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The Watcher: North Arlington schools want to take a building from a church using eminent domain

By David Wildstein, June 25 2025 5:42 am

Is there such a thing as Eminence Domain?

This could be the start of a joke – five school board members are standing at the pearly gates – except that the brewing legal and political battle between the North Arlington Board of Education and the Archdiocese of Newark is entirely serious and worth watching.

The Board of Education is taking steps to seize a building owned by the Queen of Peace Parish through eminent domain for use as a pre-K classroom.  The problem is that the Archdiocese and the leaders of the local church say the building, the LaSalle Center, is not for sale.  They’re willing to rent it on a long-term lease, not sell it.

The church has been generous in the past.

Citing low enrollment and money issues, the Archdiocese closed the 86-year-old Queen of Peace High School in 2017. It sold the property, which included a full-sized football field, to the Board of Education for $6.4 million – about $2.3 million under market value – so it could become a new middle school.

The Archdiocese maintains that the LaSalle Center is “not abandoned or blighted, and is actively used for church ministry, especially by the Latino Catholic community.”  The borough’s Republican mayor, Dan Pronti, has distanced himself from the school board – and he’s done so publicly.

“Taking the church’s property would set a dangerous precedent,” said Archdiocese of Newark spokeswoman Maria Margiotta.  “It would be both a legal overreach and a violation of fundamental religious liberty. The government cannot simply claim church property that is actively used for worship, ministry, and community service. We will vigorously defend the Church’s constitutional and moral rights.”

While there’s no data beyond estimates, the conventional wisdom is that North Arlington, which has substantial Italian, Irish, Polish, and Portuguese communities – 21% of its residents are Hispanic – and that points to a significant Catholic population.

Two school board members, Michele Higgins and Scott Hughes, are up this year.   The filing deadline is July 28.  In the context of a political campaign, it could be Higgins and Hughes v. His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Tobin.  That makes for a fascinating local election involving the separation of church and state and a fight on constitutional grounds.

BUDGET NEWS: It’s increasingly looking like the budget won’t be ready for a committee vote until Friday, with a final vote on Monday.  That is, as they say, fluid.  But rookies shouldn’t be fooled by notices on the legislative website; the legislature is going to properly provide public notice for every day to preserve their options.

GOING ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP: The New Jersey Moderate Party wants the state Supreme Court to review their bid to overturn the state’s anti-fusion voting laws, continuing a legal battle that began in 2022 to allow minor parties to put names on the ballot that may be the nominees of a major party.  In February, a panel of state appellate judges ruled that New Jersey’s century-old fusion voting ban does not violate the State Constitution.  Back in 2022, then-Rep. Tom Malinowski attempted to claim the nomination of the newly formed Moderate Party, despite having already won a Democratic primary for the same office. His effort to appear on the ballot under both party designations was turned downtwice, by Secretary of State Tahesha Way, who cited the state’s 1922 ban on candidates appearing on ballots multiple times for the same office; the Moderate Party then filed an appeal of Way’s decision.

BREAKING, BUT NOT REALLY:  The Watcher has been receiving a decent number of courageous endorsements from Democrats supporting Mikie Sherrill for governor and Republicans supporting Jack Ciattarelli.

STILL NO WORD ON NEW JERSEY: The Republican Governors Association is making an initial investment of $500,000 in the Virginia governor’s race, along with a digital ad smacking the Democratic nominee, Red Bank native Abigail SpanbergerPunch Bowl reports the RGA is set to spend “several million dollars to keep Virginia red.”  Aside from an election night press release, the RGA has done nothing to help the GOP nominee, Jack Ciattarelli.  Four years ago, on the advice of former Gov. Chris Christie, an ex-RGA chairman, the group took a pass on New Jersey even though Ciattarelli came within three percentage points of ousting the state’s Democratic governor.  In the post-Citizens United era, Ciattarelli doesn’t need to use the RGA as a donor passageway; he has his own super PACs.  But if the RGA wants to use its own money to win an election, The Watcher believes Ciattarelli will accept the help.   Meanwhile, the Democratic Governors Association is already investing in New Jersey.

SPEAKING OF CHRISTOPHER: The former governor made it almost to Memorial Day weekend without getting a parking ticket this year – an unusual occurrence for a man with a long municipal court rap sheet.  Christie was issued a summons for improper parking on May 28 at the Hartley-Dodge Memorial Building in Madison and paid a $56.65 ticket almost on time.

AND CHRISTOPHER’S FRIEND: Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded his defeat in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York to a little-known, 33-year-old assemblyman and progressive hero, Zohran Mamdani.  Cuomo has not ruled out running as an independent in the general election.

PUNCH IN THE FACE: Jersey City mayoral candidate James Solomon used the ocassion of Andrew Cuomo’s stunning loss to take a shot at his opponent in the race for mayor of Jersey City: “There are many differences between New York City and Jersey City but one thing is very clear: voters are rejecting scandal ridden elected officials that resigned in disgrace and are attempting vanity comebacks – and Jim McGreevey is going to be next.”

