We've got a lot to cover, so I'm tempted to go ahead and jump right in with my Ward A pick. But before I do that, I want to go over the ground rules for all you latecomers: mine is a personal website, and one that isn't affiliated with any campaign, organization, or publication. I'm not here to tell you that the candidates that I'm endorsing are the right ones, and everybody else is wrong: that's what the flacks do, and I am no flack. I will leave the bullheaded self-righteousness to the activist groups and other operatives.

So instead of trying to convince you of what's best for you, and for a quarter million people with whom you probably share very little, I am here to share with you the conclusions I've drawn for myself. Modest, yes -- but this way, you can be sure that what you're getting is a record of an actual person's lived experience and priorities, rather than some imaginary assumption about an equally imaginary public good. My hope is that my own ideas and endorsements will help you clarify your own, and will encourage you to draw your own conclusions rather than the ones that are currently being jammed down your throat.

I'd love for you to read the whole thing from top to bottom (since I'm committed to writing the whole thing from top to bottom), but I'm aware that you've got a life to lead, band practice to attend, a kitty to take care of, bubbles to blow, or some combination of the aforementioned. In case you'd like to skip ahead to the races you're interested in, click the links below. If you're one of those people who can't wait until Christmas to open your presents, the bottom link takes you to the final list.

• Ward A Councilperson (Greenville)
• Ward B Councilperson (West Side)
• Ward C Councilperson (Journal Square)
• Ward D Councilperson (Jersey City Heights)
• Ward E Councilperson (Downtown)
• Ward F Councilperson (Bergen-Lafayette)
• At-Large Councilpeople
• Jersey City Mayor
• The Full TMR List of Endorsements

Kathleen Curran, we hardly knew ye. The sitting Ward A Councilwoman, elected when Peter Brennan was bumped up to an at-large seat, has decided that her family commitments are too demanding for her to continue to serve. Hey, way to strike a blow for feminism, Mr. Curran! Your wife is one of only nine municipal legislators in the second-largest city in New Jersey. You can't pick up around the house for the next four years?

So we lose the sharpest dresser on the Council next to Mr. Gaughan; albeit one who hardly spoke at all at Council meetings, and spent most of her time hiding inside Mary Donnelly's jacket. In her place, the Organization is running Michael Sottolano, a stock technocratic candidate who exudes an inoffensive sort of competence. Sottolano was Jersey City information technology chief for more than thirty years, which is no great endorsement of his vision or capabilities; IT in this town has hardly been cutting-edge. Sottolano strikes me as a decent choice for those who aren't bothered by HCDO or Healy control of the Council. If the idea of "more of the same" does not turn you on, you may want to look elsewhere.

Karen DeSoto, the former Corporation Council of Jersey City under Glenn Cunningham, is attracting some solid support from the Healy haters -- but do we really need another attorney on the Council? DeSoto wins points for fighting to get Melissa Holloway on the ballot: cynics might say that she did it in exchange for political favors, but nobody in this town really thinks Holloway is going to win, so it therefore follows that at least some principle was involved.

Nevertheless, my endorsement goes to Hilario Nunez -- a high school Dean of Students, and by far the most attractive of the six minor candidates who stood for mayor last November. I doubt I would agree much with a Councilman Nunez, since he struck me as awfully socially conservative during the debates last year. Nonetheless, he projected evident leadership ability and charisma, and he spoke with genuine passion and sincerity about the problems facing the kids he's charged with educating and disciplining. At thirty-two years old, the time for him to establish himself on the municipal stage is now.

I probably get fewer hits from Ward A than from any other part of Jersey City, so I doubt this endorsement will mean much. But I feel stronger about this call than any other one I'm making except for the one in my home ward. Hilario Nunez strikes me as the candidate Steve Fulop believes himself to be -- a young political outsider with integrity, firm roots in his community, and a will to reform local government through personal example. The difference between Nunez and Fulop is that while the Ward E challenger sets himself up as the vanquisher of a political machine that may or may not exist (and spends his time and campaign dollars bashing his opponent on the basis of his alleged ties to that machine), Nunez concentrates his energies on tackling problems that are all too actual: crime, drugs, gangs, race relations.

