The Jersey City unanimously voted (7-0) to drop Acrisure after about a decade in favor of RD Parisi Associates to provide their services of an insurance broker and consultant at last night’s meeting.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The vote was anything but an eventful one, with the governing body approving the one-year, $440,000 contract in an up and down vote as part of the consent agenda. Council members-at-Large Daniel Rivera and Amy DeGise.
However, the political ties of both firms raised some eyebrows among observers: Gary Taffet, chief of staff to then-Gov. Jim McGreevey, is the New Jersey managing member of Acrisure, while former West Orange Mayor Robert Parisi runs the firm that replaced them.
Taffet is also a close ally of Middlesex County Democratic Organization Chair Kevin McCabe, who plans to back U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11) for governor, while Parisi has already thrown his support behind U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5).
Neither are declared candidates yet for the June 3rd, 2025 Democratic primary (both are seeking re-election on November 5th), but both have signaled via fundraising efforts and campaign stops that they will be running.
Responding to a Politico story that first reported that the item was on the council agenda, Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate since April of last year, wrote on X that Parisi came in with a lower bid before taking aim at political adversaries.
“This wasn’t political as the contract went to the low bidder (who was not Middlesex) and the vendor owner happens to be a Gottheimer supporter so obviously not political BUT since you got the conversation started there is no secret the chairman of Middlesex and Essex represent much of what is wrong in Nj,” the mayor began.
“They are nice individuals personally who I find cordial but also unfortunately have purely monetized their positions as chairmen. Just think… the chairman of Middlesex became a managing partner at lobbying firm after becoming chairman, you can look at who he represents and it tells the story, furthermore he also fought to protect the ballot line in appeal.”
In his white paper on government reforms that he unveiled in June, Fulop used McCabe and New Jersey Democratic State Committee Chair LeRoy Jones, who is also the Democratic chair in Essex County, as textbook examples of what is wrong with lobbying in this state.
Evidently, they haven’t mended fences since then.
“Final note and prediction… the chairman of Middlesex has also pushed the speaker who is from middlesex for a sham ballot line committee in the assembly that will propose block ballots WITH bracketing,” Fulop also wrote.
“They believe the term block ballots give them cover and will trick the activists to be quiet so chairmen can prejudice the design underneath how they choose. They would never allow actual block ballots where every candidate is EQUAL Bc the design of the ballot is crucial for their power which is crucial for $$…”
With Fulop seeking the state’s highest elected office, McGreevey is one of five declared candidates running to succeed him as mayor.
The rest of the field, for now, includes Ward E Councilman James Solomon, who received a $5,200 donation from Parisi in August, Council President Joyce Watterman, Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2), and former Board of Education President Mussab Ali.
