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City of Hoboken announces:
=&0=& Mayor Dawn Zimmer invites all members of the community to attend her third State of the City address. Her remarks will include a discussion of plans for building a more resilient Hoboken following Superstorm Sandy.The event will take place on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 at 7:00 pm at the DeBaun Auditorium in Edwin A. Stevens Hall on the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology.
As Mark Twain might have said, Carmelo Garcia’s contract raises questions of lies, damned lies and conflicted representations when last Thursday’s HHA meeting saw that document kept secret since 2010 make its first ever public appearance before being quickly stowed away by counsel Charles Daglian.
Based on Daglian’s statements, the impression at least some HHA commissioners took at face value was the sole appointing authority had been irrevocably given to Carmelo Garcia for employees, vendors and purchases of all goods and services.
The controversial secret contract of HHA Executive Director Carmelo Garcia withheld from the HHA board and the public at large is finally revealed today in a MSV exclusive report.
The five year contract shows Garcia scheduled to receive a salary increase to $165,000 on September 1 later this year, an increase from his current salary of $157,500. The contract shows Garcia’s starting salary of $150,000 back in September 2010.
The Robert Rules of Order, the procedures used by many legislative bodies is front and center in another Hoboken governing body’s decision.
The Hoboken Housing Authority joined the City Council last Thursday where the latter saw the politically staged absences and abstentions by MORTe to circumvent the rules and impose an outcome using the courts could repeat itself at the HHA – but this time arising from a real error not a faked one to sue the City taxpayers.
Last month in the City Council, a motion to reconsider was attempted to give the late arrival of Beth Mason a second shot at the apple and vote on resolutions earlier handled. Urged by Councilman Michael Russo with a straight face, he said Mason should be given an opportunity to vote on the earlier resolutions, rules be damned. He saw no irony in how Beth Mason hid from the council meeting in early October with no excuse to vote on the critically important matter of Jim Doyle’s appointment to the City Council.
City of Hoboken announces:
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In order to allow plows to clear as much snow as possible from parking lanes, enforcement of alternate side parking rules will resume on Monday, February 11.
Vehicles may resume parking along emergency snow routes. Parking rules are in effect, including parking meters.
The regular recycling and garbage pickup schedule is in effect. Pickup will take place on Sunday night.
Da Horsey isn’t the most popular animal with the Old Guard. Sometimes one forgets how problematic the disinfectant is akin to garlic hung around a vampire’s neck. At the HHA meeting, the garlic was an MSV camera filming the proceedings.
After completing the roll call, Executive Director Carmelo Garcia launched right into an attack on both the filming of the meeting and the content of MSV which he called a distraction and a distortion.
Garcia claimed Da Horsey’s camera parked next to a pillar on the left side of the room was problematic for him to speak to his staff sitting at a table far further to the left and easily out of the line of sight.
In the contentious ongoing power struggle over separation of powers last night, questions were posed on the appointing powers and the respective roles both the Executive Director and the HHA commissioners hold.
According to the attorney to the HHA, Charles Daglian, the HHA commissioners only retain advise and consent power while the Executive Director holds “sole appointing authority.” Daglian would agree with Greg Lincoln’s question concluding the commissioners only have a “veto” authority.
HHA Chairman Jake Stuiver poses a question to HHA board attorney Charles Daglian on the bidding process and if he has had any interaction with any other employee or contractor of the HHA in submitting a series of lower bids.
The video begins with Charles Daglian responding to Stuiver’s earlier question if his bid lowering through the process is due to overcharging the Authority in previous contracts. Daglian calls the question “defamatory” and then concludes with a personal attack on Stuiver. Stuiver’s question to Daglian is never answered. Executive Director Carmelo Garcia hijacks the meeting and launches his own attack on Stuiver. The board attorney never answered the question.Much later in the meeting, Lincoln would vote across the board’s existing lines to reappoint HHA attorney Charlie Daglian.
The 4-3 vote came with a resurrected motion to reconsider likely acted on illegally with motions by HHA commissioners Eduardo Gonzalez and Jeannie Rodriguez. In order to execute a legal motion to reconsider, it must be made by a board member who voted in the negative on the matter prior. Daglian’s reappointment had been tabled early in the meeting in an extremely contentious disagreement between Executive Director Carmelo Garcia and Chairman Jake Stuiver. Garcia would claim an email he obtained from local HUD officials made any vote other than for current board attorney Daglian “criminal and unethical.” A vote later followed with a convoluted and confusing discussion on who held appointing powers, the Executive Director or the HHA’s board. The public portion at the end of the meeting would be interrupted with another vote likely improper to reconsider before the questionable vote reappointing HHA attorney Charlie Daglian. Greg Lincoln reading a handbook at the meeting earlier on the responsibilities of commissioners would read aloud a section stating the board was the appointing authority. Attorney Charlie Daglian handed Garica a copy of his contract pointing to a clause he read claiming he held the authority. Daglian would answer questions from the commissioners stating Garcia’s contract was the guiding federal law and the board fell into line in advice and consent. Garcia’s contract repeatedly requested by Stuiver to view quickly found its way into board attorney Daglian’s personal bag. (The contract has been a mystery for a long time with no board member able to obtain it although Garcia claimed to Stuiver’s inquiry copies would be made available.) Greg Lincoln in the first shocking vote of the night accepted the board attorney’s argument and began the decisive vote for Florio by voting no killing any chance of passage. The Florio appointment failed in a 4-2 vote. Voting yes: Dave Mello, Jake Stuiver. Voting no: Greg Lincoln, Judy Burrell, Eduardo Gonzalez and Jeannie Rodriguez. That unexpected vote outcome didn’t end there. A later vote to reconsider bringing back Daglian’s contract would occur twice, once in undoing the earlier successful motion to table. It’s unclear if that is legal as the HHA bylaws are not available. Garcia has not provided them to the board and that issue would come up with a complaint from Stuiver on that point. HHA commissioner Rob Davis who tried unsuccessfully to participate by phone would make a surprise arrival during public portion late in the meeting and yet another vote would take place with a questionable vote to reconsider. It’s a little unclear who made the initial motion but HHA commissioner Eduardo Gonzalez and Jeannie Rodriguez are believed to have put forward the motions. Again in another surprise, Greg Lincoln would make the decisive vote in the possibly illegal reappointment in a 4-3 vote. The vote came in a circus atmosphere with police stationed throughout the room struggling to maintain basic order and decorum throughout. Here’s the first vote where the stunning series of events began with Florio going down 4-2. =&1=&: Maybe the most ugly, unruly and bizarre meeting ever attended in Hoboken. Something is most definitely rotten in Denmark. Out of the gate a visibly tense Executive Director Carmelo Garcia issued an order that the camera for MSV be moved from six feet to the left of the room to the right side repeatedly claiming the presence of Da Horsey was a “distraction.”Da Horsey made like a donkey and didn’t budge.
More on this and the wilting reform votes later.
Correction: The Executive Director told the commissioners voting to approve the Florio resolution was against HUD procedure. He would describe a vote in favor of that resolution and against his resolution for Charles Daglian “criminal and unethical,” not illegal and unethical.
The buzz on the street is there’s a showdown to take action on appointing an attorney to the Hoboken Housing Authority. It’s been a six month war trying to move a relatively simple process to completion.
Why?
Executive Director Carmelo Garcia favors the status quo. Reports are he’s been opposing efforts to have an open bid process where multiple choices would become available by setting the mechanisms so that there is no alternative but the status quo.
That’s what MSV has been hearing on the grapevine for quite a while.