It’s silly season, Save Jerseyans, and nervous Democrats are taking an exceptionally silly shot at the top of the LD38 GOP ticket over a 2017 incident involving her bus company; by way of background, we’ve rated this district as one of the state’s most competitive headed into the General Election.
The basic gist of the Democrat opposition research dump: the Republican Senate nominee’s bus company was fined $1,000 after a Paterson, New Jersey child was found sleeping on a school bus after having missed his or her stop. It appears the child wasn’t left unattended and was therefore never in any real danger, but Democrats are attempting to twist this story into an indictment of GOP Senate nominee Micheline Attieh’s ability to serve in the legislature.
They’ve enlisted the help of Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh which moves this story from the realm of “silly” to “rank hypocrisy.”
“There is no greater responsibility than ensuring the safety of our children,” Sayegh told The New Jersey Globe. “It is very troubling. I would not vote for her.”
My counter question for Andre Sayegh:
Where the hell do you get off lecturing anyone on public safety?
Paterson is a dangerous mess, and Sayegh has been mayor since 2018 so no one can argue (at this point) that it’s a purely “inherited” problem. Paterson’s overall crime rate was 7.2 per 1,000 people as of this summer, and its property crime rate is equally ugly at 6,320 per 100,000 people.
In 2022 alone, Paterson saw “1,001 aggravated assaults in 2022, 683 motor vehicle thefts, 561 burglaries, 451 robberies and 64 rapes.” Earlier this month, New Jersey’s third most populous city suffered four fatal shootings in three days. Things are so bad that the state recently initiated a takeover of Paterson’s police department which might be helping stem the tide of violent crime… no thanks to Mayor Sayegh. Time will tell; that early October shooting spree happened months after the Attorney General’s takeover.
Micheline would make a fine state senator, folks, and for whatever it’s worth (even though it’s not the question before voters), she’d make a far better mayor of Paterson. The data is pretty damn clear on this point. It’d be hard to do worse. After all, there are warlords in the Third World who’ve overseen less carnage in their own backyards than Andre Sayegh has presided over during his tenure as mayor of the Silk City.
LD38 voters would be wise to consider the source here and dismiss this silly, hypocritical Democrat attack outright.
