Lynn & Tony Know
Lynn & Tony Know
How Council Candidate Ryan Baylock Plans To Fix Ward E
A stroller at a crosswalk shouldn’t feel like a dare. That simple truth sparks a deeper conversation with Ward E council candidate and lifelong educator Ryan Baylock about how to make downtown Jersey City work for families, shop owners, and commuters without the empty promises.
We dig into a tangible safety plan that swaps vague pledges for specifics: a dedicated traffic enforcement unit with motorcycle officers, concrete curb extensions to slow turns, raised crosswalks, and leading pedestrian intervals that make crossings humane on fast corridors like Christopher Columbus. Ryan outlines how to curb Holland Tunnel cut-throughs with peak-hour turn bans and license plate readers, and why consistency—clear rules enforced daily—beats sporadic blitzes every time.
Downtown’s Newark Avenue plaza becomes a test case for compassion and standards. Ryan pairs more supportive housing and mental health step-down units with coordinated outreach, while drawing firm lines on public drug use, drinking, and sleeping in business vestibules. For small businesses, he pushes faster, predictable permits and smart parking: low-cost first-hour meters that climb to force turnover, easy signage to long-term lots, and residents-first parking on neighborhood blocks.
On affordability and taxes, Ryan avoids fairy tales. He argues for zero-based budgeting, department-level transparency, and a dedicated grant writing team to pull in state and federal funds—so if taxes can’t go down, services go up. We also talk growth that gives back: inclusionary housing targets, green infrastructure, and real community benefits like parks and school capacity tied to new development.
If you care about safer streets, a functioning plaza, thriving local shops, and getting real value for the taxes you pay, this conversation offers a clear playbook grounded in data and daily follow-through. Like what you hear? Follow the show, share this episode with a neighbor, and leave a review with the one city fix you want to see next.
Your hosts: @lynnhazan_ and @tonydoesknow
follow us on social @ltkpod!
Hey, welcome to the Lynn and Tony Know podcast. I'm your host Lynn.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm Tony. We are both wellness coaches and married with kids.
SPEAKER_02:Join us as we talk about all things health, wellness, relationships, life hacks, parenting, and everything in between unfiltered. Thanks for listening and let's get into it. Welcome to the show. Welcome back. I feel like we've been recording a lot.
SPEAKER_01:We have been. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Feels like it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Hopefully Ari stays put this time. We'll see.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she's she's a ticking time bomb. She's a ticking time bomb. Uh, but yes, we are continuing our candidate series. And uh basically when somebody says do your research, this is us doing our research. Yeah. We get we get a lot out of these conversations, and hopefully the people listening to as well.
SPEAKER_02:Now I know I'm not supposed to be like, this is who I'm voting for, you know? Like I'm not supposed to like endorse specific candidates, although I have, but but I don't give a fuck. Like I make the rules. This is my podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was gonna say, who told you?
SPEAKER_02:If I live downtown, I would be voting for this next candidate who are we talk we're talking to. Now, I live in the heights, we live in the heights now, but when I moved to Jersey City, I moved to the downtown. And I've been uh living downtown for 10 plus years up until we moved to the heights, right? So I've been in Jersey City 15 years. I was in downtown about 12 years, and I've seen it change tremendously. Some change is really great, some changes not so not so good. Um and I was definitely displeased with the war, specifically the downtown warde uh council members. And now that we're in the heights, we went to a meet and greet. What was the meet and greet that oh, we met uh the Josh uh governor, the governor meet and greet?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the oh okay, gotcha. Yes, yes, when Josh Gottenheimer came in for a meet and greet uh when he was running for governor. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And we met Ryan Baylock there and he came, you know, to show show support and listen to his constituents, and I was very impressed by him. Just you know, when you meet somebody and it's like just good vibes, good energy and just authenticity, which you don't really get with a lot of politicians. Like I can see through people if they're being fake and they're talking out of two sides of their mouths. And he was just like, no, like he cares about downtown Jersey City and really wants to make a change. And uh so I'm excited to chat with him today.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, great. So tell us a little bit of.
SPEAKER_02:Let me read his bias.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry about that. Okay. Today we're joined by Ryan Baylock, a lifelong educator, coach, and community leader who's been living right here in Jersey City since 2018. Ryan spent over 20 years with the KIPPNJ Charter School Network in Newark, where he's done it all, from teaching sixth grade, writing, and coaching championship basketball teams to building an entire athletic department from the ground up. He's also the president of his condo association, where he's known for improving operations and keeping the community strong. Ryan lives in Ward E, downtown with his wife and newborn son, and he's bringing his can-do attitude and leadership experience to every challenge he takes on. Well, you have a newborn too?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. How old? He's uh five months.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. So you're in the trenches.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but thank God he he's a good baby, and uh like he he sleeps through the night. Wow. He only gets fussy when he's a little tired, but he's doing really well. We we love him very much.
