City Council Meeting – 10/21/2009
21
October
VIDEO ARCHIVE AND LIVE CHAT TRANSCRIPT AFTER THE BREAK…
10/21/2009:
The last Hoboken City Council meeting before the big (third) Mayoral election of 2009. Fans of politics have reached an ultimate level of ecstasy (or pain)…
Still no budget, but Zimmer keeps making appointments
It’s “back to work” tonight for the Hoboken City Council, but not on the all-important budget.
Despite being nearly one-third of the way through the current fiscal year the City keeps spending money without a proposed spending plan. The word around City Hall is the State Fiscal Monitor has delivered a heap of bad news to Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s desk that she wants to keep hidden from public view until AFTER the November 3rd election. Keep that in mind when you step into the voting booth in November…
What happened to the 25% tax CUT Zimmer promised?
During the spring campaign Zimmer promised she would introduce a budget with a 25% tax cut within 6 weeks (see “the budget”) of taking office. Well, she’s been there for nearly three months now with no budget. There was a lively discussion about the lack of a plan at the last meeting, which is likely to resume tonight. While we wait for a budget, Zimmer plans to appoint more people to board positions ahead of the election. Hmmm, fierce appointments and spending, but deflecting the big budget issue… who’s OK with that?
Appointments planned for Hospital Board, Zoning Board
Zimmer is nominating Tejal Desai to a five-year term the Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority Board. Desai will replace Eric Lawton, who served as a holdover since his term expired at the end of June. Who is Tejal Desai and how is she qualified to be on the Hospital board that overseas how the $52 million dollar taxpayer bond guarantee is handled? We don’t know because the city hasn’t provided her bio. We do know she lives in the Hoboken Grande building just a few blocks away from Council President Zimmer in the 4th ward.
After an embarrassing display of ineptitude at the last meeting, Zimmer will again attempt to appoint someone to the Zoning Board of Adjustment. This time Zimmer added an additional resolution to fill the unexpired term of one of the two alternate board members should they get a bump up to the open permanent seat. This is leading to speculation she plans to bump up alternate member Tony Soares to take the seat left behind by Randall Underwood. If Soares gets the gig, watch for Phil Cohen to get his alternate spot after his public declaration of support for Zimmer last week. Cohen is following the Jake Stuiver model of jumping from another political camp to gain favor (and a board seat) from Zimmer and her team.
The Salary Ordinance, again
At every meeting since the July 1 reorganization the proposed salary ordinance setting the payouts for the Mayor, Council and Directors has been on the agenda in one form or another. Zimmer has constantly been tweaking it and pulling it off the table for a myriad of reasons. Some council watchers say it’s a ploy to push the ordinance past the election. Now there won’t be a public hearing before November 3rd. Funny how that works out.
Finally, False Fire Alarms addressed
Seems that years of hard work by Hoboken411, complaining about the ridiculous amount of unnecessary false fire alarms – and suggesting appropriate fines – has paid off. Also on the agenda tonight is an ordinance outlining fines for property owners who are responsible for multiple false fire alarms each year. Perhaps the residents of Hoboken can finally get some sleep!
It’s the last meeting before we all vote, so watch for the sparks to fly, especially at the end during the open Public Comment portion.
VIDEO AND CHAT AFTER THE JUMP…
Video and Chat transcript…
2009: The year of the election
The final city council meeting prior to the third Mayoral election of 2009. See video and chat below (starts at 7pm):
October 22nd 2009 - 14:07:44 |
The Traffic Director stated that on any given day only 4 or 5 cars are parked on Adams between 14th and 15th streets. Therefore he intends to put 75 meters on one side of that street to accomodate movie goers who will drive in from out of town. These meters are designed to alleviate the lack of parking south of 14th street and to deter out of towners from parking in the white 4 hour parking sections leaving more spots open for residents. Great idea, in theory, but the meter maids won’t be enforcing these meters at all since they stop working at 9pm. The idea about using Park on Park was brought up by Traffic Director Sachs in an effort to encourage movie goers to use garages instead of residential spaces. The problem with that is that Sachs did not follow up and try to make Park on Park sign up for this, it was all theory. Sachs should have at least tried to make these business talk to each other if he was going to suggest this as a solution. The city messed up by not making sure clearview had ample parking before they built here. There will be parking problems i assure you, so Sachs looks pretty weak not having a plan 100% implemented yet. Why are we paying him?
