Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2), a declared candidate for Jersey City mayor, led a rally last night at 630 Bergen Ave. demanding elevator repairs.
By Daniel Ulloa/Hudson County View
“Over seven months ago, it was brought to our attention that this building here did not have an elevator and had not had an elevator at that time for 18 months,” O’Dea explained, referencing when he and HCV toured the building in mid-January.
“Now, two years later, when we send a press release and notify everyone, we’re going to do a press event, miraculously, they’ve begun to fix the elevator. It’s a shame that we had to go through all we had to go through to get the owners of these buildings to start to fix the elevators. Their explanation was actually comical.”
O’Dea said an engineering firm was tasked with evaluating the repairs two years ago, He joking that it would take a shorter time for most engineering firms to design a 50-story building.
“It’s a victory for what happened. I give credit to [Jersey City Code Compliance Director] Joe Barrow.”
O’Dea said Barrow claimed the landlord was suing AT&T over an antenna on the building roof, which made fixing the elevator more difficult. However, the veteran county commissioner said that in reality, there was never a lawsuit filed.
“There’s still violations in this building. We still need to make sure all the violations are corrected … “It’s irresponsible to allow what happened here to happen here,” he continued.
Reiterating a point he made in March, O’Dea also mentioned that the city council must sponsor an ordinance to allow Barrow to declare situations like this one an emergency safety hazard.
He added that his running mate, Councilman-at-Large Daniel Rivera, has prepared a draft ordinance for consideration.
Furthermore, O’Dea said tenants living at 2555 John F. Kennedy Blvd. and 503 Garfield Ave. have similar issues and they are planning on rallying for them as well, since this predicament is a big strain on seniors who can’t use the stairs well, if at all.
“You shouldn’t have to play Russian roulette … and wonder or not if you’re able to get back upstairs. That is unacceptable: We’ll stay on top of it until it gets fixed,” O’Dea added.
He noted they want to connect tenants to a civil rights attorney who can help them.
“Those are HUD-funded Section 8 buildings. So we have more clout to go after them on a federal level,” O’Dea explained.
39-year building resident Mayra Vega said the landlords “don’t care about us” and only care about their bottom line.
“Who pays the fines? Us! We pay the fines, not them! “No one says anything, when [are] they going to fix the elevator?”
Vega praised O’Dea and his director of Constituent Services, Cory Garriga, for their help.
“It’s a miracle! Friday, they came and say we’re fixing the elevator. Everyone started screaming. Why now? Because everyone is pushing. It’s not fair for people like us. I live on the fourth floor,” she explained.
Furthermore, O’Dea said they are working with Ward F Councilman Frank “Educational” Gilmore on code enforcement with a new, stricter ordinance since he represents the area.
“I am pleased to hear they at least started the process: You have a fighter in me,” Gilmore declared.
He added they would maintain pressure until the elevator was fixed and maintained to applause, also indicating the local legislation he is working on would ensure elevator maintenance to help the disabled especially.
“Thankfully we didn’t have any emergencies for those who needed to get out in a quick manner. That would have been a catastrophe,” Gilmore added.
“When you see big corporations, they only look at us as dollar signs. We just need to make sure we’re staying on them.”
O’Dea said two winters ago, advocate and former Ward B council candidate Joel Brooks called him about a building that had no heat for three months.
“We made enough noise that within 48 hours, they started to fix the heating unit. They were trying to get the building to be vacated,” he recalled.
“Is this an Optimum Properties? That’s my old landlord. I know them well,” Brooks declared.
“Are we going to tolerate behavior like this from landlords in Jersey City anymore?” he asked the crowd.
“No!” they responded.
“Are we going to tolerate landlords like Optimum Properties that have over 90 habitary and rent control complaints since 2018? Are we going tolerate that?” Brooks asked.
“No!” the crowd replied.
“Do we think tenants deserve equal power and voice to landlords in Jersey City?” Brooks asked.
“Yes!” the crowd responded.
“We need to stick together. And we can’t let up. As a former Optimum Properties tenant … their behavior should not be tolerated in Jersey City,” Brooks continued.
In 2023, the Jersey City Fire Department responded to 447 emergency calls related to trapped elevator occupants. As of July 19th this year, that number is already at 259 emergency calls.