I caught Melissa Holloway at a strange moment. We talked in her headquarters on the day her appeal was heard by the New Jersey State Supreme Court. It was two o' clock and the office on MLK and Atlantic was empty -- the shades were drawn and the would-be candidate for mayor of Jersey City sat behind her desk caught somewhere between anticipation and resignation. When she spoke, she did so with noticeable weariness. Unsure whether she was on the ballot or barred from it, she nevertheless worked up her composure and addressed me in the manner of an influential ward leader, rather than as a spurned and somber civic suitor.

Four hours after this interview was conducted, Holloway was jubilant and thoroughly recharged. The Supreme Court had ruled unanimously: Judge Gallipoli's verdict to uphold City Clerk Robert Byrne's decision to keep her off the ballot was overturned. Earlier in the day, Holloway had been reluctant to discuss her court case. The particulars of her complaint against Byrne's office and the City courts and attorneys are the topic of a different interview; perhaps one that can wait until after the election is over (for those who dig legalese, Ryan Kennedy has thoughtfully posted the text of the decision here). She did corroborate most of Andrew Hubsch's objections to the process, and shared his frustration with the outdated county voter rolls.

Newcomers to Jersey City may be surprised to know that Holloway has a political history that is almost as lengthy as Mayor Healy's. From 1993 until 2001, Holloway served as the Ward F councilwoman. A cousin of Glenn Cunningham, Holloway worked on his first run for Jersey City mayor, and was then selected to represent her ward on Bret Schundler's ticket. At the time of her election, she was only 31 years old.

While she jokes that the certification she's most proud of is her cooking degree from HCCC, it's clear that Melissa Holloway considers herself highly educated and impeccably qualified for executive office. She has a B.S. from Rutgers-Newark in Business Management, a master's degree in political science from George Washington University, and she has been involved in Jersey City public life since the Eighties. Tall, commanding, straightlaced, and at times professorial, Melissa Holloway speaks in forceful and direct sentences, without much levity, but with an unswerving authority that suggests vast reservoirs of self-confidence.

TM: Did the vehemence with which the Mayor’s Office contested your candidacy surprise you?

MH: No, it did not.

TM: It surprised me.

MH: It shouldn’t have. The Hudson County Democratic Organization is afraid of anybody who is independent, and anybody who has ideas that are contrary to theirs. Rather than debating or discussing issues, their first impulse is to shut the opposition down. The HCDO does not like to share power. They will do whatever they can to make sure power stays in their hands and their hands alone.

When a political figure emerges in this town who they can’t control, it frightens them. They couldn’t control Glenn Cunningham, so they did what they could to discredit him. Once they determined they couldn’t control him, the adjectives started flowing. Just like now that I’m standing in opposition to their policies, the adjectives have started flowing about me.

TM: What are those adjectives?

MH: “Oh, she’s too uncompromising. She’s too independent, too strong-willed”. All the good qualities that you need to be a leader – those are the qualities that the HCDO are afraid of. They don’t want to cultivate leaders. They want people to be lead.

TM: Why do you think so few challengers have emerged this year? Do you think Jersey City is suffering from election fatigue? Or do you think the petition restrictions are too prohibitive?

MH: You shouldn’t compare May 2005 to November 2004. It’s easy for a lot of people to come out in a special election. When you’re talking about doing a full run, you have to be able to find the resources to make a creditable attempt. That is going to disqualify all but the most serious candidates.

The more complicated answer is that backroom deals have been made to clear the field for Healy’s re-election.

TM: What prospective candidates have been dealt out of the running?

MH: For one, Lou Manzo, of course. The party establishment made it clear to him that if he wanted their support for his Assembly seat, he would have to decline to stand for Mayor.

TM: You supported Assemblyman Manzo in the November election, right?

MH: I did.

TM: Let’s get a little background about you for people who might be newcomers to local politics. You’re a Jersey City native?

MH: Yes, I was born and raised here. I graduated from Academic High School.

TM: When did you first become involved in local politics?

MH: In 1987, I worked as a special assistant to my cousin, Glenn Cunningham, during his first run for mayor. From there, I moved on to the 1988 Jesse Jackson presidential campaign.