These aren't my issues, and they may not be yours, either. But Nunez speaks about them in a way that makes listeners care. His command of the King's own English isn't great, but to be fair, neither is Mayor Healy's: what makes them both politically compelling is that they've got the capacity to communicate. In a field of grey candidates, here's a splash of color for your voting list. Hilario Nunez for Ward A Councilman.

Tough call. The Organization is running one of their strongest candidates here: Incinerator Executive Mary Spinello. I hear you laugh, padawan, but in Jersey City, the Incinerator Authority is an indisputable stronghold of political power. Spinello has a certain edgy charm to her; she is obviously bright, and she's held about three zillion municipal offices. I think she'd probably make a decent Councilperson.

Would anybody else on the ballot be decent-er, though? I think we can start by ruling out Michael Galdieri, who was arrested for dope dealing a few weeks ago. A good Hudson County traditionalist, the likeable Galdieri promply insisted that he was framed by hacks affiliated with Spinello. Galdieri has had his issues with the Incinerator Authority, and is obviously a dude with an ax to grind. His protests are easy to dismiss, but they do highlight the problem with Spinello -- she has been involved in Hudson County politics for such a long time that she's got entanglements and assorted haters scattered all over the city. Her airy nonchalance about her presence on the establishment ticket -- an establishment that so many mistrust -- does nothing to defuse the feelings of resentment among those who feel left out of the Healy party.

Attorney Ivan Sutherland, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of guy I love to talk up. He's sort of a West Side version of Andrew Hubsch -- all complete sentences and clean-Gene attitude, a reformer's zeal, and an accountant's eye for detail. He cuts an extremely odd figure in the most ethnically-diverse Ward in an ethnically-diverse city. Then again, this is the direction Ward B is supposed to be going in -- those new condominium buildings that are springing up near NJCU should attract upper-middle class, educated commuters looking to take advantage of the light rail stop.

That seems to be the plan, anyway; somebody's plan on somebody's drawing board, a blueprint for a well-scrubbed future that may never arrive. In the meantime, representing Ward B has got to be the most exhausting job in town. It's a patchwork of ethnic neighborhoods, huge West Side houses on old-line blocks, streets by the colleges populated by professors, and shabby three-family homes occupied by the upwardly-mobile working class. It's no wonder incumbent Mary Donnelly opted to turn out the light and go to bed.

Councilwoman Donnelly was the highest-ranking woman in municipal government, and it's tough to see her go: with Curran's seat almost certainly falling to Sottolano, Richardson on the outs, and Spinello no sure bet in this Ward, we're set to have another high-testosterone Council (at least Harvey Smith, the most relentlessly male member of the city government, is stepping down and making way for Willie Flood.) But there are other identity categories that are poorly represented, too -- the huge East Indian community here has yet to elect a Councilperson, for instance. That won't happen this year, but real estate businessman Greg Racelis is giving West Side Filipinos a chance to elect one of theirs.

Racelis is not a dynamic candidate. He is stiff, unsmiling, and severe, and he speaks in rote, blunt phrases. But he's won the support of Sandra Bolden Cunningham, and others who remember his stint as chairman of the Housing Authority have given him good reviews. An immigrant, Racelis seems attuned to the problems of newcomers. I wouldn't look to this candidate for visionary leadership -- but, like SBC, I am sympathetic to arguments on behalf of proportional representation. I believe in having a Council that looks like the city it governs. Now, it's impossible to fulfill that wish to the letter; there are only nine seats available, and hundreds of communities and pressure groups to represent. Still, I do believe that getting a Pinoy perspective on the Council would not be a bad thing at all.

Sutherland would be a lot more fun to have on the Council, true. I also have to acknowledge that he'd be a total noob up there, and he'd probably have to suffer through a painful style-modification period as he adjusts to government culture. Racelis is a slightly better bet to hit the ground running and deliver results immediately; he's got some government experience, and I see him making a smooth transition from community activist to municipal legislator. The West Side doesn't have any time to waste -- the next four years will be decisive. The University has ambitious plans to expand, and should feed into the massive West Side Redevelopment project. Racelis has deep roots in the neighborhood, and would probably prove accessible and sympathetic to those who feel pushed aside by the bulldozers. I figure it's better to rely on experienced community leader than a well-intentioned outsider. That real estate background doesn't hurt, either. Greg Racelis for Ward B Council.

