Jerry Fried has told the Montclair Times that he doesn’t plan to run for reelection as mayor of Montclair. He sent the Times his announcement in a prepared statement. We have asked him to send the statement to us as well.
Fried revealed last month that he had taken a part-time consulting job with the state’s Department of Transportation to work on its Complete Streets program. Last fall, he led an effort to ask voters to move municipal elections to November. Fried’s petition, in the end, was thrown out for technical reasons. Had it succeeded, he might have held office for an extra six months.
So he gets to appoint,or REappoint two BOE members right before he leaves?? Great.
Gutless Fried Rice won’t even give us the satisfaction of voting his bicycle seat out.
What to people like this do when they have made such public a-holes of themselves?
They must be lining up at town hall to pick up applications for Mayor, whoever gets elected is going to look like a star after to this dope.
This is a real shame, actually. I looked forward to a campaign of Fried running on…well…his record, I guess? That along would be marvelous.
And I really wanted to hear daily reports of the stupid stuff Fried says — people who want BOE elections are angry; Chinese kids are so much better at Montclair kids, especially in math and science — and then the daily reports of him refuting what he said in public. Such a shame. I guess I’ll have to get cable now to entertain myself until May.
Criique welcome, name calling not so much.
Well put, Debbie. The name calling is why he probably won’t release his statement to Baristanet.
it wouldn’t be Montclair politics without name calling!
I’m losing my councilman, also. Nick Lewis says he won’t run again. I can’t blame him . . . it’s not easy to try to do a job and be abused by the villagers. You need the thickest of skins to be a politician these days.
“You need the thickest of skins to be a politician these days.”
Or you could have not raised taxes 25% in 4 years during the worst recession since the Great Depression
Silly me, people love paying more to live when they and their neighbors are losing their jobs and livelyhoods and watching their homes values drop roughly 20%!
I LOVE this headline. It cheered me up. It made my night!
Now I am going to read the story.
I sent Mayor Fried an email once complaining about how many months it took to get the October snowstorm debris off my street. Was a complaint, but was civil. No response. Nada. Give me a break. That’s the job of small town mayors. Respond to their constituents. Had I send I message like that to Chuck Schumer he would have at least have someone contact me in an hour. Good riddance Jerry. Take a slow bike to China.
“”As always, few true progressives have the time or the savings to consider serving on the Council for the token annual stipend of $7,000. ”
Let’s just consider where “progressives” have led Montclair, and remember.
No, he won’t run again. He will bike.
Only Fried would consider his council’s record on property taxes a victory. It shows how they completely ignored revenues and capital debt in terms of spending.
Being mayor isn’t for everybody. I wish him well in his new project.
Frankly, I think the online community should be proud for the part it played in hounding him from office.
It’s disappointing that he’ll now be wasting money we don’t have at the state level.
I prefer to think of us as a family. A very dysfunctional family.
True, brother Roo.
I wasn’t a fan of the mayor, but considering he’s announcing what lots of people apparently want to hear, I’ll simply wish him luck.
While I disagreed with the Mayor (“Bike Boy” to me), I admire folks who step up and run– trying to make a difference.
So regardless of whether he succeeded or not, I applaud him for trying.
Can we please stop picking on cyclists, pedestrians, and New Urbanism and all of those other sustainable-living-pattern, quality-of-life issues?
No. Because money is being wasted on such folly.