Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2) waded into the ongoing feud between Jersey City Board of Education (BOE) Vice President Dejon Morris and 8th District congressional candidate Mussab Ali yesterday, calling banning him from school property bogus.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
O’Dea began his remarks at the March 1st protest by recalling how he has stood against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since 2017, being the lone commissioner to oppose the county contract with the agency to host detainees at the Hudson County jail.
While he opposed it again in 2020, it was approved again and he and others who stood up were punished for it, bering removed from committees and even his vice chairmanship of board of commissioners.
“I wear that as a badge of honor the same way I wish on the day that they had the walkout of the Jersey City schools that I didn’t have a conflict in my schedule because I would have marched with you next to Mussab Ali,” O’Dea declared.
“And I’d wear it as a badge of honor that they probably would have banned me from the schools also.”
The BOE recently banned Ali from school property for allegedly orchestrating a prior ICE protest where students from Jersey City’s four high schools walked out, as HCV first reported, with Morris being vocal in having the measure pass.
Ali still has the ability to call Superintendent of Schools Dr. Norma Fernandez to get permission and is also allowed to speak at public meetings like anyone else.
At that point in O’Dea’s remarks, Morris, who was in the audience, shouted to the commissioner that the board would have banned him too.
“You can ban me for just thinking about doing it,” O’Dea retorted.
“Good,” Morris answered.
“Do it at your next meeting,” O’Dea taunted.
“I will,” Morris responded.
“Good,” O’Dea fired back. “I hope you get the votes because I’ll be lobbying against you. Because that’s what democracy is all about.”
According to O’Dea, civil disobedience comes with penalties but it is also what kick started the civil rights movement and ended the Vietnam War. He said he would participate in any future walkouts and challenge any school district bans.
“If we need to, let’s have another walk out of the schools. I’m with you this time. And trust me, if they try to ban me, I’ll be in court the next day,” he stated.
Ali reiterated that he didn’t organize the walkout in question and added that it was insulting to students to imply they couldn’t form their own opinions and mobilize a rally on their own.
He also said he is yet to receive any formal communication from the district about the ban.
“To this day, I have not received legal notice. I have not received a resolution on the record. I have never received a cease-and-desist. I’ve never received anything in the mail,” he told HCV.
“I’ve never seen anything online. So at this point, I have no concept of what has happened beyond the fact that someone told me I was banned. There is no appeal process.”
According to Ali, any measure like the resolution passed to ban him from school district buildings needs to be accessible to the public, but to this day still is not. He called the move an overreach by the BOE, especially in regards to his First Amendment rights.
“Elections take place at school buildings. Am I banned from ever going inside an election site?” he questioned.
Ali also claimed the ban also theoretically applies outside of school instructional hours, meaning he can’t attend any after school activities without permission from Fernandez.
“They don’t treat pedophiles like this. They’re treating me even worse because I’ve supported students and showed evidence that these young people were on the record saying they organized this event,” he asserted.
Without mentioning his name, Ali also noted that his June 2nd primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez (D-8), participated in an ICE walkout with North Bergen High School students and he faced no repercussions of any kind.
While he said he wasn’t sure considering other elected officials weren’t banned for their participation in rallies elsewhere, it was an unnamed swipe at his Democratic congressional opponent Rep. Rob Menendez (NJ-08) who joined North Bergen High School students for their walkout earlier in the year.
Ali, a former BOE president, also committed to speaking at their next meeting.
Reach by phone, BOE President Noemi Velazquez confirmed that Ali has been sent notice of the ban.
“I just know that the attorney was supposed to send him the letter. That’s as far as I know. We agreed, we voted, and we moved on,” she said.
Velazquez added that that the resolution was read aloud before the board voted during that meeting and forwarded to him.
“We do not know what the students are going to do next. But if there’s another walkout, I can’t walk out with them. I do not support a walkout. I support their issue. I don’t support the action,” she clarified.
Velazquez also praised O’Dea as a “great, respected, and cherished leader,” but felt he lost the plot in his speech.
“He has always been on the right side of the community, always on the helping side and the giving side,” she said.
“Today he tried to explain that and all of a sudden he lost focus. I don’t understand why. And I know it wasn’t meant to me, but sometimes in the heat and the passion of it, you lose focus. And that’s what happened to Bill.”
This wasn’t the only conflict at yesterday’s rally, as Velazquez got in a spat with Climate Revolution NJ Executive Director Ben Dziobek over the same issue, as HCV first reported.
How many illegal aliens Bill is housing in his own living room, again?
Constant virtue signalling wars are now main news.
Where is the rest of news? Like illegal aliens’ crimes. Scamming the system on housing and freebees. And on and on and on.
HCV bias is tilted. Not even pretending to be balanced.