Petitions to consolidate elections, Church Square Park fixes, and Pier A/9-11 memorial funding are on tap for the first council meeting after the summer.  There’s also much more on some sanguine issues across the board including the big downtown NJ Transit area redevelopment.

The petitions to move the elections to November and eliminate runoffs is before the council.  It’s counter intuitive but a no vote by the council puts the public’s referendums on the November ballot.  Should be interesting listen to some people who were for the people deciding until they were against it.  The Old Guard is none too pleased with higher turnout November elections as they cling to Old Hoboken voters who see for themselves improvements for the many and not the few.  This should be entertaining and comes early in the meeting.

There’s also the competing cafe rules back again.  The same issue occurred at a prior meeting with Councilwoman Jen Giattino presenting a well researched ordinance against her then seating partner Tim Occhipinti.  The council landed up shelving the effort on both seeking in a rare instance more effort outside the body.  Good idea in general, poor instance to apply here.

Now both ordinances are back and MSV hasn’t looked into any latest round of changes it but we’re pretty sure Occhipinti hasn’t changed anything.  He doesn’t have to have facts on his side, make sense or work with others.  That’s not his experience, his mindset or capability.  His only development on the City Council working with others is to drone on repeating himself making everyone’s ears hurt.  He never sways others with his argumentation but he insists they hear his talking points over and over and over.

 At the last City Council meeting when challenged how he’s cost the city millions of dollars with obstruction tactics on the midtown garage, he mutters “revisionism” in response.

As if.

There’s also a number of items related to “affordable housing” re: taxpayer subsidized housing.  It sounds noble to say you are for “affordable housing,” less so when you call it what it really is – taxpayer subsidized housing.   In Hoboken, it’s a political tool, used with no accountability to the public more in line with Soviet style corruption in both form and substance.

There’s funding for a review of the process but does it include short, mid and long term analysis on the impact to the people paying the freight in Hoboken?  MSV’s review of the public documentation is unclear and in the not too distant future the City of Hoboken faces a reval.  (Yes, it’s lurking out there.)

MSV is in agreement with The Hoboken Journal what’s been missing in the subsidized housing shell game in Hoboken is accountability.

Before anyone gives away the store and pats themselves on their respective backs for helping one group of people at the expense of others, maybe a full evaluation of subsidized housing in Hoboken – past, present and future is in order.

The taxpayers foot the bill for decades!

Here’s the complete agenda for tonight’s meeting.

http://www.hobokennj.org/docs/council/agenda12/ccm-9-5-12.pdf

Dr. Abby Jacobs embraces Mayor Dawn Zimmer after a Sunday special meeting of the City Council last Fall finally saw the Old Guard  relent allowing the hospital to move ahead on its own keeping its doors open.  Beth Mason led the attempt to subvert the hospital sale and destroy more than a 1,000 families along the way. Her political objectives included bankrupting the City for political gain.

Talking Ed Note:  Since this is Hoboken, there’s always the unexpected with drama and political maneuvering.  The move of public speakers, the public portion to the early part of the meeting was a success even in the dead of summer August meeting.  MSV advocated for such a move early this year so the public could speak at a reasonable time, not after midnight.

It’s a double edged sword though.  MSV signed up at 9:30 in the meeting last July and discovered asking for public documents to be made public can find you in a lot of trouble.  That inspired Beth Mason to announce a lawsuit on the way, one she asked the City Council to handle “appropriately” as she said.

You are able to speak before the City Council with hat in hand making requests but if you criticize Beth Mason and her Old Guard allies, out comes her checkbook and here comes the lawsuit.

It’s despicable but this is the same person who was so craven in her political cynicism, she repeatedly tried to see the hospital closed costing over 1,000 families their livelihood and bankrupt the City of Hoboken – all for political gain.

So what’s a mere SLAPP to a dozen of so residents who dare to criticize corruption and Beth Mason?