On his second anniversary as mayor, Steve Fulop split the day between the city he governs — Jersey City — and the city where many people think he’ll end up — Trenton. That was yesterday. Today, Mayor Fulop is with us. He told NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams that he would consider a run for governor if the job were available and the timing makes sense.
Fulop said he believes Chris Christie will have a tough road ahead of him in his bid for president. “I think once the rest of the country gets familiar with his record here in New Jersey, I think he’s gonna have a real problem selling it,” Fulop said.
The mayor said his relationship with the governor has been one of working together in the best interest of Jersey City. “I think there have been a lot of interests that overlap so I think that a lot of the business interests in Jersey City are crucial to the state of New Jersey and he recognizes that and I certainly recognize that,” Fulop said.
Some have been calling for Christie to resign his position as governor while running for president, but Fulop isn’t currently in that camp. “I think that as long as he’s able to fulfill his obligations, I can’t see the next year being any different than what he’s done over the last year. He’s gonna be in touch. He’s entitled by law to stay there so I don’t think I’m gonna be in the boat of calling for his resignation,” said Fulop.
Fulop has been holding fundraisers around the state, including one Monday that raised $140,000. When asked if he would consider running for governor, Fulop said, “I would consider it if the opportunity is open and the timing makes sense, but it’s certainly not front and center today.”
The mayor has been vocal about stopping NJ Transit from raising its fares. He’s been speaking out for the last month saying there are alternatives to a fare hike. “The governor had no plan basically and if you look at a long-term solutions and short-term solutions working together, you have increasing ridership which will increase revenue over the longer term. And then over the shorter term, some of the revenue gaps could be bridged by some of the opportunities they have,” Fulop said.
While Jersey City has taken steps in the right direction, the city still has crime issues to be addressed, which Fulop admits. “I recognize that some of the problems that we have associated with socioeconomic, they’ve taken decades to get into. You’re not gonna solve it overnight. There’s education, there’s family issues. We’ve been making huge progress. This year there’s been eight homicides to put in perspective. And we feel good about where the city’s going, but we have a lot of work to do, no question about it,” he said.
The idea of putting a casino in North Jersey has been brought up numerous times. One of the proposed locations was in Jersey City. Fulop thinks officials missed the window of opportunity for that to happen. “I think that it should’ve been done this year. I don’t think that it’s gonna happen next year. I think it’s gonna be a tougher road with a presidential election and then ’17 you get into the gubernatorial election. I think that this was a victim of politics and New Jersey residents and the budget ultimately will suffer because there will be less revenue as a result of politics,” he said.
Fulop said the opportunity missed could have been huge. “I think that you would’ve seen hundreds of millions of dollars in gaming revenue if the North Jersey opportunity would have fulfilled itself,” he said.