Hurley: Mazzeo Has Consistently Worked and Voted Against District 2
The upcoming Tuesday, November 5, 2019 General Election is one of the most consequential in our lifetime.
New Jersey Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, D-2, has been an enemy of the district for years. He consistently works and votes against the best interests of our region.
Case in point, take the arduous, successful campaign to defeat the November, 2016, ballot question that would have legalized casino gaming outside of Atlantic City. The importance of defeating then ballot question #1 cannot be overstated.
While then Assemblyman Chris Brown was leading the charge to protect Atlantic City's leading industry, Mazzeo was working like a thief in the night to help North Jersey prevail at our direct expense.
Had Mazzeo prevailed, Hard Rock Casino Hotel would currently reside in The Meadowlands. It would have cost tens of thousands of Atlantic City jobs. Multiple Atlantic City casinos would have been forced to close. The Atlantic City Region would still be in a great depression; despite the magnificent national economy that has been delivered by President Trump and his successful pro-America, free market capitalism agenda.
Mazzeo's dirty agenda was defeated because of a masterclass campaign waged by Resorts Casino Hotel Owner Morris Bailey, Resorts President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Giannantonio, Joe Kelly and The Greater Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce, Debra DiLorenzo and the No North Jersey Casinos Coalition and Bill Cortese, executive director of Trenton's Bad Bet organization and many others who are too numerous to mention. The Bad Bet organization spent $14 million alone to defeat this potentially devastating legislation.
You don't have to believe me. Go ask Chris Brown about the time that Mazzeo accidentally walked into an Assembly Committee hearing that was underway in Trenton. They were discussing the issue of expanding casino gaming to North Jersey.
Brown had successfully managed to have himself temporarily appointed to the committee so that he could fight for our region's best interests. What did Mazzeo do? He tucked his tail and literally ran out of the room in a full sweat panic.
This should have ended Mazzeo's electoral career. Somehow, Mazzeo was re-elected in 2017. It should have never happened. This was the election when Mazzeo was initially the nominee for the New Jersey State Senate. He bailed out after internal democratic polling data showed that Brown was going to crush Mazzeo in the general election.
Instead, Mazzeo ran for re-election to his assembly seat and won with his running mate John Armato. We've been paying a heavy price ever since.
The 2nd Legislative District had not yet caught-on to Mazzeo's agenda. Mazzeo used to be a good guy. No longer. Mazzeo is completely controlled by his political bosses. They fund his campaigns with millions of dollars. They wind him up and tell him what to do. He complies, every time!
Mazzeo's ardent support of expanding casino gaming outside of Atlantic City should have been enough for the voters to retire Mazzeo. You would think after the voters gave him a "pass," that Mazzeo would have changed his ways. He can't. Mazzeo is politically bought and bossed. They "own" him and his vote.
Here's a few more examples of Mazzeo working against our region. Mazzeo supported a budget that moved more than $1 million dollars from our veterans and instead gave the money to illegals, who shouldn't be here in the first place.
The latest example of Mazzeo Gone Wild is his crazy support of a county tax assessment bureaucracy. Mazzeo is the lone sponsor of assembly bill A-546. Not even his running mate Armato is a co-sponsor.
Mazzeo had promised to meet with all 23 Atlantic County mayors before pursuing this scheme further. He did not. This is not an allegation. This is not an opinion. I have attached proof that Mazzeo had promised to meet with the 23 mayors in Atlantic County. He did not. Instead, Mazzeo raced it through the legislative committee process and achieved a successful vote out of committee.
On the day (Thursday, May 23, 2019) the full Assembly was prepared to vote on the Mazzeo scheme; The Atlantic County Mayors' Association held an emergency meeting at The Atlantic County Institute of Technology.
The Mayors unanimously asked for Mazzeo to table his undesirable legislation. No elected official in the area wants this. Brown is opposed. Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson is opposed. The Atlantic County Board of Chosen Freeholders voted unanimously to oppose the Mazzeo bill.
Even after all of this bipartisan opposition, Mazzeo is still pushing ahead. Why? Because his political bosses have demanded it. In any usual society norm, when every single elected official at three levels of government are opposed to something; the one person rowing in the other direction would stop in his tracks. Not Mazzeo. He's rowing onward, all by himself, with his political bosses blowing the wind at his back.
The late Jim Whelan was controlled by the same political bosses. There are no boundaries to their "hold" over our area Democrat legislators. Whelan was the deciding vote and once voted to close the Atlantic City casinos on July 4th weekend.
This cost Atlantic City millions of dollars for years that followed, because many groups, etc. that book guests to Atlantic City could not do so with confidence after enduring the economic impact of Whelan shutting down the casinos in his own home town.
This is the disturbing degree of control that these potentates have possessed over Whelan and now Mazzeo and other Atlantic County Democrat office-holders for years.
We have witnessed the most radical policies in New Jersey history being employed during this current term. It's been a shifting of priorities that is placing New Jersey on the path to become "California."
Governor Phil Murphy and his faithful followers like Mazzeo have taxed "rain," provided millions of dollars for illegals, officially made New Jersey a Sanctuary State and many more disturbing, regressive policies.
The whole point of A-546 is to create a political patronage pit of new jobs for their political supporters. The current system, being managed by a small number of highly capable employees at the local and county levels is working well. Both from the taxpayer and overall efficiency standpoints.
Attached are letters that will prove that what I have reported here about Mazzeo and the A-546 County assessment boondoggle legislation is true. The letters are written by Lisa Jiampetti, President of the Atlantic County Mayors' Association and the unanimous resolution passed by the Atlantic County Board of Chosen Freeholders.
Freeholder John Risley and former Brigantine Mayor Phil Guenther are the Republican challengers to Mazzeo and Armato. They both believe in the free market, limited government intervention in our daily lives, low taxes and providing a high level of public services for the already overburdened taxpayers of New Jersey.
Please do your homework between now and the November 5, 2019, general election. The choice can not be more clear. The stakes can not be higher. Please remember, they don't affectionately call him "Meadowlands Mazzeo" for nothing.
More From WPG Talk Radio 95.5 FM