SPEAKER_02:Well, congratulations, congratulations, Mazel Tove. Congrats.
SPEAKER_01:I want to I I want to meet somebody someday where they're like, yeah, I have a baby too. And you're uh they're like, he sucks. Like he's a terrible baby. I can't stand him.
SPEAKER_02:The first baby, though, is a trick baby. They're very easy, uh-uh, because you don't know what you're doing, so they're pretty easy. And then you're like, oh, this isn't so bad. Like we can do this, so let's have another one. It's the second. The second baby is diabolical, tyrannical, right? Like Noah runs this household. She's a savage, she's a savage.
SPEAKER_01:She's too bad.
SPEAKER_00:You're always gonna get like a reversion to the mean, right? If your first one's really like awesome, like it's just it's just probability, you know, nobody's perfect. Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_02:And then the third is like a middle, like middle. Like it's like not too easy, not too hard.
SPEAKER_01:It's a mix, yeah. Mixed bag. Mixed bag. But at that point, you're just like uh you're calm, you don't care.
SPEAKER_02:You're like whatever.
SPEAKER_01:The little stuff that bothered you with the first one.
SPEAKER_02:It's like chaos as it is, you know.
SPEAKER_01:You just make podcasts, you know. Exactly. Like, all right, now I have three kids, one's eight weeks old. What else could we add to our plate that we literally don't have to do at all? We could interview all the candidates.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. That's awesome that you're doing that.
SPEAKER_01:We're having it, we're honestly we're having a great time, and and the conversations have been wonderful. And uh, for anybody listening, we are open to literally any candidate will not say no to a candidate, no matter what our belief system is.
SPEAKER_02:But some candidates definitely won't that's fine.
SPEAKER_01:Listen, that's fine, but it's not gonna be on our it's not gonna be on our end that they don't get the opportunity. So with that being said, we let's jump into it. There's a couple things that uh we want to talk about. And number one, right out of the gate, is why on earth would you do this to yourself? Why would you run for local office? I mean, we've we've heard all sorts of answers so far. Some some range from, you know, kind of they knew that this is what they wanted to do before the election started, and other people got a call from a from a mayoral candidate and said, it's time for you to serve, and they stepped up to the plate, all of all of which I find you know inspiring in one way or another. But what what is your particular story on how you came to this ticket and this role?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, when I when I was younger, my parents, they they were both educators, lifelong educators. I my dad taught for 37 years, my mom taught for 34 years. Um, but they were also great parents, and they said, listen, Ryan, you you know, you want to do something meaningful with your life and you want to do something you're passionate about. And so um I I took that advice and I followed in their footsteps. Originally, you know, I became an educator both, you know, to help communities and to have an impact on the world, but also it was a road to be a basketball coach. You know, I was super passionate about basketball when I was younger. And like most 13 and 14-year-olds, I wanted to be in the NBA, you know. So once once I figured out, probably by 14, that that wasn't gonna happen, I was like, well, you know what? I could, I could pursue my passion uh through being a teacher and a coach. And um, you know, over my time in education, I've uh been in a bunch of leadership roles. I was a big part of, you know, Kip New Jersey, which went from one school when I was there to over 12 schools. And um I've been able to be in a bunch of different leadership positions and have a huge impact on on the communities I've served. And so what what I've never had the opportunity to do though is to to really work besides my condo association work, is to really have an impact where I lived and to really have an impact outside the walls of the school. And um, you know, I love Jersey City, it's a great place, and uh it's a place that uh I think needs strong leadership. And I think, you know, I I think right now we're we're at a place where, you know, people are paying a lot of money in taxes and the services that they're getting are not on par with that. And I and I that municipal government needs to be accountable for that. And I'm someone who who takes accountability and who takes on the challenges that exist and has a process for attacking them. And I want to apply that here where I live and where I'm raising my my son and live with my wife. So um so it's it's ultimately like it just aligns with my purpose, with my passions, and I know it's gonna be hard, but uh, I've done a lot of hard things in my career, and and I this is one of the things I'm I'm prepared to take on.
SPEAKER_02:So I wanna, as somebody who's again lived downtown for many years, I want to talk about like the specific issues that I think are a problem as somebody who's been in Jersey City for a long time, but specifically downtown. Because I feel like downtown is its own ecosystem, like there's its own issues. So first is obviously road safety. Second is, you know, a lot of small businesses are I've seen so many small businesses come and go in downtown because it's just not well to pay the rent, you know, pay rent. Like their rent is going up and it's just hard to sustain a small business in downtown Jersey City. Newark, you know, the issue with homelessness on Newark Avenue. What else?
