Videos viewed by a federal jury last week in the bribery trial of suspended Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini reveal that Healy is an embarrassment as mayor of this city. He has provided a cinematic primer of what not to do as a chief executive of a municipality.
This is a man who is disengaged from reality. He pays lip service to transparency in government and poses as a caring public official, but Healy not only appoints his deputy mayor as his campaign treasurer, he is then willing to meet with her and a wealthy developer, along with a political consultant, just weeks before the mayoral election.
Some of those connected to the mayor's political organization and administration have already pleaded guilty to taking bribes, marking Healy's administration as corrupt. The level of corruption will be determined in the end by future jury verdicts. As disruptive as it would be for the city to lose its chief executive and be involved in a messy transferal of power, Jersey City cannot suffer another three years of Healy in office.
Not even taking into consideration the financial quicksand suffocating the city and its taxpayers, it is obvious to the most casual observer that this mayor is a mistake and must resign his office.
This is no ordinary public official. Healy is an attorney and former municipal judge, an officer of the court who is held to a higher ethical standard. In the fall, the state Office of Attorney Ethics, an arm of the New Jersey Supreme Court, recommended that the State Disciplinary Review Board take action against the mayor based on his conviction for obstruction of justice and resisting arrest stemming from a 2006 scuffle with Bradley Beach police. A suspension of his ability to practice law was suggested.
As in his Bradley Beach conviction, Healy does not believe he did anything wrong in his meetings with purported developer Solomon Dwek, an FBI informant and cooperating witness. This mayor even sees the videos in the Beldini trial as vindicating him.
What the hidden camera lens caught was a mayor who is willing to talk development and campaign contributions over the same dish of potato salad. Is this how business gets done in Jersey City?
Mayors in most municipalities will tell you they will never meet a prospective developer face-to-face. Proposed projects should go directly to a planning board.
Even more shocking, is at the beginning of one of the videotaped meetings, political consultant Jack Shaw tells Healy -- in the same sentence! -- that the sham developer has his eye on property in the city, "and we talked about the mayor's race, and I told him you were the place to put the money." Dwek chimes in, "Absolutely," and the mayor says, "Yeah." Later, the mayor says, "And you know we like to smooth the path for people to invest in our city."
In between, Healy, who already had a campaign warchest in excess of $2 million, offers a thin veneer of ethics, a charade of rules and regulations, but he's either willing to disingenuously let the developer think they're easily surmounted so his money will keep coming or he's truly willing to consider anything proposed by someone with such ostensibly deep pockets. When Dwek tells the mayor he gave Shaw "10,000 before and I'll do another 10,000 now," Healy thanks him and says, "we'll put it to good use and hopefully we can work together ..."
In the past, this newspaper demanded that the mayor show his outrage over the accusations in federal complaints accusing city officials of corruption. Healy refused.
He was asked to pressure then-City Council President Mariano Vega to resign from office and the mayor refused.
This is the first time The Jersey Journal has asked Healy to step down from elected office. We suspect he will refuse. As we said, this is a man who is disengaged from reality.
It's a reality that saw one Jersey City church include in its prayers on Sunday a plea for public officials to serve the needs of the people and not "their own personal agendas." Shame on Mayor Healy for being at the helm of an administration so steeped in corruption that a congregation in 2010 America has no confidence.
If he truly wants to do what's "good for the city" he says he loves so much, he will stop disgracing it, apologize and step down.