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October 22nd 2009 - 14:21:57 |
As far as he budget is concerned, we have a very unique situation here in Hoboken, with a Council President acting as mayor for 4 months. It would be political suicide for Zimmer to address the budget before the election. She is in a catch 22. If she addresses the budget she will lose the election probably because taxes will increase or appear to be increasing. If she does not address the budget she looks really bad, like a politician not fighting for the people. Beth Mason knows Zimmer is stuck between a rock and a hardplace and is exploiting her in her ads (borderline malitiously, which i don’t care for). I believe Zimmer is toast in this upcoming election.
Furthermore, when Russo repeatedly asked last night for the budget to be addressed, Zimmer would only say “you will get it, when you get it”. She kept skirting the issue and looked awful. You can tell all of her cronies on the council know a lot more about the budget than Mason, Russo, et all. Its sad. Russo kept addressing it, knowing its a political hot button issue and then finally Cunningham jumped in and spoke about a kids charity event not related to city hall business. Almost heavy fireworks there, folks, alomost. Cunningham saved the day for Zimmer. He knows where his bread is buttered alright. Russo should have fought harder to find out more information but qieted down after this Cunningham manuvoer. Mason said nothing, knowing she had nothing to gain due to Zimmers predicament.
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October 22nd 2009 - 14:38:09 |
Whaaaaaaaaaaa, whaaaaaaaaaa,whaaaaaaa
Keep crying and whining cause you wont get your way,lol
In response to matt_72 who said:
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October 22nd 2009 - 15:09:51 |
I am not all that worried. Once the reval hits, I won’t be the one crying. All the BNRs that voted for the tools that passed out those pay hikes will get taxed out of town and it will be the last time city workers get a pay hike for a decade or more. I am sooooooo looking forward to that day.
In response to Antinucci who said:
Keep crying and whining cause you wont get your way,lol
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October 22nd 2009 - 15:50:00 |
when that secretary makes 90k a year works from 9-4 and has free benefits and can carry over sick days and vacation days for life it sure as hell should count towards the safety budget.
In response to Antinucci who said:
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October 23rd 2009 - 15:40:17 |
So once again…Zimmer skirts the budget issue. You are right…she is looking awful and probably will be toast.
We have no budget, no direction…but we did get a 47% tax hike. Thank you Zimmer for misleading us!
Glatt…even Mason….looking better every day!
Good luck ladies!
In response to njnjnjnj who said:
Furthermore, when Russo repeatedly asked last night for the budget to be addressed, Zimmer would only say “you will get it, when you get it”. She kept skirting the issue and looked awful. You can tell all of her cronies on the council know a lot more about the budget than Mason, Russo, et all. Its sad. Russo kept addressing it, knowing its a political hot button issue and then finally Cunningham jumped in and spoke about a kids charity event not related to city hall business. Almost heavy fireworks there, folks, alomost. Cunningham saved the day for Zimmer. He knows where his bread is buttered alright. Russo should have fought harder to find out more information but qieted down after this Cunningham manuvoer. Mason said nothing, knowing she had nothing to gain due to Zimmers predicament.
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October 24th 2009 - 11:37:29 |
I thought Sachs was the only smart person in the room when he was speaking. He clearly understands the totality of the parking situation- it’s not about just increasing the supply of parking spots, it’s about supply AND demand. He spoke about reducing demand by giving people options like Zip cars uptown. I own a 7yo car that only has 45K miles on it because I drive so infrequently. If I had ready access to a Zip car, I’d get rid of my car because it costs hundreds of dollars a month. Also, if it were easier to hail a taxi on the street, especially going cross-town, I’d use them more frequently as well.
In response to njnjnjnj who said:
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