State Senator Brian Stack urges Jersey City voters to keep elections in May

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State Senator (D-33)/Union City Mayor Brian Stack is urging Jersey City voters to keep municipal elections in May, as opposed to moving them to November, as residents mull over a question on the November 8 ballot.

Brian Stack

By John Heinis/Hudson County View

“Potentially moving the Municipal Election to November will make the ballot too confusing with too many candidates and take emphasis away from selecting your Mayor and and Council Member,” Stack, whose district includes the Jersey City Heights, said in a mailer sent out this week.

Stack also wrote that “Municipal Elections are are critical to your local quality of life” since the mayor and council make decisions impacting local property taxes, education, public safety, recreational programs, roads and infrastructure – among other things.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop responded to a screenshot of the mailer posted on Twitter, writing “I respect Brian Stack and nobody works harder. Of course he is entitled to his opinion[.]”

The state Senator’s commentary is similar to the reasons former Jersey City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis, a declared mayoral candidate, gave for objecting to moving municipal elections to November.

Matsikoudis took the matter to court, claiming that the wording of the ballot question was “unlawful” and “ambiguous,” but was unsuccessful in getting the question removed.

Fulop has been pushing for move the municipal elections to November since he was a councilman, claiming the initiative would save money and increase voter turnout – a sentiment echoed by city Council President Rolando Lavarro when the governing body approved a measure to add the question to the November 8 ballot.

Still, critics like Matsikoudis have maintained that Fulop was only following through on this notion so that he could run in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in June 2017, and then if he lost, run for mayor in November of the same year.

However, there has been very little discussion on the subject ever since Fulop, in a completely unforeseen announcement, endorsed top Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy on the steps of City Hall last month.

At the same press conference, Fulop said he would instead be seeking re-election and appears to have quickly garnered support from some of the other top elected officials in the county.


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