{"id":225573,"date":"2026-06-23T05:57:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T05:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/225573\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T05:57:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T05:57:26","slug":"jersey-city-council-passes-first-reading-of-ordinance-amending-ward-map-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/225573\/","title":{"rendered":"Jersey City Council passes first reading of ordinance amending ward map process"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jersey City Council unanimously approved (9-0) the first reading of an ordinance to change the ward map redistricting<\/a> process at last night\u2019s meeting. <\/p>\n

\"Jersey<\/a><\/p>\n

By Daniel Ulloa\/Hudson County View<\/p>\n

Ward C Councilman Tom Zuppa said he was looking for a memo on the ward map.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll speak to Council people Gilmore and Griffin on that in the next two weeks,\u201d he said of the two ordinance sponsors who publicized the measure earlier this week, as HCV first reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ordinance cleared first reading unanimously before it drew some attention during public comment.<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2026 I remember the fight \u2026 when they tried to have a meeting where people weren\u2019t even allowed to participate and ultimately down here,\u201d Hudson County Commissioner Bill O\u2019Dea (D-2) said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the attorney who represented 18 neighborhood Association groups that challenged the redistricting map. I thank you very much,\u201d Appleseed Center Executive Director Renee Steinhagen said.<\/p>\n

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) activist Isaac Jimenez also spoke in favor of making the process more transparent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an ordinance we need to support \u2026 I was here in this room when in 2022 the ward map was being shown to the public for the first time, and I thought then, as I think now, that that entire process lacked the real accountability. That we could have gotten from that Commission. Thank you, John Minella,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Minella was chair of the Jersey City Board of Ward Commissioners while serving as then-Mayor Steven Fulop\u2019s chief of staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can keep neighborhoods together. We cannot look at election data when we\u2019re making these maps. That\u2019s really weird. It\u2019s almost like you\u2019re trying to pick your voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in\u00a0January 2022<\/a>, the Board of Ward Commissioners ignored three hours of unanimous testimony opposing the new ward map<\/a>\u00a0and approved it, leading to community organizations and Gilmore to\u00a0file a lawsuit<\/a> two months later, both as HCV first reported.<\/p>\n

A Hudson County Superior Court judge dismissed the case with prejudice in\u00a0August 2022<\/a>, but the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division revived one count in the suit in\u00a0March 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In September of that year, the New Jersey Supreme Court granted a motion to\u00a0expedite the appeal<\/a>\u00a0before finally\u00a0dismissing the case<\/a>\u00a0in June 2025 in a close 4-3 decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jersey City Council unanimously approved (9-0) the first reading of an ordinance to change the ward map…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[97927,97928,97929,97930,97931,128,130,129,97932],"class_list":["post-225573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-bill-odea","tag-frank-gilmore","tag-jersey-city-council","tag-jersey-city-redistricting","tag-municipal-redistricting","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-tom-zuppa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}