Hoboken's biggest website exposing corruption and bad pols
NJ.com published a breaking story about Hoboken’s mayor, Ravi Bhalla and it’s not good.
From the late afternoon breaking story:
Mayor Ravi Bhalla was censured by the New Jersey Supreme Court last week after a disciplinary board chided him for not setting aside over $6,000 for a former employee’s retirement account.
Tonight’s City Council agenda features a second reading on a demand for transparency surrounding Mayor Ravi Bhalla’s second job with the Republican land use law firm: Lavery, Selvaggi, Abromitis & Cohen.
The law firm employment contract, effective back to February turned Hoboken on its ear with Bhalla’s broken promise exposed to leave his previous law firm and make Hoboken his singular work focus.
The Corporation Counsel, Brian Aloia, a political contributor to the Bhalla for Mayor campaign approved a legal analysis on the City Council’s transparency request calling it illegal.
Tonight is the last City Council meeting before summer recess. It’s loaded for bear as the Nanny State Cometh. Businesses have it too easy in this small mile square municipality, courtesy of geography, so plastic bags must be banned in the Republic of Portlandia Hoboken.
Then there are the open seats on the HHA and fears by some about one jawboning accusation of racist as the tool to get an HHA board seat going back to the bad old Carmelo Garcia days. That little problem about the wild anti-Semitic statements at public meetings with doing “the right thing not the white thing,” yeah, that’s a problem too.
A former Hoboken Housing Authority board member, Eduardo Gonzalez, who backed Carmelo Garcia in his controversial tenure as Executive Director of the HHA is expected to be rejected tomorrow in seeking another five-year term at the agency.
The fifth and decisive vote is anticipated from Councilwoman Emily Jabbour. The Hoboken City Council consists of nine members.
Even as the “Summer of Indictments” is arriving, Hoboken never wearies of drama, controversy and non-stop politicking.
Our colleague at the Hudson County View highlights the coming campaign to influence Hoboken voters on their decision revisiting runoff elections this November and how “rumors persist” Mayor Ravi Bhalla “has inquired about the possibility of joining” State Senator Brian Stack in the NJ legislature.
Reference is made to the NJ Assembly seat under Stack currently held by Hoboken’s Annette Chaparro. She’s publicly voiced interest in continuing for a two-year term beyond her existing one but the mayor’s political aide made a point of saying nothing had been discussed with her.
The HudCo civil war is unofficially over but the payback for the insurrection will likely go on for years. So, here are the winners who can count on benefiting as they hold the reins of the machine.
HudCo – the biggest winner is the machine itself. One party rule is assured for years to come with no significant challenge from anyone daring to show up on Line B. Transparency, good government initiatives and cutting taxes will never make it atop the agenda. Ever.
Amy DeGise – she broke the glass ceiling by winning the post of HudCo Democratic Chair. She’s making some changes bringing on new faces as she gets underway but what real change will it mean? That’s an open question but there’s not going to be any significant change in the system’s methodology. What’s next for her? Her name is going to show up on something in an election.
With an annual budget more than half-a-billion strong, HudCo is a massive patronage slush fund where the trough keeps many fed.
Let’s start with the losers because they are the ones who won’t be getting their beaks wet, courtesy of HudCo.
Brian Stack – coexistence and a decade-long detente with his arch-rival Nick Sacco became untenable in his mind. He opted to go for the gold and seize the reins of the HudCo Democratic Chair as a path to winning the HudCo County Executive with his man (Steve Fulop) in 2019.
In the HudCo civil war, it was all about the politicians, their ambitions, hunger for power and patronage jobs. That’s HudCo.
New glass ceiling breaker Amy DeGise, however, said last night to one committee member she wants “Hoboken to have a seat at the table.”
Ironically, this was part of Mayor Ravi Bhalla’s pitch to the Hoboken Democratic Committee. It aided his efforts to get HDC votes but not everyone on the “bus” to Kearny yesterday voted for Brian Stack.
Amy DeGise cracked Hoboken for approximately a couple of dozen votes, thus ensuring a 40 vote swing. Coupled with a few dozen in Jersey City (60 vote swing) and that imploded Brian Stack’s insurrection to an ash heap of an abysmal failure.
Video courtesy of InsiderNJ:
From the story:
=&0=&