SPEAKER_01:I think those are the those are those are certainly uh ones you hear quite a bit about. Um lots of turnover in small businesses for sure. Newark does seem to get uh a disproportionate amount of of that sort of traffic.
SPEAKER_02:And it's not affordable. Like we were put we were literally put pushed out of downtown Jersey City because it was in it was too expensive.
SPEAKER_01:We we let's let's let's frame it appropriately, we had we could have stayed downtown. We could have sacrificed space and and lived downtown for sure. But for what our purposes were and where we wanted to go in terms of growing our family, it didn't make a lot of sense. But we we were too expensive. We also priced ourselves out of downtown a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Like some people are getting like legitimately pushed out. I don't want to put ourselves in that camp. We we had a choice. We could have stayed downtown and made a water.
SPEAKER_02:I don't want to trigger people, but you're you're right.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, we made the choice. But it is it is most the most expensive ward, probably by far. And it it's probably in terms of like what wards get the most attention, just media-wise, it's the most high profile ward because it's because it's downtown, so it makes sense. But yes, go.
SPEAKER_02:I'm I'm still a little butthurt that I don't live downtown anymore because I do love living downtown. But anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, listen, we can talk about it depending on who wins the race with that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I mean the the the concerns that that you're describing, you know, you're not alone. I don't know. I've knocked on every single door in Wardy except for some of the high rises that I can't get into, even though I've snuck into a few, but don't tell anybody that. And and these concerns are the ones that come up in those conversations. And let's start with traffic safety. Um, because one, it comes up in nearly every conversation, two, it touches everybody. And three, I have close calls every single day. Right now, you know, that's one of the things like day one coming into the if I win office, there'll there'll be a clear roadmap of X, Y, and Z, what we need to do. And so when it comes to traffic safety, one, we need an enforcement arm of the traffic division. Because right now there's no enforcement arm whatsoever. So that's what do you mean? What do you mean by enforcement arm? What what's so it would be a traffic bureau, it would be a unit of around 20 to 25 officers, and you know, this would be citywide, but it would also impact um Ward E that would have motorcycles and they would uh issue tickets, you know, especially for things like running red lights, traffic signs, I'm sorry, stop signs, um, but then also e-bikes. So they would be also the the arm that enforces e-bikes driving on the correct side of the road, also not blowing stop signs, not riding on the sidewalk or down the pedestrian plaza. So that's that's one, right? But then what we also need to do is close gaps in vision zero. So there's certain environmental adjustments that you can make that calm traffic. So one is I'm sure you guys have seen flexi poles at a lot of corners. There's certain corners where we need to install concrete curb extenders to slow those turns um in order to keep pedestrians safe and lessen the distance of people crossing in the middle of uh traffic. The other big thing that I'm shocked that aren't that isn't here, it's something I first saw in Princeton, New Jersey, is uh intermittent pedestrian crossings. So this is a traffic light that it's regular traffic light, it just stops, no traffic moves so that pedestrians could cross for 10 to 15 seconds. So Christopher Columbus Avenue, like you know, there's days where I I I like taking my baby on a walk to the waterfront or even across towards Van Vors Park sometimes. Sometimes I'm like, I don't want to cross Christopher Columbus or I don't want to cross Marin, right? Um, and so intermittent pedestrian crossings allow for safe crossings, especially in high-speed corridors like Christopher Columbus Avenue. The other thing that we need to do is we need to regulate uh truck routes so that large trucks are routed around residential areas, but also so that deliveries aren't allowed during school drop-off or pickup hours. So I was at Cordero the other day talking to parents, and you have, you know, stick traffic backed up because people are dropping kids off, people are driving to work, and then you have these huge trucks delivering to Cagianos. And so, listen, I understand that you you're a business and you need to have deliveries, they just shouldn't be happening during school drop-off hours or during school pickup hours. We also need raised crosswalks. Um, I think that's something on Marin Boulevard, especially like right by the art house. I don't know if you have seen like the yellow signs, the pedestrian crossing signs. There, if we have a raised crosswalk, it's a further inhibitor of people rushing through those crosswalks. So a combination of these things, and then one thing too, that's a simple thing, that quite frankly, if if I'm not able to accomplish this, right? Not that I'm planning to run for mayor by any means, right? But I'm definitely not going to run for mayor if I'm a councilman and I can't get people to not park on the yellow line. But yeah, so like uh, you know, another thing is we have yellow lines, you know, yellow lines