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Year | Milestone |
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1959 |
Born in Morristown, New Jersey -- the son and grandson of immigrants. |
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1977 | Graduates Westfield High School (Star Ledger All-State Football Lineman). |
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1980 | Lives in Israel on a kibbutz and studies at the University of Haifa. |
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1981 | Graduates with honors from Harvard University.
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1982 | Works for Conservative Democrat, Congressman Roy Dyson, who voted for President Reagan's tax cuts and budget.
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1984 | Field coordinator in Gary Hart’s campaign to reform the Democrat Party.
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1984 | Institutional Sales at Salomon Brothers. Helps restructure $24 billion worth of client portfolios.
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1985 | Moves to Jersey City. With wife, Lynn, volunteers with his church's Food Pantry and Homeless Shelter program. Starts voting Republican. |
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1987 | Institutional Sales at C.J. Lawrence, Wall Street's top-ranked firm for economics research. Leads coalition of Jersey City neighborhood associations and an organization of property taxpayers in the fight for lower property taxes,
safer streets, and against corruption in Jersey City's government.
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1990 | Travels with his wife for 10 months in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, witnessing the downfall of Communism. |
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1991 | Runs as a Republican for New Jersey State Senate. Gets 46% of the vote in his first try for public office.
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1992 |
Becomes first Republican Mayor of Jersey City since 1917 by winning a special election.
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1993 | Creates first-ever securitization of tax liens through expertise learned on Wall Street.This innovation helps Jersey City avoid an impending financial calamity and is heralded by Investment Dealer's Digest as one of Municipal Finance's "Deals of the Year." Property taxes fall dramatically and Jersey City's tax collection rate improves from 78% to 100%.
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1993 | Replaces Police officers performing clerical tasks with civilian employees. The Police officers removed from these jobs are re-assigned to street patrol -- fighting crime instead of typing.
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1993 | Re-elected with nearly 70 percent of the vote in a three man race. Bret Schundler prevailed despite an all-out effort of the Hudson County Democrat political machine bosses to win
back their "turf."
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1993 |
Receives awards from the NJ Council on Human Rights for actions taken to soothe ethnic tensions following the first attack on the World Trade Center.
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1994 |
Founds the Jersey City Scholarship Fund. Bret Schundler raises over $1,000,000 enabling low income children to attend local private schools. |
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1994 |
Speaks at the Republican National Committee's mid-term convention in Chicago.
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1995 |
Under Bret Schundler, Jersey City becomes the first governmental entity to offer its employees medical savings accounts as part of its health benefits plan. Schundler is asked to testify numerous times before Congress about the city’s experience, which helps lead the national Republican Party to make health savings accounts a central focus of its national agenda.
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1995 | Leads the fight to break up the county garbage disposal monopolies in New Jersey.
With competition back in place, the taxpayer is the winner.
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1996 |
Leads drive to pass Charter School legislation. |
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1996 |
Establishes a public-private partnership for the management of the City’s water utility that is recognized by the United States Conference of Mayors as the best public-private partnership in America that year, and by John Stossel and the television program “20/20” as the very model of how government should be restructured to become more effective.
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1996 |
A Rutgers University study declares Jersey City the job creation
engine of the state. Under the leadership of Mayor Bret Schundler, Jersey City creates 10 times as many new jobs as the state's other 5 largest cities combined.
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1996 |
Receives the prestigious Canterbury Award from the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty.
(The next year the award is presented to famed author and Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel.)
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1997 |
Establishes the Golden Door Charter School in Jersey City.
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1997 | Schundler becomes the first Jersey City mayor in nearly thirty years to be
re-elected to a second full term, receiving 70% of the city's Hispanic vote and 45% of its African-American vote against the candidate backed by Hudson County's powerful Democrat political bosses.
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1998 | The American Planning Association honors Jersey City as the country's best example of incorporating community input into major redevelopment projects.
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1998 | The National League of Cities' Black Mayors Caucus honors Jersey City for establishing the best program in American to encourage racial brotherhood.
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1999 | Schundler establishes a second-in-the-nation public-private partnership for the management of Jersey City's Library System. Service dramatically improves. |
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1999 | Schundler wins a battle against the ACLU in the United States Court of Appeals, one step below the United State Supreme Court, preserving the right of municipalities and other government entities to display menorahs and nativity scenes. Thanks to Mayor Bret Schundler, the residents of Jersey City again have the freedom to celebrate publicly their cultural heritage without having to “white out” recognition of religion as a part of that heritage.
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1999 | Under Mayor Schundler, Jersey City experiences the third fastest appreciating real estate values, according to the Esperian National Real Estate Survey.
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2000 | Crime drops nearly forty percent, as reported by Federal crime statistics. Through Mayor Schundler's policies, Jersey City experienced one of the country's most dramatic reductions in crime.
Jersey City residents again can enjoy calm and caring neighborhoods. |
