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Tuesday was a tough day for me. I got the double Adubato.
In the morning I drove to Montclair to shoot a brief TV interview with Steve Adubato Jr. about the race for governor. Adubato, who lives in Montclair, listened intently as I described how I had asked both of the major party candidates what they would do to reduce property taxes in the town, where the annual tax bill can exceed the price of a Toyota.
Neither offered much hope, I said. Gov. Jon Corzine would actually make the problem worse by expanding free preschool throughout the state, thus further driving up property taxes. As for challenger Chris Christie, the Republican should be slamming the Democrats for their failure to address the property tax issue. But he has failed to address it as well.
This brought out the bleeding heart liberal in Steve. He asked me how I could be coldhearted enough to deny preschool to those precious toddlers. Well, it's either high taxes in Montclair or big budget cuts in Newark, I said.
With that out of the way, I jumped in the car and headed down Bloomfield Avenue to Newark. Steve Adubato Sr., otherwise known as "Big Steve," runs a charter school there, as well as a preschool, another preschool, yet another preschool, a senior-citizen center and pretty much everything else in the North Ward. He'd been pestering me for some time to come see his operation.
The first thing Big Steve told me when I got there was that he didn't like my wardrobe, which consisted of khaki pants and a sweater.
"Why don't you wear a suit?" he asked. "You're an old guy."
Before I could reply, he changed the subject. He was angry about an item in the Sunday Auditor column that told of a grant the North Ward Center had received some years ago from a charity created by Corzine and described him as "political boss Steve Adubato."
That wasn't my doing, I told him. As a conservative, I believe in tradition. And New Jersey tradition calls for political bosses to run the cities. Back in the old days they did a hell of a lot better job of it than the courts and Corzine are doing.
Steve's tour of the Robert Treat Academy proved my point. Its cost is just a fraction of a typical public school's budget. Yet many of the kids win scholarships to prestigious prep schools peopled by wealthy WASPs. Adubato showed me one classroom after another of cute little kids in uniforms who actually seemed to be enjoying attending a school that's in session 11 months of the year.
We then took a drive across Adubato's empire, which seemed endless and included the Stephen N. Adubato Sports Complex. Along the way, As we drove, Adubato told me of various fights he has had over the years with people dumb enough to get him started. One such fight came when construction unions told him they'd stop construction of a school he was building unless he paid prevailing wage.
He told the union guys that he only had about a million bucks to build the school, and if he paid prevailing wage he'd need $2 million. Tough luck, they said. They would shut him down. Go ahead, said Steve. I'll have every mother in the neighborhood show up carrying a big stick.
Steve won, and he got his school built - cheaply. Not like the new First Avenue Elementary School we passed on our drive. That school, which was paid for 100 percent by the state under court order, cost a staggering $56 million.
It's a lovely building, but buildings don't educate kids. The First Avenue School lags far behind Robert Treat scores on every measure except money, where its lead is almost incalculable.
We had lunch in a little Italian place, a remnant of the old days. The North Ward was once solidly Italian-American but it's now largely black and Hispanic. Adubato's power has only increased over the years, however. Why? Simple, he says. Unlike the liberals, he doesn't patronize minorities.
"I think what we're doing with race is hurting this country because they're treating blacks differently," he told me. "You can't change the rules because of race."
That was his point, and he made it over and over again. By the time I got back on the Parkway, I was so exhausted I didn't even turn the car radio on. I just enjoyed the silence.
