There are those special years, when synergy takes hold and every plan comes together, when every goal gets accomplished and every dream is realized.
The year 2024 in Hudson County was not one of those years. Not even close.
There were some triumphs, but let’s face it, it wasn’t pretty. There was failure. There was loss. There was anger and the other four stages as well.
It was a year in which The Jersey Journal announced the newspaper would cease operations after 157 years of reporting on Hudson County’s triumphs and tragedies.
It was a year in which the grandiose plans to bring a satellite location of the iconic Centre Pompidou museum to Jersey City took a massive hit when the state pulled its support of the project.
It was a year in which CarePoint Health, the operator of half of the six hospitals in Hudson County, declared bankruptcy amid massive losses.
It was a year in which New Jersey City University and the city of Hoboken both were victims of cyberattacks. There was a Jersey City school board coup and our hometown U.S. senator was convicted on corruption charges.
It was also a year when a local college president’s DWI arrest barely raised an eyebrow ― and then, if you can believe it, he was given an 18-month extension.
But there’s a silver lining. Knocked to the canvas, Hudson County got back up ― like we knew it would; and will continue to get back up.
Stood up and jolted by the state, Jersey City is working on a plan to bring the Pompidou to the city on its own. CarePoint and Hudson Regional Health announced a merger plan that would keep Bayonne Medical Center, Hoboken University Medical Center and Christ Hospital in Jersey City open.
There’s no happy ending, however, for The Jersey Journal. Activists and elected officials alike agree that the county will be worse off without the Journal’s daily reporting, from breaking news to arts and entertainment and local sports.
And even the good news of 2024 was like having a dental procedure without anesthesia ― there was plenty of pain.
A Jersey City mental health program application by an anti-violence group was awarded $2 million, but only after the city’s application was thoroughly ravaged by state officials for totally missing the mark.
Then there’s the Jersey City Reservoir 3, renovated and reopened to the public for the first time in decades. But local critics blasted the makeover, noting the city turned a unique nature trail/hiking path enveloped by trees and transformed it into a cookie cutter walking path.
Here are the top stories in Hudson County for 2024, in no particular order:
Good-bye old friend
The Jersey Journal, launched May 2, 1867 by two Union Army veterans, Z.K. Pangborn and William Dunning, announced Oct. 30 that it would cease publication Feb. 1, 2025.
The newspaper said it could not remain in business following a decision by The Star-Ledger to close its production facility in Montville, which prints the Journal and several other newspapers.
The Journal will also cease contributing to NJ.com, where it has provided expanded news, sports and entertainment coverage, along with photo galleries.
A Jersey City Pompidou-over
Jersey City’s financial projections for the Centre Pompidou x Jersey City were no work of art ― annual losses were projected in the millions ― so the state pulled millions of dollars in funding from the project.
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop cried politics ― it was payback for not supporting Gov. Murphy’s wife for Bob Menendez’s U.S. Senate seat, he says ― and then forged ahead with a plan to open the museum without the state’s help.
The plan includes deep-pocketed donors, a new home on the other side of Journal Square and possibly a new tax for residents and businesses in the district.
In critical condition, CarePoint gets a lifeline
The warning signs were there. Persistent reports by The Jersey Journal detailing one creditor after another suing CarePoint Health for unpaid bills. Thousands turned into hundreds of thousands and then millions of dollars.
So it was no surprise when the non-profit health system filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Nov. 4, owing its top 30 creditors approximately $108 million.
An aborted plan to merge with Hudson Regional Hospital was revived, averting a catastrophic possibility of closure, which would have put 2,600 people out of work and left a county of 750,000 people with just three hospitals.
Hoboken, NJCU and the dark web
Cyberattacks of the databases at New Jersey City University and the city of Hoboken opened our eyes to just how vulnerable we are to identity theft. In each case, officials were not totally forthright with the real victims ― NJCU students and staff, and Hoboken residents and employees.
In the NJCU case, the school declined to pay a $700,000 “ransom” and personal information was leaked onto the dark web. In the Nov. 27 Hoboken breach, hackers retrieved social security numbers, driver’s licenses, payroll, health and other personal information of city employees and residents, according to a list obtained by The Jersey Journal.
With NJCU and Hoboken releasing minimal information, victims relied on reporting by The Jersey Journal to get a clearer picture of the impact of the breaches.
New Jersey City Kean-clair-stock-row-apo University?
The Jersey City school’s financial troubles (a $22 million operating deficit in 2022) have been well documented. In March, the state-appointed fiscal monitor delivered a gut punch. Despite all the efforts to right-size and cut costs, NJCU would have to partner with another institution to survive.
In September, the state Office of the Secretary of Higher Education set a March 2025 deadline for the school to find a “fiscally sound” university as a partner. At the same time, OSHE told the university to eliminate at least $30 million of its $287 million long-term debt.
The school’s board of trustees placed all their trust in interim President Andres Acebo, extending his contract 18 months a couple months after he was charged with DWI in Bergen County. His next date in municipal court is Feb. 25.
Hoboken City Council president, “a bright light,” dies
Election night results took a backseat Nov. 5 when news spread of the death of Jen Giattino, the popular and well-respected Hoboken City Council president, at the age of 53.
