Author: SmartyJones

News

No show job Ravi Bhalla caught in no show job in the mayor’s office?

by SmartyJones1 Min Reading
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The first Hoboken controversy of 2019 is underway and Mayor Ravi Bhalla has some ‘splaining to do.

The Mile Square City is paying not three but four mayoral aides into 2019 and two of the four are officially listed as communication managers. This came to light to the surprise of Hoboken residents and City Council members both at last week’s council meeting.

Among the major questions, do we have a serious lack of transparency, a no-show job or both?

Trying to pace the sour actions of the mayor’s office under Ravi Bhalla is exhausting. The latest scandal shows four
mayoral aides where three was enough and no one is clear on who leaves and when after another appears.
With two communication managers, is one a no-show gig?

Bhalla only days ago vetoed a City Council ordinance passed last month limiting his office to two mayoral aides should any of three depart but last week it came to light there’s a fourth on the books. At the same council meeting, a 5-4 vote fell one short of a required sixth to override. Read More...

News

It’s Jen leading the City Council again

by SmartyJones1 Min Reading

For the fourth time in her seven-plus year council career, Councilwoman Jen Giattino is selected to lead the Hoboken City Council as Council President.

Jen Giattino is now a four-time City Council President after her colleagues
 voted to return her to the role with no opposition in an 8-0-1 vote.

The Council President vote saw no opposition as Giattino’s nomination easily won on an 8-0-1 vote. Councilwoman Emily Jabbour was the lone dissenting abstention.

Giattino received the gavel from Council President Ruben Ramos who was then elected in a similar vote for council VP.

Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher was elected to the one-year seat as the council representative on the Hoboken Planning Board in a unanimous vote. Read More...

News

Ravi Resolution: More ‘face punching’ for good government councilwomen

by SmartyJones1 Min Reading

Hoboken enters year two of the Bhalla Administration and with six of nine City Council seats up for election in November, absolute power is job 1.

Or as the Hudson County View so eloquently wrote about the trio of almost $300,000 in taxpayer-paid political mayoral aides with a race-baiting political operation directed at council meetings: their “passion” for “face punching.”

                             Read More...

News

Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher: “Saying goodbye to 2018 and looking ahead…”

by SmartyJones10 Min Reading

Official release:

