AT-LARGE & IN CHARGE
Six battle for three open council seats that could change the face of Trenton city government
TRENTON » City voters will get to pick three completely new candidates for the Trenton at-large council race on Tuesday, May 8.
The three vacancies were created when Councilmen Alex Bethea and Duncan Harrison decided to run for mayor and Councilwoman Phyllis Holly-Ward decided against seeking re-election.
The six candidates vying for six spots are Kathy McBride, Jerell Blakeley, Rachel Cogsville-Lattimer, Nathaniel McCray, Elvin Montero and Santiago Rodriguez. Residents citywide will get to vote for three of the six candidates.
Kathy McBride
McBride, 62, may be the most familiar name on the ballot. The stay-at-home mom previously served one term as at-large councilwoman from 2010 until 2014 and had an unsuccessful bid for mayor in 2014.
The 62-year-old said she has decided to run again because South Ward Councilman George Muschal, her former colleague, along with her mother and aunt “talked her into it.”
“I wasn’t going to get in the race but George, he called me and told me I can help with a team as far as working together because on the council you had to have at least four votes to move things forward,” McBride said. “It’s never been about me. It’s about making a difference.”
If elected, McBride said her first priority would be to “unify the body.”
“They need to understand you can have your differences but when it comes to doing the business of the city, you need to set those differences aside and make some strong, good decisions based on the needs of the people that you’re representing,” McBride said. “It’s hard when you pick up the newspaper and find out that one of your former colleagues was trying to fight on council and it sends out the wrong message to constituents. We need to understand that all of us are not going to agree most of the time. But if we could try to work together and move things along, things will happen for the city.”
McBride said she would work with the next mayor, but would also serve as a check-and-balance with the next administration’s director picks.
“I think it’s very important for the council to do their due diligence in reviewing their records, going the extra mile, finding the history of that person,” the lifelong city resident said. “We have an obligation to our constituents to make sure we get enough background information on those candidates before advice and consent.”
The former councilwoman’s son, Kenneth, was shot to death while attending a party at Rider University in 2013. McBride founded and still runs her Mother Against Violence organization. She said she would focus on public safety if elected.
“You’re not going to be able to attract developers or young couples starting families so public safety is my greatest concern,” McBride said.
Other issues McBride looks to tackle is the Trenton Water Works dilemma and the city school district providing required services for children with special needs.
Jerell Blakeley
Blakeley, 30, is the youngest candidate running for city office this year. The Trenton High graduate has lived in the city most his life and is a former city school teacher.
“I’m running because I believe in Trenton,” Blakeley said. “I really want it to be the city that it can be and having competent, progressive, intelligent candidates will help me move Trenton forward.”
The campaign organizer for Healthy Schools Now and adjunct professor and student career counselor at Rutgers University said he is concerned with the direction the city is heading.
“I want to make the city better and help city government become more efficient and productive,” said Blakeley, a Howard University alum. “I want to bring solutions to problems and not be a problem. I want to be a part of Trenton’s transformation. As a longtime resident, I’m going to repay the gift that the city did for me.”
If elected, Blakeley said he will focus on economic development, education and government efficiency to “really make Trenton an incubator of progressive municipal legislation.”
Some policies Blakeley would enact include enabling online payments, recommending city directors to live in Trenton within 90 days of hire, advocating that all board meetings are videotaped and live streamed on social media and creating municipal IDs for residents.
Blakeley was endorsed by the Trenton Education Association and the Mercer County Central Labor Council — AFL-CIO.
He serves on the boards of The Children Home Society of NJ, Mercer County Board of Social Services, NJ Environmental Justice Alliance, and the Young Professionals Group of the Robert Wood Johnson Hamilton Hospital Foundation.
“I pledge to be accountable to residents and to be present,” Blakeley said. “They’re going to see me.”
For more information visit on Blakeley visit jerellforcouncil.com.
Rachel CogsvilleLattimer
Cogsville-Lattimer, 50, is a lifelong resident of Trenton and an investigator with the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency.
She said she is running “to move Trenton forward regarding customer service within City Hall” and to spur “economic development not only for downtown but throughout the entire city.”
As for public safety, Cogsville-Lattimer said she would ensure that police “are doing what they’re mandated to do.” “We also need to have officers who are Trentonians,” she said. “We’d love to have our police officers live within the city of Trenton.” Cogsville-Lattimer, a regular at council meetings since 2000, said she is “tired of the grandstanding and the lack of communication” within the legislative body.
“We need to have a new vision and a focus lense,” she said. “I’m about transparency. I’m about respect. I’m about having a working relationship — not only with the mayor and council — but with all municipalities.”
Cogsville-Lattimer is the former president of the Trenton Council Civic Association and president of Cadwalader Place Civic Association. She serves on Isles’ board and is a member of the Citizen Police Advisory Committee.
“I’m also a member of the illegal dumping initia-
tive,” Cogsville-Lattimer said. “I’m the person who spearheaded and worked alongside the administration and other entities regarding the Carteret Avenue development project, which was just completed this past summer and took 17 years for completion.”
For more information on Cogsville-Lattimer visit trentonmatters.com.
Nathaniel McCray
McCray, 69, is a crossing guard and Trenton High graduate. The former General Motors employee opened the West Trenton Community Center at 510 Stuyvesant Ave. as an emergency food pantry and a place for enrichment programming for the city’s youth.