I ran for office for the first time in 1993. I was the Ward F city council candidate on Bret Schundler’s reform ticket. While Bret Schundler and I disagree vehemently on many ideological issues, I respect his sincerity. He always treated me like a peer – at the time of his first run, he was 33 and I was 31.

It was a great honor to be chosen by Schundler, because he made a conscious decision to choose someone young and highly educated. I won that election by six votes, thereby proving that every vote really does count. I became the youngest Ward F city councilperson in history.

In 1997, I ran again as an independent, and won, becoming he first woman to win back to back terms on the City Council in over twenty years.

TM: Were you tempted to run for mayor in 2001?

MH: I was. But, realistically, it would have damaged Glenn Cunningham’s chances of getting elected. I allowed myself to be convinced that 2001 was not the time.

TM: Over the course of these interviews I’ve done, I have heard so many conflicting versions of the story of Cunningham’s break from the HCDO. You had a front-row seat to the bout. What happened there?

MH: They believed that they’d be able to control Glenn Cunningham, but they couldn’t. And if they can’t control you, they attempt to destroy you. Basically, the HCDO wanted friends to get certain contracts, and Glenn said no. The war erupted from there, and there hasn’t officially been a ceasefire.

TM: Several of the county-backed politicians -- County Executive DeGise in particular -- have made the argument that it’s time to heal the divisions, and by electing the full Healy slate, we’ve got a better chance of stopping the fighting.

MH: Do you believe that?

First of all, I don’t think anybody should be enthusiastic about the prospect of all these good old boys cooperating with each other. But that’s just an illusion anyway. They’re doing just as much fighting internally now than they ever did when Glenn was Mayor. Read the papers: just today, you can see that members of the Organization are in court, fighting each other over who gets committee seats. So the war hasn’t ceased – it’s just gone to a whole other level.

TM: Do you see your candidacy as an extension of Glenn Cunningham’s work to focus attention on underserved parts of the city? Do you see yourself as taking up the banner in his fight against the county organization?

MH: Well, not in so many words – I’m very much my own person. And I believe that my successful negotiations with Bret Schundler proves that I have the ability to persuade those to whom I might be ideologically opposed. I am not running to pick a fight. But so many people from this neighborhood and elsewhere have come to me over the last few months and said “Melissa, you need to find the money to make this run.”

The African-American community in Jersey City has lost five major political positions in the last few years – the mayor’s office, City Council president, state legislators. After Mayor Cunningham’s death, I believe that many in the African-American community felt that we’d lost everything.

So yes, I felt I owed it to my community to do what I could to continue Glenn’s work. Certainly I believed that my platform would be better than whatever Mayor Healy could put forth.

TM: There has been some concern that Mayor Healy has not been inclusive enough. Do you share the belief that this administration is not as racially and ethnically diverse as it should be in a city as polyglot as ours?

MH: The short answer is yes. But I think we have to broaden our definition of “inclusion”. It would be better for the city if we had more African-American and minority voices in City Hall. But it would be better yet for the city to have any strong voices in City Hall.

Because right now, there is no meaningful inclusion in the political process. When it comes to the big questions that will shape the city – the planning, the building, the infrastructure – we’ve got fifteen to twenty power brokers in this town who are making all the decisions with zero community input. Unless we have a mayor who will stand up to them, they will do what they’re going to do, and they will disregard the wishes of the people on the street. Most of these power brokers and developers don’t even live here. When will we, the residents of this town, finally be allowed to make our own decisions about what Jersey City should look like?

There is so much disenfranchisement here. There are so many people who have not been able to share in the fruits of the growth of Jersey City, and who cannot get their voices heard by the power structure no matter how loud they shout. There is a sea of residents who are virtually invisible – they’re disregarded by the government and ignored by city services. I am running to make those “invisible” people visible once again, and to put the concerns of the disenfranchised and ignored back on the municipal agenda.

TM: You feel like the demands and concerns of the new residents on the waterfront are drowning out the voices of those who don’t live there?

MH: I am more alarmed that the current Mayor seems to have forgotten where the waterfront is. During his run, he promised to stand against further Downtown tax abatements. Now that he has been elected, we’re seeing new abatements on Washington Boulevard and in Newport. Has the Hudson River moved?

