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The mayoral forum at Stevens last night, from left: Hoboken resident Ron Bautista, Councilman Ravi Bhalla, Councilman Mike DeFusco, City Council President Jen Giattino, Hoboken resident Karen Nason and Freeholder Anthony Romano.
Full house, the Quality of Life Coalition mayoral forum at Stevens was standing room only both downstairs and the balcony.
Lots of people filled up the Steven Debaun Auditorium tonight to hear the six mayoral candidates.
City Council President Jen Giattino presented the most cogent response during the night in addressing the partisan hatchet job mailer directed against her by Ravi Bhalla assaulting Hoboken mailboxes everywhere.
Here’s a sample of Ravi Bhalla’s mailer today delivering his extreme partisanship in a desperate bid to win Hoboken’s non-partisan municipal election for mayor.
A question was asked what is the most ridiculous idea raised by your opponent during the election? While some candidates criticized the Mike DeFusco floating pool i n the Hudson as ludicrous or being rid of cars, Giattino made one simple statement about an attack mailer directed at her by Ravi Bhalla:
Many will have seen the latest mailer from Councilman Mike DeFusco in his last ditch bid to see the Big Lie technique fool voters against his mayoral rivals City Council President Jen Giattino and Councilman Ravi Bhalla.
A quick analysis of the attacks features a reference to debt. Councilman Mike DeFusco has supported bonding for infrastructure improvements in Hoboken and to date, those measure weren’t considered controversial. He’s voiced in bizarre fashion, payments for infrastructure need to be made from the budget. He of course doesn’t suggest who he will tax to obtain immediate funding in such a proposal. No one pays for long term capital improvements out of an annual budget.
Official release:
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Dear Friends:
We have accomplished so much together but I need your help to get over the finish line. With just 13 days left and another campaign fundraising deadline coming up at midnight tonight, we’re still short of our fundraising goal. I am asking for your support once again. Will you support us with a donation of $25 or more? You can click here for an easy way to give now. I am completely humbled that 220 donors have given approximately $147,000 to date to support Team Giattino and am proud that over 90% of this has come from Hoboken. Every dollar that is spent goes to reaching voters – whether mailers, flyers, social media, or all the additional services and events. And every future dollar raised will be spent the same way. My running mates Jim Aibel, Jason Ellis and Sal Starace and I have all been working hard to meet our neighbors citywide – hearing about and discussing the issues that really matter every day to all of us. Although we may not share all of the same views, I have found that we do all share a common goal of having the best quality of life in Hoboken. I am looking forward to working even harder as your mayor to make your quality of life my priority.I appreciate any additional support you can provide, and remain grateful for all that you have provided so far. This election will be won by all of us. Thank you for stepping up when it matters most. Please vote for Team Giattino on November 7th. – Jen |
If the early story wasn’t sufficiently crushing enough to blow Sybil’s Cave to smithereens, the utter vapidity and raging ego digs deeper on the way to China.
Altering the earlier story to remove the outright defamation is replaced with a hasty attack on Jen Giattino debunked yesterday on twitter by Jason Freeman. It’s regurgitated in a desperate bid to change the narrative in TextGate.
Now the distraction attempts to point to some moral equivalence to the City Council President at the Hudson Reporter mayoral forum. Her phone is seen on the table and this presented as an equivalence to the activity MSV accurately showed depicted on videotape at the Mile Square Theatre.
Yesterday MSV established the getting hotter by the minute issue of TextGate. Witnesses pointed out someone was contacting Councilman Ravi Bhalla on his phone during the mayoral forum.
The question to the Bhalla campaign was posed early yesterday an hour before the gristy chewable goods went up and the invitation for an answer is pending. So the TextGate issue was highlighted in the Grist for the Mill rumor column. To date, there’s no Bhalla campaign explanation and no defense offered although a follow-up opportunity was extended.
Did @RaviBhalla cheat at the #Hoboken mayoral forum on Sunday? Received text messages during the forum people say. https://t.co/Gk2Rr0qHqv pic.twitter.com/hnKDdNA7Ja— Hoboken Horse (@hoboken_horse) October 23, 2017
To cheat or not to cheat, that is the question? So far the Bhalla campaign isn’t answering.
The mayoral forum Sunday morning went off without a hitch. Other than the bombs being lobbed by some of the candidates it was relatively peaceful. Until the question of campaign funding came up on the six figure flows into Hoboken campaigns. Then things got red hot.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have flowed into Hoboken this campaign cycle to two council members’ campaigns: Mike DeFusco and Ravi Bhalla. Asked what do those foreign investors expect, the answers showed classic avoidance avoidance behavior with a couple of M-80s tossed into the mix.
“I believe parking meters in residential communities are wrong at all levels,” said Valente. He explained, “It sends the wrong signal when we are now charging our friends and family to pay to visit our homes, and interrupting family gatherings every two hours feeding the parking meters to avoid hefty fines. I will introduce a resolution to the city council to eliminate parking meters in all residential areas.”