.

First there was a political purge in the name of “economy and efficiency” when everybody remotely connected with any political group besides Organized Crime was canned. These moves were made in the name of economy and efficiency since politically motivated firings are prohibited by law. Since when does the law stop the Hudson County Democratic Organization? That’s exactly why they are known as Organized Crime. Since those “economy and efficiency” personnel adjustments we have seen a steady rise in the County payrolls. So this other reporter wants to know if this is true. Well, what do you think we have been howling about for the last 12 months or so? Sure we will be glad to help him with his story. Let’s see how far this one gets. But that is awfully small potatoes. These guys in Organized Crime have been carting money out of public coffers by the truck load and our friend the reporter is worried about the payroll. Well, it is a start, so sure we’ll help him. Glad to.

When the County raises taxes, as it just did, proclaiming loudly they would not until the election was over, we are just giving Organized Crime more money to steal. Then they use our own money against us, in effect, giving contracts to heavy campaign contributors to run elections, get more jobs, award more contracts, and so on.

Point is, you will never read one word of this in the Jersey Journal. You will never read one word of what Glenn Cunningham did or said, unless numerous other media outlets are also present when he does or says whatever. And when the Journal reports on Cunningham, curiously, it always comes out a little different than what everybody else saw and heard.

Or like the time one of our reporters came back from a meeting of County Freeholders all excited because Counsel to the County admitted in an open meeting that he had rigged a bid to award a contract to a friend. Our reporter watched in disbelief as the reporter for the Jersey Journal scribbled tic-tac-toe boxes on his yellow legal pad as the outrage unfolded. The reporter wrote a story detailing what would have been front page news anywhere on the planet except the Hudson republic, the banana County. There was never a word about it in the Jersey Journal to this day.

But we do know what we are doing and every once in a while it is gratifying to know that we are heard and felt and have an impact. As their custom dictates, the Star Ledger runs a weekly column called the Auditor and at year end hands out “achievement” awards, in a manner of speaking. We took no small satisfaction in receiving the left-handed compliment paid us there when The auditor gave Jersey City Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham the 2003 Achievement Award for being the “Wildest Card” in Jersey Politics with his startling victory of a numerically and financially superior enemy force. Cunningham won the fight and the Auditor gives credit to the Urban Times News for evening the odds for Cunningham.  

“But it was a two-way fight. A local newspaper allied with Cunningham, the Urban Times News, struck many low blows against his enemies -- accusing them not just of fraud and extortion, but of drinking too much and cheating on their wives. One column dredged up the suicide of a prominent Democrat's father two decades ago.  

"I do not write for them, and I don't tell them what to print," Cunningham says.

You bet he doesn’t tell them what to print. We wouldn’t listen to him anyway. What does he know about running a newspaper. He’s a cop, for crying out loud. There are times that Cunningham wishes the UTN, the paper that isn’t a “real” newspaper, the paper that nobody reads, would go away, even though we are rabidly in his corner. There have been times we let him have it too. But look at the statement from the auditor for just a moment, if you would, please.

According to the auditor, we struck many low blows. You bet we did, low and hard. Hard and to the point that the “enemy” appeared on television crying about how we savagely attacked him and his family. We accused them of about nine different kinds of fraud, but also embezzlement, misappropriation, theft by deception, all as forms of corruption. We did say they drink too much, but not that they cheat on their wives. That is to be expected. We said they beat on their wives, not cheat on their wives. And one of their fathers served time on a federal conviction for taking bribes in connection with the award of politically-awarded contracts about 50 years ago. Would you believe it? And what else we said was that one of them refused to bury his father, who committed suicide. What we did say is that some of them regularly beat their wives and that is crossing a line, even for those guys. What we did not say and where we exercised some restraint is the trafficking in young boys, called “Twinks” by some of these stalwarts of the Hudson County Democratic Organization. Don’t even go there, boyfriend(s.) We also exercised some restraint refraining from detailing the sexual peculiarities of others of the bunch even more bizarre. This is a family publication after all.

With all of our restraint, the enemy wouldn’t shut up about Urban Times News for weeks.

We have been thrown OUT of jail!

Our vending machines have been hijacked.

Our writers have been threatened with county boycotts of their employers by Organized Crime officials who got a little UTN ink on them.

Highly placed political sources statewide have told Cunningham that the only thing standing between him and obliteration in the dark of night by the HCDO wehrmacht is The Little Newspaper that Could.

In the midst of a one of the more pitched battles of this Hudson County political war, a key negotiating point in aborted truce talks was the extinction of the Urban Times News. Imagine that, if you would. The price of peace in that round of negotiations was to include the cessation of publication by the Urban Times News. That is nothing short of astounding.

So it has been a pretty good year and the coming one looks pretty good too.  

JERSEY CITY MEDICAL CENTER

This ought to be a banner year for our cherished institution of Health Care in Jersey City as they prepare to move to new quarters. If the move of patients, supplies and equipment to new quarters goes with the same efficiency as the hospital is run the move ought to be a clusterbungle of the first magnitude. These guys kill people when everything is where it is supposed to be, and not in some new, unaccustomed place. We will make some fearless predictions for the Medical Center right now to cover the coming 12 months:

• Liberty Health Care Systems, Inc. will be hit with several lawsuits that will compel media coverage in other venues.

• Disclosure from these suits will be shocking to the extent that public officials will be galvanized to act out of years of complacency.

• Revelations of willful wrongdoing and wrongful deaths will “go public.”

• Highly-placed political officials will be implicated in a massive and ongoing fraud that has deprived the community of the health care the facility was built to provide. Members of the medical staff have described management practice by Liberty Health Care Systems, Inc. as “fraudulent and felonious.”

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