Joe DiVincenzo has enjoyed 8,422 days as county executive in Essex County, N.J. He’s about to ask voters for 1,461 more.
Essex County is a Democratic stronghold in North Jersey, home to Newark, the state’s biggest city, along with a few of the New York metro area’s richest suburbs. DiVincenzo, a Newark native, served as a county freeholder for 13 years before being elected Essex County executive in 2002. He announced earlier this year that he will be seeking a seventh term at age 74.
In the time that DiVincenzo has served in the position, he’s overseen gradual increases to the county’s bond rating, improved the county’s public parks and golf courses, overhauled the county courthouse, and helped to modernize some of the county jails and vocational schools. More than anything, he’s gained a reputation as a Democratic kingmaker, a counterpart to South Jersey’s unelected political boss George Norcross, even as he’s regularly allied with Republicans like former Gov. Chris Christie.
Touting his accomplishments in a recent interview with Governing, DiVincenzo admitted, “I’m starting to sound like Trump — everything that we’ve done is the best, it’s beautiful, it’s great. But I’m not Trump.” Below are edited excerpts from the interview.
Governing: You’ve been county executive for 25 years and in elected office well before that. What has taken up most of your focus since you’ve been elected?
DiVincenzo: When I took over it was the worst time in the world. People didn’t even know what county government did. We had seven different towns that wanted to leave our county to go to Morris, to go to Union, to go to Passaic, because there was no trust in the leadership that was here. Several of the previous county executives had done time in prison. People had no confidence in us. What I had to do was build a strong team, which I did, people that know government. I already knew government because not only was I a freeholder, I also worked for the county government in the 1980s. I really knew what needed to be done.
A Democrat running for a county exec at that particular time only had to win four or five towns. It was Newark, East Orange, Irvington and Orange. People throughout the county really felt they didn’t have a say, because they couldn’t control who was the county exec. What I had to do was change that whole attitude and make sure whatever we did on one side of the county we did on the other side, across the 22 towns. Fast forward, now when I run, I win 21 out of 22 towns. The only town that I lose right now, by 50 votes, is Fairfield. I don’t just get Democratic votes, I get Republican votes too.
Everything’s brand new here now. The big thing is to be able to provide the services that we’re doing. All our parks were in disarray. Now they’re the best parks in the state of New Jersey. We have the best park system. We have the best golf courses. We redid all three public golf courses. Turtle Back Zoo, they wanted to close it down, the previous administration. When I became the county exec in 2003, I said, “No, we’re not going to close it down.” The public came out very hard, they didn’t want it closed. When I took over there were only about 150,000 or 175,000 people coming every year. It was like a petting zoo. Now we’re close to a million people a year, and we’re self-sufficient. It’s the best.
You had a budget deficit when you took over. You increased the county’s bond rating over time. How did you do that?
We had to find a way to cut and bring in revenue and get more grants to be able to do the things that we’ve done. And I’ve had good relationships with the governors that were Democrats and Republicans. I’ve worked on both sides of the aisle, worked directly with them, lobbied with them. I was able to, in six years, build three vocational schools which were in bad shape prior to me taking over. Those three schools cost a total of $250 million. I had the law changed where instead of getting 40 percent reimbursement we get 90 percent reimbursement.
Our bond rating was junk bonds when I took over. We had a $64 million budget deficit. Our bond rating went up 11 or 12 different times. It went from junk to AAA bond rating. Now because the bond rating system has changed we’re AA+. When your financial house is in order you can really address the issues that need to be addressed. To me that was my report card. That was the most important thing I could do for Essex County.
You’re a Democrat but you had a close relationship with Republican Gov. Chris Christie when he was in office. You sided with him against some fellow Democrats on certain issues. I want to know how your politics and your approach to building power and influence intersect with each other.