Dear friends and neighbors: What a year 2018 has been… when I reflect on the year the word that most comes to mind is “intense”.  In the biggest small town in America, our Hoboken, there was so much going on all the time that required so much energy from so many.  And although we accomplished a lot, we still have more as we look ahead to 2019.   Looking back at the many updates I sent to you (all 81 listed with links below in case you missed any!), I am reminded how strongly I feel that you be informed on issues that are important to you.  It was an imperfect effort that could have included even more.  And as we bring this year to a close I wanted you to know of some of my other efforts that haven’t made the updates but I believe are important to our community: 
  • Through the Finance and Infrastructure subcommittee that I chair, I have been leading our efforts with the administration to restructure our water contracts so that Hoboken can better invest in our water infrastructure; soon we hope to announce a new partnership that will be a material improvement to both our current contracts and what was recently proposed in 2017.
  • Recognizing our need for better managed large scale projects with less disruption to our quality of life, I pushed hard this year for the administration to hire an experienced city engineer and project manager (who were hired last spring) to help us navigate the completion of the Washington St. project and to establish a process to ensure all large-scale projects – public and private – will be managed in the best way possible going forward.
  • Since I was elected, I have all but begged that Hoboken stop being the underdog in real estate negotiations.  This year I co-sponsored legislation and approved contracts for experienced real estate professionals to advise the city to ensure that Hoboken gets a fair deal on all real estate plans and projects; this allowed the mayor and the City Council to secure significant community givebacks on the recently approved Hilton Hotel.
  • Sharing our common view that we want to see our biggest small town of Hoboken thrive, I have repeatedly proposed economic development initiatives to help support local businesses that have been devastated by the Washington St. Project including the recent seasonal actions of discounted and validated parking and the Saturday Shop Hop and establishing a Special Improvement District; the latter for which I am the City Council representative on a steering committee with local business and commercial property owners.
  • With the goal of keeping taxes flat, I actively collaborated with the entire City Council and the administration to reallocate funding to ensure sufficient amounts for previously underfunded areas important to our community such as pedestrian safety, street repairs, infrastructure investment, and Historic Preservation.
  • Finally, although an area I have been least impactful so far, I have repeatedly requested that the City improve its communications on important issues –I recently voted against the various parking rate increases primarily because there was no communications nor roll out plan for something that arguably impacts all residents of and visitors to Hoboken.  
As we look ahead, the priorities that we set together in 2018 still apply and although we made some progress, will continue in 2019 including, among others:  completing the Washington St. project, making our intersections safer, fixing our infrastructure, minimizing the displacement of long-term residents, making sure development works for Hoboken, finishing Rebuild By Design to make Hoboken resilient to flooding, ensuring fiscal responsibility, fighting to protect our waterfront and our quality of life, and improving public transportation.  As one of your elected representatives, I touch all of these issues in different ways whether through one of the council subcommittees I am on, as a loud advocate in certain instances, and/or as a voting member on the City Council.  But I rely on and appreciate your continued engagement feedback for my advocacy.   What did I learn from you this year from all of your feedback?  Well, a lot actually. I learned that fixing our infrastructure is still hands down the #1 issue and that you have a preference to keep Suez as our partner.  Tied for the #1 spot is an increased concern about pedestrian safety – specifically at intersections.  You want more enforcement and a better solution.  Right up there was the growing frustration with public transportation that is at our close to capacity and the increasing traffic congestion and the significant, negative impact on your quality of life.   On other issues where I solicited your feedback, I learned that you overwhelmingly supported and are excited about having a new hotel in Hoboken.  And with similar enthusiasm, you believe Stevens Institute is one of Hoboken’s best neighbors and assets.  Most of you think medical marijuana is ok if sold in areas other than residential ones, but almost 2/3 of you are against recreational marijuana being sold in Hoboken at all (I still owe you the specific results).  And on an issue that has been important to me for a while, and one that I have been a strong and vocal advocate for both UDD and Monarch, you reconfirmed what I already knew which is that Hoboken continues to overwhelmingly want to protect its waterfront and keep it for the public.   Towards the end of 2018, I was reminded how passionate you all are by the record-setting numbers who voted in this year’s election and that something as small as an “I Voted” sticker can make voting the uplifting experience it should be.  And although I missed them, I saw how something as simple as a brief sighting of the Budweiser Clydesdales can bring a smile to everyone’s face, regardless of our frustrations or our differences.   But most of all I was reminded, daily, that in our Hoboken, we agree on most important issues, and that when we don’t, it is because of our own unique experiences which makes the debate only better.   Thank you all for your more voices (which are always better) and all of your support, guidance, and engagement in making our special community better every day.  Happy New Year to you and yours!  I very much look forward to Engaging with, Informing and Advocating for you in 2019.

Best wishes, 

TiffanieFisher
Hoboken City Council, 2nd Ward
Engage. Inform. Advocate.
“More Voices are Better”
PS – I wanted to give a shout out to the Mile Square Theatre who is finishing its 2019 fundraising tonight and is just shy of their annual goal!  It is one of my favorite local non-profits that not only provides amazing theatre to our community, but also is a source of education and enrichment to our younger neighbors, many of whom may not have the financial resources to participate.  Please consider donating to help them achieve their annual fundraising goals for this year!  Click here to DONATE!
PSS – as mentioned above, the list of all of my emails I sent to you in 2018 in case you missed any or want to read again (my dream!).  Happy reading!
9/12 – OOPS…
10/16 – I AM SO ANGRY
11/7 – HOBOKEN VOTES!
12/20 – PLEASE READ


Read More...

News

Epilogue 2018: Look in your heart

by SmartyJones1 Min Reading

As we wind down this year, here are some of the major exclusives MSV delivered in 2018:

Mayor Ravi Bhalla slobbers over NJ Transit Big Development for Hoboken

Look who’s kissing up to the Barry Brothers for a development deal

Councilman Jim Doyle savaged in TV commercial for lone dissenting vote by Ravi Bhalla’s union construction pals

Hoboken voter fraud Vote-by-Mail soldier arrested 

Random praise in BromarGate for the Bhalla brothers political decepticon on the public

Bid rigging and a $700,000 ethnic cleansing extortion Read More...

