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Hoboken City Council meeting tonight at 7:00. They’ll be honoring the late Budd Schulberg who wrote “On the Waterfront.”
The Hoboken Journal is carrying the live feed of the complete proceedings.
One great feature of The Hoboken Journal site is the lack of censorship. Something that Hoboken411 still can’t seem to grasp.
With Labor Day falling a full week into September, holiday schedules are all over the map. Is everyone back in post summer mode or not? In the famous words of actress Penelope Cruz, “I dun think so.”
Although there’s been a slow down of sorts with so many folks taking the end of summer vacations, there’s still been quite an impressive amount of local news:
As reported in Hoboken Now: the recent swine flu task force set up by Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer will focus on schools and local emergency services and along with experienced volunteers like Jonathan Metsch, Hoboken resident and former CEO for the Jersey City Medical Center, they are going to lead the charge to limit its impact. The expectations of this flu variant is beginning to be highlighted by stronger preventive action taken by many municipalities and Glen Cove, NY even announced a policy of limiting touch in school to reduce the spread of the virus. 50 Students at Emory University are already in quarantine on campus in Georgia and a number of municipalities are discussing measures, some quite extreme to combat its potential spread. When this began we had some horse intuition it would be larger and far graver than originally anticipated. That feeling was especially strong in the Southwest but the strength of the virus’ spread indicates that even 800K New Yorkers may have already been exposed. The vaccine rushed into service will not be available in large doses early fall and we question its effectiveness as well. It’s good that the town is taking this seriously in advance. Nationally, the number of potential deaths has been mentioned in the 92,000 range. Is longtime Hudson County operative and former Cammarano political consultant Paul Swibinksi on the Beth Mason payroll running the recent spate of push poll calls to Hoboken residents? We can’t say with absolute certainty but the real question remains, is this an operation underway to pave the way for a full bore Mason 2.0 run for mayor or a mere feint to gauge the possibility? We know that Swibinski’s proposal has been sitting on Beth Mason’s desk for a while now. Has she signed off on the dotted line for the full plan? A special showing of “On the Waterfront” was presented at Pier A Park Tuesday night to honor its writer Budd Shulberg. That the 95 year old director made it to Hoboken for a special reading of his classic screenplay just before his passing strikes us as ironic and noteworthy but this special viewing added to the summer series was perfectly fitting for a man who saw service in writing against corruption. (Tonight’s City Council meeting will also announce a proclamation honoring Schulberg.) Ian Sacs will head the Hoboken Transportation and Parking Utility and now starts this week in the position replacing Dave Roberts’ appointee John Correa . It appears that every time Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer picks up a pen at City Hall, the taxpayers are rewarded. We have to wonder if this is a bad thing to anyone other than the culture of corruption vultures and the usual suspects. We’re also wondering if Perry “the burka wearer” Klaussen over at Hoboken411 is in full head to toe girlie regalia when he goes on his binge of hate, spinning this appointment into something negative. He can’t even manage to approve the fact of a reduced 10K salary for a professional who’s background is a solid bet for the post. Would he take the position for 50K as he suggests? Terry Labruno, Director of Health and Human Services announced her resignation and that she is taking her gravelly voice back to the education world at St. Peters. She also added that she was not pushed out. Frankly, does anyone care? With the swine flu virus expected to have a strong impact in our community, the sooner we have another professional in this role the better. We’ll miss her crazy outbursts at City Council meetings if for nothing more than to remind voters of what the old, dark ways are all about. Has community service ever been more important to Hoboken than today? With the economy in distress the need is greater than ever. If you ever contemplated the worth of contributing any of your time, theUnited Synagogue of Hoboken
As we are about to officially say goodbye to summer with Labor Day around the corner, here’s a video a girl sent me that had me laughing and rooting for the guy who got his exit visa from an office. There’s no audio and I have no idea on its authenticity or origin.