Gah, can't we move some of the Ward B candidates over to Journal Square? I'd vote for Spinello, Sutherland, or Racelis over either of the choices in Ward C -- hell, I'd probably take Galdieri too, drug bust and all, just because he reminds me so much of Smithereens frontman Pat DiNizio during his Reform Party run for Governor.

If you're a frequent visitor to this site, you already know my objections to incumbent Steve Lipski. It's not that he's never met a tax abatement he doesn't like -- while he and I disagree on abatements policy, I can admire his internal consistency. It's that his long-winded justifications of the abatements he supports are totally incomprehensible. Mind you, I am not saying that Lipski spends his time dissembling, or that he is "in the pocket of developers"; I don't make stupid charges like that. I believe that Lipski has studied the books and the municipal financial particulars, and arrived at a principled support of PILOT programs.

But it's not good enough for municipal officials to come to reasoned conclusions and stick to them. Steve Lipski also has a responsibility to explain those conclusions to the public -- especially when they're politically unpopular. Every time Lipski opens his mouth about tax abatements, he says things that further confuse people. It isn't even that he buries his listeners under an avalanche of technical financial jargon. He's just bewildering; he talks in circles, blathers on, he loses the thread. Jersey City deserves a legitimate debate over its tax abatement policy, and I don't believe we're going to get that debate as long as its most visible supporter on the Council cannot put together an argument that anybody can follow.

Unfortunately, Lipski's only legitimate challenger is a tough man to trust. The Jimmy King Civic Association is sort of like an old-school Hudson County political clubhouse, and its leader, former Parking Authority chair Jimmy King, is sort of like an old-fashioned neighborhood boss. That's fine. On a nostalgic day, I could even be convinced the revival of handshake politics (not that it's ever wholly disappeared in Hudson County) might be salutary.

The trouble is that King is no Frank Hague. Chances are, he's not even the new John Kenny. Kenny got in at least four solid years of bamboozling the public; the Parking Authority saw through King the moment he walked through the door. Now, in almost every city, the Parking Authority is a repository of misgovenment. But King made a particularly awful mess of the finances of the department during his tenure there, scrambling the books, raising hell, and alienating people. By all accounts King treated his employees at the Parking Authority terribly, milking them for donations to his Association.

Instead of hanging his head in shame -- which is what he really ought to be doing -- King has instead decided that he deserves a promotion to City Council. It seems absurd to even have to say it, but this man should not be a municipal legislator. My vote goes to Lipski, who has shown us some energy and promise, and who, as far as I know, never extorted money from underlings to fund an ugly billboard. It is my hope that he can, in his second term, do a better job of explaining his priorities to the rest of us. Steve Lipski, grudgingly, for Ward C Councilman.

According to some people in this town, Ward D Councilman William Gaughan represents everything that is wrong with Jersey City politics. He has a county job as well as a seat on the Council, and he's the chairman of the local arm of the alleged Evil Empire: the HCDO. His commitments, therefore, are compromised -- he is bound to place his fealty to the Organization and County that pays him over his responsibility to his Ward.

So how come every time I go to a City Council meeting, I see Bill Gaughan combing carefully through legislation and interrogating some speaker about its minute repercussions for his district? How come Gaughan is the guy most likely to hold up the agenda to make sure some senior citizen on Congress Street doesn't have to hear the squeaking of the light rail brakes? Why is it that every time I tune in to Council caucus meetings on Channel 1, I feel like I'm watching the Bill Gaughan Show? Here's Gaughan demanding particulars, there's Gaughan grilling planners, Gaughan insisting on specifics, Gaughan insisting on wording, Gaughan looking to squeeze every ounce of benefit for Ward D out of every piece of municipal legislation. If I've got any beef with Gaughan, it's that he is too invested in neighborhood politics -- that he can sometimes lose the big picture while chasing petty local concerns.

But then that's his role. The Mayor and the At-Large Councilpeople are meant to handle the vision thing; the six Ward representatives are there to be sure that their neighborhoods are treated fairly. There's nobody on the current Council who has been a more strenuous advocate for the people in his Ward than Gaughan is, and there is no evidence that I can see that he ever puts his County job ahead of his municipal obligations.