that say you can't park there. A big part of that is if I'm a pedestrian and I'm crossing from one side of the street to the other, I if somebody's not parked on the yellow line, I could see if a car is coming and a car could see if a pedestrian's coming through, right? It's basic. It also, you know, emergency vehicles can make turns, etc. In Ward E, everybody parks on the yellow lines, right? And so at the end of the day, that's a huge concern when it comes to, you know, traffic safety, pedestrian safety. And so that's like another piece that needs to change. But it's also something that me personally, like, once again, I don't have any ambitions to run for mayor by any means. But if I can't get that done, then I'm not suited to run for mayor if I can't get that done as a council person, right? I think that's like you know, just something that that kind of gets me going a little bit uh every single time I have to like, you know, move my baby stroller to the side to look if a car is coming. But yeah, that's the that's the the pedestrian traffic safety piece. So the homelessness piece, if you guys you guys just want me to kind of run through it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Run through run through each point, sure.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, so so when it comes to uh the pedestrian plaza, I think we need to do a combination of homeless outreach. So, you know, we we need to look at the core of the issue here in Jerry City and see how many mental health step-down units we have, which are, you know, single units for folks who need stable housing while they get the services that they need, while they get their feet on the ground. Um, so we so we need to make sure that that those types of units exist here in Jury City at scale so that we could then leverage nonprofits and other city agencies to be part of an effort to provide outreach in places like the pedestrian plaza and offer those folks the services that they need. At the same time, we also need our police department to be zero focused on laser focused on you can't do drugs out there, you can't drink, you can't be belligerent, you can't sleep. And listen, if if if you're someone who's unhoused, you have every right to be walking on the pedestrian plaza, to sit down and enjoy a nice day on the pedestrian plaza as anybody else. But those things uh, you know, are not um you know a functional use of of that space. And we see that that they lead to a lot of issues that impact the quality of life and impact, you know, small businesses. I mean, imagine if you're a small business, and I've been on emails with uh, you know, the current administration where small businesses say, hey, there's a person who's sleeping in my vestibule. They're there again today, they're there again today, and nothing happens. If you're a small business and that's impacting your business, that's that's that's not fair. And so um we need to do a combination of those things in a pedestrian plaza. We need to work with the SID um in order to have a collective effort um to get these things done. And that would be another uh priority of mine. That's something that I've heard from small business owners and and residents of what needs changing. Small businesses. So I think one is our permitting process makes it really difficult to open a small business. So if you're opening a small business and you're waiting a year for permits, then that means you're having to pay a year's rent without revenue. And so we need to figure out how to expedite our permit system for small businesses in order for them to not have such a barrier to you know be profitable and open. So I think that's a big piece of what we need to do. I think we need to make sure that the environment is conducive to a small business, much like what I've talked about in the pedestrian plaza. But I also think, you know, there's a lot of people that visit from out of town that do drive cars. And yes, we would prefer mass transit to alleviate traffic, but if people are coming in and driving from out of town, there should be parking systems that make it easy for them to park. So uh what I want to do is near the pedestrian plaza, have short-term parking, progressive parking rates, which means if you're coming for an hour, you're gonna pay, you know, 50 cents to a dollar for parking and incentivize that. If you're planning on staying in that meter for four hours, you're gonna pay upwards of you know$15 for that for that parking meter. These aren't exact rates, but I'm just giving you an example that incentivize you to actually move to a s a long-term lot so that those spaces are becoming readily available over the course of the day so people could frequent those businesses. And then clear signage to our long-term lots. There's a lot of long-term lots in downtown Jerry City that people who are coming and could park at. But in our residential areas, we need to make those resident-only parking, much like Hoboken does, in order for people to be able to find parking spaces easily, people who live there. And then once again, you have the metered, the rotated, the temporary parking closer to where small businesses are so that people could frequent those small businesses. And then affordability. Yeah. You want me to hit on that one too? Yes, please. So, you know, let's separate this into, you know, taxes versus um, you know, renting versus versus buying. When it comes to to purchasing property, you know, that what we could do is have an impact on property taxes. And uh Team Agreive plans to