News

Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher: “NYWW Ferry Docked at Former UDD Site”

by SmartyJones3 Min Reading
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Official release:

Graphic credit: Hoboken Residents for a Public Waterfront Dear friends and neighbors: In case you have not already noticed, there is a NYWW Ferry that is docked at the former UDD site.  I contacted Mayor Bhalla who indicated that NYWW is not yet allowed to conduct any work at the site until they get their local building permits, but the City is reviewing whether they can dock their boats there while they await final permits.  NYWW has taken the position that they can park there given they own the site.  Mayor Bhalla also told me that after the City sent a legal notice regarding local zoning compliance requirements last week, NYWW’s attorney said that they will not be conducting any work this year.  Prior to the legal notice being sent, NYWW had said they planned to start operation before the end of the year. 
The following is from my email of 12/8, but it all still applies so I am copying and pasting here again.  I WOULD ADD ONE THING – IF YOU HAVE A PICTURE THAT SHOWS HOW INVASIVE THE PARKED FERRIES ARE TO OUR ENVIRONMENT, PLEASE INCLUDE THAT IN ALL OF YOUR CORRESPONDENCE.  PICTURES SAY A THOUSAND WORDS:   Repeated from 12/8: The single most critical next step is for Mayor Bhalla, Governor Murphy and NJ Transit to agree a superior location for ferry operations.   And right now all reports – ours and NJ Transits – point to Hoboken’s own Lackawanna Terminal as one of the preferred sites.  Given this approval, it may be more difficult to stop NYWW from occupying the former UDD site in the near term, but that doesn’t mean we should not stop fighting for the right permanent location elsewhere. I urge all Hoboken residents to call Governor Murphy’s office at 609-292-6000, tell him how important our waterfront is to our community and ask him to do the right thing for his constituents: protect Hoboken’s waterfront and better align all public transportation at one or all of the superior sites identified, including Hoboken’s Lackawanna Terminal.  Please also email our representatives and post on twitter and FB including the links for the video showing our waterfront and to the Alternative Site Engineering reports. 

  • Video:  https://vimeo.com/275264859 
  • Studies (further links in article):  https://www.hobokennj.gov/news/hoboken-releases-study-of-potential-ferry-maintenance-sites
  • Email Governor Murphy: http://nj.gov/governor/contact/  (Topic: Environment; Sub-topic: Pollution and Contamination; subject line: Protect Hoboken from Environmental Pollution)
  • Email NJ Transit Exec. Director Kevin Corbett – KCorbett@njtransit.com
  • On Twitter tag and/or message @GovMurphy, @SenatorMenedez, @SenBooker,  and @njtransit and include #hoboken on all posts. 
  • Forward information to your friends.  Use your own email distribution / friend’s lists to forward this email, and those from others so our community is best informed.
    • Read More...

    News

    Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher blasts allegations of personal, race-baiting attacks coordinated by John Allen, the mayor’s office and Nancy Pincus

    by SmartyJones3 Min Reading
    Nancy Pincus, paid political operative for Ravi Bhalla is linked in new alleged
    attacks against Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher





    Official release:

    Dear friends and neighbors: If you read my 12/8 email you would have seen that I referenced a personal attack that happened at the City Council meeting on 12/5 and that I believe it was orchestrated out of the mayor’s office, specifically by John Allen, Mayor Bhalla’s Chief of Staff.   If you didn’t read the email or click on the links the attack was by two people – Anthony De Leonardo and Patricia Waiters – who seemed to be coordinated as they implied and directly stated that a certain council person was a racist.  And that council person was me.   As you can imagine, being on the receiving end of something like that is awful – an experience that no one should have.  Since then I have debated whether or not to speak more fully about it.  Do I repeat the story and bring more attention to awful things being said against me?  Or do I just let it go and hope it stops?  I tried the latter but apparently, that has not worked …. LAST NIGHT At last night’s council meeting, the same narrative continued as Ms. Waiters came to the microphone again.  At the previous meeting, she said she had received a call to come the meeting to speak and this time she said she received information from Nancy Pincus who writes a local blog and who has continuously attacked me since I supported another candidate for mayor.  Rather than isolated events, I believe these were just the next in a series of related provocation and attacks from two people (in addition to Ms. Waiters) who seemingly out of the blue spoke out at council meetings and submitted written complaints, although having had no recent or significant involvement in local government or politics.  These two people are Mike Donnelly and Anthony DeLeonardo and they both have ties to the mayor’s office and Mr. Allen.    What follows is a little “insider baseball“y, but the long and short of it is: 

  • I believe both Mr. Donnelly or Mr. DeLeonardo were asked by others to perform their attacks, that they had probably no reason or experience to know or be aware of the content of their orchestrated attacks, that they both appeared to rely on statements seemingly prepared by others with similar content as seen on Ms. Pincus’ blog, and that they both have ties to Mr. Allen and others in and close to the mayor’s office. 
    • Read More...