YEAR OF REED
Trentonian names Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora as person of the year for 2018 >>
TRENTON >> Mayor Reed Gusciora inherited the reins of a challenged city.
Making history as Trenton’s first openly gay leaderin-chief, Gusciora acknowledged the buck stops with him as the public continues to demand good government and better results from his administration.
“I have been on the job for six months, and it’s been a real tough six months,” Gusciora said last week in an exclusive interview with The Trentonian. “I did not have a honeymoon as probably most mayors have had. There’s just so many challenges facing Trenton, whether you are talking about economic development or education or crime or Water Works, so I really had to jump into the cauldron on my first day in office.”
Racking up a number of accomplishments and setbacks as Mercer County’s most significant newsmaker over the last 12 months, Gusciora has been named The Trentonian’s Person of the Year 2018. “I’m actually surprised,” he said in accepting the newspaper’s accolade. “You guys are tough. It’s great whenever you see a news publication taking recognition of work.”
Gusciora, 58, previously served as a lawmaker in the New Jersey General Assembly from 1996 until becoming Trenton’s mayor six months ago. The longtime politician soon realized that politics in the state Legislature is child’s play compared with the rough-andtumble of municipal governance in the capital city.
“When you’re in the Legislature,” he said, “probably about the first year and a half people leave you alone or they let you do your job and then the last six months of your term is usually when politics usually takes over. There’s fair or otherwise criticism, which I am used to in my 20-plus years in the Legislature. After I became sworn in as mayor, the honeymoon was about six minutes, and I think my opponent’s campaign declared me a failure after about a week in office.”
Gusciora was one of the seven mayoral candidates who ran in the 2018 municipal election. He advanced to a runoff, where he revved up his “Gus Bus” and narrowly defeated his opponent Paul Perez by 305 votes on June 12. Three weeks later, the former assemblymanturned-mayor assumed the mantle of power, getting sworn in July 1 as Trenton’s 56th mayor.
Hours after the election, Perez accused Gusciora of using “filthy tactics” to win the heated contest. Then Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora and New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal talk at the Trenton Starbucks during Wednesday’s “Coffee with a cop” event.
Perez’s most loyal supporters eventually filed a lawsuit alleging the mayor committed criminal electioneering and bribery to plow his way to victory.
“It is tough,” Gusciora said, “when your opponent doesn’t concede and continues to criticize, but overwhelmingly the experience has been positive, and I’ve received a lot of support from Trentonians by and large.”
Perez is generally very critical of Gusciora’s leadership, but the retired U.S. Army officer delivered gunshy commentary last week when The Trentonian contacted him for comments on the mayor’s job performance.
“I am not going to say anything negative about
the guy,” Perez said of the mayor. “It would be too easy for me to bash him. He is truly full of surprises.” Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson, who did not seek reelection to a second-term after presiding over a troubled Trenton Water Works utility and failing to apply for 2018 Municipal Aid grants from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
Gusciora said the voters elected him in 2018 because they “wanted to see something different.”
“They saw the slide into malaise for eight years,” Gusciora said of his constituents. “They were really tough under Tony Mack after he got indicted. He stayed on till the end, and I think Eric Jackson, while he brought stability to the government, was not able to bring the consensus to move the city forward. And I think that Trentonians wanted to see something different, wanted to see some real change that I think is occurring during these last six months.”