Tax abatements are supposed to be used as a tool to jump-start an area. The Downtown no longer needs a jump-start. It is time for us to take those tools and bring them to another part of the city that requires revitalization. The fact that we’re subsidizing people who can afford to pay five hundred thousand to a million dollars on a condominium when there are people in this town who are struggling to afford groceries is just crazy. It’s unfathomable. Meanwhile, it puts an unfair tax burden on modest one, two, and three-family homeowners who have been in the city for years.

TM: Are you worried about tax revaluation?

MH: Everybody should be worried about tax revaluation. It’s going to hit everybody across the city. We in Ward F are not immune – houses here are now going for four hundred to five hundred thousand dollars. My own personal property taxes will probably triple under the next reval. That’s scary.

And what sort of services will I be getting for this new tax that’s coming my way? I doubt I will get much of anything. The huge payments that the City currently receives do not seem to be translating into better services, do they?

TM: In my conversation with Junior Maldonado, he suggested that by the time property in Jersey City is revaluated, many of the original abatements will have expired, and those properties will be taxed normally.

MH: That’s if the city government doesn’t renew those tax abatements that are currently on the books. Considering the track record of this government – one that has seldom met an abatement it doesn’t like – I don’t think it’s a good bet. We need to be sure that the city leaders don’t simply start re-upping these tax abatements in exchange for political contributions.

We also need to start to do forensic accounting reports on the tax abatements we have on the books. There were requirements in most of the abatement agreements that developers hire local contractors. But when you sample the license plates at any construction site, you will see trucks from Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia – everywhere but New Jersey! It is an open secret that those construction jobs do not go to Jersey City workers. We need to begin enforcing those laws.

TM: Steven Fulop was also insistent that we revisit the language in these agreements to require developers to take better care of the streets.

MH: I absolutely agree. We need to do a better job of preventing developers from making a mess of the streets and neighborhoods where they’re working. Again, this is a problem that is general across Jersey City. We give contracts out, but fail to hire inspectors to watch the work. This comes from being woefully understaffed in the planning department, the building and zoning departments, and in city engineering.

Because we do not have enough planning staff, we essentially allow developers to write the plan for the city. This is backward. You cannot expect developers to understand the big picture. We are seeing growth booming all over this city, but if we don’t have a planning staff to guide and oversee that development, we are going to end up with a city infrastructure that lacks integrity and coherence.

TM: Many Downtowners – even indie rockers, who are normally explorers – do not get up to Ward F that frequently. Has the Martin Luther King neighborhood seen an infusion of development and civic projects? How has the area changed in the last few years?

MH: There’s the new library and the new community center. But I think the biggest change is those four hundred thousand and five hundred thousand dollar houses. In the northern part of Ward F, property values are soaring. Even brownstones that haven’t been renovated are selling for prices that would have been unfathomable to people a few years ago.

The question is: how long is this real estate boom going to last? Are we witnessing the genuine transformation of parts of this Ward, or is this a price bubble? If it’s a bubble, will it burst, and leave us all struggling, disappointed, and confused?

TM: I imagine families are beginning to be priced out of Ward F, just as they have been getting priced out of Ward E for years now. Do you believe that there is anything the municipal government can do to slow down the rate of property value inflation?

MH: No, I don’t.

TM: It’s interesting that you’re so blunt. I ask that question to every politician I sit down with, and usually they hem and haw and try to figure out a way to sugarcoat their answer.

MH: I can’t do that in good conscience. This is the way the market is structured, and there’s nothing we can do about it. The real-estate market is commanding all of these new prices. Until the bubble bursts, or people decide to invest their money elsewhere, property values will continue to rise.

One thing I would like to do is expand the program that designates historic districts. Madison Avenue and Bergen Hill (both in Ward F) are beautiful areas, and I would like to ensure that they are further protected and preserved.

TM: Do you take any credit for the resurgence of your part of town?

MH: I can’t take credit for the real-estate boom – economic conditions are responsible for that. But I am very proud of the work I’ve been able to do on behalf of my neighborhood. We brought $150 million in civic improvements into the Ward F community – $40 million of which was placed into our shopping center on Martin Luther King. We obtained several hundred new units of affordable housing, new parks, new playgrounds for our kids.

