Political operative Tom Bertoli and former Jersey City Mayor Jerry McCann are trading leather centered around ex-Gov. Jim McGreevey’s expected bid for mayor in 2025.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“I have a lot of respect for people that are against me: they stood up and said I’m with Joe Jones. The guy in the middle I don’t respect,” McCann said over the phone this afternoon
“Whoever becomes the mayor is going to inherit a tremendous, tremendous problem. This is three years in a row we’re operating in a deficit … Am I supporting Jim McGreevey? Absolutely. Am I running his campaign? Absolutely not.”
Bertoli identified McGreevey as a friend, but not someone he was helping politically, before unloading on McCann.
“Jim McGreevey is a friend of mine but I’m not in any way shape or form running his campaign. From what I’m told, Gerry McCann is running his campaign,” Bertoli stated.
“The last time Gerry McCann was running a campaign was the Jersey City mayoral special election in 2004 when he supported Lou Manzo and we know how that ended. Whatever good will Jim has in the African American community will go right down the tubes if he has Gerry running the campaign.”
Back in 2004, Manzo was a state assemblyman who lost to Councilman Jerramiah Healy by about three-and-a-half percentage points. The special election was necessary after Mayor Glenn Cunningham died unexpectedly from a heart attack.
Expectedly, McCann was eager to return the favor, throwing his own haymakers back after reiterating again that he is not running McGreevey’s campaign.
“If Jim had Tom Bertoli running the campaign, he’d be in trouble with the FBI and the IRS. What he fails to realize is I had nothing to do with Lou Manzo’s campaign, I was a supporter, while Bertoli was working on the campaign,” he said.
“The only campaign Tom Bertoli knows is developers as a facilitator making over a $1 million, he has no skills to run anyone’s campaign, let alone Jim McGreevey’s. I wouldn’t advise anyone in America to have him run their campaign unless you need lawn signs.”
Back in April, Bertoli pleaded guilty to one count of corrupt interference with administration of the Internal Revenue laws and received a sentence of three years probation and one year of house arrest.
Nonetheless, he remains a political mind that many seek in Hudson County and he said in response that he didn’t need to get into McCann’s own legal troubles (he was convicted on multiple fraud charges in 1991) to prove his point.
“The last time I was on the opposing side of Gerry McCann in a school board race, I kicked his ass,” Bertoli said, referencing the 2010 Jersey City school board race when McCann and Terry Dehere, both trustees, lost re-election bids to Sterling Waterman and Carol Lester.
While there are no declared candidates for the November 4th, 2025 Jersey City mayoral contest, McGreevey and Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2) are all but certain to announce after the November 7th general election next month.
Other often floated potential candidates include Council President Joyce Watterman and Ward E Councilman James Solomon.