Dr. Aaron Weiner, a Jersey City Heights resident and community activist, announced his candidacy for Hudson County Commissioner in District 4, setting up a matchup with incumbent Yraida Aponte-Lipski on November 3rd.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
“District 4 deserves a commissioner who is present, accountable, and effective. This campaign is about delivering what two terms of silence never have,” Weiner said in a statement.
He will appear on the fall ballot under the slogan “Moving Hudson Forward” and has already challenged Aponte-Lipski to a debate.
Speaking with HCV, Weiner exclaimed over the phone District 4 needs a commissioner who understands the serious gravity of the position and the community’s needs.
“District 4 is about 50,000 people, and living in the Heights as I do, I’ve seen where the county has the opportunity to step up and do more for Jersey City, for the Heights, for the district,” he said.
“So I want to advocate for Jersey City priorities that, quite frankly, we’ve been really needing.”
According to Weiner, as Jersey City prepares to cope with a $255 million budget deficit by raising taxes, cutting services, and other austerity measures, he is calling for the county to step in “where it counts” with available funds to protect taxpayers.
He said affordability has been top of mind as he is paying over $800 a month for college that he graduated from in 2015, proposing free tuition for Hudson County residents at Hudson County Community College (HCCC).
He also wants partnerships with other colleges in Jersey City like Kean University – which is absorbing New Jersey City University– and St. Peter’s University to accept credits from HCCC so students can transfer seamlessly and with minimum debt.
Another important topic for Weiner is quick and efficient transportation, citing his proposal to have underutilized “dial-a-ride” TRANSCEND buses meant for seniors and disabled individuals.
He said this will be critical in wake of Mayor James Solomon stating that Via is being earmarked to be cut from the municipal budget.
“I want to, at the very least within Jersey City, do a pilot and see if we can do free rapid transit, but the goal would be to get that around Hudson County,” he said.
He is also championing subsidized daycare throughout the county, recalling how a work colleague’s wife was forced to quit her job to watch their two kids as daycare cost $3,000 per month.
“Someone is sitting out of work instead of contributing in that way where they would have opted to work if they had affordable daycare,” he said.
On government accountability, Weiner wants to hold regular Town Halls alongside an open-door policy for his office hours, which will be weekly.
Weiner also wants to coordinate with the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office to hold regular meetings with the community akin to the frequent captain’s meetings held by each district of the Jersey City Police Department with the community.
“I’m going to push to have that, but at the very least, the statistics of crime and safety- that should be public data: I will get those from the Sheriff’s Office and I will do a read down and I will make them available to the public without having to go probe or anything like that,” he said.
According to Weiner, he wants to audit the county government, its budget, and the county schools budget, to ensure county money is being spent appropriately and that there aren’t “any means for fraud or abuse.”
On quality of life, Weiner highlighted proposals to have the county assist with broken public garbage cans utilizing funds from the Hudson County Improvement Authority (HCIA) and Hudson County Economic Development Corporation (HCEDC).
He also highlighted healthcare access, underscoring the need to use county processes to bring healthcare back to the Heights at the former Heights University Hospital.
A doctor of physical therapy who worked in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said he has seen how overburdened hospitals, such as Jersey City Medical Center, can be a detriment to the community, especially in the wake of losing Heights University Hospital.
“Right now, there’s a push to try to get ER services back online, even if they don’t open up the whole hospital,” he said.
“I’m going to push to use county funds, county pressure, county legislation to try to make that a possibility. We are in an emergency right now because, we’ve heard about hantavirus, and if we’re already at capacity, there is no room for overflow for another problem.”
Weiner also slammed Aponte-Lipski for not taking an active role in the hospital crisis, noting she was not at the hearing-turned-town-hall while he was present.
“The person who is the current commissioner is not being a good steward to the office. You need to show respect to the office that you are serving, there’s many people who really need the county to be working for them,” he declared.
According to Weiner, he was driven to run after other candidates failed to make it on the ballot for the Democratic primary, including David Guirgis, who didn’t live in the district, and Patrick Ambrossi, who said he didn’t file for “the good of the party.”
“When I saw the failures of two terms of the current commissioner, who is walking into a third term unopposed both in the primary and the general, I felt the responsibility to the community to offer an alternative,” he said.
“When I walked around getting signatures, there are people who have lived here for years and own property here who don’t know what a county commissioner is and, even though the current county commissioner is running for their third term, they don’t know one of the current county commissioner’s three names.”
Weiner said that he is challenging the Hudson County Democratic Organization consensus ticket because he feels like that decision was made for constituents, not with them.
“This unity ticket was put together by the same people that you hear about in dirty politics in the dark, smoke-filled rooms where deals are made. They decided they wanted a unity ticket, but the people didn’t, he said.
“And the people that I spoke to when I was getting signatures did not want that unity ticket and did not want this person to be running unopposed for their third term. And you could see that by the energy and enthusiasm that went into some of the other people who thought about running. The unity ticket is not unifying of the people.”
He also described himself as a progressive Democratic ideologically, but is running as an independent for the aforementioned reason.
Aponte-Lipski did not return inquiries seeking comment on Tuesday.