stabilize property taxes by going to zero-based budgeting, by having a dedicated grant writing department to aggressively pursue funds, um, and to have transparency in in all of our departments to make sure that money is being spent wisely. And I and I think the zero-based budgeting and the transparency in all departments is really important, and I don't think that exists. As an athletic director, I have a tight budget and I have 10 varsity sports. And what I do is is I understand my priority is maximizing the experience for kids. So that means my money is going to buses so they could travel to games, referees so we could have as many home games as possible, and then to coaches. And that's where the resources go. And I track every single dollar, I plan every single dollar. And most importantly, when it comes to the coaches who are paid, I make sure that they understand what doing great work is and are held accountable for doing great work. In our departments across the city, I would like to see who could I who could clearly articulate what are the main purposes of the funds that you receive, right? How is every dollar being spent this upcoming fiscal year? And how are you holding your workers accountable for great work? Because even if we can't lower taxes, which I think is going to be pretty hard, we could make sure that your tax dollars pay for what you deserve. And so that means excellent city services, excellent schools, excellent recreational opportunities and parks. So, you know, from from a from a buying standpoint, you know, I think if you purchase a home and your taxes are, you know,$15,000,$20,000, um, then if you could say, but hey, Jersey City provides great services, then at the end of the day, I think that's acceptable. Now, from a rental standpoint, you know, the main way to impact affordability is by increasing the housing supply. So I know that, you know, for for a lot of people, they they correlate high rises with higher prices. And that's not always the case. If if Jersey City hadn't built as much, then we would actually have a much larger affordability crisis as we do across the river. Hoboken, you know, d hasn't done as much when it comes to building housing. And so, you know, that does have an impact. It's not necessarily going to it it does have an impact on lowering prices in older units within Ward E, but a lot of the affordability you're gonna see on other parts of the city, and even, you know, I I know this doesn't help Jersey City as much, but even areas outside of uh Jersey City like Bayonne, and um, you know, at the end of the day, like affordability is uh it's a crisis across the country. And so whatever we could do to do our part, we have to. At the same time, though, we can't we can't demolish any existing affordable housing because if we do that, then building that housing supply does nothing for affordability if we're uh you know knocking down affordable housing that already exists. So that's something that I'm gonna fight for, you know, especially uh Vija Borinken, which is right down the street from me. You know, it's unfortunate in Holland Gardens. I know that they are promising 192 public housing units for the folks who are being moved from there. But we want to make sure, I mean, we want to make sure that that they get those units when when that development is done. But it's gonna be a long time until until that comes to fruition. You know, it it reduces the affordable housing supply in the meantime.
SPEAKER_01:We've we've gone through an incredibly large amount of topics here just now, but there there's a couple pieces that I wanted to call back to and I'll do my best to have them indexed in my brain. But the the first one I wanted to clarify is I know that your team in general are advocates for this in terms of the traffic traffic units, the motorcycle cops. Now, is that because that motorcycle cops can pursue more safely for traffic violations? Is that the idea behind those? Yeah. Okay. So it's simply to alleviate the concern of a of a pursuit and escalating the damage in that in that pursuit. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Because I I know we've we we've talked offline about the motorcycle cops before, but I've never really heard it as to why that would be better. I just assume that's why it was better, but that makes that makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00:And let me just clarify because pursuits could be dangerous in themselves. But if if I'm a motorcycle cop and I am, you know, two cars, three cars behind someone who just blew through a stop sign, right? I could easily go around those two cars, put on my lights to get that person. So not necessarily high speed chases like uh these action movie, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. And it's not Beverly Hills cop around here.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Right. But but the idea of it. And and honestly, I think uh a lot of it, a lot of it can be accomplished simply with marketing in terms of of of the just it existing is a deterrent, in my in my estimation. Like just the fact that it exists, people know that it exists. Hey, these are gonna be way more this is what these are being put on the street for. They're gonna be around, you're gonna start seeing them. And I think that that will be a level of deterrence that will help alleviate even the possibility of them having to like actually do some pursuing in that way, although obviously it will happen. But I think just having it is going to be a level of deterrence.
