Jersey City Public Safety Director James Shea, one of the first appointees of Mayor Steven Fulop’s administration,

By John Heinis/Hudson County View

“This letter is to confirm that I will be resigning from my position as Public Safety Director … Thank you for the opportunity to serve in your administration,” Shea wrote in a letter to Fulop on New Year’s Eve.

He added that his resignation will be effective on January 14th at midnight, Fulop’s last day in office before Solomon, a two-term Ward E councilman, succeeds him.

Shea is the second Jersey City municipal director to announce they will be leaving before Solomon takes the reigns, following Department of Infrastructure Director Barkha Patel, who announced she would also be leaving as of January 14th, as only HCV reported.

Fulop became mayor on July 1st, 2013 and Shea, a former NYPD deputy chief, was appointed the city’s first public safety director less than three weeks later.

“Jim Shea restructured the police department, hired and promoted more officers than any chief before him, led Jersey City through a mass shooting, and helped deliver the lowest homicide numbers in our city’s history. He ignored politics, focused on results, and made Jersey City safer,” the outgoing mayor emphasized.

Solomon declined to comment, but he, along with all the other major mayoral candidates, said they would not keep Shea on board if elected, opting to one again have the police and fire departments operate separately from one another.

The mayor-elect’s public safety plan includes hiring 100 new officers, bringing back a traffic enforcement unit, eliminating mandatory fixed posts and urging the state legislature to authorize a civil complaint review board (CCRB) with subpoena power – among other things.

Back in March, the Jersey City Council approved a vote of no confidence for Shea by a tally of 6-1(2), with Councilwoman-at-Large Amy DeGise voting no, while then-Ward B Councilwoman Mira Prinz-Arey and Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh abstained.

The action was largely symbolic, given that Shea did not face any formal sanctions as result of the vote.