13 Facts About Wilda Diaz

Wilda Diaz was born on Wilda Soto; September 14,1964 and is an American former politician and Mayor of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

Wilda Diaz served for 12 years from 2008 until 2020.

On November 6,2012, Diaz was re-elected with 37 percent of the ballots cast in Perth Amboy, receiving 4,404 votes, surpassing top challenger Billy Delgado and second-tier candidates Frank Salado, Miguel Morales, Robert McCoy, and Sharon Hubberman, who had a combined 7,147-vote total.

Wilda Diaz is one of six daughters of Mercedes and Antonio Soto, laborers who moved to New Jersey from their native San Sebastian, Puerto Rico.

Wilda Diaz resigned from the bank after she was elected mayor in 2008.

On June 13,2012, accompanied by State Senator Joseph Vitale, a three-time running mate of former assemblyman and mayor Joseph Vas, Wilda Diaz announced that she would seek a second term as mayor.

Annual debt statements filed by the city show that five months before Wilda Diaz was elected, the city owed a total of $181 million, and the latest filings reflect that Perth Amboy now owes close to $230 million.

In July 2009, Wilda Diaz eliminated the city's emergency medical services and transferred responsibility for ambulances to Raritan Bay Medical Center to reduce city expanses without reducing the levels of service.

Wilda Diaz was one of several mayors who testified before a legislative committee on June 20,2011, in support of A-4133, legislation designed to reduce municipal expenses by increasing public employee contributions to the cost of health and pension benefits and temporarily eliminating health benefits as a subject of collective bargaining.

Wilda Diaz urged voters to defeat the school budget in 2009, and voters heeded the advice and rejected the budget by nearly two-to-one.

In collaboration with the Perth Amboy Business Improvement District, Wilda Diaz launched a June 2011 effort to stop littering.

Wilda Diaz has received criticism for breaking her campaign promise to end the practice of granting residency waivers, which have allowed at least four high-paid municipal employees to work without having to establish residency in the city.

Wilda Diaz said the city agreed in federal court to pay fines of $250,000 and make $5.4 million in sewer improvements over 15 years to end the release of millions of gallons of sewage into the Raritan River and Arthur Kill each year in violation of the Clean Water Act.