SPEAKER_00:Well, well, one thing I do I do wanna mention though is all this is about consistence, right? So this includes the pedestrian plaza, right? What you do is is you clearly message what the expectations are, and then you consistently enforce it. And you do that every single day, right? When you stop the actual enforcement, that's when people start to forget what what the expectations actually are. And that's when you have, you know, more issues as you describe. So everything needs to be consistent. It can't be uh, you know, to go back to the pedestrian plaza, you see a walking patrol every once in a while. It needs to be every single day so that people understand what we're enforcing. And and that piece is really important.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I completely agree. And I think a lot, I think a lot of constituent services would be uh more valuable to us if if the consistency was there. I I don't I don't know that there are a lot of things that we have to throw a lot of money into to make better because a lot of the things just they just need to happen. They just literally need to happen. Another thing that we talked to Catherine about, she was the first person I heard talk about it, which obviously I I can tell it's a team thing, is the dedicated grant writing department. That that is such a to me when she started talking about it, I was like, this is what a brilliant thing to talk about. Like, how do we we wouldn't know that as average citizens, we're not gonna be like, well, hey, they're missing out on all the grants here that we should be getting in. I mean, maybe some people are tuned in well enough to understand that, but I didn't know that. But to say there's a lot of things we can get done with other people's money, state money, federal money, like that's that's music to my ears. Because when I hear a candidate say that we're gonna lower your taxes, I'm like, no, you're not. Like, I'm smart enough to know that there's not gonna be a city council candidate or a mayoral candidate that are gonna lower my property taxes. That simply is not gonna happen. What I do think can happen, and what is the real possibility that you alluded to, is that for example, when we bought our house in 2022 to today, our property taxes have gone up seven thousand dollars a year from when we bought our house three years ago. Seven grand. That's uh, I mean, that's that's a year you said? No, uh over the course of three years. Three years. But it happened at one time. It wasn't a gradual shift, it was a one-time hit on a drive-by uh drive by drive-by appraisal. Uh they they saw listing photos from from our previous the previous owners' renovation of a bathroom and said, Oh, they did renovation work and slapped us with an extra$7,000 a year in property taxes. So if I'm gonna get a property tax bill that large, like you said, I want to see something for it. I want to see I would like to, you know, drive up Summit, drive down Summit Avenue without having to feel like my axles are gonna break in my car. Right. Like those, those are the things that, like, okay, you're gonna tax me like this, at least make some part of my life a little bit better in a tangible way that I can go, like, all right, well, we have high taxes, but you know, this, this thing, this thing, and this thing have all been fixed, and I feel good about that. And so that that that's a big part of it for me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And and just to go back to the consistency piece, right? So, so how do I, because you know, you have all these candidates talking about the same things and they're all talking about ideas, right? Like the the big difference between me and other candidates is I've actually done this type of work successfully before because I'm a systematic thinker and I'm very persistent. So, how does this work? Motorcycle unit starts, right? I wanna see data on how many tickets are issued for every single offense, right? And obviously in the beginning, you're gonna see this data. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna track that data on a weekly basis as a council person, and I'm gonna say, all right, it looks like you're it looks like you are consistently assigning tickets, et cetera, right? The minute that goes off the you know consistent line, then at that point, I'm gonna call up whoever's in charge and be like, hey, what's going on with this? Right. And that's the type of approach I would take to every single quality of life issue that uh that I'm gonna be accountable for. And so, you know, and obviously if you see an inconsistence, what you do is you you say to the folks like, hey, what are the pain points? What are what's getting in the way? How can I support you as a council person? But at the end of the day, we're we're gonna hold everybody accountable for working, including myself.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, I I you're you're literally talking about making all of the those things measurable and then tracking the measurables. Like that's that's you know, basic business, really. Like, because that's what you're doing. You're you're running a business, especially when you have, you know, budgetary concerns. And like you said, and I it even occurred to me like you're talking about, you know, budgeting financials for sports teams. Like you have experience on not, I mean, there's a lot of parallels between what you do as an athletic director to what would be done as a city council member. You have a very, very comparable level of of um of experience doing those types of things, which I think uh I think will resonate with people because that's that's what we need. We need we need some we need some responsibility, we need some honesty because you know, like it's easy to beat up on we've we've turned an entire working class of developers into the boogeyman for this for this election cycle, while also saying we need more affordable housing, which is, you know, that's a paradox to me in terms of like, okay, we want to, we want more affordable housing, but we're gonna alienate everybody capable of doing it. Instead of working with these, with these groups or these people, we're just gonna we're gonna demonize them to the point where they're gonna go like, well, screw this. I'll I'll go somewhere else. I I can build anywhere. This I don't have to build here. Like if I'm gonna be treated as some sort of, you know, devil, I'll I'll just take my I'll take my business elsewhere. So like that that's always been a curious angle for me as well, because I don't think that listen, Jersey City rent, I think in the past 10 years has gone up around 40%. And that is, you know, there's a there's a lot of reasons for that. There was a huge COVID shift uh of people that left the city looking for a little bit more space, a little more affordability, and not have to live right on top of each other during that time. I came over here during that time mostly because I, you know, I I met my future wife and wanted to get out of Bushwood because it was a war zone during COVID.
SPEAKER_00:Um my wife and I were also sort of COVID. She moved to Jersey City during COVID, and then, you know, we had uh I had nothing else to do. So I was like, maybe I'll just fall in love with her. It worked out. Thank God, you know?
SPEAKER_02:That's kind of our story, too.
SPEAKER_01:Kind of our story. It's five years today, actually.
