Steve Hyman Enters the Mayoral Fray with Anti-Healy Flyer

By • May 5th, 2009 • Category: Blog, News, Politics

Developer Steve Hyman, whose family currently owns the 6th Street Embankment, is weighing in on this year’s mayoral election with an anti-Healy flyer. Hyman’s attempts to develop the embankment have been stifled and he is currently in negotiations with the city and the Embankment Preservation Coalition over the future of the vacant rail line.

The flyer, which you can see here, cites the closing of Greenville Hospital and the Lafayette Post Office as well as the loss of bus lines in Ward F as proof that Healy is “no friend” to the city’s black community. “African Americans Suffer; He Laughs!,” the ad says, while urging people: “Don’t Plead, Don’t Pout, Vote Healy Out!”

The ad is paid for by 415 Brunswick Street LLC, one of several corporations the Hymans own that owns land in Jersey City.

Hyman says that he’s distributing 30,000 of the flyers, predominately in Ward F but also in Ward C, by putting them on cars and handing them out after church services, as part of a broader effort to mobilize minority communities against the administration.

“What I want to do is get the minorities together so that they can vote as a majority,” he says. Even if Healy wins reelection, he says, at least the administration would recognize that minority groups are a force in city politics. He says that currently the city doesn’t truly accommodate minority groups and only does enough “to keep them out of the game.”

The Healy campaign says it is confident the black community “will reject the patronizing and negative attack” and support the mayor.

“It’s absurd that Mr. Hyman thinks he can speak for the African American community and offensive that he thinks so little of the community that he believes he can sway the vote with such a foolish ad,” Healy campaign spokesman Bud Demellier says. “His concern for any group of people in the city is certainly not his primary objective. Profit, as a result of a land deal, is his primary objective and he wants an administration that won’t fight as hard as the Healy administration to save the Downtown embankment.”

Hyman says he’s willing to spend $250,000 running anti-Healy operations, efforts that may include more brochures and transporting voters to the polls on election day in an effort to force a runoff, where he feels Healy would be vulnerable. To avoid a runoff, Healy needs to win more than 50 percent of the vote.

“Healy doesn’t deserve to be reelected,” he says. “Whoever is number two, that’s who I am behind. As long as it’s not Healy.”

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is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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  • enoch needles
  • Steve Hyman

    I am sorry Bud that you think so little of me that you would comment on this story in such a way. If I recall, you do not live in Jersey City either, but you are permitted to attack another person who has all the credentials for not only speaking out against healy and supporting the AFRICAN AMERICAN community at the same time. I am not talking out of both sides of my mouth like most of the people you support do. After all, you know the question. How do you know when a politician is lying? When his lips are moving. Your primary job has always been running political campaigns for the lip movers. How else would you describe your self?

