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Posted by Dutch Meier () on March 18, 2002 at 11:33:51: In Reply to: Broom used as weapon in Hudson political feud posted by Jaz Fedwicz on March 18, 2002 at 11:15:05:
SWEEP REVENGE Jersey Journal By Jason Fink The simmering battle over control of the Hudson County Democratic Party literally spilled into the streets yesterday when U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez took a broom to the sidewalk outside his Journal Square office. Menendez, D-Union City, accused Jersey City Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham of devoting more time to political fighting than to keeping his city clean; the Square has been filled with garbage since maintenance workers were laid off Feb. 12 because the Journal Square Restoration Corp. could no longer afford to pay them. Cunningham shot back yesterday, advising Menendez to focus more attention on his duties in Washington and less on becoming involved in local politics. So the gloves finally came off in a skirmish that pits Menendez, the five-term congressman and chairman of the county Democratic Party, against Cunningham, the mayor of Hudson's largest city and the first Democrat to hold the post in a decade. Each man evoked the history of the county's repressive machine politics to paint his opponent as a power-hungry, go-it-alone party boss uninterested in building consensus. "I think it's terrible that we have a congressman who thinks he's Frank Hague," Cunningham said, referring to the longtime Jersey City mayor and Democratic machine boss who ruled the city with an iron fist from 1917 to 1947. Menendez, in turn, accused Cunningham of trying to concentrate power in his own hands, casting off the rest of the county. "You achieve things in government by working collaboratively" Menendez said. "The days of bossism are over." The leadership struggle between the two Democrats has been centered on the November elections, with Cunningham supporting interim County Executive Bernard Hartnett Jr. to run in a special election to fill out the term of his predecessor, Robert Janiszewski, and Menendez calling for a different candidate. If the two sides do not come to an agreement, Cunningham said he will field a challenger to Menendez for the Democratic nomination to represent the 13th Congressional District, which includes most of Hudson County. Menendez, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, said he has nothing against Hartnett per se but insisted that the party's choice be someone interested in running for a full term in 2003, which Hartnett has said he will not do. "The candidate for county executive is going to be picked by a consensus of mayors," Menendez said. "I and the other mayors acceded to Cunningham in his choice of interim county executive." And although Menendez said he believes his eventual choice for the position would be someone from Jersey City, he said he resented Cunningham's attempts to leave him out of the process. "I'm the county chair, and the mayor has not spoken to me about this," he said.
Cunningham called that a lie, saying he has been trying to set up a meeting with the congressman for weeks and that it is Menendez who is trying for the power grab.
"I'm the one who started meeting with the (other Hudson County) mayors for months," Cunningham said. "The one who's in foul territory is the one who's not supposed to get involved in local politics."
Menendez supported Cunningham when he ran for mayor last spring and, according to Cunningham, the two agreed last year that Menendez would head the party to position himself for a possible Senate candidacy should the re-election bid of U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli falter.
Torricelli, who at the time was under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office, has since been cleared and will run to retain his seat. Both Cunningham and Menendez will support Torricelli's candidacy.
But the split that has opened up between the mayor and the congressman now seems to be growing deeper, with both men unleashing an intensity of verbal attacks yesterday previously unmatched publicly.
Cunningham accused his rival of trying to woo members of his own inner circle away from him with secret meetings.
"He has been trying to undermine me for months," said Cunningham.
Yesterday, the criticisms of Cunningham by Menendez were out in the open, however, as the congressman, in shirt and tie on an unseasonably warm day, cheerily swept the sidewalk of cigarette butts and discarded French fries, all the while chatting with constituents and challenging the mayor to take care of business in his own back yard.
"The city's obviously not doing anything about this," Menendez said as he swept up a pile of litter and brushed it into a dust pan held by a member of his staff.
The area around Journal Square, which city employees and members of a local nonprofit organization have been helping to clean since the 30 maintenance and security workers were laid off last month, has been noticeably dirty in recent weeks.
A spokesman for the mayor, Stan H. Eason, said the Journal Square Restoration Corp., which receives half its budget from the city Economic Development Corp., is unlikely to get the money it has asked for to hire back its workers any time soon.
The EDC has questioned many of the vouchers submitted by the Restoration Corp. and has no immediate plans to release funds to it, Eason said.
Meanwhile Menendez, racking up political points from the litter on Bergen Avenue, called on Cunningham to work with him to come to an agreement.
"I hope we can start by cleaning the streets," he said.
03/11/02
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