“There was a lot of crime in the city — the Bloods and the Crips,” said McCray, who was born and raised in Trenton. “So somebody had to try to get to the kids to stop the violence so I opened up a community center on Stuyvesant Avenue.” McCray said his mission is to stop the violence in Trenton and get kids off the streets.
“Instead of looking up to drug dealers, they’re looking to something positive,” McCray said, noting he’s taken kids swimming, bowling, bike riding and out to play sports. “As a crossing guard, I see a lot of things on the street that need to be taken care of. I want to help the guys on the corner so they get a GED, high school diploma so they can keep a job.”
If elected, McCray said he would also help Trenton youth expunge their records “so they get a job and don’t have to be on the corner.”
McCray also said he believes in community policing.
“People on the street don’t have communication with the police department,” he said. “I’d like to hire new policemen to walk the beat so they get used to the community — not just serve but protect so they can feel comfortable to keep crime down.”
McCray said now is the “right time” to run for council since he can “help more people.”
“My mission is to help the people, to make life better for them and make them productive and that’s my job,” McCray said. “I could help people with the grants. A lot of residents don’t know the programs they have. I will be in a position to help them find the program to fix their house so we don’t have many vacant homes.”
McCray also vows to “walk through all the neighborhoods.”
“I’m going to talk to all the guys on the corner,” he said. “I’m going to talk to them — not the police. I’m going to get them off the corner. I’ve got a lot of communication with the guys on the corner. I love Trenton. I could’ve moved someplace else but I love Trenton ... I came to help the people in the community.”
Elvin Montero
Montero, 43, is the director of communications and issues management for the Chemistry Council of New Jersey (CCNJ), and the first openly gay candidate running for city council.
If elected, Montero said he would utilize good governance practices “to improve better ways to enforce and implement city ordinances.” “We’ll look at and work with the mayor to work out ways to identify which resources are needed to better implement and enforce the ordinances that we have keeping the city clean, inspections, how we communicate with the citizens,” he said.
Montero said he would also look into where the city can implement better technology “so that customer service is improved but also people are able to do things more online and at their ease and convenience.”
Improving quality of life services is also on Montero’s radar.
“We need to do a better job of delivering the services that we do have currently,” he said. “We want to do better at supporting a clean and safe and secure city. Everyone wants that so what creative solutions can we come up with — both with the council and the mayor and the administration — to make sure that we can do these things and better training of those that are hired to protect and serve our community — police, fire and emergency services — so that there’s mutual respect between the citizens and those who are hired to protect and do a better job of community policing as well to encourage that so the relationships are started with the community.”
In terms of business and economic development, Montero said the city will have to be “smarter” and find “sustainable solutions.”
“We have the Trenton250 comprehensive master plan,” he said. “Let’s start utilizing that. Let’s start using it and future projects that are coming down the pike, let’s make sure that what we are working on and promoting and supporting coincides with what the city has identified in the Trenton250 plan and also that helps lift the city of Trenton, which is also the capital city.”
Montero, who was born and raised in the capital city, said he is a “big champion” of Trenton.
“I want to support creative ideas to boost the local economy so that we can inspire people to live, play and stay here in Trenton,” he said. “We need to learn to work together, leave our egos outside of the door and do the work of the people.”
Montero was endorsed by Victory Fund, Garden State Equality and the Mercer County Central Labor Council — AFLCIO.
For more information on Montero visit montero4trenton.com.
Santiago Rodriguez
Rodriguez, 67, was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Trenton in 1970.
“I came to Trenton to work in the factories,” he said. “In 1980, when they closed all these companies, I lost my job.”
Rodriguez joined the Army for a decade and completed a bachelor’s degree in government and politics. He also completed a master’s degree in counseling and psychology and first went to work with the Mercer County Board of Social Services and then the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS).
The now-retired state employee said he is running for council because he remembers how Trenton used to be.
“I have seen the decay that the current administration for the past 40 years has left Trenton to go to,” he said. “When I first came to Trenton, it was safe for me to walk from Academy Street all the way to Cadwalader Park whenever I wanted to. We had a skating rink for the youth back then. Now, we don’t have anything.”
Rodriguez bashed the current deployment of police officers in the city.
“We need a police department,” he said. “We have some police workers that work in the police department but we don’t have policemen in Trenton. We need to have police officers in Trenton — not people that work for the police department. We have 90-some police officers sitting down at the station and there’s nobody patrolling the streets, nobody walking the streets.”
Rodriguez said he is also running because his taxes increased under the revaluation.
“I’m running because my taxes raised $400 and I’m on a fixed income,” he said. “The person who came to my house to do that appraisal, I don’t know where he went to school because I didn’t see a camera, pen or notebook. He walked in the first floor and left. The city already told him to raise my taxes. That’s the way I see it.”
Calling himself a “concerned resident,” Rodriguez said he has “some ideas.”
“I am going to ask to do audits,” he said. “Directors will live in the city. If you are afraid to live in the city, you get a job somewhere else.”
Rodriguez was also critical of when residents go to City Hall for business.
“You go there, pay your bills and they give you a runaround,” he said. “They laugh at you, they treat you as if you were a little baby or a dog. That has to change because the city is owned by the taxpayers of the city — not be the employees.”
Finally, Rodriguez said the city needs a leader with what they “call in Puerto Rico cojones.”
“We don’t need a rubberstamp of the mayor,” he said. “I’m going to be a pain in the ass to whoever becomes mayor.”
For more information on Santiago visit facebook.com/Santiago4Trenton2018.