Hoboken Council President Ruben Ramos revealed that he’ll be backing Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise during an appearance on our live show yesterday.
[fve]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQmhrCkzjAk[/fve]
“County Executive DeGise is our current county executive, I’m gonna support him in his re-election bid: I could tell you that right now, even though Hudson County, our taxes in Hoboken are not where we want them to be, a little high, better services, but I think County Executive DeGise has always conducted himself as a gentleman to myself personally,” Ramos explained during the tail end of the interview.
“And again, he hasn’t supported me in a lot of my elections as well, but whenever I pick up the phone to call him up, he’s always answered my calls. He didn’t just [say] ‘that’s Ruben Ramos’ and hang up the phone on him. He’s always took my calls and whatever questions I had for him, whatever advocacy he could do, issues my residents had: he always picked up the phone.”
Ramos joins a group led by U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-8) and state Senator (D-33)/North Bergen Mayor Nick Sacco in supporting DeGise, the county exec since 2002, for another four-year term.
Therefore, he goes against state Senator (D-33)/Union City Mayor Brian Stack and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who are spearheading a group calling to replace DeGise – though they are yet to announce a candidate for the June 2019 Democratic primary.
Ahead of that race, Stack is pursuing the chairmanship of the Hudson County Democratic Organization.
On that topic, Ramos, a former state Assemblyman who ran with Stack, said it was important for the county to keep representing Democratic ideals that are a stark contrast to President Donald Trump (R) – calling the current HCDO civil war “unfortunate.”
He expressed no opinion as to whether or not he felt Stack was the best man to to lead the Hudson Dems.
Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, a top political adversary of Ramos, has joined Stack and Fulop in calling to replace DeGise and has been adamant in backing Stack for HCDO chair.