    For your information, my father and mother lived in Bayonne until they were 32, I was born in Margaret Hague Hospital in 1944 and lived with my parents, not some wolves, until I was 7. My father worked in Jersey City most of his working life from age 21 until 65. I worked with my father on and off from age 13 to age 32 in his lumberyards in Jersey City. First Dad operated out of a little store a few doors away from where Laverne Webb Washington, THE NEXT COUNCIL PERSON FROM WARD F, has her political office on Communipaw and Grand Street. Then he moved to a bigger place on Sip Avenue near Eddie Seigel. It used to be a contractors place of business. Later he acquired a yard for storage around the corner on Field Street. When I was 32, I bought Standard Roofing and Building Supply on Railroad Avenue (AKA: Christopher Columbus Drive) in Jersey City for $500, Two years after I bought it I was awakened during the night by a telephone call from the fire department. My building and business that was doing over $1.5 million a year and always employed a number of African American people from Jersey City burned down to the ground. Financial Fire and Casualty Company, five months after the fire, went bankrupt before paying me. You can check this out in the case books of the State of NJ. I sued my broker and the State of NJ. Guess what happened. Four years after the fire I collected all of the insurance money from both parties. I proved the case and hired a lawyer to follow up with the paper work. Luckily, I went back into business before I knew that the insurance company would go bankrupt, I bought an 80 ,000 sq. ft. wharehouse on Gilchrist Street and Jersey Ave one block from Grand Street. Over the years, I bought about 6 acres around the property which is now the primary site for the new Wilzig Hospital. I assembled a developmental site coming back from the ashes but Gerry McCann and company thwarted my efforts to develop the property. McCann tried to take the property away from me in oh so many ways not the least being over taxing me on vacant land. I was assessed between 3 and 5 times more than Guarini and Mocco who owned property in close proximity to me. Guarini sold his land to PSEG for $1Million an acre. I had reached an accord with JC Medical Center to sell my land for $1 Million an acre in the late 80′s but McCann would not let them buy my property because he had a close relationship with Mocco and had sold him the 40 acres near me in “Liberty Harbor North” for $10,000 an acre as he was leaving office in his first term. Bud, as I remember it, you were also involved in the McCann administration. McCann had a dual job at that time. He was not only Mayor but also head of the JC School Pension System. In both capacities, he was able to make a deal with himself and he did. He managed to get Mocco to agree to buy this land that McCann had given to the Pension System from the City in lieu of paying an obligation to the Pension System with money. Then he was able to take that money from Mocco into the Pension System and gave Mocco all that nice land in LHN for $400,000. When Cucci became Mayor, he sued Mocco and Mocco paid $400.000 more and agreed to some other upsides to the City when he developed the property. After borrowing money from a bank and not building the project, Mocco went bankrupt. In doing so, he had accomplished a trifecta. He did not pay the bank in full, got back millions of dollars from the City Tax Collector’s office, got the JCRA to condemn other properties in the area adjacent to the 40 Acres, got the JCRA to build a bridge and roadway into his property, collected money from North Bergen by allowing for illegal dumping on his property that McCann had given to him to the detriment of the City, while the FBI was taking pictures from the top floor of the Boys Club and then after all that not only got a tax abatement when I had been denied on the Flintkote property but also refused recently to pay taxes on his parking lot claiming that he was doing the City a favor. BTW, some of the property Mocco wanted to acquire was condemned on his behalf during the Healy administration of which the same Gerry McCann has had jobs. While working for the JCIA, McCann asked a Judge to issue a warrant for my arrest and when I came to court voluntarily with 103 fever asked the same Judge to make me post $2500 bail because I was a flight risk and lived in NYC. I guess he forgot to ask him to execute me. Back to the latest Mocco but before that let me remind you of the Sand Bar enough said. Getting back to the property that JCRA condemned for Mocco without him paying for it. Can you imagine with this sorted past that Bob Antonicello would allow the City to get into trouble without asking or making anybody, especially Mocco, put up money in advance of a Courts decision in condemnation. Well Antonicello, probably forgot and Mocco was not paying, there is talk of him going bankrupt again and best of all. The City is stuck with the obligation to the former owner of the land that was condemned for almost $20,000,000. Funny how the same people fade in and out. On the other hand, in 1981 I bought Flintkote. You know that story from prior postings. JC and McCann again over taxed me on Flintkote. I believe that all this is true but it is anecdotal in nature since the documentation is all over the place. McCann, tried to put the new hospital on Mocco’s property and tried to pass a resolution to accomplish this that said something like any 14 acres in LHN of which Mocco was the prime beneficiary would be acquired by JC for a new hospital. The City Council voted it down. Sounds like a set up to score. McCann. sold it to Mocco for $10,000 per acre and is there any doubt that if the resolution had passed the City would have paid Mocco $1M per acre. This is the same Gerry McCann who is watching over the school board and on the eve of this election was given a job again with the JCIA so that he can get people to vote for Healy. This is the same McCann that when he ran for Mayor got in trouble because African American and other voters were not allowed to vote in an election. Bud, btw, I also operated Flintkote as a building material company and owned Posnack and Turkish on the other side of town which also was a building material company. When Cucci was Mayor, I bought from JC the watershed property in Denville in 1986. Brian O’Reilly was the head of the Real Estate Department in the Cucci administration. Me and my partners paid $7.6M for Denville. That money helped plug the JC budget in those years. Now twenty years later we are still, with all of the development and ratables, needing to plug the budget by making a deal with Honeywell with Toricelli’s supervision. Names from the past, coming home again to help JC. ENOUGH FOR NOW. EXCEPT THAT HEALY HAD BETTER APOLOGIZE PUBLICLY TO ME FOR TELLING JENNIFER JORDAN OF FOX 5 AND MY 9 THAT I HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH SOME NEWSPAPER THAT JENNIFER SAID THAT HEALY SAID WAS BORDERLINE RACIST. I think I have enough credentials and justification to be able to have my voice heard and punch back at a mayor and administration that have obvious difficulties and questionable morals. Going back to sleep now, please excuse and grammatical, spelling or content errors. I am sure my statements are at least 90 percent right.

  • enoch needles

    As a public service, the abridged edition:

    “I was born in Margaret Hague Hospital in 1944. Other people did some sleazy things so it’s ok for me to do them too. I love black people, even hired some once. I have tons of money but want more. Waaa waaa waaaa!”

    You’re welcome.

  • Eggshell

    Hi Jerry. It’s me, Steve. Well, Jerry old pal, you know I only did it to galvanize support for you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. By making the voters hate me, they would naturally vote for you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Why, I probably gave you that first ballot win. Right, Jerry? Jerry? Hello?