It took a lot of struggles with the sitting mayor to get all of that done. But that’s what I am good at – fighting for improvements, standing up for my community, and getting results.

TM: The recent curfews have hit Ward F harder than any other part of Jersey City. Have business owners complained to you about the effect of the lockdown on their bottom lines?

MH: No, no businessman has come up directly to me and said that the curfew is hurting them, but I can see that consumers are irritated. Consider: we are now forcing people to leave town at night to get goods and services that they used to find right on their street corners. We now have to tell a mother who has run out of Pampers or milk at eleven o’ clock at night that she must go to another city to get what she needs.

But my bigger problem with the curfew is its philosophical implications. Imposing a curfew means that we, as a city, are surrendering to crime. Instead of taking the fight to the criminals, we are shutting down our city blocks and giving up. It’s up to the police to be out here on the streets, making our neighborhoods safe.

TM: Does the presence of the curfew contribute to the misapprehension that Communipaw and the surrounding areas are lawless?

MH: I don’t know. I do know that it suggests to me that the current police force does not know how to patrol this neighborhood. My God, Crown Fried Chicken is a block and a half from the police station! When your station house cannot control a two-block perimeter, you’ve really got a problem.

I think the police department has become disconnected from the neighborhoods it is supposed to serve. Our community policing program has fallen into the ground again. That needs to be a priority.

TM: So is it fair to say that Mayor Holloway would attempt to lift the curfew?

MH: Yes, we’ll want to roll this back, get the police force out on the street more, revive our community policing programs, and curtail criminal activity through our active presence rather than by our absence.

TM: Let’s switch gears and talk a little about the PAD. Do you believe in the ordinance and in the District?

MH: I support the arts district in theory, but I am worried about how much of an arts district the PAD is realistically going to be. The new properties that are opening in the warehouse district seem prohibitively expensive. I think a lot of artists are inevitably going to be priced out, and it is going to be tough for the area to achieve critical mass necessary for it to become a true arts neighborhood.

I know that the arts community Downtown enjoys its proximity to Manhattan. But, realistically, artists might have to look at moving to a different area of town, and trying to beachhead elsewhere.

TM: Lafayette, perhaps? I know several of the more prominent figures in the 111 Tenants Association have already moved there.

MH: Oh, no, that’s the wrong place to beachhead. Artists will be forced out of there in a New York minute. There are already 47 development projects slated for Lafayette. Homes there are starting at four to six hundred thousand dollars.

During the Schundler Administration, I felt that Lafayette would have been a prime place for an Arts district. I saw the warehouses and wide roads, and I thought it could have been Jersey City’s SOHO. But in 2005, we have to classify that as a missed opportunity. It is too late for Lafayette – the huge projects are already on the board.

TM: I appreciate your candor. Okay, then, if not Lafayette, where do we look?

MH: Honestly, I’m not quite sure where the next place is going to be. There has been such a major land grab over the past ten years. We really have to take a tour of the city and find out what is left.

Our dilemma is that visual artists need physical space, but in a city where the real estate market is booming, how much square footage can artists realistically afford? Spaces are either too expensive, or too small to be attractive to artists. The Monticello Avenue Main Street plan is commendable, but they still have a way to go there. It’s unclear whether artists will be able to work in the spaces they have to offer.

We have to determine what artists’ feelings are about trying to move their energy and synergy to a different place. I recognize that some people just love being Downtown and don’t want to explore other neighborhoods. But the only place left Downtown is the Summergrade property, and I’m not sure whether that is even usable. Besides that, I think we have to look elsewhere.

TM: How about the Powerhouse itself? What about the idea of turning that building into a theatre that could be the focal point for the District?

MH: Again, I am unsure. In Journal Square, we’ve got the Loew’s and Stanley Theatres – both are incredible buildings, and neither has been used to anywhere near its full entertainment capacity.

If you look at the plan of the city, there is no reason why Journal Square could not be Times Square West. It’s the geographical center of Jersey City, and it’s the local transit hub. Reviving that neighborhood and that commercial center will be a priority of my administration. Journal Square deserves an economic jump-start. Why ignore those two amazing theatres that we do have to create another theatre that isn’t even built yet? We have to explore everything that you can do with the Loew’s and the Stanley before we turn our attention to creating a new structure where one does not already exist.