Had a very hard time not laughing more through the video and kinda cheering the guy on. It’s also hard to distinguish what’s funnier, the people who quickly get out of the line of fire and do nothing but watch or the guys that decide to intervene.
The finale to the summer music series at Sinatra Park concluded last night and if you missed it, you need to contact City Hall and demand a property tax refund. It was that good. Led by son of Hoboken, Cuban born Julio Fernandez, guitarist of Spyro Gyra fame, the assembled musicians included some masterful talent and they put it to immediate use.
Here’s their Sly and the Family Stone version of “Dance to the Music” seamlessly morphed into “Wanna Take you Higher.” You can’t hear how dynamic it was live, (especially the thundering bass line) but the enthusiasm of both the musicians and crowd is unmistakable.
Update: City Hall’s legal arm will begin the process of examining the current pay to play laws around the Labor Day holiday. The following editorial was posted yesterday. More on this to come.
The nefarious neutering of Hoboken’s “pay to play” laws has breached the ethical if not legal aspects of the town’s political aspirations for honest, fair elections. As Hoboken Now previously reported, multiple Political Action Committees (PACs) set up out of state by union and developer funds easily found their way into the aspiring Peter Cammarano’s campaign pocket. Although sources within the opposition campaigns suggest it was old news, the public posture of Cammarano’s people last May had pointed the finger at Beth Mason’s campaign. The smear fliers escalated and continued in the runoff election where Councilwoman Zimmer was narrowly defeated after all absentee ballots were counted. Which leads to the question, how much influence did all this money from outside Hoboken buy and how do such monies dilute if not disenfranchise Hoboken voters?
Stopped by the other day and looks like they are moving along nicely and getting closer to their grand opening. No known date but the pictures up on the wall say it shouldn’t be long now. Some friends from out of town have already expressed interest in going.
And they’re hiring!
Related: Hoboken’s Restaurant Row
Last Wednesday night, former Cammarano Transition Team head Mike Novak inspired a gathering at City Bistro in the hopes to lift the local economy and raise some spirits and a political party broke out. While active residents pondered a summer evening with two competing town events, the real action took place later on the roof deck at City Bistro. A fly on the wall has passed along the happenings among the Hoboken political glitterati where more plotting took place than a typical work of Shakespeare.
It’s a summer Friday and the dog days of August. Humidity has reared its head when it was almost a forgotten memory and the air conditioners are running in salvation mode. What lies ahead? There’s a tasty treat coming your way: promise.
So with the Mega Millions now over $200 million, let’s say one person in Hoboken wins. What could you buy or since this is New Jersey who would you buy? And why? The possibilities are endless. You would have enough money to build a 5,000 seat baseball stadium and run your own little AA baseball team where it all started. And you wouldn’t even need to build any 40 or 50 story building next to it in any grand “compromise.”
Councilwoman Beth Mason announced details of a northwest concept plan and the biggest buzz concerned the possibilities of a ballpark and which Double A team would be willing to undertake such a project and come to Hoboken. The Yankees Double A affiliate, the Trenton Thunder was mentioned several times although Councilwoman Mason stated there was interests among several Double A prospects without naming names.
The concept plan and Councilwoman Mason emphasized it was just the beginning of a conversation with the community included some in-depth detailed plans for the area that includes new space for a Hoboken museum, a boutique hotel, a light rail stop, an office and convention center, a sports complex and of course a baseball stadium that could seat in the range of 5,000 spectators.
Hoboken Now via the help of an anonymous Hoboken resident has just broken the story on the smear fliers that were being mailed to every voter in Hoboken before the runoff election. Although the rat Cammarano (Camma-RAT-0) is finished here, his legacy lives on in the form of these sinister PACs that clearly violate the spirit if not the legal integrity of the pay to play laws.
We’ll have more to say on this but for the moment we must bow down and thank this Hoboken resident (who wishes to remain anonymous), Hoboken Now and Carly Baldwin. Major salute to all!