Last night’s City Council meeting was sad on so many levels, inverting the universe is hard work and burying the truth along with much of Hoboken’s business is far easier.
Although you are unlikely to get the context anywhere else in the editor controlled local news universe, the true story of the night isn’t the amount of work tabled re: removed from the agenda, this council led by Beth Mason and Mike Russo is becoming regulars at stopping progress. Although you will see the coverage elsewhere on the process to fix up Mama Johnson field and get that up and running more for all of Hoboken; that too is not the real story.
There was a another front in a war begun last night. It’s going to be a battle for the heart and soul of Hoboken leading into May’s City Council elections. Councilman Peter Cunningham sponsored a package of ethics reforms consisting of two main elements, an update of People for Open Government’s earlier pay to play ordinance along with another hot area of NJ municipal and state reform: wheeling.
Beth Mason who declared herself a champion of such matters now finds herself working hand in hand with its very enemies embracing the other side, re: Mike Russo who certainly is no friend of ethics reforms or a budget hawk as he likes to say.
Beth Mason in her term this year has abused the powers of chair in the City Council but this blatant attempt to misuse power was the absolute worst to date. She was desperate to impose unilateral powers that do not exist in order to stop any discussion in front of the public on one simple matter:
Mayor Dawn Zimmer issued a revised resolution pack to the Hoboken City Council and with it a letter addressing several issues including a later introduction of the budget due to the State of NJ’s extension and the issuance of municipal aid. (Introduction will be sooner than the deadline – see the letter below.)
There are several important items in addition but the most interesting is the strengthening of the pay-to-play ordinance. This was worked on by the People for Open Government and closes some loopholes but the critically important part is the mirroring of other NJ municipalities and improvements proposed by Sen. Loretta Weinberg to stop the practice of wheeling.
Wheeling is the practice of transferring money between political organizations in order to skirt campaign funding laws. Included in the improved pay-to-play legislation is a penalty for moving funds through self-controlled campaign committees. (See the bottom of the letter page 2.)
The problem of wheeling became transparent after the 4th ward special election when ELEC reports were published showing Councilwoman Beth Mason exceeded the $2,600 limit on contributions to Tim Occhipinti just days before the election. Her total officially came in over $13,000. Later those funds were clearly dedicated to covering payments to hundreds of Tim Occhipinti’s invisible army of ‘campaign workers,’ in the back of the fourth ward. Those voters were distinctly invisible from the streets on election day.
Now the pay-to-play legislation will come before the City Council for first reading tonight. What will the Beth Mason led council do tonight? If she votes to table and move it to subcommittee and tries to bury it until the May City Council elections, it will be apparent she is looking to again use the unethical practice of using her checkbook to flood the town with cash through her “Friends of Beth Mason,” campaign committee. Obviously, that is a transparently unethical move.
The public may have a reasonable hour to comment on this improved and important legislation to all of Hoboken in public portion at the end of the meeting. Based on the agenda, it appears it will end at a reasonable time.
How much you want to bet there will be no ethical concerns or outrage vented by the angry little angry Mason411 minion tonight on this pay-to-play proposal. You can bet the children’s college fund not a word will be said on Mason411 tomorrow either. Shoot, bet the house!
Join the Hoboken Journal tonight if you can’t make the meeting. Kurt Gardiner will be providing insightful gavel to gavel coverage in an uncensored forum. MSV is sure he will be all over the pay-to-play issue.
Mayor’s Letter to CC Feb 2011
Union City Mayor Brian Stack issued this communication in response to the Fox 5 Shame Shame Shame on You episode revealing the use of a fully fueled, insured, vehicle for his estranged wife Katia Stack. In addition to the vehicle, the report showed the local day care center is hosted by a city owned building paying nothing for its use.
A Hoboken reader who submitted the document offered the following comment:
I received this in the mail today from our “esteemed” State Senator and Union City Mayor Brian Stack. It’s a response to the expose that “Shame on You” did on Brian Stack’s administration which exposed the free rent, free cars and free gas his administration gives his former wife, Katia Stack and her place of business.
