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Republican Bret Schundler: A Proven Chief Executive
 Lowering Taxes & Fostering Prosperity
- Reduced Jersey City's "real" (i.e. inflation-adjusted) property tax levy by 18% despite having to overcome an inherited $40 million budget deficit and huge real reductions in state aid.
- Spearheaded the successful fight to halve Jersey City's sales tax rate
and to expand its urban enterprise zone benefits.
- Saved Jersey City from imminent bankruptcy in 1993, by turning
property tax liens valued by the free market as worthless into almost $40
million of cash, and by increasing the City's property tax collection rate
from 78% at the time of his election to over 99%.
- Took a City that was New Jersey's job loss leader and turned it into
New Jersey's job growth leader - with ten times the job growth of the
state's other five largest cities combined.
- Set the stage for an estimated 75,000 new jobs to relocate to Jersey
City by 2010.
Fighting For Educational Opportunity
- Led the fight to pass New Jersey's charter school legislation, founded
the Golden Door Charter School, and helped numerous charter schools come
into being in Jersey City.
- Founded the New Jersey Scholarship Fund and raised almost $1,000,000 in
scholarship money so non-wealthy families can enroll their children in
non-government schools if they so choose.
- Has chaired the Urban Mayors Association Committee on Public Education
Reform.
Reducing Crime & Improving the Quality of Life
- Achieved one of the steepest declines in crime in America in 1998.
- Decreased Jersey City's overall crime rate by approximately 35% since
the early 1990s (far greater than the statewide average reduction) by
implementing community based policing strategies and improving Police
Department tactics.
- Pioneered Project Exile in New Jersey, a cooperative federal and local
effort to reduce gun crime through aggressively enforcing laws already on
the books.
| "From cleaning up the city's streets and neighborhoods to cleaning up City Hall, the success being achieved here is resounding. Jersey City has become a model for the nation."
Governor Christie Whitman |
Improving Health Care & the Environment
- Made Jersey City the first governmental entity in the nation to offer
its employees medical savings accounts, modeling how affordable health care
choice can be achieved in America.
- Organized annual free health screenings for senior citizens.
- Improved the quality of Jersey City's drinking water through a water
utility initiative that was subsequently hailed by the United States
Conference of Mayors as the best new public private partnership in the
country in 1998.
Improving Transit & Decreasing Car Congestion
- Helped facilitate New Jersey's first new rail system in years: the
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, now operating principally in Jersey City.
- Helped facilitate new Hudson River ferry services, further reducing car
commuting to New York.
Fighting Ethnic & Anti-Religious Bigotry
- Honored by the National League of Cities, Black Mayors Caucus for
having one of the best programs to encourage ethnic and racial brotherhood
in the country.
- Won a federal appeals court ruling permitting municipalities to include
religious symbols as part of their holiday decorations.
- Awarded the prestigious Canterbury Medal for the Defense of Religious
Freedom. (The next year, this award went to Eli Wiesel.)
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