The Jersey City Independent "

from l-r: Emilio DeLia, Dan Levin, Andrew Hubsch.

“We’re at a point in Jersey City where the public is almost completely excluded from the public process of government,” mayoral candidate Dan Levin says, explaining what prompted him to put together a growing roster of reform-minded people to gun for City Hall this year.

Levin, the longtime community activist who most recently was the founder of Civic JC, has been joined on the One Jersey City team by at-large candidates Emilio DeLia and Andrew Hubsch. All three will be at the Golden Cicada on Grand St. on Monday to talk to voters — and raise some funds — in the first of what Levin says will be a series of events held at local watering holes and peoples’ homes aimed at “creating environments to talk to people about what is important to them.”

The common chord the three candidates strike when talking about this election and the city in general is that the government of Jersey City is “dysfunctional,” as Levin says. They all talk about the need for city government to adopt policies and practices — like community policing — that have worked in other cities, and about putting power back into the hands of the citizens by having a more responsive and diverse Council. While they acknowledge that is an uphill battle in the notoriously insular world of Jersey City politics, they see no other way to fix the city’s problems.

“The only way to change the equation is to change the equation,” Hubsch says.

Hubsch has attempted to change the equation in city politics before. In what he calls a “reactive gesture,” the Paulus Hook resident and historical novelist tried to get on the ballot late in the game as a mayoral candidate in 2005.

“Literally, I got mad at the hypocrisy of Mayor Healy,” Hubsch says. “I walked up to City Hall and asked City Clerk Robert Byrne what I could run for.” He ultimately decided on mayor, since it required the same number of signatures as the At-Large Council seat, and he didn’t see the sense of taking potential votes away from Steven Fulop, who at the time was challenging Councilman Junior Maldonado for the right to represent Ward E.

While he ultimately fell a little short of the 1,197 signatures needed to get on the ballot, Hubsch says he felt that his message resonated, and he “was humbled by the efforts” of people mobilizing for him. Ultimately, though, he walked away from the experience with one key lesson. “If you want to do something, plan.”

That’s exactly what Levin has been doing for almost a year now. After continually “hitting a brick wall with city government” as a representative of community groups like Civic JC and the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, he realized that “change is only going to come at the ballot box.”

So he began using his network to reach out to various neighborhood activists and other good-government types to convince them to run for mayor. When it became clear that no one was going to go for it, Levin decided that he needed to do it himself, took a leave from Civic JC and began his campaign.

Currently, the One Jersey City team is fanning out across the city trying to collect the signatures it needs to get on the ballot by the March 19 deadline. While only 1,392 signatures are needed for at-large and mayoral candidates, Levin says they plan on collecting between 2,000-2,500 just to be safe.

The campaign is hoping to reach out to first-time voters, including both unregistered voters and people who are registered but don’t turn out for local elections. “Over the last five or six years, more people have become more socially conscious, and they’re thinking locally,” Levin says. “They’re optimistic, even though the odds are against us.”

Fixing the Fiscal Mess

The city is facing a fiscal crisis, Levin argues, with the growing municipal budget not being matched with new recurring revenue sources. He says that the city desperately needs to diversify its tax base, in part by coming up with a real economic development plan that includes more than just office space on the waterfront.

“Make Jersey City truly business-friendly — for small businesses as well as developers and financial firms,” Levin says. The city already has the infrastructure in place to create a new base of small businesses specializing in light industry and specialty manufacturing, he notes, adding that there’s also an opportunity because Brooklyn and Queens recently rezoned much of their industrial space to residential, and many firms there are looking for a new home. Developing a strong light industry sector would have the added benefit of creating well-paid jobs for Jersey City residents. “You can’t develop a city on service-sector jobs,” Levin says.

Nor can you develop a city on tax abatements and a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program, Hubsch notes. “[PILOT] is at the root of a lot of the current financial ills,” he says. “Everything is connected to the lack of money coming in.” PILOT payments are pre-determined payments, instead of regular tax payments, that developers make to the city. PILOT money, however, does not fund the public school system. In addition, Hubsch points out that the city hasn’t done a citywide revaluation of property values since 1988, which could lead to a huge property tax increase for unabated homeowners when — or if — the revaluation ever takes place.