The 52-year-old Giattino was first elected in 2011 and re-elected in 2015. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2017, but was again elected to the city council in 2019 and 2023.
“Jen’s dedication to the community will never be forgotten,” Mayor Ravi Bhalla said in a statement. “Her kindness, humility and quiet determination made her a cherished figure whose impact will be felt for generations to come. … Hoboken has lost a bright light.”
Stack meets an unconventional foe
In his years in office in Union City and the state Legislature, Brian Stack has battled elected leaders, power brokers, lobbyists and even a newspaper editor or two. But in 2024, he found an opponent who really knew who to push his buttons ― gonzo journalist/YouTube rabblerouser (and Nick Sacco plant?) Leonard Filipowski, aka, Leroy Truth.
From campaign office visits, to public events to city commissioner meetings, Leroy Truth annoyed (some would say trolled) Stack and his followers, posting about alleged corrupt acts by the mayor/state senator.
Leroy Truth got the exact reactions he was seeking, like the time he showed up at a campaign office and was pushed to the ground by Stack’s loyal supporters. Heck, the police chief even got involved. Competing complaints were filed and Leroy Truth seemed to always get the video clips he wanted.
Jersey City sets record low in homicides
The city set a record in 2023 with just 10 homicides, but that mark didn’t last long. There were just seven homicides this year. Shootings were also down dramatically, from 49 last year to 29 in 2024 ― a 69% dropoff. That’s the lowest number in the past 10 years, officials say.
“It’s been a lot of work,” Jersey City Public Safety Director Jim Shea said at a press conference in December. “Going through some of the anti-police feeling, being able to keep our people out on the street, doing a lot of this hard work of trying to remove firearms from the street and trying to catch violent people that are willing to use deadly force.”
‘Journeyy’ hits the national stage
Believe it or not, there was some good news in Hudson County in 2024. One of those stories was a 9-year-old singer from Jersey City who dazzled the “America’s Got Talent” judges and won hearts all over the country.
Journeyy Belton, a natural in front of a live crowd and national television audience, reached the quarterfinals of the entertainment competition television show before being eliminated. But he struck a chord with the celebrity judges ― “Great things are going to happen for you. I can feel it,” Simon Cowell said after one performance.
This time, ‘Gold Bar Bob’ is convicted
Bob Menendez’s career started on the Union City school board five decades ago and ended in a Manhattan courtroom July 16, 2024. That’s when the sitting U.S. senator was convicted on bribery, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and conspiring to act as a foreign agent.
He avoided prison in 2017 when his corruption trial ended in a mistrial. This time he was done in by overwhelming evidence ― stashes of cash was found in his Englewood Cliffs home, stuffed in boxes, designer bags and Timberland boots.
He rationalized it as the product of “intergenerational trauma” from his family’s experience in Cuba. But wasn’t he one of the powerful people in government whose job it was to make sure something like that, a coup, never happens?
Reservoir 3: They took paradise and paved over a walking path
The long-awaited $6 million makeover of the Reservoir 3 wasn’t complete, but it was complete enough for Jersey City to reopen it with great fanfare in September. While the city touted its 360-degree, ADA-compliant walking path, critics blasted the overhaul as a tone-deaf destruction of a unique, wooded hiking trail intended to make you temporarily forget city life.
The former working reservoir was abandoned in the late 1980s when the city began getting its water from the Boonton Reservoir in Morris County.
“This was supposed to take you away from Central Avenue, not give you a great view of it,” said Heather Sporn, chairwoman of the Jersey City Reservoir Preservation Alliance’s Design and Infrastructure Committee and a landscape architect.
$2M awarded for mental health crisis program after Jersey City stumbles
Three weeks after the first anniversary of Andrew Washington’s death, Jersey City was awarded a $2 million grant to establish a community-led mental health crisis response program that was named for him. Washington was shot dead by Jersey City police Aug. 27, 2023, during a mental health episode.
It took Jersey City two tries, the first attempt a face-plant by the city that was met with scathing reviews by state officials who rejected it. The second, winning application was completed by Jersey City Anti-Violence Coalition Movement Founder and Executive Director Pamela Johnson after the city’s disastrous first attempt.
Who doesn’t like a good cross-country MAGA-Progressives fight?
Blood is thicker than Jersey City water, even before the lead was removed.
In news that dominated Hudson County for a couple news cycles, Jersey City mayoral aide Jonathan Noriega Gomez was fired in August for not denouncing his anti-LGBT+ sister’s hate-filled MAGA candidacy in the primary race for Missouri secretary of state.
The added twist to the story is that Gomez was a member of the city’s LGBTQ+ Task Force at the time. He resigned the position after it was learned he donated to his sister’s campaign, but that wasn’t enough for Mayor Steve Fulop.
A few months later, Gomez sued Fulop and the city.
Among the other notable stories in 2024:
- “Plays well with others” apparently wasn’t a prerequisite to join the Jersey City school board
- It was e-bikes vs. Hoboken and for the most part, the e-bikes won
- Is it cannabis or can’t-abis: Two years after marijuana became legalized, Hoboken and Jersey City continued to struggle with how to regulate it
