NORTH BERGEN – Raynier Gamboa says he voted three times for Nick Sacco for mayor.

He was not alone. Sacco usually wins mayoral elections in this Hudson County town pretty easily.

But just a few days ago, Sacco, the Democratic mayor and former Democratic state senator, endorsed Republican Jack Ciattarelli for governor.

Gamboa, a union organizer, sees this as a betrayal.

So on Friday morning, he and a small group of like-minded souls voiced their displeasure – quite loudly – outside Town Hall on Kennedy Boulevard.

The protesters had a bullhorn to be heard over the constant din of traffic and whistles just to be heard.

Ben Applegate,  another one of the organizers, says he is a regular protester at Delaney Hall, an ICE detention center in Newark. He sees an obvious connection.

Like much of North Hudson, North Bergen is heavily Latino. He said concerns about ICE are rampant in the community. He spoke of residents, even students, at risk of being pulled off the street and arrested.

“Mayor Sacco, rescind your endorsement of Jack Ciattarelli for governor,” he yelled through the bullhorn.

“We need a governor who will protect residents from ICE.”

Ciattarelli has pledged to rescind a state directive that limits cooperation between ICE and local police.

Gamboa said for Sacco to support that stance shows a man who is simply disconnected to the community he was elected to serve.

An elderly woman said she was born in Cuba and came to the U.S. when she was 2-years-old. That would have been in the early days of Cuban migration after the 1959 revolution put Fidel Castro in power.

Cubans long have had legal status in the United States as refugees, but the Trump Administration is turning all immigration law precedent on its head.

So the woman said she was worried.

“Tell Mayor Sacco, don’t back MAGA Jack,” Applegate was now saying.

Politics being politics, Gamboa, naturally, wondered about what Sacco may get in return for his endorsement.

And he noted that when township voters overwhelmingly backed Sacco, they did it because he was a Democrat.

The township has many more registered Democrats than Republicans, so it will be interesting to see how much weight Sacco’s imprimatur carries on Nov. 4.

A message left for the mayor at his office has not yet been returned.

But Sacco has been quite active in his support of Ciattarelli.

His social media page includes favorable references to “Jack” and Sacco, himself, says:

“Last week, I endorsed Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli. North Bergen needs leadership that listens and delivers – and I trust Jack to do what’s right for our residents and for the future of our state.”

Brian Stack, the mayor of Union City and a political enemy of Sacco, holds forth literally across the Boulevard. Stack was an early backer of Mikie Sherrill. What’s more, the man Sacco has beaten three times for mayor, Larry Wainstein, is about to get elected to the state Assembly – all because of Stack’s support.

So, the roots of Sacco’s dalliance with Ciattarelli may lie with local politics.

No surprise there.

 

 

 

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