SPEAKER_02:The five year anniversary today. Oh, congratulations.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So um but but what I was what I was saying is like there are a lot of factors that weigh into what a rent is going to be and what the market can support. And one variable can be developers that possibly take advantage of the systems that are in place. Now they're taking advantage of systems that are in place, right? They're not making up new rules. They're being allowed to do XYZ. And then, you know, of course they're going to do it, which is fine. Which is it's not fine, but it's like the there's more people at play than just like this one group of developers that's like ruining it for everybody. I think that's insane. Absolutely. So I I do believe that what you're talking about is like, you know, we do have a popular population density issue. We are not going to legislate our way out of affordability or into affordability. We're not going to stop building and then magically lower rents. Like that, that doesn't make any sense. There's going to be a lot of market factors that go into this. But what do you see? Like, what are one or two things that you can actually look at and go, we can pull this lever and make an impact at at any size because it's going to be, there's going to be a number of things. But I want to know from your perspective, what you've seen on the ground that you could the couple things you could do to maybe maneuver some more affordability for for Jersey Citians.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I I think with with every you're right. You have to you have to work with developers, you have to leverage developers. And I think with with every project, right, you want to want to try to get as close to 20% affordable housing as you can, you know, with within within the units that they're providing. You want to make sure that they're following rigorous standards for, you know, the infrastructure that they're going to build around their development to make sure that the sewers are going to be to be able to withhold uh you know what what that development is going to kind of kind of um the strains that it's going to put on the system. You want things like uh stormwater detention systems uh also in place. Uh you want to leverage um green greenery, you know, 70, 90 Columbus, they have like a ton of greenery in their in their common space up there. So you you want projects to do that. And then obviously you you want to try to get as much uh revenue out of it as you can as well. Um and uh, you know, because they they need to pay taxes as well. Um and then and then another big thing is community give backs. So whether it be a park for the community, I mean I would I would love to see how we could leverage a developer to renovate Enos Jones Park or Mary Benson Park. And the other thing that we desperately need uh here in Ward E is is another school. And so, you know, that's a lot to ask of any single developer, but if we could maximize what we get from every project, because at the end of the day, the land is finite that that that we're dealing with here. If we could get a little bit as close as we could get to those ideals with each project, then you know we're we're making Jersey City a better place like that and making it more affordable, especially if we get those affordable housing units in there. Cool. Any questions that popped up for you recently?
SPEAKER_02:No, I think he went through all of them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Then I have uh I have one that I've been asking, and it's you spend four years on city council, you're at the end of your first four years, and maybe you go more, maybe you don't. But what like at that point, you look you're looking back on four years of work. What are you looking back on going, this is successful? How does that look successful for you after four years?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I execute on all all the strategic pieces of traffic safety and pedestrian safety. One that I forgot to mention is just cutting off the Holland Tunnel cut-through traffic, which we also have a plan for to have auxiliary police on Christopher Columbus Avenue, to not allow left turns during peak hours, to have automatic license plate readers at that exit and in the entrance to the Holland tunnel in order to ticket anybody who's cutting through in a certain amount of time. That's another big piece. So all of those things are consistently practiced and most importantly, effective. I want to see that our parks here in Ward E are renovated. I want to see recreational opportunities for kids at these parks so that all families could uh put their kids in basketball, baseball, soccer for free. I want to see a pedestrian plaza. You know, the other day I was walking my son and it was time for his feeding, and I'm like right by the pedestrian plaza, and I wanted to feed him outside somewhere. And I was like, well, I'm not gonna feed him here. And so I guess I got to walk to Hamilton Park, right? Like, I should be able to feed my baby on the pedestrian plaza without thinking twice. I want to see an improvement in schools. Um, and and I think uh we could look at our schools and and just say, I mean, myself, I'm someone who has worked in great schools my whole career. And it just comes down to the fact that I take responsibility and I better my skills every single day. And that comes from professional development, that comes from leadership, that comes being from being around great teachers. This is this is something that that you know everybody's getting paid, right? Like this is something that that people can do by just leveraging, but by just adjusting what they're doing during during their day every single day. So I want to see, you know, really strong schools across the board. And then obviously I want to see as many affordable units of housing uh possible that we could build here. Um and I think if if if I could accomplish those things, then I am answering to the concerns that I hear from voters every single day. And then just like from a from a personal note, like I need to look back and say, you know what? I did everything I could, right? I worked as hard as I could, I leaned into those tough conversations, I did the tough things at every single turn. Because, you know, it's one thing I talked to when when I first met Jim McGreevy, uh, we talked about this where I just kind of talked about my process, where it's like, you know, if the first tactic that you try to achieve a certain goal doesn't work, you go to the next one. If that doesn't work, you go to the next one. And as long as you don't give up, even if you don't get to that end goal, things do get better. So if I'm able to look back and say, hey, I never gave up on any of these initiatives, and they all got better at the end of the day, um, and then then I think I I could uh I could say that I did a pretty good job. And all that's gonna be really hard, but uh, but I've done really hard stuff throughout my life, and uh, I think I'm I'm the best person to get it done.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. I have one more that I've asked every candidate because there are there are criticisms of every the top of every ticket in this race, and you're no uh you're no exception to to maybe even the the bulk of the criticism for for Jim's past and and what happened when he was in office. And I w I ask every candidate, I'm like, how do you respond to these sorts of things? How do you respond to O'Ryan? I love you. I just can't stand your ticket. What about this? What about his past? Like, help me understand, help me make sense of it, help me, you know, reconcile that that part of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I think I want to look look at this in in a few different ways. Number one, he obviously made a big mistake um when he was governor. And I think that, you know, if the biggest mistake I made was as public, then, you know, that would really suck, right? Um, but I really respect the fact that he has fought back and worked incredibly hard over this time to redeem himself and, you know, dedicate his life to helping people who who deserve redemption. And so I think like that alone is something to respect. As Americans, we love a comeback story. And uh And he's honest about it.
