Jersey City Council votes to retain HEDC dir. Cialone, Ambrose & Kaplan appointed

The Jersey City Council voted 7-2 retain Department of Housing, Economic Development, and Commerce (HEDC) Director Annisia Cialone at last night’s meeting.

By Daniel Ulloa/Hudson County View

The governing body also appointed Anthony Ambrose as Department of Public Safety director, who has held the acting title since January, and Andrew Kaplan as the new director of the Department of Infrastructure.

During the public comment period, Portside Towers Tenant Association West President Kevin Weller noted that they had a lot of issues with Cialone’s tenure.

“It was really good to feel heard. I hope you find out why the violations have continued uninterrupted,” he stated.

He also noted that the building has had a number of issues that aren’t included in their $400 million federal lawsuit against Equity Residential, as HCV first reported.

Portside Towers Tenant Association activist Mark Boyles urged the council to vote against Cialone, claiming she had been very unresponsive when Steven Fulop was mayor.

“Why didn’t she fight to fix it?” he questioned.

After his remarks, Ward B Councilman Joel Brooks said Mayor James Solomon is taking rent control very seriously, while the council has formed a special investigatory committee for rent protection.

“I’ve asked for any report that’s been provided,” he added.

Portside Towers Tenant Association West President Michelle Hirsch was also critical of Cialone and her tenure running the department, claiming their whole host of issues have remained stagnant under her watch.

“Her 9th Division Right-to-Counsel is what her own colleague called a ghost: Don’t be a mayoral rubber stamp!” Hirsch exclaimed.

Solomon announced that he was nominating Cialone and Kaplan for directorships a week-and-a-half ago, which requires council approval.

Ward D Councilman Jake Ephros noted April 13th is their next special rent investigatory committee meeting.

“I would love to develop recommendations on who should come and recommend what we should ask,” he said about collaborating with them.

Ephros believed Cialone would work collaboratively with the new administration and council, with Brooks emphasizing that “this is not going to be a rubber-stamp council.”

“One of the highest known categories of calls we get is frankly housing no human being should live in. This office will be watching HEDC and placing my faith in the administration,” Brooks stated.

Ward C Councilman Tom Zuppa acknowledged that some members of the community have felt unheard.

“That is not going to continue in the future,” he asserted.

Ephros echoed both of his colleagues sentiments.

“I’m taking another leap of faith in the administration we’re going to operate very differently than we have in the past,” he expressed.

“She is committed to carrying out the agenda of the new administration … We’ll be working really close with that office and the administration to see that the HEDC is operating in the interest of working-class people.”

Ward E Councilwoman Eleana Little said she was sympathetic to Portside’s concerns and reiterated this is not a rubber stamp council, as well as that she wanted to work on the special rent committee to address the issue.

Councilman at-Large Rolando Lavarro stated that he had a productive two-hour conversation with Cialone and that he felt she was qualified for the role. Nonetheless, he was going to vote no and he detailed why.

“I want to be clear that this vote is not personal and it is not a verdict on Director Cialone as a person or as a professional. It’s a statement about a record, about what I believe this moment in Jersey City’s history demands. Since 2010, roughly 300,000 units have been built in Jersey City, among the most in the nation, and fewer than 500 qualify as affordable,” he declared.

He said rent and property taxes have both gone up 50 percent, and 3,000 Black residents have been forced out since 2013, citing a Rutgers University study.

Lavarro further stated that during this time, officials were repeatedly told that development could not be slow because the city needed the ratables, which he said turned out to be ill advised.

“I heard that argument for years. As a councilman, I lived that argument for years. I can tell you with certainty that none of it served the working families of Jersey City. Development happened, the ratables grew, and he people who built this city … got pushed out. The results are in: The strategy failed jersey City’s working families and the HEDC is the department at the epicenter of that story.”

Lavarro noted that he asked why she should be reappointed after a new administration and council was elected by voters seeking “radical change.”

According to the councilman, she replied that the mayor and council set policy, adding that she was the background and experience “to execute Mayor Solomon’s vision.”

“I want to be careful here because that is an honest answer, it is also a credible answer, and it may even be the right answer for what this city needs right now. But it is not the answer I am looking for,” Lavarro noted.

“Nowhere at our Friday meeting and nowhere at Monday’s questioning did Director Cialone say that the prior model failed the working families of Jersey City. Nowhere did she say that the development strategy administered produced an outcome that she believes is wrong.”

The Jersey City Council voted 7-2 to reappoint Cialone, with Lavarro and Ward F Councilman Frank “Educational” Gilmore voting no.

Kaplan was appointed unanimously (9-0), while Ambrose’s appointment was approved 7-0(2), with Brooks and Ephros abstaining.

Neither of those resolutions led to much of a discussion among the elected sitting on the dais.