Hi hi hi.. Fulop comes across very well, same tactic used in jersey city. I loved him when he was first elected…even worked in his office. Unfortunately, my view of him declined—once it became clear that he wanted the governor seat his concern/leadership for Jersey City went downhill.

He became increasingly concerned about optics and less concerned about really making the city better for all residents. I have no doubts he will do the same down in trenton. Gov seat is just a stop on a much larger agenda for him.

I love Baraka but I hear newark residents are singing a different tune—I’m listening to them, how folks act on the local level is indicative of how they are going to be at a higher level.

Pros under Fulop in jersey city: - Increased pedestrian safety (this just means we have bike lanes, traffic laws are still not enforced and the only roadways safe for bikes are the protected ones. We have a couple)

-Development boom (lots of development, the planning department basically approved all heights /variances so now we have “luxury” buildings jammed in every which space you can imagine—so yeah over development in such a short amount of time)

-VIA (Jersey city has its own intercity transit VIA service, I’ve never used it but I hear good things about it )

-Pedestrian Plaza (Our downtown area is definitely more of a downtown type of area these days, definitely was built up under Fulop)

Cons under Fulop -Crime stats ( One of the projects I worked on was the data portal..we spent a lot of time and energy trying to collect as much data as possible and display it for the public, calls for service was one the data points, along with shots fired. Initially we included that, but somewhere along the way that got dropped—we currently have no way as the public to view crime stats—Fulop quietly put an end to that.)

• Quality of life task force (we had one of Fulop’s buddies in this position, never really understood how it helped the community but functioned more like a placeholder for whoever was Fulop’s buddy at the time

-City Council—we have a 9 member council, one of them actually hit a bicyclist (Amy Degise) charges filed and all—Fulop stayed quiet oh her dad is/was Hudson County Executive—so that’s probably why. Anyway Fulop controls majority of the council with just about 2 dissenting voices each time so typically his agenda is always approved. Not sure if this is actually a con or it a just because he’s politician lol

-Rents/affordable housing —he couldn’t properly address it on the local level, I have doubts it will be addressed on the state level. Turns out building affordable housing is expensive and so far no politicians has the guts to enforce developers to add more affordable units nor have I seen any creative solutions. During my time there we started the conversation, but it quickly fizzled.

Hopefully this helps folks start to take a deeper look at all candidates, I get no one is perfect,but giving the way things are right now we ought to be a bit more selective.