Frankly, I am getting awfully tired of being assured by purported progressives that Organization candidates are rubber-stamps for the County government. This is the sort of thing that plays well in those throw-the-bums-out rallies, and with people who don't bother to actually engage with what their municipal leaders are doing. But when you examine it closely, it doesn't hold water -- especially since men like Gaughan are not bums. Certainly there are Organization officials who are uninspiring technocrats -- but there are plenty of non-Organization officials who are uninspiring tecnhocrats, too. Candidates, whether backed by the HCDO or not, deserve to be assessed based on their individual achievements and capabilities, and not on some dehumanizing rubric that makes them seem more like ants in a hive than tough-minded civil servants.

Gaughan's opponent, Lennart Nilsson, is an actor, a progressive, and an anti-war activist. He seems like an interesting guy. There is virtually no chance that he will unseat Gaughan, though, and I can't say I'm too worked up about that. Given my choice, I would much prefer to hang out with Nilsson. But my vote goes to Gaughan. William Gaughan for Ward D Councilman.

Ours has been a bitter, unpleasant campaign to witness. Steve Fulop, the challenger, has bombarded the Downtown with attack ads that portray incumbent Junior Maldonado as a do-nothing reprobate who is in the pocket of the Organization. If you ask Fulop backers about Maldonado, they will tell you about Tom DeGise and Bob Menendez, Bill Gaughan and the HCDO. They will talk about the machine, about abatements, about a corrupt Hudson County political establishment that seems embellished at best, and, at worst, lifted straight from a storybook.

What they will not talk to you about is Maldonado's own record. They do not do this because if they were to, you would recognize instantly that they do not have a case. There is no evidence whatsoever that Junior Maldonado is a County puppet, no evidence of corruption during his tenure, and only scant, circumstantial evidence that he has not been responsive to his Ward. Let's take these charges one at at time:

Mr. Fulop claims that Councilman Maldonado is a County puppet. Although he is backed by the HCDO, Maldonado has frequently voted against the County establishment. He is not a politician who is afraid to speak his mind, and he has used his platform on the City Council to speak out against projects that may have County approval, but do not suit the needs of the Downtown.

Conspiracy theorists -- including Fulop himself -- argue that Maldonado was allowed by his slavemasters to make those votes for political reasons. Even if the Fulop camp could prove this vicious charge (which, of course, they cannot), he cannot erase the fact that during public debate, Councilman Maldonado has been eloquent and passionate in his representation of public sentiment in his Ward.

There will always be people who prefer to believe in conspiracy theories over the evidence their own eyes show them. But those of us who do not believe in grand, evil schemes to control and manipulate Jersey City ought to be able to see right through this one. You can buy into the sci-fi that Junior Maldonado is a machine programmed by the County government to dissemble and misrepresent in order to be re-elected, or you can believe as I do that he is a human being with his own thoughts and feelings and a full capacity to vote his conscience. Look at the guy: does he seem like a robot to you? We are, none of us, india-rubber stamps: we're not so easily governed.

Mr. Fulop implies that Councilman Maldonado is corrupt, or at least privy to the corrupting force of HCDO power. Maldonado, like Gaughan, Peter Brennan, and Mariano Vega, have County jobs as well as seats on the municipal council. We can wish this wasn't so. We can abhor this practice, and try our damnedest to change the state law that allows dual officeholding.

What we can't do is punish Junior Maldonado for taking advantage of a law that he's had nothing to do with writing. We might not like his choice to wear two hats, but it is not illegal, and it is wrong to imply that the Councilman is a criminal because of it. Beyond the dual-officeholding controversy, Maldonado's escucheon is spotless. As far as I know, he's never been accused of corruption, misappropriation, or criminal activity.

His challenger can imply that Councilman Maldonado's relationship to the county government means, inevitably, that he succumbs to pressures to misbehave and take favors. But when pressed on specifics, none are forthcoming. You know why that is? It's because there aren't any. Junior Maldonado is as clean as anybody in this town.

Mr. Fulop insists that Councilman Maldonado has been an absentee, and has failed in his obligation to be responsive to his Ward. Now, this is the one that really bothers me. I remember the terrible night of the fire at the Arts Center; I ran down to First Street the moment I heard it was going down. The first people to arrive on the scene were the firefighters. Junior Maldonado was a close second.

