A couple good reads over coffee this morning

Agustin C. Torres takes a very in-depth look at the implosion of the Hudson County Democratic Party over Mayors Fulop, Stack, Bhalla, and Roque all gunning to replace current county chair Tom DeGise with new blood and DeGise telling them to bring a flashlight and pack a lunch. Good stuff.

Also on your reading list, Earl Morgan makes the fair observation that maybe next year Ward F will hear what Mayor Fulop did and not just what he's still planning to do. Plus, Mr. Earl Morgan used the word surfeit. You can feel those bonus word scores piling up.

Fulop up 12? Healy up 3? DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME!

It's the first Saturday in May which should just be a national holiday with the Kentucky Derby and normally Cinco De Mayo being celebrated across this good land. People do watch the Kentucky Derby. It's pomp. It's fashion. More and more it's the celebrity watching. NBC devotes almost an entire week to it. It even has it's own official drink. While Cinco de Mayo doesn't have an official drink it does have lots and lots of celebratory drinks toasted in its name.

Every four years in Jersey City it means the candidates for mayor are in the home stretch. Normally jockeys don't hit each other with their crops either. If you really want some numbers and analysis on where this race is headed then Agustin C. Torres and his column in the Jersey Journal is required reading for you this morning. Is Fulop really up twelve points? Is Healy really up by three points? How about this nugget?

While Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise endorsed Mayor Jerramiah Healy's re-election bid, there are plenty of sources who say that county employees have been released from any bonds of "loyalty" and to act on their own.

All this and how Sen. Sandra Cunningham impacts the race is just a click away.

An interesting commentary about the Mayor's State of the City speech last night

Political insider at the Jersey Journal, Agustin C. Torres, made a whale of a point about Mayor Healy's state of the city address last night. He felt with all of Healy's talk about the great new business and restaurant expansion, new construction, and the Sixth Street Embankment as High Line that the true heart of the city, Journal Square was being ignored.

Torres noted Healy was asked about this and didn't seem any too happy to respond.

Healy has done a lot of things for the city........from Grove St. to the river, but what of Greenville, The Heights, Journal Square, India Square et al. Has Jersey City under Healy, like Torres suggests, become 1789 Paris in A Tale of Two Cities? Have most of Healy's building and business initiatives favored downtown?

How much is being spent where mayor? Where are the police assets being spent? Downtown? The problematic Greenville area? Journal Square? What about the tax breaks? What part of town is getting them and are they equitable?

Last year at this time we were all hearing about the grand new development plan for Journal Square. Huge condo towers with businesses on the ground floor surrounded all throughout the neighborhood by newly opened supporting businesses and a grand new upgrade of the Journal Square PATH station. If you bring up this issue today you get the sound of crickets on a warm summer night.

A fair point by Mr. Torres should lead to a fair and lively discussion we think. Tell us your opinion in comments.