Brian Stack’s excuse is that the City owned car was never purchased with tax dollars. While this is true he neglects to mention the city would have benefited by selling the car or using it instead of purchasing other vehicles. This doesn’t explain the cost of free gas and possibly maintenance on the vehicle.
Brian Stack feigns ignorance on the matter but how was his former wife able to take free gas? I doubt anyone can do it and some sort of identification or card must be needed. If so who authorized Katia Stack to take gas on the tax payer’s dime? Who was afraid to say no to Brian Stack and why?
There are many questions raised by the “Shame on You” investigation but instead of addressing them or taking responsibility for his actions Brian Stack is blaming the fraud not only his ex-wife, who could not have done this unaided, but he also blames the investigator who helped uncover the fraud.
Defrauding the taxpayer is a crime but don’t expect Katia Stack or the people who authorized her to steal gas to be prosecuted. This is just another example of the Hudson County machine flagrantly using our dollars to give benefits to their privileged class.
Shame on Brian Stack, Shame on Katia Stack and shame on all of us for not holding both responsible.
Hoboken is decades removed from the days of “On the Waterfront,” but the psychology and expectations dominant among some subsidy seeking residents suggests although the calendar shows it’s the 21st century, Hoboken’s rent control ordinance will retain its 20th century character.
Outside of removing the most heinous penalty to owners inheriting buildings where ticking time bombs lie dormant over decades with outdated regulations and city operations leave them at risk of huge rent liabilities, the proposed rent control ordinance does little more than add a wrinkle around the edges while removing that lone bomb.
Rent control ordinances borne of an economic era long gone by hardly warrant the support local officials give it in reactionary fear of hitting “the third rail.” The need to pander and be all things to all people has kept the current ordinance on the books far past the motives in its intended creation. Worse, it’s fostered an unfair burden on the people who should be given fair consideration as much as anyone – the small homeowners who pay the bulk of the freight in taxes for the whole town.
If the City wishes to be serious about this issue, the debate needs to go to the central point of its usefulness and application overall. Is there intellectual strength sufficient in government for that to occur? Well obviously not. The issue sat in subcommittee over months and months before emerging with hardly any change at all. Then where does the leadership need to come from to tackle the numerous discriminatory aspects of the proposed outdated ordinance?
Like much of the impetus to update ideas long overdue, answers clearly need to come from the Zimmer Administration. Notwithstanding the heavy burden of political capital needed to further correct problems in the ordinance, there’s no other officials remotely willing to fully engage this issue. The City Council is now overtaken by the political pandering class in the form of Beth Mason, a group happy to ignore the rights of taxpayers who seek a modicum of efficiency in city government.
MSV requested a position statement on the Administration’s willingness to sign off on the existing proposal on the rent control ordinance and was told the mayor would be addressing the matter this week. The mayor should consider further action tackling deeper the inherent problems in an ordinance several decades old and apply the same consistency for all of Hoboken as it’s philosophically positioned with the reval.
Failure to do so means the continued tinkering at the edges will retain the vast discriminatory impact to residents who bear the brunt of a burden unfairly because they lack the political clout of big developers who typically escape the onerous rent control provisions. The winners in the proposed ordinance are new residents who by luck score a good deal because they were looking for new digs in the mile square. Why create another entrenched favored class?
It’s time for Hoboken to stop pretending its decades old rent control laws are helping existing residents here. It stopped doing that a long time ago but for a select group who retain the eternal benefit in their existing tenant agreement. Outside of those who merit such protection, it’s mostly aiding people who luck into it by chance who move into Hoboken while placing an undue burden on the small owners who are not politically connected. If the mayor tackles the issue, it has a chance to be at least slightly better than mediocre. If not, it’s just more of the same with one less onerous bomb removed.