POLLSTER HELL: Two weeks after the New Jersey gubernatorial primary, The Watcher’s concern over political horse race polls, particularly in primaries, continues to increase.  With the exception of Public Policy Polling (PPP) on the first round and Emerson College on the final round after ranked choice voting, all the other polls, public and internal – 32 of them in total, including six in the last two weeks, got the New York City Democratic mayoral primary wrong.

HOF:  Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon, and former Attorney General and longtime Middlesex County Democratic boss David Wilentz will be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame posthumously in November as part of a seventeen-member Class of 2025.

KUVOT: Retired Supreme Court Justice Lee Solomon will receive the 2025 New Jersey State Bar Foundation Medal of Honor in September.  Now with Archer & Greiner, Solomon served in all three branches of state government — he was an assemblyman and president of the Board of Public Utilities, as well as a federal and state prosecutor and congressional candidate.

CITES AGE IN BID FOR LENIENCY: The attorney for the Plainsboro Zoning Board and the Jamesburg Land Use Board, Michael Balint, faces an ethics complaint alleging that he mismanaged client funds and failed to maintain the required trust account record following a random audit, watchdog John Paff reported.  Balint “is representing himself in the disciplinary matter and largely admits the underlying facts but pleads for leniency, citing his age, health issues, and intention to retire later this year.”  According to Paff, he didn’t notify his public clients.  Balint told Paff he didn’t realize the matter would become public, but “should have known.”

SUPPLY CHAIN: New Jersey’s trucking industry “sounded the alarm” over the state’s rigid enforcement of the ABC test for independent contractors, arguing that the current reading could take down a key component of the nation’s supply chain.  The ABC Test determines if a worker is an independent contractor by requiring that they (a) are free from control and direction, (b) perform work outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and (c) are engaged in an independently established trade or occupation. “Entrepreneurs who choose to be owner-operators are now at risk of losing their independence because of a misguided interpretation of the ABC test,” said New Jersey Motor Truck Association spokesman Eric DeGesaro.  “The trucking industry is the linchpin of the supply chain. The supply chain needs ‘temporary’ flexibility to operate. That’s the great value that owner operators bring. And what they covet.”

NICE SAVE: In January 1974, Walter Mondale, then the junior U.S. Senator from Minnesota, formed an exploratory committee and crisscrossed the country to test the waters for a bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 1976.  Just before Thanksgiving, he announced that he would not run.  “I don’t want to spend the next two years in Holiday Inns,” he said.  After Jimmy Carter selected him as his running mate, Mondale was asked about his disinterest in spending every night in a different hotel: “I’ve been amazed at how much Holiday Inns have improved over the last few weeks.”

ANOTHER NICE SAVE: After a weak debate performance against Mondale in 1984, President Ronald Reagan faced questions about his age – he was 73 – and his fitness to serve a second term.  At the next debate, he neutralized the age issue with one of the most memorable lines in the history of American political debates: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign.  I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

TRIVIA: Mondale’s election as vice president helped trigger massive shifts in his home state that created the 1978 Minnesota Massacre.  After he resigned from the Senate, Gov. Wendell Anderson also resigned; Lt. Gov. Rudy Perpich became governor and immediately appointed Anderson to replace Mondale in the Senate.  Less than a month later, Hubert Humphrey, the former vice president and 1968 Democratic presidential nominee who had returned to the Senate in 1970, died.  Perpich appointed Muriel Humphrey to fill her late husband’s seat on an interim basis. Now, Minnesota had two U.S. Senators and a governor whom the voters never elected.  Suddenly, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party was in trouble, and Republicans began putting up billboards across the state that read: “The DFL is going to face something scary – an election.”  In the general election, Mondale’s home state elected two Republican U.S. Senators, a Republican governor, and Democrats lost 32 states in the state legislature.

BOOK AND FILM: If you want to know what happened when the Minnesota House of Representatives became deadlocked at 67-67 following the Minnesota Massacre election, take a look at Minnesota Standoff: The Politics of Deadlock by Rod Searle, the Republican House leader at the time.  It’s a great account of political deals – nothing that happens in Minnesota will ever make Jersey blush – and shared power, or as some put it, “The year the House was tied, and how the two parties made peace … until they didn’t.”  The book is hard to find, but worth it if you can locate a copy.

If you’re looking for a post-primary, stay-indoors and avoid the heat, movie about politics, consider City Hall (1996), where Al Pacino plays the scandal-tarred mayor of New York City and John Cusack is his loyal deputy; New Jerseyan Danny Aiello portrays a Brooklyn party boss.   You can watch this for free on YouTube – and maybe think about Andrew Cuomo as you watch.

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