In an editorial, Jersey City resident Eric Allen Conner explains why he believes four of the Assembly candidates backed by Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) will end up supporting the $10.7 billion Turnpike widening project if elected.
The Turnpike expansion program in Hudson County is big money despite being a big waste that will make traffic worse. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has promised at least $11 billion to special interests – contractors, consultants, and road construction crews.
Naturally, they are all selfishly thrilled with the idea, the negative consequences of the project be damned. Every board meeting, their lobbyists slavishly slobber praise over Chairman Francis O’Connor and the rest NJTA commissioners.
The Turnpike expansion program is big money for Hudson County, too. Well, that’s not quite true. The Turnpike expansion will cost Hudson County residents big money due to the immense economic and environmental harms. So, let me rephrase.
The Turnpike expansion program is absolutely big money for the Hudson County Democratic Organization (“HCDO”) led by Hudson County Executive Craig Guy.
Using ELEC filings, the same contractors and consultants who stand to benefit from widening the Turnpike from four lanes to eight in both directions are large donors to the HCDO and Craig Guy’s hand-picked HCDO candidates in LD-31 (William Sampson and Jerry Walker) and LD-32 (Jennie Pu and Crystal Fonseca).
• Operating Engineers Local 825 has given $120,000 to the HCDO since 2020 (with $50,000 given this year alone), another $50,000 to an HCDO-affiliated Hudson Votes, and $5,000 to Craig Guy in 2023.
• Greater NJ Carpenters PEC, another group representing Turnpike contractors, has given $34,600 directly to the campaign committee of Jennie Pu and Crystal Fonseca who are running under the HCDO banner in LD-32; $17,300 to William Sampson in LD-31; and, previously, $8,300 to Craig Guy in 2024.
•Trilon, infrastructure consultants specialized in roadway work and highway widenings, gave $10,000 to HCDO in March.
• Carbro Constructors Corp, a long-time contractor of NJDOT and the NJTA, previously gave $2,500 to HCDO, $2,600 to Craig Guy, and $1,000 to HCDO-backed mayoral candidate Jim McGreevey.
• Pennoni Associates, a highway engineering firm, contributed $1,000 to HCDO, $500 to Craig Guy, and $300 to Crystal Fonseca.
• Sills, Cummis & Gross, a law firm that was outside counsel to the state highway authority, gave $2,500 to HCDO and Craig Guy each.
Groups with a vested interest in doing business with the NJTA and widening the Turnpike have given over $300,000 to HCDO and HCDO Chairman Craig Guy.
HCDO, in turn, has invested considerable money and resources in supporting Fonseca, Pu, Sampson, and Walker, spending over $370,000 on Fonseca and Pu and nearly $60,000 on Sampson and Walker.
HCDO is indebted to the groups that want to widen the Turnpike and Fonseca, Pu, Sampson, and Walker are beholden to the HCDO.
Hudson Votes (an independent PAC that’s taken in over $75,000 from just two organizations that do business with Hudson County) has gone hard after the two biggest critics of the Turnpike widening in LD-32 — independent Democrats Katie Brennan and Ravi Bhalla.
Hudson Votes launched a series of attack ads designed to keep to keep Brennan and Bhalla out of Trenton because they forcefully oppose the highway widening. Pu and Fonseca have remained silent about the pro-Turnpike groups spending on their behalf.
In LD-31, Sampson is the most unabashedly pro-Turnpike widening candidate. He is running for re-election despite being fired for not showing up to his purported day job as a crane operator.
He and Jerry Walker, who previously took over $250,000 to help Bob Hurley and Paul Fireman commercialize and develop Liberty State Park, are running against current Assemblywoman Barbara McCann Stamato who opposes widening the Turnpike past Exit 14A.
If Fonseca and Pu win in LD-31 or Sampson and Walker in LD-32, it has deeply troubling implications for the ability for Hudson County residents to resist a wasteful and unnecessary Turnpike widening.
Hudson County, led by HCDO Chairman Craig Guy, is set to accept a paltry $150,000 “settlement” from the NJTA to support a summer camp and some park improvements to Mercer Park as consideration for the impacts of the Turnpike widening.
This is a laughably bad deal for Hudson County given how much an eight-lane highway will worsen traffic and air quality. Mercer Park sits directly adjacent to where the proposed 8 lanes with more trucks would be.
Even more insultingly, the Turnpike receives the mother of all tax abatements, paying zero property taxes on tens of billions of dollars in assets. Just a 1% impact fee for the $6B Newark Bay Bridge replacement part of the project would translate to $60 million dollars for Hudson County.
Unfortunately, Hudson County’s leadership thinks $150,000 is more than enough for the public when the politicians routinely get twice that amount in campaign contributions.
The Turnpike’s own data shows that traffic growth has been stagnant for the past ten years. The successful implementation of congestion pricing in New York has lowered demand further.
And, despite Jersey City’s massive growth, the share of car-free households has expanded from 38% to 43% of the population. The Turnpike widening is an $11 billion giveaway to special interests and HCDO leadership is trying to help their political patrons finance it.
This June 10, you must vote to reject the pro-Turnpike lobby and vote for candidates who are independent of special interests.
#AnyoneButBhalla
He’s a failed attorney who failed Hoboken and failed a Congress campaign and now he’s running for the same seat he failed to win 14 years ago.
Win Win? More like Fail Fail Fail Fail.
The author dismisses the “attacks” on Bhalla claiming falsely that he’s being “targeted” because of his noble opposition to the turnpike expansion and the nefarious influence of money in politics.
The trouble is that the “attacks”are factually correct and include irrefutable receipts. They have nothing to do with Bhalla’s opposition to turnpike expansion.
Turnpike expansion is bad for Hudson County. But Bhalla’s opposition is the result of his putting his finger in the political wind when he was running for Congress. He was curiously silent on the issue while he was meeting in back rooms for months trying to buy HCDO support with the same kind of campaign contributions the author complains about.
There are several good, honest, untainted candidates on the ballot. Bhalla is not one of them.