The Hoboken Zoning Board with multiple openings is a focus leading into 2014. At last Wednesday’s council meeting, City Council President Peter Cunningham announced an open house this Wednesday in council chambers at City Hall where applicants can discuss their applications/background with members of the City Council.
Over the weekend, the Hudson Reporter published a story on the Hoboken Zoning Board but its editors failed to mention anywhere in the the extensive comments by Councilwoman Beth Mason and “independents” the current efforts toward filling Hoboken Zoning Board seats.
In his discrimination case against the City of Hoboken, former Public Safety Director Angel Alicea admitted he met with the FBI’s star witness Solomon Dwek, not once but twice. He stated he did not accept $5,000 offered to the campaign but felt Dwek may have been trying to set him up.
Alicea claims he was discriminated against when facing termination upon Mayor Zimmer learning of the meeting. Alicea resigned when confronted but later said he faced terminated due to his efforts to make changes in the Hoboken Police Department. The contention was given a hammer blow by the judge earlier this week when he refused to allow any rumors surrounding steroid testing in the department be admissible.
A full time employee of Councilwoman Beth Mason appeared in Hoboken Municipal Court yesterday reported by court witnesses to be facing one or more charges alleged by a Hoboken senior of Fox Hills.
Matt Calicchio, the full time Hoboken political operative for Beth Mason who most recently worked on the failed Raia-Mason “One Hoboken” campaign was summoned and arraigned in charges alleged by Jackie Carmody, a Hoboken senior who heads the Fox Hills tenant association.
The list of charges recounted by court observers reportedly include harassment, attempted assault and trespassing. Confirmation on the exact charges and complete police report were not available at publication. At least part of the allegation(s) stem from Calicchio becoming embroiled in some dispute where he allegedly “raised his fist” against the senior resident.
| A metal detector is the new standard for City Council meetings. Previously, it’s been used for Hoboken Municipal Court but now Council meetings are part of the security arrangement. One person had a problem leaving the building and attempting to bypass the security last night who also appeared earlier the same day in Court. More to come. |
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December will see two council meetings with tonight the first as the ‘Year of the Braying Jackals’ as some might say in retrospect comes to a close. The wind is most definitely out of the Old Guard council’s sails. They looked stunned, shocked and beaten up at the early November meeting, the day after the election.
While a few retreads (i.e.Carmelitos) will continue to bray for taxpayer largesse, other losers who no longer bray themselves with the writing on the wall will watch tonight’s agenda, not expecting to see much of any surprise. The ordinance on flood prevention voted down before the election is up for second reading and likely to pass giving some cost relief (around 10%) to the broader number of residents who must buy flood insurance post Sandy.
The purgatory for one resident is about to pass as December marks the final two council meetings before Councilman-elect Jim Doyle will be sworn-in and take his rightful position as a Hoboken City Councilman.
Doyle’s overwhelming election by the People of Hoboken puts an end to Old Guard obstruction orchestrated through court appeals where his initial appointment was upheld by Assignment Judge Peter Bariso in Hudson Superior Court before being overturned by an ivory court decision in an appeal to the Appellate Court. With the November election last month, the clock ran out making any petition to the New Jersey Supreme Court moot putting the final nail in the estimated six figure Mason family expenditure harming to Hoboken governance.
City of Hoboken announces:
PUBLIC INVITED TO COMMUNITY MEETINGS FOR SOUTHWEST PARK & WASHINGTON STREET
All members of the Hoboken community are invited to public meetings to gather input on the planning of the first phase of a Southwest Park and on the complete streets redesign of Washington Street. Community workshops for the Southwest Park and Washington Street will be held at the Multi Service Center on December 10 and December 16, respectively.
The rubble from the November sweep by Reform is not far in the rear view mirror and the impact is coming although a weekend column in what some call the Hudson Distorter sounded odd discordant notes on the impending downfall of the Hoboken Housing Authority’s contractor problem in the form of Carmelo Garcia and his massive attempted scam on the city: Vision 20/20.
Spending way too many pixel inches on the proposed Vision 20/20 scam not to be confused with the Ruben Ramos Vision for Hoboken campaign, in the words of Dr. Mccoy, “It’s dead Jim.” That name similarity was no accident, a little inside joke among those expecting to rake in millions in profits to double the size of the HHA’s downtown campus. Apparently, the little secret running down the hill from Union City by State Senator Brian Stack wasn’t just for handing out turkeys to the corner of the Mile Square where one hand holds a turkey and the other a blank signed absentee ballot ready for pickup from a familiar, neighborly Beth Mason political operative.
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