With the sunlight fading and the temperature dropping a group of activists gathered in front of City Hall last night to once again call on embattled Councilwoman Amy DeGise to resign.
Demands for the councilwoman’s resignation began immediately following her July 19, 2022 collision with cyclist Andrew Black and have continued unabated. A video showed DeGise driving away from the scene of the crash without stopping.
On January 24, DeGise pled guilty to Leaving the Scene of an Accident Involving Injury or Death and agreed to pay a $5,000 fine and receive a one-year suspension of her driver’s license. She said that she intends to serve out her term, which ends in 2025.
Said organizer Kevin Bing, DeGise “has no respect for the law…she does not try to live by the same standards that we do and for that she must resign.” Bing called Mayor Fulop and DeGise’s allies on the City Council her “enablers.”
“Only two City Council members have spoken out against her. The others have remained silent.” Adrian Ghainda, a candidate for County Commissioner, repeated the call.
Said Colin DeVries of Safe Streets Jersey City “traffic violence is a public health emergency. We need our government and our leaders to take it seriously.”
DeGise’s record came under scrutiny immediately after the crash. A video of DeGise attempting to use her political connections to avoid a parking ticket in Hoboken emerged. DeGise was also criticized for living in an apartment at College Towers for which her income made her no longer eligible.
The councilwoman didn’t report the accident until six hours later, giving rise to questions as to whether she had been intoxicated and whether the Jersey City Police Department deliberately slow-walked the investigation in order to aid a politically connected suspect.
According to an article published yesterday in the Jersey City Times, in 2016 DeGise was suspended without pay following an incident at “a school sponsored event.”
Eleana Little who is running to replace Amy DeGise’s father, Tom, as Hudson County Executive, charged that “DeGise is enabled by a system of corruption and nepotism which uses and abuses the egos of people in power to enforce a sort of electoral aristocracy.”