To be the county exec you have to have a strong relationship with the governor, whoever it may be. Chris Christie ran the first time, I did not support him. So that means I had a lot of work to do. I worked my way in with him and we did a lot of things together and this county was able to benefit from my relationship with Christie to get the things done that we got done, whether it’s parks or Green Acres. The second time he runs, the Democratic candidate was Barbara Buono. She didn’t have any power. She didn’t have any strength. The Democrats that said they were with her weren’t really for her. I had an opportunity to build this relationship, which I did very well with Christie the first four years. Now I had to make a decision. Either support him, knowing that he was gonna win because he was up by 30 percent, or not support him, and then for the next four years get shit. The Democratic officials hated me for supporting him. They were jealous. The people in the county loved it.
I was interested prior to that in possibly running for governor. The people around me said, "Joe, if you do this, there’s no way you’re going to get support, not only from the people in Essex County, but you’re not going to get help from statewide Democrats." Any interest that I had in running for further office, it didn’t happen because of what I did. But guess what. It was the right thing to do at the right time.
We didn’t have a strong candidate. It was going to be very difficult to beat this guy. He was very popular at that time. He could’ve been the president of the United States if he didn’t have Bridgegate. We’re the biggest Democratic county in the state of New Jersey. Christie wanted to show not only in New Jersey but throughout the country that he was able to work with Democrats. I was the one who came out and supported him. He lost this county by only 30,000 votes. Look what Mikie Sherrill won by — 120,000 or 130,000 votes. By doing that, that helped him get re-elected, but it helped him to be able to use it in a certain way — to be able to say, "this is why I should be president, because I can bring people together."
How did it help you in Essex County?
Politicians are politicians, they come and go. People that are here and see improvements in what is happening, they thought it was great. They thought there should be more of that. Nobody ever did what I did out openly. People would do it behind people’s backs, but as the county exec here, I did it openly. For the next four years after that I was able to get a lot of things done.
There’s people, political people that don’t like me because I’m not going to do the standard thing. If there’s a Republican there I’m going to make sure I work with them. Because it’s not about me, it’s about the people in Essex County. The people that live here don’t give a shit. They just want to make sure their parks are clean, their streets are clean, their bridges are done. Even for jury duty, it used to be that people didn’t want to come down here. Now I have a nice parking lot. I have nice courts. Everything’s first-class. Not that they like to be on jury duty, but they come down here, it’s very safe, they have a place to park, they have a place to eat, and it’s nice. Before, in the old days, you couldn’t do that.
If I had to do it again, I would do it the exact same way, because this county would not be where it’s at today if it wasn’t for my relationship with these governors.
There’s been some big political changes in New Jersey recently. You had the end of the ballot line. In Donald Trump’s last election there was a pretty big shift toward Republicans in the state. Obviously Mikie Sherrill won big in November. You’ve been involved for a long time and you’ve had a lot of influence on the state’s politics. How do you think the state’s politics are changing?
In Essex County it’s changed a great deal. We don’t have a Democratic line anymore, so it’s totally different. The Democrats can’t just benefit with the one line. Now it’s all individual stuff as far as getting elected. Our world is upside down now with Trump in office. There’s people that like him, there’s people that don’t like him. And it’s making things very difficult. Whether you like him or don’t, it causes division in our state, and it makes it very hard to get things done. But that is dying down now because you can see what happened with Trump in the last election, and this year in November in New Jersey it’s going to be even worse, because they’re going to come out in large numbers. There’s a lot of things that he’s doing that he can’t even get his own party to support now because they know it’s the end of his career almost, and he knows it too. Once we take over the House, he’s not going to be able to get things done.
New Jersey has this reputation for having a handful of really influential party officials, kingmakers. What is it like to be one of them and how do you want to use that power?
Listen to me. It’s smoke and mirrors. What I do is, I make my work speak for itself. I am involved politically because it’s important for this county to be involved. I’ve got to make sure that we get Democrats in there. If you don’t get Essex County you can’t win statewide. So I have a lot of political strength. And we have a strong Democratic chairman here, LeRoy Jones. In the old times, the chairman and the county exec used to constantly fight. For 24 years since I’ve been here, we have a relationship where he takes care of the politics and I take care of the government. When we need something, we come together. If you’re divided you get nothing.
