Michael Russo’s political gift to Hoboken at Christmas
Most people expect a respite from politics on Christmas Eve and even Hoboken where politics is always on the agenda for the Old Guard Council, you’d think they’d take a break from hatching some rumor mongering, spreading ill will and all manner of fabrication during the year end holidays.
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Michael Russo didn’t let Christmas get in the way of his political announcement he planned to make a future donation for Hurricane Sandy “across” the state. The announcement came in a robocall on Christmas Eve. |
The Russo clan holds some lovely digs down the shore at Belmar. Was Michael Russo’s planned unspecified donation inspired by coastal damage or was it in whole or part some new political operation he and the Old Guard is launching?
Wot a coincidence.
Hoboken residents are fighting to reach something resembling normalcy taking on insurance companies who are not providing coverage for most of their losses. If there is a step down from street level in their garden units, the losses are worse or in total based on the flood insurance parameters, a problem the mayor spoke to remedy at a US Senate subcommittee. An unknown number of Hoboken residents are looking to move back into their homes after losing everything and suffering major structural damage.
Occhipinti feels your pain if you are a hospitality owner in Hoboken and in the face of an outpouring of anger on his Facebook page, again called for bringing back the St. Patrick’s Day Parade at the City Council meeting, most Hoboken and fourth ward residents outrage be damned.
The mayor had thrown down in a pitched battle back in the spring of 2011, where a lame duck council majority led by Beth Mason savagely fought to leave the City without one penny in surplus for a rainy day – or a hurricane. That political operation failed when the State of NJ refused to approve the budget because of numerous budget errors and Councilwoman Jen Giattino was sworn in that July replacing the compliant Nino Giacchi.
Where municipal financial experts state 5-10% of a town’s budget should be put aside in a surplus to offset potential problems and other issues arising in a fiscal year, the Beth Russo hydra desperately tried to stave off the good government practice in the hope to inch Hoboken toward a tax increase should a shingle fall off the roof at City Hall without any appropriated funds available to repair it. You can hear them try to box the administration in similar ways at almost every single council meeting with the exact idea in mind.
Even simple year end budget line item transfers have been turned into hours long brawls over multiple meetings if the mayor doesn’t have five votes available on the City Council. In other New Jersey municipalities, the same line item transfers are voted on year end in fifteen seconds.
The Russo robocall is the latest in the Old Guard call to arms, even at Christmas.