Regardless, the buck stops at the mayor’s office. It’s long past time that one group of owners no longer be forced to carry the weight of social engineering by local government. Fairness as in the reval itself requires at a minimum simply that.
| Domenick Amato – purported Corner Cars hater |
This photo is the purported snow street dumper who hates Corner Cars so much in his leisure time he’s been repeatedly seen with a shovel depositing snow into an empty designated Corner Cars spot near 8th and Garden St. He’s a one time street fruit seller who worked with the man where a street sign stands honoring that business at 7th and Willow – Bobby the Peddler.
No word if Councilwoman Terry Castellano will put him up for a civic award. She really hates the Corner Cars program too.
Hoboken may have seen record snowfalls over the past month but a deal is a deal and Hertz agreed to clear its Corner Cars spots of snow as part of its contract with the City.
For a company aware of the antipathy by the Old Guard City Council members who have badly sought the failure or sabotage of the Corner Cars program, the lack of action in the recent heavy storm demonstrates if nothing else a tin ear. Councilman Mike Russo made a point in a previous council meeting to ask who was responsible for cleaning the snow from around the Corner Cars and meekly ended the line of questioning on the matter when told Hertz was in charge.
Councilwoman Terry Castellano has been hostile to the program vociferously complaining about the public showing up in numbers and waiting for hours after signing to speak in defense of the program. She was the original council member to come out against the program voting in the negative. Her consistent “Council of No” vote violates State law requiring parking regulations and the program be approved by ordinance.
Councilwoman Beth Mason called Corner Cars “nothing new,” stating the far less popular Zip Car program here years earlier the car sharing equivalent, clearly not impressed with four digit membership of Hoboken residents. (She’s said far worse things to residents outside of the meeting.) Tim Occhipinti the newest “Council of No,” linchpin has stated he’s received lots of complaints about the program when he was out campaigning although not one person has appeared in City Council meetings from the fourth ward repeating his claim. (Hey his invisible army of 550 ‘campaign workers’ are busy don’t ya know.)
City of Hoboken announces:
SNOW REMOVAL INFORMATION; NO PARKING ON 11TH STREET OR VEZZETTI WAY
Beginning at 8 am on Tuesday, February 1, the City will plow and clear snow from 11th Street, and residents must move their vehicles or risk being ticketed and towed.
Similarly, residents parked along Vezzetti Way west of Willow Avenue must move their vehicles. The City has been dumping snow along 17th Street, a dirt road on the northern end of town, but is running out of space and may begin dumping snow along Vezzetti Way.
Hoboken rolled out a new crowned jewel, fire truck number 3 on Friday afternoon in front of City Hall. The new truck is a morale booster to the Fire Department and town where reductions on other fronts and an unexpected $20 million repair price tags to the waterfront is giving taxpayers the willies.
The Hoboken Journal features a brilliant photo essay of the new beast, a Spartan Metrostar. Here’s a couple to wet your appetite if you’ve yet to see it (click to enlarge):
Link:
https://hobokenhorse.com/2011/01/hoboken-fire-engine-3-makes-its-debut.html
City of Hoboken announces:
Snow Plowing And Removal To Continue Over Weekend On 1st, 3rd & 4th Streets
Plowing and clearing of snow along the parking lanes of both sides of 1st Street and 3rd Street will take place on Saturday, January 29 and along 4th Street on Sunday, January 30.
This is necessary to ensure the safe passage of fire apparatus. The Police Chief has declared a snow emergency along these streets, and residents should remove their vehicles by 9 am on the designated day or risk being ticketed and towed. Residents may park along these streets once both sides of the street have been cleared.
Probably no story received stronger reaction on MSV than this political parody starring our can do government official Bet Mazin. Originally posted last July, it still causes heaves of laughter throughout the mile square.
Recently, while reviewing some clips on youtube, it appeared missing. Somehow youtube pulled it down and said it was a violation. It was never communicated and it’s been impossible to find out where the complaint originated and why it was removed. MSV promised it would return once again.
And so here it is, the original in its entirety. Now how do you like dem apples?