He’s not on the ballot in this election, but Gov. Christie could play a big part in determining the next mayor of Atlantic City.
Christie has repeatedly skirmished with Democratic Mayor Lorenzo Langford, calling him a failed mayor who is all but impossible to work with. Langford counters that Christie is a bully and has famously likened the governor's turnaround plan for Atlantic City to the way a pimp treats a prostitute. Langford also compared it to apartheid, for leaving predominantly black areas out of a special state-administered zone targeted for extra police and sanitation efforts.
Langford, 57, is a former casino dealer seeking a third full four-year term as mayor. He previously ran the city from 2002 to 2005 and won a special election in 2008 and a full term in 2009.
He is being challenged by Atlantic County Freeholder Charles Garrett, who won the backing of the county Democratic Party over the incumbent, and David Davidson Jr., the retired former head of Atlantic City's police union.
Langford touts his managerial experience in a time of shrinking revenues. Because of the recession, plunging casino revenues with competition in nearby states and a wave of successful appeals by casinos seeking to have their property taxes lowered, Langford said the city has to get by on $35 million to $40 million less a year than it did just a few years ago. Langford cut 700 workers from the 2,000-employee payroll Atlantic City had at the start of his current term, including 100 police officers.
He said the city saw the opening of a long-awaited supermarket during his term, and his administration inked a development deal with a group including former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal to redevelop the run-down Inlet section of the city.
But it is his frosty relationship with Christie that defines much of his public image outside of Atlantic City.
“I would have liked for it to have been better,” Langford said of his interactions with the governor. “But Chris Christie is a bully. The governor's problem is he leaps before he looks. I can work with anybody; I don't even have to like you. But the governor is a bully, and I'm not one who can take that silently.”
When Christie went on national TV to blast Langford's evacuation efforts before Superstorm Sandy, Langford hit back, saying he relished a chance “to go mano-a-mano” with the governor.
Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie, said Langford chooses to be uncooperative.
“The governor wants to work toward Atlantic City's future with all willing participants; Mayor Langford is not one of those, and he has voluntarily absented himself from any constructive involvement whatsoever,” Drewniak said. “His comments make him an outlier in his own city, when you take into account all the people and leaders of the state who are working together to help make a successful future for Atlantic City.”
The problems started in 2010 shortly after Christie commissioned a task force to study ways to revive Atlantic City, which continues to lose business to casinos in neighboring states and whose neighborhoods suffer from problems common to cities, including crime, drugs and poverty. Langford has said the state appears intent on taking over Atlantic City, and to do that needed to portray it as a dying city in need of a rescuing hand.
He says Atlantic City's crime statistics are based on its permanent population of less than 40,000 residents and don't take into account tens of thousands of daily commuters and casino patrons.
Before long, he was portraying a tourism district created by the state as something akin to South Africa's former apartheid system of racial separation. But Drewniak noted that Langford, as a member of the state agency that created the plan, voted for it last year.
Garrett, 66, said Langford has a hard time getting along with others and the past four governors _ to the detriment of Atlantic City's residents.
“The mayor has a problem building bridges,” Garrett said. “He thinks somehow Atlantic City can exist in a universe by itself. And frankly, we need the state.”
Langford said the county backed Garrett as “an individual they can control and manipulate. They cannot control and manipulate Langford.”
Garrett said the tourism district should be given more time to succeed and should be extended citywide. He said crime has gone up, and some roads have not been repaved in decades.
Davidson, 51, a career police officer who retired last year, said Langford's administration “lacks common sense.”
“It didn't make sense to me why he wouldn't work with the unions in a cooperative fashion,” he said. “He lacks an ability to communicate and to keep personalities out of the conference room in dealing with people he doesn't like.”
Davidson said his first act as mayor would be to lead a march from his inauguration to a crime-ridden public housing project nearby.
“As police officers, we're results-oriented,” Davidson said. “If something is not working, back out, regroup, re-plan and go back in. Failure is not an option.”
The Democratic primary is Tuesday. The winner will face Republican Don Guardian, head of the city's Special Improvement District, in the November general election. He is unopposed in the GOP primary.
