The two candidates already have running mates for Assembly. Johnson will run with Palisades Park Mayor Christopher Chung and Teaneck Democratic Chair Alexandra Soriano-Taveras — the only candidate Weinberg has endorsed. Huttle said Wednesday that she’ll run with Tenafly Council Member Lauren Dayton and Teaneck Council Member Gervonn Rice.
LD37 — There’s a short video circulating of Democratic Assembly candidate Alexandra Soriano-Taveras — who’s running with Gordon Johnson — calling for a boycott of businesses on Teaneck’s Cedar Lane during a protest at its municipal building last year. It was posted in the InsiderNJ press release seciton by something calling itself “Teaneck Main Street Alliance,” which has no digital footprint or contact info. Many of the businesses on Cedar Lane are owned by Orthodox Jews. So the implication there is pretty obvious if you’ve been to Teaneck. I reached out to Soriano-Taveras about it. She said the video was taken during a protest over the council refusing to name Council Member Gervonn Romney Rice, who’s Black, as deputy mayor. “It’s not a boycott of Cedar Lane businesses, really. There was much missing in that," she said. "It was a boycott of the businesses that were supported or owned by those members of the town council who had at no point supported ... Gervonne Romney Rice, not our youth who at the time come to the council to ask that the Black Lives Matter mural be painted in town. A council that pushed back on the raising of the LGBTQ flag — and I can go on and on and on." Of course, Soriano-Taveras specifically singled out Cedar Lane in her comment. She told me that’s not what she really intended to say. She said that prior to that press release, the video had circulated via a fake Twitter account purporting to be her that has since been taken down.
(Incidentally, Romney Rice is now running against Soriano-Tavarez for Assembly on Valerie Vainieri Huttle’s slate).
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