SPEAKER_02:You know, he's like not, he doesn't shy away from people will like relentlessly ask him about his past. And it's just like, come on, guys, we've all especially like if you look at like American politics, like it's like it's light what he's done, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but but but at the same time, like I will say that if you yes, we we all know what's happened, everybody can can move past it to a degree, but like if you're gonna insert yourself back into the public spotlight, then of course you're gonna you're gonna have to answer to it no no matter what, because people, you know, I I don't know who Jim was before he started running for for mayor here. Like I I wasn't around New Jersey during all that time, like I didn't have any familiarity with him at all. So, like of course I want to know too, but lucky we we we're lucky to have had the chance to ask him to his face a couple of times about about things. And as Ryan has alluded to, the the accountability piece and then just turning that sort of pain into uh purpose really is what it sounds like, you know, when you're when you're when you're wanting a second chance for yourself and it you're unwilling to give other people a second chance, that would be quite hypocritical. But when you're wanting a second chance for yourself and then you create an entire lane of service in giving other people a second chance, then I, you know, I think uh the karmic balance is there and and you've you've done what you can to atone. So I think that that's where you and I have been satisfied in those answers. And it sounds like Ryan is aligned in that as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And and I mean, he he's uh, you know, when we I met him a year ago, right? When when I guess it was last September, maybe. And uh, you know, we met and we connected on our passion for public service, on putting people first and being accountable to the people that we serve. And uh there's nothing that I've seen since, you know, we we first met a year ago that has run contrary to that in his words or in his actions. And I mean, the guy is like, listen, I've worked with a lot of hardworking people. This guy is like next level. You know, some of the principals I worked with, uh, you know, super, super hard, hardworking. He's like a next level of of hard work. And there's no other candidate that comes close to his competencies, to the ability that he has. And I'm really confident that all these things that I'm telling you about here, um, with him in office, we'll be able to get done. And so, you know, that that's that's kind of like uh I'm I'm I'm I wouldn't want to be on any other ticket for sure. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02:What's your favorite downtown spot?
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, that's a good question. Ooh, I mean it depends on on what we're looking for. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Like a staple, like where you go with your family.
SPEAKER_00:To eat? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:To eat. That's that's so hard. So we got married at Raza. Um I'm sorry, not Raza, at Porta. So we've we've been back there a few times. So, you know, there's there's a lot of nostalgia there. Obviously, love Raza for for the pizza. Dullboy, we we really like as well. Uh my parents have they're actually here for the month helping with Bobby, and they've been to Dullboy a couple times and they love it. Nice. And then uh what a I mean, a good dive bar Lucky Sevens, you know, got a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've been to I've had some some nights at Lucky Sevens.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh, and then very dingy. If you're out with friends and uh you want to stay out past 10 p.m., then you gotta go to see now.
SPEAKER_02:That's where Tony asked me to be his girlfriend.
SPEAKER_01:That's true. It was five years ago. It was well before 10 p.m., though. It was dinner time, normal time.
SPEAKER_02:We were sitting outside.
SPEAKER_00:And then I gotta give a shout out to Boots and Bones. Boots and Bones, I like a lot. Uh you know, the the staff there is great. So that that's another spot that I really like. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it was so nice talking to you. Good luck.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we're gonna be. We're rooting for you. I I echo Lynn's sentiments from the beginning of the podcast where it was when when I met you, it was just like you radiated uh very positive energy, very comfortable out of the gate. And now having had a chance to speak a little longer to you, I I feel the same way about your ability to affect change in that ward in a way that um it needs very badly. So we look forward to to seeing the rest of the campaign, which is not that not that much uh home stretched, uh, but we very much looking looking forward to seeing a positive outcome for you and and whatever whatever that looks like, whether it's city council or something else.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I really appreciate that. And thanks for having me. This was great. And and I feel the same way about uh, you know, meeting the both of you, you know, you're great people, and uh looking forward to hanging out again in the future. Awesome. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you.