DeLia says that he’d like to see more of a discussion during this campaign about how the city is going to handle the property tax situation and the budget shortfalls. While he acknowledges that no candidate is going to run on a platform of fixing the budget — a process that could involve painful cuts or tax hikes — he wants to start the discussion. “Instead of scrambling for a quick fix, we should plan in advance,” he says.

Inspired by Obama

DeLia, who is also the One Jersey City campaign manager, has deep roots here, dating back to the 1910s when his great-grandparents came to the U.S. from Turkey and settled in Jersey City. He spent some time on the West Coast working as a motorcycle mechanic while doing community organizing with the Columbian-American Association and teaching English on the side, but came back to Jersey City in 2003.

He says that his love for Jersey City and his experience volunteering for the Barack Obama presidential campaign were the driving forces behind the decision to enter the political arena. “His whole idea of ‘change begins with us’ — I really took that to heart,” DeLia says. “Here’s an opportunity to live that.”

Already knowing Levin from Civic JC, DeLia decided early on that he would be a part of the slate Levin was putting together. Originally, he planned on running in Ward A, where he resides. But as he got more involved in the campaign, he started thinking about running city-wide.

That thought was cemented when he met with Andre Richardson, who is running for the Ward A seat. “I realized that he and I shared a lot of the same values,” DeLia says. “There was no sense in splitting the vote.” Richardson is not officially a part of the One Jersey City slate, but DeLia, Levin and Hubsch all say that as the campaign progresses, they will endorse candidates not on their ticket, and Richardson will likely be one of them.

Levin acknowledges that the One Jersey City ticket faces an uphill climb, but dismisses people who simply write them off as having no chance of winning. “Our counter is that every vote behind us is a vote for these ideas, for doing things differently than they’ve always been done,” he says. “If you believe you can make a difference, you can. … We don’t have to live with the current situation.”

When responding to the naysayers and cynics, DeLia draws on his experience competing in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

“You have to step onto the mat absolutely 100 percent sure you are going to win,” he says. “If you think, ‘I might lose,’ you have already lost.”

ON THE ISSUES:
We asked each candidate what they were thought the three most pressing issues facing the city. Here’s what they said:

Dan Levin:
1. City finances and budgeting: Wants to diversify the city’s tax base and help small businesses.
2. Public safety/crime: “People will not move or do business here if they don’t feel safe.” Wants to implement community policing.
3. Opening the government to the public: Wants to change city government from a top-down to a bottom-up approach.

Emilio DeLia:
1. Public safety/crime: Concerned about the unequal distribution of crime in the city — “Why is the crime rate in certain parts of the city higher than others?” Wants to implement community policing and have more cops out of their cars and out walking the streets.
2. City finances and budgeting: Wants all the candidates to put forth real plans on how to deal with budget shortfalls and future economic growth.
3. Opening the government to the public: Says neighborhood activists and concerned citizens would like to be involved with government, but now spend too much time fighting the government. “To them the government is another force of the dark side.”

Andrew Hubsch:
1. Opening the government to the public: “The disconnect between the electorate and local government manifests itself in many different ways.” He says that this disconnect fuels many of the city’s problems and points to property taxes as an example.
2. The quality of leadership: “You get bureacratic impediments to actual problem-solving.” Would open high-profile city positions to national talent searches. “Jersey City would benefit from seeking out the best and the brightest.”
3. Health care: Is excited by San Francisco’s health care plan, which “gives an avenue for everybody to buy into a health care system at a flat, affordable rate — for a safety net.” Would like to at least give a similar program a try here to lessen the burden — on hospitals, ambulances, and individuals — caused by the lack of health insurance.

Let’s Talk About the Future of Jersey City
The Golden Cicada
195 Grand St.
Monday, Jan. 19
7-9 pm
$15 suggested donation

For more, visit the One Jersey City website.

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