This was by no means anomalous -- people involved in the struggle over the fate of 111 First Street learned quickly that Junior Maldonado was always available. It didn't matter whether it was a weekend, or the middle of the night, or a holiday: Maldonado would take the call. Fulop reminds us that Maldonado was ultimately unable to save the arts community, and of course that's true. But when he implies that the Councilman ran scared from Lloyd Goldman, he is telling tales out of school.

He's also begging this question: when tenants were being harassed and doors bolted at the Arts Center, where the hell was Steve Fulop? I did not see him chaining his ass to the Old Gold smokestack. While Junior Maldonado was doing his best (which was, admittedly, not good enough) to uncrock an impossible mess, Steve Fulop was at home, plotting his run for City Council. The closure of the Arts Center will have reverberations for the Downtown that we will all feel for years. Those Downtowners who were engaged in shaping the future of our community made a point to involve themselves in the fight. Steve Fulop did not.

I can't conclude this chapter without saying something about the sort of campaign the challenger has chosen to run. Instead of differing with the incumbent, and treating him with the respect that should automatically accrue to a proven community leader, Fulop has treated Maldonado like a cross between a buffoon and a brainwashed automaton. He's buried Ward E under a raft of derisive and insulting attack ads, printing and disseminating misleading circulars ridiculing his opponent. Even if you believe that Junior Maldonado is ineffective and ought to be replaced by new blood, you have to loathe his opponent's campaign tactics, and wonder if they are a sign of an ethical compass that is dangerously out of balance.

I expect the challenger to win this election. To borrow a bad sports cliche, there is good evidence that Mr. Fulop simply wants it more. Like many of the Organization-backed candidates, Councilman Maldonado has run a toothless effort: he's barely fought back against Fulop's absurd charges. Maldonado seems to be taking the attitude that if his constituents are unable to recognize his service to them, he'll spare himself the hassle of having to pick up the pieces after the tumultuous events of 2004. That's easy for Maldonado to say: he does have those county jobs to fall back on. The rest of us just have to live here. Since the incumbent won't say it, I will: don't believe the hype. For Pete's sake, E. Junior Maldonado for Ward E Councilman.

Lord, would I love to endorse Viola Richardson here. If anybody around here has the right to complain about the HCDO and Team Healy (not the same thing, despite what some will tell you), it's the Ward F incumbent. The rest of the Council often treats Richardson like a crazy woman, and she's been booted from the ticket in favor of a cipher with a collar. To be fair, Richardson occasionally acts like a crazy woman, and she has often made it clear that she feels like the members of the Team are a bunch of jerks. Richardson doesn't fit on a ticket, anyway: some people are born independents, and she's one of them.

But I can't back her. Richardson is the aggressive sponsor of the piece of local legislation that I'm most philosophically opposed to: the curfew act. A policewoman who often indulges in the logic of the thin blue line, Richardson has long argued for shutting down parts of her Ward in order to control crime. She lives there and I don't, so perhaps I ought to defer to her there. Nonetheless, other politicians from her Ward -- most notably Melissa Holloway -- have stood in opposition to the curfew for reasons resembling my own. I believe Ward F deserves a Councilperson who is too proud of these much-maligned streets to shut them down to business.

So what does that leave us with? Not too much. Barshay Muhammad was a chief of staff under L. Harvey Smith -- which is no selling point, my friends. The Reverend Ron Calvin Clark, the Organization choice, has only been halfheartedly supported by City Hall, and has so far failed to define himself or his platform. Cheryl Jones, the daughter of veteran activist June Jones, is young, sparky and progressive, but does not seem ready for prime time. Leonard Chaplin is a cousin to former mayoral candidate Isaiah Gadsden, and he shares his relative's penchant for platitudes.

Upon consideration, I've decided that Jones is the most promising figure in a weak field, and thus deserves the endorsement. She'll be running with the Holloway ticket -- just Jones and the former Councilwoman, as far as I know -- and is aligned with reformers who can help ease her transition into office. I don't harbor any illusions that Jones is a budding powerhouse, and she strikes me as the sort of neophyte who will spend her first year or two on the council getting tied to the back of the car and dragged through all kinds of legislative action that she wouldn't ordinarily endorse. I still wish her mom was running. But as a transitional figure, the daughter will do. Cheryl Jones for Ward F Councilwoman.

