(upbeat music) - We are honored to welcome the Honorable Essex County Executive, Joe D, Joe DiVincenzo.

Hey Joe.

How you doing?

- Great, Steve.

Thanks for having me.

This is a great, - Well, I got you two weeks before a gubernatorial election.

We're here to talk government, not politics.

For those of you, those of folks watching who don't know what a County Executive is, what is a County Executive and how much influence do you have in the county that we live in?

- Listen, we have, first of all, in the state of New Jersey, there's only five County Executives.

And Essex County's been in existence since 1978 and the fifth County Executive right here in Essex County.

What this does, it's just like you have down in Trenton.

You have a Senate assembly.

People over here we have, it's like a mayor working with his commissioners here.

And what we do is we work together as a team.

We do policy, we do work, and we work with all the 22 towns that are with us.

- Joe and I grew up in the same neighborhood.

Joe, question.

- Go ahead.

- Growing up in the North Ward of Newark, in all seriousness, going to Barringer High School, being a football star there, All-American in college.

Growing up in the quote neighborhood prepared you in what way to be the Chief Executive in the county?

In all seriousness.

- Being with your father for 40 years, that was a school within itself, - How so?

- Coming in.

Well, listen, he knew how to get things done.

Not only governmentally, but also politically.

And I was able to learn a lot from him there.

And also how to go after money.

You only go after people with money if you know they have money.

But the North Ward, no question, helped me where I am today.

Not only here, but throughout the state.

- And along those lines, and by the way, you should Google, put up the website for Essex County.

Follow up on this.

Joe, let's talk parks for a second.

One of the biggest themes in your administration, and again people can check this out, this is not about politics, it's about government, it's about getting things done.

You have built a whole range of public facilities for recreation, for sports, the Roberto Clemente Field in Branch Brook Park, so much in Branch Brook Park, in Brookdale Park.

Our daughter has played there field hockey, soccer, et cetera.

Why are the parks in Essex County such an important part of the quality of life in Essex County?

- First of all, we're a first county park system in the country.

Prior to me, with the past county exec, it was not a priority to do anything there because they were always in financial trouble.

So it was actually their fault.

But my thing being, my background being in parks and recreation, made it a priority.

'cause I know I needed our parks to get fixed up.

And what we did is we worked together as a team with all the municipalities, the 22 towns.

And we made sure we did every park.

We renovated every park, not only once but twice.

And we continue to do it.

Our biggest thing now is we have all our parks done, is putting together a strong maintenance plan, which we do have.

Look, we did three golf courses in three years.

In four years, we renovated three golf courses and they're absolutely.

- Byrne, Francis Byrne, Weequahic, and Hendricks.

- Three golf courses, beautiful golf courses.

They're all public golf courses.

I think when it comes to public golf courses, we're in the top five in the state.

- And along those lines, I'm gonna talk about collaboration and partnership.

So one of the things that's interesting, one of our, and Joe knows this, so, and we disclose this all the time, one of our largest underwriters of our programming is RWJBarnabas Health.

Go back to COVID, Joe.

You and I talked during COVID.

Essex County played a lead in terms of public health.

It continues to do that, particularly when it came to needing to get vaccine shots in arms.

A lot of that was in collaboration with other partners including RWJBarnabas Health.

Why is it important for county government and large public healthcare systems like RWJBarnabas Health to work together?

- Listen, we were in a crisis.

We have a very good health director, Maya Lorows who's very professional, but she couldn't do to herself.

She needed to contact hospitals and nursing homes and things like that to be able to get people involved and to be able to get volunteers.

But RWJ under the leadership, the new president, Mark Manigan and his team did a tremendous job.

They supplied doctors, nurses, whatever we need.

We had five vaccination sites throughout Essex County.

It's something that I'm very, very proud of.

We were able to get the vaccines in the people's arms first here in New Jersey, which I'm very proud of.

And our people did a great job.

It was a coming together.

It was a learning experience.

There's no question if something happened again, we'll be prepared.

Not that we're gonna do it perfectly, but we will be prepared knowing what we were doing through with COVID.

But the sad thing about it here in Essex County, and throughout our state of New Jersey, we lost 4,000 people towards that terrible disease.

And that's something we will remember.

But my people tell me, said Joe, we might have lost 4,000, but just think of all the lives that we saved working together, which is absolutely true.

And our people did a great job.

It wasn't myself.

It was a team that I assembled.

Listen, we worked on it every day, every day.

Every day we used to have a call at eight o'clock in the morning and we worked till that night and then the next day we talked about what we did and what we did wrong and what we need to improve.

And it went very well.

And it's something that people say, not only in New Jersey but throughout the United States, that we were probably one of the best centers providing vaccination sites throughout.

- Joe, along those lines, when I was a kid and you were throwing me footballs when you were getting ready.

I remember you used to say to me growing up, "Junior," and you always called me Junior, which is ridiculous, but that's what it is.

You said "There's no I in team."

I'm a student of leadership.

You are a leader.

What exactly does that mean, there's no I in team, - Listen, this is a big government.

I have over 3,500 people that work here.

I have great directors and division directors.

You know, to run a good government, you have to have good people in good positions.

And if I get any credit, it's that I put the people in the right positions whether it's parks, whether it's public works, whether it's job training or welfare.

We have some very strong people that are professionals in their area that I can count on.

And when something happened, like a COVID, I could call people together and we can make things happen here in Essex County.

And I'm so proud of the things that we've accomplished in the last 23 years.

No county government has done that throughout the state, and I've been involved with all the counties here.

We've done so much, which I'm very proud of.

It's not because of me, it's because of the team that I assembled here.

- I'm gonna switch from government, Joe, in the time we had left to ask you a tough political question.

We don't know who is gonna win the gubernatorial election.

You happen to be supporting Mikie Sherrill.

It's not about the election.

You are seen as a mainstream moderate Democrat who gets along with Republicans, including at the time Governor Christie to get stuff done.

Real quick, if you could, Joe, how concerned are you that sometimes the Democratic party can lean so far to the left that there are left-leaning progressives who are not the kind of Democrat you are.

Is there a place for mainstream Democrats moving forward?

- There's a place for everybody.

Listen, elections are only twice a year.

When the election is done, you've gotta be able to run government, to be able to work together.

And it doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or Independent.

And we've been very fortunate 'cause I've been in this county and I've been able to work with Republican governors and also Democratic governors and I am in the middle, all right.

Some of my views do go to the left but a lot go to the right.

So what I try to do is try to be in the middle and try and bring people together.

And that's what we did.

We made people believe in what we do here in Essex County.

And it's something that we all could be very proud of.

All 22 towns working cooperatively together.

That's never happened before.

- Joe D is Joe DiVincenzo, who is the Essex County Executive.

Joe, you've been County Executive starting when?

- In 2003.

Your father's the one who got me engaged in this, involved.

- He did it to me too and I will never forget.

- I learned a lot from him for 40 years.

We had our ups and downs, but we always came together as one.

- Absolutely.

Hey Joe, thank you my friend.

We'll talk soon.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

That's Joe D the County Executive.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

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