Art, Business, & Culture in the 6th Borough
Ranked Choice Voting to be Reintroduced in NJ Legislature
Passage on State Level Triggers Jersey City Ordinance
12/05/25; Trenton – Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-17) and New Jersey Senator Andrew Zwicker (D-L16) have announced a partnership to bring the ranked choice voting method before the state legislature once more.
First reported yesterday by Insider NJ, Assemblyman Danielsen released a statement about the bicameral effort saying that, “We are in a unique moment in New Jersey, where elections are becoming increasingly competitive, with more candidates entering the race and offering their visions for their communities. And while this is good for our State and our democracy, our “winner-take-all” electoral system is not built for this. And it is highly likely without reform, candidates in both primaries and general elections may regularly win with less than 50% of the vote."
Referencing New York City’s newly implemented ranked choice voting system, Mr. Danielsen added, “As New Jersey moves into a new, more competitive era in its politics, we must reform our electoral system to fit these new times and ensure that voters can truly make their voice heard, and that candidates to public office need more than just a bare plurality to represent their communities. I intend to advocate strongly on this issue because New Jersey needs this reform, and our residents deserve systems that will allow them to make their voices heard."
Senator Zwicker is a perennial champion of RCV and by now knows full well the measure of support, and opposition, existing in the New Jersey Senate. Having previously introduced related bills, he will undoubtedly have found a path to possible ultimate success for the establishment of a ranked choice system. Though no specific bills were cited in the press announcements, identical bills in the Assembly and Senate can presumably be expected in the Spring legislative sessions.
Jersey City’s municipal council in April of 2024 passed an ordinance adopting the ranked choice voting system for municipal elections, which would be triggered by the passing of super-ceding legislation from the statehouse in Trenton.
Jackson Hill September Murder Suspect Arrested
The killing at MLK Jr. Drive and Union Street marked the city’s 10th homicide this year.
10/06/25 – Hudson County Acting Prosecutor Wayne Mello this morning announced the arrest of Shakeem Clarke, 26, of Jersey City, with the murder of Jamaal George, 27, also of Jersey City, on Sunday, September 8th, 2025. On that date, just after 5am, the Jersey City Police Department responded to reports of shots fired in the area of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Union Street. At the scene officers found a man later identified as George with an apparent gunshot wound to his upper torso. The victim was transported to Jersey City Medical Center where he was pronounced dead shortly after 5:30am.
Per the press release, Clarke was arrested on Friday, October 3rd, 2025, at the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in Secaucus and transported to the Hudson County Correctional Facility pending his first court appearance. The suspect has been charged with murder in the first degree as well as various weapons offenses.
The Mystery of the Missing Figures
Part 2 of Your Art Tax Dollars at Work
By Charley Cano, 07/30/25, Updated 08/02/25
“Curiouser and curiouser!”, as Alice exclaimed upon descending into the rabbit hole. What was originally intended as a brief general overview of the first five years of the Jersey City Arts and Culture Trust Fund has evolved into a bona fide little mystery.
As noted in Part 1, Live Wire first requested copies of the Trust Fund’s annual reports on June 4th, 2025. The Mayor’s Office promptly (the next day) forwarded the first and thus far only such report, for Cycle 1, or fiscal year 2022-2023.
This report (posted below) lists the total amounts of grants allocated and individual grantees, but not the individual grant amounts for organizations. For those I had to go to a Jersey Journal article by Ron Zeitlinger on June 2, 2022. (Individual artist fellowship grants are yearly divided equally from the total reserved for the individual artist grants.)
Though you have to work a little for them, the figures for Cycles 3 and 4 are publicly available. But not Cycle 2.
Similarly, the ‘Year in Review’ reports for the years 2022 and 2023 posted by the Office of Cultural Affairs also list grant totals and grantees, but not individual amounts for organizations. The 2024 Year in Review, however, does list the separate grant amounts for organizations, and that was the only place I found them posted. All three are posted below.
On April 24th, 2025, the Arts Council announced in a ZOOM meeting the 2025-2026 grantees and totals. The next day, the Mayor’s office followed suit with a press release announcing the grant totals. The individual grant amounts were subsequently posted to the grants page of the Cultural Affairs office website.
Annual tax filing reports are understandably at least one year behind in pertinence, just as with individual and business tax returns. Therefore, it’s not unusual that the final annual report for 20233-2024 might be a few months past Tax Day and one year behind in relevance.
What is strange, though, is that the figures for the subsequent two cycles were announced and well-publicized, even without waiting for the Trust Fund’s annual report.
Whereas the Jersey City Arts Council is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and must file annual reports with federal and state treasury departments, the Arts and Culture Trust Fund, being a public trust fund established and managed by the City of Jersey City, is generally exempt from both state and federal income tax filing requirements; operates under the tax-exempt status afforded to governmental entities; and is not subject to reporting requirements other than those applicable to regular municipal budgetary reports and City Hall may publish the figures involved at its discretion. The businesses and non-profits receiving grants, however, are required to report the income, whether or not they are exempt from paying taxes on the funds. Theoretically, the amounts reported by recipients will correspond to those published by the city. The potential for tax fraud with the trust fund is another danger and pitfalls I previously neglected to mention.
In sum, the trust fund is jointly administered by the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs and the Jersey City Arts Council. Although the arts council is a stand-alone non-profit organization and independent agency, it works in conjunction with City Hall in its operations on the trust fund and city-sponsored events like the Jersey City Art and Studio Tour (JCAST).
So what is so complex about the data from Cycle 2 that we’d have to wait a year to see it? What is different about that year from all the other years? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see in Part 3 of this ad hoc series. A second request for the 2023-2024 annual report, two months from the original request, was answered by Migdalia Pagan-Milano, Assistant Director of Cultural Affairs, who explained that the city is “working through the process of compiling the data” and offered to forward the information when complete.
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