I have great sympathy for Andrew Hubsch and Melissa Holloway. From my conversations with them, I understand the difficulties involved in getting on the ballot in a municipality when the county rolls haven't been cured. But there's still a devil in my ear that whispers to me that I could have gotten 1,197 signatures after two good nights out at Uncle Joe's. A month before the filing deadline, there were about thirty thousand prospective At-Large candidates vying for the three contested seats. A few weeks later, we're down to the three Organization choices, and one independent. What happened here?

The one independent is a very good candidate, and one I can easily support. Omar Barbour is the President of the MLK Development Corporation, and has been deeply involved in the effort to bring the Ward F Hub alive. One thing I've learned about Ward F politics is that everybody claims responsibility for everything that has gone right, and everybody blames the county machine for everything that has gone wrong. Barbour is no exception to this, but he has a record of legitimate achievement and civic improvement that can't be ignored. He deserves to take a seat on the Council.

The sanctimonious manner of Mariano Vega annoys the hell out of people. I understand why some of my Downtown neighbors consider him a big windbag. But unlike Lipski, he is articulate -- and if you catch him on a good day, he can be inspiring. I think he was miscast as a Ward E councilman -- he's not the sort of grind-'em-out politician who spends his days in the trenches, dealing with variances and cats stuck up trees. He's careful to remain above the fray, and if his priestly obsequiousness sometimes feels out of place in Hudson County politics, it can also serve as a much-needed counterpoint to the rough stuff. For instance, if it was my City Council, I would install Mariano Vega as President immediately. I think he would bestow immediate civility on the position, and provide the perfect antidote to the high-handed tactics of Harvey Smith.

I'm not so sure about the other two Team Healy candidates. Willie Flood barely showed up for her last mayoral run, and hasn't exactly made a crusading presence of herself this spring, either. She seems content to ride the coattails of Mayor Healy, and to grab a Council seat from Barbour, a more deserving Ward F neighbor. Likewise, I don't think I've heard Peter Brennan string together two complete sentences during a Council debate. It is altogether possible that Brennan is a brilliant backroom dealer who does his best work when the cameras are off. It's also possible that he's a bar owner who has lucked into a political career, and who doesn't open his mouth for fear he'll rock the boat. There's no way to know.

So I've decided to do something I don't ordinarily do. I'm going to write in the name of the guy in this town whose political instincts and sensibilities I respect the most, and who, in any just world, would be having positions of authority thrust at him: Paul Sullivan. I consider this my final act of protest against the city government's shabby treatment of the tenants at 111 First Street. But it's also a tribute to Sullivan, a sculptor who made himself an expert on municipal procedure and development politics as a matter of necessity, and showed the city that he, and other artists, have a natural place at the table whenever city policy is discussed.

Sullivan was not president of the Tenants Council, but he was always a voice of reason and useful expedience there. I also believe that there's nobody in this town who is better in an interrogative context -- Sullivan has an amazing ability to hold the person he's questioning to the point under discussion. I believe he'd be amazing behind the Council bench: courteous but firm, no-nonsense, quietly visionary, appropriately realistic, and unflinchingly progressive.

It has often been said that all politicians must be artists. In Hudson County, all artists are forced to be politicians. I do not get the sense that Sullivan would have made himself a political actor if he could possibly have helped it -- he would have been content to be a responsible and moral human being, and to leave the heavy lifting to the professionals. But circumstances conspired, and here we are: out one Arts Center, but surrounded by a community of artists and activists who have shown us their grace under fire. I doubt my city will ever be afforded an opportunity to vote for as fine a person as Paul Sullivan in an official capacity, so on Tuesday, I'm taking it in my own hands. I'll be writing in Sullivan's name. Omar Barbour, Mariano Vega, and Paul Sullivan for Council At-Large.

Let me start by saying that I don't have any major problems with Jerramiah Healy. We differ on many, many subjects, but I knew we would -- his frame of reference and lived experience is so removed from my own that it was inevitable that we'd clash (not that he's shaking in his shoes over there in City Hall over that.) Mayor Healy is a prosecutor from The Heights who likes his bub, and I'm a weirdo rock musician who is second only to Carrie Nation in my distaste for alcohol and social drinking. Just as I am not the man to put a dent in crime, Healy was never the man to turn Jersey City into a cultural capital.

