This past June, while many Mercer students were off campus and others were working and taking summer classes, Trenton elected a new mayor, Reed Gusciora. The battle for leadership resulted first in a split between six candidates, requiring in a runoff election between Gusciora and Paul Perez that Gusciora went on to win with 52 percent of the vote.
The run-off was unusually dramatic as the candidates, both running as Democrats, showcased contrasting styles and both stood to be record setters for the position, Perez the first Latino or Gusciora the first openly gay Trenton mayor.
Perez, a Puerto Rican American and Army veteran, was quick to take offense and to give offense often cursing to emphasize his points. He sparred not only with the Gusciora campaign but also with the local newspapers, bloggers, and even the Democratic party.
In a May interview with The Trentonian he said, “Does the Democratic party not like me? Fuck yeah they don’t like me, because I’m demonstrating to them that the people are tired of them.” He was particularly defensive about claims from multiple sources suggesting he exaggerated and embellished his qualifications for office.
The Trentonian specifically called out the fact that Perez said he had graduated from Harvard, whereas he had only completed a three-week program at Harvard. Only after the Trentonian reporter showed him a video in which he called himself a Harvard graduate did Perez conceded that he may have used the wrong term. However, in his concession speech on June 12, he said, “We kicked ass and, guess what, fuck The Trentonian!”
Gusciora’s campaigning style was more measured.
Garrett Racz, a TCNJ student, and leader of the the Campus Democrats, who served as a field organizer on Mayor Gusciora’s campaign told The VOICE, “We didn’t have a lot of people, so it needed to be perfectly run. We needed to have all our resources put to the right areas, areas where if we maximized our turn our we’d win. So, for example, the West Ward. That’s where Reed lives, and if you win the West Ward, you win Trenton,” Racz said.
Trenton’s political history played a role in the election.
The city has been marked by a history of political corruption, most notoriously with the arrest of former mayor Tony Mack in 2014 after which he was sentenced to 58 months in federal prison for peddling influence and accepting $119,000 in bribes. (In an odd coincidence, Mack was released from the Memphis federal prison just three weeks before the run-off election.)
Racz said, “When former Mayor Eric Jackson ended up endorsing Paul Perez it turned out to really hurt his campaign, because people wanted to be out with the old, in the new, and when anyone was associated with anything from the past, it ended up really hurting them.”
Mayor Gusciora has lived in Trenton since 2011 and was formerly Assemblyman for the fifteenth district representing parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, and Trenton for 20 years. He completed his undergraduate work at Catholic University of America with a B.A in Politics and International Relations and went on to get his law degree from Seton Hall. He worked as a Municipal Prosecutor in the Princeton, Lawrenceville and Hopewell Boroughs and has taught as a Political Science adjunct professor at The College of New Jersey.
One current Mercer student Chiagoziem Sibeudu, an Engineering major who lives in Trenton voted for Gusciora. He says of the new mayor, “I like how he is focused on the administrative issues within our capital.”
Perez and Gusciora faced off in a debate held on MCCC’s Trenton campus back on June 3. Core issues were addressed such as former Governor Chris Christie’s $250 million effort to move three State buildings away outside the downtown redevelopment zone. Gusciora reiterated his opposition to the plan. Perez was initially opposed to it but later changed sides.
Other central campaign issues were improving: water quality, public safety, education, and economic development for the city of Trenton.
Mayor Gusciora told The VOICE in a brief phone interview that he hopes to “turn the image of the city around so that people want to invest and move into the city, and make difference.”