TM: All of this – transformation, hiring new planners, reviving community policing – is going to cost money. How are you going to finance your agenda?

MH: First of all, we need a revival of imagination and creativity in our public financing. For instance, Port Authority needs to be a main player in our economic revival, because we don’t get any money for the Holland Tunnel – and that isn’t fair. Fort Lee gets money, Newark gets money; we’re here dealing with the pollution and traffic for the tunnel, and we ought to be subsidized for that the way other cities are. No mayor has ever done a full court press to get those concessions out of the Port Authority. I intend to be that mayor.

Every city needs a business plan, and incredibly, we do not have one. We need a plan for one year, three years, five years down the road. We have to asses our needs and the skills we have, because there is talent and energy here, but nobody can get heard. Say what you want about Sharpe James, but wherever he’s done anything, he has brought top-flight people into Newark City Hall to take care of those projects. When he steps away from City Hall, he will leave knowing he has built a civic structure that is solid, knowledgeable, and can weather storms. We’re not doing anything like that in Jersey City.

TM: Are you worried that the school system will soon revert to municipal control, and that the costs will swamp any attempt at reform?

MH: The state is trying to find a way to give the schools back. And, yes, if the state leaves, the extra money leaves with them. The budget increase would be tremendous. And the school system is still not up to the standard it ought to be up to. So, yes, it has to be a concern.

TM: Are you supporting incumbent Viola Richardson for Ward F Councilperson?

MH: No, I am not. I am only standing with one council candidate, and my running-mate in Ward F is Crystal Jones. She’s 32 years old, and a community leader. One of the reasons I am trying to become Mayor is because I would like to give the next generation an opportunity to get involved in the political process.

TM: How about the At-Large races? Have you made any endorsements?

MH: I haven’t made any official decisions yet.

TM: Okay, I’ll toss you a name, and you give me a reaction. Omar Barbour?

MH: He’s a local. He is the leader of the MLK Community Development Corporation, a neighborhood activist and development association.

TM: Could you vote for him?

MH: Yeah, I suppose I could.

TM: Willie Flood?

MH: [Pauses.] Let’s just say that Willie Flood is a very nice woman, and leave it at that.

TM: I found her run for Mayor last November very strange. She had that office on Jersey Avenue, but it was never open. It was almost a ghost candidacy.

MH: Willie Flood is a good person, but her run was barely serious. It was used by the county establishment to divide the African-American vote. If Flood had not been on the ballot, Harvey Smith would have been elected Mayor.

TM: Speaking of people who come down hard on Harvey Smith, why do you think that the Urban Times News has thrown in so decisively with Mayor Healy?

MH: Oh, they cut a deal. My understanding is that they like development contracts over there, and Mayor Healy is supposed to them the development contracts that they want. They’ve got no integrity, and will make deals with whoever they can.

TM: If you’re booted from the ballot, would you really encourage your supporters to vote for Alfred Marc Pine? He seems to have no political instincts whatsoever.

MH: Sometimes that’s even better, though. Look at Bret Schundler. He was not considered a typical politician. You have to sit down and talk to Pine to really get a sense of him. Once you engage him, you will be surprised at how intelligent he is, and how much he cares. He’s just an ordinary, educated person who said enough is enough, I’m going to do what I can to straighten out this mess.

We shouldn’t be stereotyping people because thy don’t have the proper image. We’ve had the sharp-dressing politicians in office for fifty years, and look where has it gotten us. Why not try somebody new? Somebody unconventional? Somebody who doesn’t have the suit on, and who hasn’t become accustomed to making excuses for poor performance.

I encourage you to have an interview with him.

TM: You and Andrew Hubsch have shamed me into it. When I get a chance, I’ll ring him up. Any closing statements?

MH: I often feel like we need to do our own internal homecoming – we need to have introduce people to the parts of Jersey City that they do not see. Right now in Jersey City, the waterfront is one world, and everything else is another world. But there is far too much talent in this town not to reach out and transcend those barriers.

For all my life, Jersey City has been territorial, fragmented, and guarded. It breaks my heart to hear kids say “the Downtown cannot go uptown” – not just because it seems to speak of limited opportunities, but because that is something that their grandparents used to say. These borders must fall.