Yet I give Healy credit for consistency, forthrightness, and, in general, intellectual honesty. He's no bullshitter. He hasn't ducked problems, either: wherever there's been a dispute, a shooting, or a spike in lawlessness, he's done his best to respond to the problem in the manner he deems most appropriate. I can't say I've always liked that manner, but I do not deny that Mayor Healy is active and aggressive. I also think there is something to the argument that his evenhanded approach has quelled some of the feuding that has marred so much of local discourse. If I wake up on Wednesday morning and Jerramiah Healy has been re-elected Mayor, I will not lose a moment of sleep over that outcome.

But just because Healy is a good choice for Mayor does not mean he is the best choice. If Melissa Holloway had been on the ballot last November, I would undoubtably have supported her: of all the elected officials I've encountered so far in Jersey City, she's the one whose passion for bettering the lives of the City's least fortunate is most readily apparent. I do not believe it is responsible to suggest that it's wrong to cycle through chief executives and administrations searching for the best one -- if there's an option in front of us that we believe is superior, it is always wisest to forget the past and take that courageous step forward. That's the principle of sunk costs: the past is over. What matters now is what we're going to do with the rest of our lives.

For me, the case for Holloway comes down to three issues:

The curfews. I cannot ever, under any circumstances, get with the idea that shutting down businesses, stopping trade, and ceding the streets to criminals is an appropriate law enforcement strategy. That's a cop's thinking: if there's a problem somewhere, put a lock on the door and turn out the lights. We've seen much too much of this in Jersey City -- attempting to solve problems by closing doors, sealing borders, and hoping that the disturbance moves elsewhere.

Small business and commerce is the heart of an urban community. We hang out by the bodega and we stay out in bars, we get something to eat late with our friends, we run into our neighbors at restaurants and shops. For neighborhood redevelopment to gain traction, area commerce needs to be supported by the government. What's currently happening is just the opposite: parts of Jersey City that are most desperately in need of rehabilitation are being stigmatized as lawless.

Melissa Holloway wants to roll back these curfews. As a matter of fact, she's made a commitment to openness and the erasure of borders between neighborhoods a centerpiece of her campaign. Good for her. As I said in that earlier post, Jersey City needs a little Glasnost. I believe she understands that.

The ratable base. When he ran for Mayor in November, Healy stood opposed to further Downtown tax abatements. He appears to have changed his mind. I understand that he's got a huge budget gap to close, and he's probably forced to take measures that he didn't think he'd have to resort to. But instead of standing up and saying, "you know, guys, I've looked at the books, and I was wrong; we need to do this", he tried to pretend that Washington Boulevard wasn't really the waterfront. It made him look silly, and reinforced the popular notion that he was a policeman wearing an ill-fitting financier's hat.

I don't know if reval really is right around the corner, but I am still very ambivalent about our abatement policy. As a former Union City resident, I feel it's unfair to the rest of the County. It's also self-perpetuating: the minute you're done with one fix, you find yourself needing another. I can't say for sure that Mayor Holloway won't find herself needing to close budget gaps with PILOT programs. But I do think it's very doubtful that she'd forget where the Hudson River is, or approve of gratuitous Downtown abatements. She is far more likely to move the power to abate to neighborhoods that need an economic jump-start. She isn't a financier, either -- but she is something of a political scientist and amateur planner, and I've come to the conclusion that the municipal budget would be somewhat safer in her hands than it would be in Mayor Healy's.

The scuttlebutt. I have tried, whenever possible, not to print rumors in this forum. Yet one rumor about Mayor Healy's political future has been so persistent -- and has come at me from so many different quarters -- that I would feel irresponsible if I did not report it. I've heard that Mayor Healy has no intention of serving the entirety of his term; that he is uncomfortable in the Mayor's office, and will leave it if another judgeship becomes available to him once Corzine is elected Governor.

