PERTH AMBOY — A week after the city was ordered by the state to cut $8 million in anticipated revenues from the $58 million budget, city officials have presented plans to cut half the requested amount.

In a last ditch effort to prevent a massive tax increase in Perth Amboy, city officials are traveling to Trenton this week with documents to prove the city has $8 million in revenue that the state has demanded be removed from the budget.

Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas vehemently denied Friday that his administration included revenues in the fiscal 2005-2006 budget that it didn't have.

With the end of Perth Amboy's fiscal year quickly approaching, the state has ordered the city to remove $8 million in proposed revenues from its budget before it adopts the $58 million spending plan.

PERTH AMBOY — Mayor Joseph Vas has prided himself on his fiscal record, saying he has used taxes as a revenue of last resort during his 15 years in office.

But now that Vas, a 19th Legislative District assemblyman, is seeking the vacant 13th Congressional District seat, Albio Sires, his opponent in the June Democratic primary, is questioning whether Vas is hiding information needed for the state to approve the city's budget, which is late in being adopted.

It has been almost seven months since Perth Amboy introduced its budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 and ends June 30, but the state has yet to give the city permission to adopt the $58 million spending plan.

DISTRICT 13. We’re trying very hard to understand Joe Vas's various reactions to holding a special election to fill Bob Menendez's seat from November to
January.

Assemblyman Joseph Vas may have caused himself some serious political problems when he all but accused Governor Jon Corzine of breaking the law by colluding with former Assembly Speaker Albio Sires to prevent him from running in the special election to fill out the remainder of Robert Menendez's term in Congress. Corzine has endorsed Sires for the seat, and sources confirm that Corzine's office was not happy with Vas' statements.

A spokesman for congressional candidate Joseph Vas is charging the Corzine administration with concealing a special election from Vas to favor his opponent, Assemblyman Albio Sires.

Democratic voters in the 13th Congressional District may be confused when they walk into the voting booths in June.

They will actually have two elections on the primary ballot: a special election to fill two months of the unexpired term of former U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez and the regular election to choose the Democratic nominee to run for the seat in November.

But one of the two candidates who have campaigned so rigorously in the past two months to replace Menendez in the House won't be on both ballots.

Perth Amboy Mayor and state Assemblyman Joseph Vas has no excuse for his impassioned defense and request for leniency for a 41-year-old convicted sex offender who took advantage of a 15-year-old girl.

PERTH AMBOY — Assemblyman Joseph Vas, who prides himself in the legislation he has introduced to toughen laws against sex offenders, wrote a letter two years ago seeking leniency for man who had admitted having sex with a teenager.

ALBIO SIRES got his first taste of politics at age 10, and it wasn't exactly encouraging.

Two weeks after The Jersey Journal broke the story of a Kearny man who died after suffering a heart attack on a Newark-bound PATH train, legislators are calling for a bill that would require transit agencies to equip buses, trains and transit stations with defibrillators.

"I was shocked to find out that they didn't have them," said Assemblywoman Joan Quigley, D-Jersey City, referring to the series of articles in the Journal that spurred the legislation, which is being co-sponsored by Assemblyman Albio Sires, D-West New York. "It seems like a common sense place to put them."

The writing's on the wall for Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas: In order to replace Robert Menendez as the representative of the 13th Congressional District, he'll have to wage an uphill battle.

Albio Sires, the former Assembly speaker, yesterday formally announced his candidacy in the 13th Congressional District and toured several communities in the district, including Carteret and Elizabeth, to visit constituents and rally support.

Flanked by Gov. Jon Corzine and a host of other Democratic bigwigs, Assemblyman Albio Sires, D-West New York, formally threw his hat into the race for the 13th Congressional District seat, left vacant by newly appointed U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

Former Assembly Speaker Albio Sires wanted to send a message yesterday that state Democrats are fully behind his bid for the congressional seat vacated by Sen. Robert Menendez.