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Bill Matsikoudis announced today that he intends to run for Jersey City mayor in 2017. Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal

(Jersey Journal file photo)

Bill Matsikoudis, who was corporation counsel for nearly a decade under former Mayor Jerramiah Healy, announced his intention to run for Jersey City mayor next year in a video posted on his campaign website this morning.

Citing his "profound love" for Jersey City, Matsikoudis is vowing to focus on implementing community policing, cutting "out of control" city spending, increasing affordable housing and more. The 45-year-old Downtown attorney is the only person to declare his intention to challenge Mayor Steve Fulop in November 2017.

"I hope to be elected your mayor so that I can fully dedicate all that I have to offer to make Jersey City safer, more affordable, more beautiful and the truly world-class city that we know it can be," Matsikoudis says in the four-minute video.

Matsikoudis' announcement comes a year before voters will head to the polls to select a mayor and nine City Council members.

Some of the criticisms Matsikoudis hurls at City Hall in the video center around the very issues that propelled Fulop into office in May 2013, when Fulop unseated Healy. Matsikoudis says the city suffers from violent crime, neglected neighborhoods and a city government "bloated with patronage," all jabs Fulop once made about the Healy administration.

Judging by Fulop's initial reaction to Matsikoudis' announcement, the 2017 mayoral race may seem like a rerun of the 2013 race, when Fulop frequently blasted Healy for the corruption arrests that rocked Jersey City in 2009. In a statement, Fulop spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill tied Matsikoudis to the federal sting that ensared city workers, a deputy mayor and two Healy allies on the City Council.

"This is scary as it is all about Matsikoudis trying to get back to when he was in City Hall and Jersey City was making national news for having the most people arrested on corruption charges in the history of New Jersey," said Morrill, who was also Healy's spokeswoman. "Who would want to relive that nightmare for Jersey City?"

Asked for a response, Matsikoudis, who was never charged in the sting, shot back accusations of malfeasance that have dogged Fulop in recent years, including that he tied up traffic at a Jersey City terminal to punish the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a charge the mayor has denied.

"While Fulop criticizes me for the actions of others, he should take responsibility for squandering millions on no-bid contracts for political supporters (and) creating politically motivated traffic jams like his friend Chris Christie, who he promised to endorse in exchange for special treatment of one his secret client's," Matsikoudis said in response.

Fulop noted that he endorsed Barbara Buono, not Chris Christie, in the 2013 gubernatorial race.

Matsikoudis, while expressing affection for Healy, who was mayor from 2004 to 2013, said he is not looking for a restoration of Healy's administration.

"I'm extremely proud of the work that I did during the Healy administration and I think the city moved forward on so many fronts during that time and some of that I was responsible for," he said. "Having said that, I'm a substantially different person than Jerramiah Healy and it's going to be a different administration than a Healy administration."

There was once a crowded field of people hoping to succeed Fulop that shrank considerably when the mayor said he wouldn't seek the Democratic nomination for governor next year. So far, only Fulop and now Matsikoudis appear to be definite contenders.

Since Fulop won the mayoralty three years ago, Matsikoudis has emerged as his chief local critic, slamming the mayor on everything from the stalled property revaluation to Fulop's push to move municipal elections to the fall. Voters approved that plan last week.

Matsikoudis has already started a fundraising push in advance of next year's race. He was sitting on a $145,957 war chest as of Oct. 15. Fulop has $20,614 in the bank.

The election will be Nov. 7, 2017.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.