Do I believe this? No, not really. Yet it does nag at me, because I cannot say that it doesn't correspond to Jerramiah Healy's personality and behavior. While I disagree with the assessment that Healy is visibly uncomfortable in the Mayor's chair, he is not proceeding with zeal for the job. One very astute local watcher recently wrote to me that Healy seems like he's doing something he has to do; like one long awkward, boring afternoon to be gotten through.

If I'd had an opportunity to sit down with Mayor Healy, I would've asked him whether he could pledge to me that, if re-elected, he'd complete his term. As it was, the Healy Team candidates were barely available to the establishment press, let alone 'net freaks like me, so I didn't get the chance. But I would certainly prefer four years of Melissa Holloway to two-and-a-half years of Healy and eighteen months of what's behind door number two.

Jerramiah Healy does not set himself up as a visionary. Like many local politicians affiliated with the HCDO, he projects competence, fairness, and determination, rather than imagination. The problem, though, is that we're living at a moment of rapid municipal expansion and change -- a time that demands some creative envisioning from our elected officials. If the politicians in City Hall do not impose a vision on Jersey City, developers will be more than happy to supply visions of their own. That's not, in itself, a terrible thing; but you can't expect developers to put civic responsibility ahead of profits. The vision of Greentree Projects stops at the borderlines of their property.

Melissa Holloway understands that developers have been allowed to write the plan for the city -- and that as a consequence, it is incoherent and piecemeal. Can I say for sure that she'll be able to impose some civic order on what has, heretofore, been a chaotic sprawl? I can't do that. She could be defeated by the same forces that dragged down 111 First Street. She could be hamstrung by a City Council dominated by elected conservatives. Those "adjectives" that are thrown around about her could be correct -- she might be tough to work with. But Downtowners like me often forget that Holloway is no newcomer: she was the Ward F Councilwoman for eight years. Anybody who can hold on to a seat in this city's most fractious Ward for the better part of a decade knows how to get her hands dirty, and knows how to fight. I see great toughness in this woman. Melissa Holloway for Jersey City Mayor.

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Okay, that's that. A few final words, and then I'll let you get back to your Sunday reading, or Monday working, or Tuesday daydreams.

One thing I've learned is that lots of ostensible reformers in this town like to talk about "the machine", as if it's some monster that lives up on the Palisade, comes down off the cliff and destroys the Downtown like Godzilla eating Tokyo. But when you ask them who or what the machine consists of, you find that they're much more vague about the details.

Is the Hudson County Democratic Organization the machine? If so, why are the members constantly at odds with each other? What kind of a machine is so poorly calibrated that its gears line up so badly, and create such massive sparks? Is that really a machine to be feared?

Is Tom DeGise's office the machine? If he is, is he simply lying when he says he's got enough to deal with on the County level to bother with Ward candidates? Perhaps Robert Menendez's office is the machine. But Menendez barely deals with Jersey City at all -- and even a passing observer could tell that Healy was not his candidate. If Healy was DeGise's candidate, than did one half of the machine work against the other half? Can a machine divided stand?

Is The Healy Team the machine? If so, who selected the members of the Healy team? Was it DeGise, Menendez, William Gaughan, or Healy himself? What of the County office's apparent disapproval of Healy's independence? Is Healy controlled by DeGise, or is it the other way around?

Are Bobby Jackson and Joe Cardwell part of the machine? If they are, did they join the machine this year, or were they always part of the machine? A machine connotes stability, solidity. Is it even possible to join a machine?

You start to see the problem here. It is very easy to stand back and hang a pejorative tag on the establishment. Once you break the county political structure down into its constituent parts, though, it is next to impossible to illustrate the physics of the machine's operation.

I would take Jersey City reformers a lot more seriously if they stopped talking about "the machine" -- or, at least, if they defined their terms a little better. If, instead, they spoke up about actual people and actual connections that were causing friction and gave us specific examples, it would be much easier to listen to their grievances. Because what's happening now is that insurgents are using the spectre of Jersey City past to tar the reputations of current political leaders. A young firebrand gets up on the stump, or on the barstool, and goes on about the Jersey City machine, and we know what he means -- Frank Hague, John Kenny, "I am the law", and the rest of it. Only it is not 1932 anymore, and Bill Gaughan and Tom DeGise are not the law. We all should be happy they aren't. But acting like they are just makes it seem like we aren't paying attention.

Okay, folks, early and often. See you at the polls.