Mayoral candidate Brown vows to ‘return the City of Bayonne to the people,’ calls June runoff

Mayoral candidate Dr. Mitchell Brown is vowing to “return the City of Bayonne to the people” and says this race is destined for a June runoff.

“I pledge to reinstate the integrity of the office of the mayor. Each personnel hiring will be made of necessity. Each contract properly bid. Each development project properly vetted and deemed valuable to our community. The taxpayers’ funds will be properly allocated. I will return the City of Bayonne to the people,” Brown said in a statement.

Also a lawyer, Brown finished in a very distance third place in the 2018 municipal elections where Mayor Jimmy Davis was re-elected to a second term, with his chief opposition being former Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell.

This time around, Davis faces a challenge from Council President Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski, a running mate in 2014 and 2018. According to Brown, this give him an advantage he didn’t have last time around.

“The current narrative of the mayoral campaigns is extremely negative and illogical. For 7-plus years it has been the ‘different sides of the same coin.’ They both signed off on excess development without benefit to the taxpayers,” Brown stated.

“They lost track of city, state, and federal funding. They punished the taxpayers by increasing taxes without regard to ‘quality of life.'”

Brown also said definitively that “there is going to be a runoff in this election” and he plans on being a part of it. Additionally, he announced his first campaign fundraiser will be at the Chandelier restaurant at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

The non-partisan Bayonne municipal elections are on May 10th, and in the event runoffs are needed, they will take place on June 14th.