Terror at the HHA


The following post appeared in the wee hours of Wednesday morning on Patch:


I was intrigued, but questioned its authenticity given the infestation of operatives on Patch and the 'crackdown' on anyone 'against' Vision 20/20.  Further, tales of threats to HHA residents have been an open secret, but to my knowledge nobody has ever come forward to put them on the record.

With good reason(s).  Eviction is one. 

So, GA sent this:
Hello, I saw your post on Patch.  My first thought was that it may be a trap to identify HHA residents who are "troublemakers".  And I have heard stories of 'retaliation' at the HHA.  So please tell me more about what you are trying to do.  
Within the hour, I got this:

My name is *******. I have been talking to tenants. Most have no idea what Vision 2020 is. They are being lied to and told numerous different stories by HHA managers and the like. They are being told if they don't approve the plan, all the buildings will be razed & they'll be homeless, but they are not being told that if Vision 2020 is approved the buildings they live in will be razed. Most people don't believe the lies propagated by G*****. They know G***** is an opportunist, who would no doubt sell his own mother for a $1; but they are terrified to come forward. They won't even come to a meeting, because they are being threatened with eviction, jail, damage to their vehicles & to their person or children. Many of those loud belligerent people marching are being paid by G****. Although there are some that legitimately are misled, particularly by those others who are paid stooges of C******. We are trying to quietly organize among ourselves first, before coming public for fear of retaliation which we know is certain. If you have any tenants who would like to join our opposition, please have them contact us ASAP.
I replied, and quickly got this:

You have no idea how alone & frighten we feel. Thank you for understanding. The story has to get out. If we could get a story out in the Hoboken Reporter it would be a start. I've just had someone tell me they have been threatened with eviction and even bodily harm to their children. I don't know the whole story of how they were targeted, because the person is traumatized to the emff degree, as expected. This is unacceptable. No one should have their kids threatened. This is gangsterism. And all in the name of profits!! C****** is abusing his position trying to ram down the throats of residents to sign their own eviction papers. Who threatens children?  As you probably have figured out he has paid goons to march for the plan to give it legitimacy and to bully & threaten people.  I was threatened about 2 weeks ago to march with a group & called racial epithets for not joining.  I think the only reason they didn't put me on the undesirable list is because they thought after threatening me, that I must have to go to work if they couldn't bully me to join. Whatever the reason, being pointed out by two goons and being called a "(descriptive expletive)", and demanding to know why isn't he "with us" is disconcerting to say the least.
I am not alone in my feelings as you are aware. We are too afraid to come forward and be vocal at meetings or even show our faces at meetings or go door to door. With people being threatened and now its stooped to threatening resident's children, you can understand. I fear for my children. If we had supporters who would join us in our battle, we would feel more confident coming forward & really organizing a resistance perhaps even throwing C****** out of office as he should be. We are really afraid. 

This person is courageous. 

This victimization of the poor residents, the deterioration and neglect of buildings that are young by Hoboken standards, the 'Vision' to sell their homes to a private developer, raze them, without guaranty they will have a place to live in this money-making 'Vision'...

Keeping tenants in fear and ignorance, sending the message that ANYONE who is against them will be "shown no mercy".... that's not having 20-20 vision, that's a Vision of Evil.

Comments

  1. I feel for this person.

    I fear that going to the Hoboken Reporter would be the same as going directly to the very goon tha made the threaths.

    I would suggest contacting law enforcement outside of Hoboken and going to the Star Ledger, Jersey Journal.

    Above all be safe, with so much money involved you never know what some peopleare capable of doing.

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  2. Between this and the secret taping, a certain someone has a lot to answer for. As more information comes out about Vision Money/Money, the worse things appear from all sides for this person. Selling out "your own people" is truly vile, and sad, behavior.

    Mike Russo was correct with the KKK references...except the hoods are on the other heads.

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  3. This could be a civil rights complaint. Go to the Justice Dept. who uses the F.B.I. as it's detectives. Many must complain to them for action to be taken...Meanwhile, the HR, JJ, and Star ledger can publish letters with the names withheld...best of luck to all!

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  4. To SaveTheProjects:

    Contact the F.B.I. This is occurring in FEDERAL HOUSING project.

    Claremont Tower
    11 Centre Place
    Newark, NJ 07102
    Phone: (973) 792-3000
    Fax: (973) 792-3035

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    1. Thx. for specific F.B.I. contact info. I have heard that their agents luv the nite-life in Hoboken. Hope that they are here to stay.

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  5. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

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  6. Carmelo Garcia is a street hustler and sewer rat. He would sell out his mother for a house on Bloomfield St. but didn't have to since he sold out the poor guy who owned one place there. Carmelo exploited the guy to get the whole building for below 400K. You can look it up in the City Hall records.

    Garcia told a local businessman to stay away from the house. He didn't want to see its price go up and reflect the actual value. He'll exploit anyone and everyone in the HHA just as did that BoE employee.

    The loot in Vision Money/Money is worth far more, millions more and Carmelo Garcia will exploit many, many people to get his hands on that pot of gold.

    He's a total scumbag. Put that on your tape recorder you sewer rat.

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  7. Is anyone else detecting a seismic shift in the erosion of OG power? Damn that pesky internet thingy and those dumb keys that make idiotic mistakes after a couple glasses of whine.

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  8. an "undesirable list"? what the hell is that all about?

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    1. Sounds like 'profiling' - Federal Housing - civil rights - To F.B.I. Get it Right - Now! Warning to all:
      he is dangerous since he will behave like 'a cornered RAT'...............

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  9. Is anyone surprised that increasingly desperate Old Guard hooligans; sensing their days are numbered, and that their old "goon" methods, because their victims have ways of getting THEIR stories told. The old, goon political if not ACTUAL threats, while evidently still plied. ARe, nonetheless, less and less EFFECTIVE. Because as we see right here. The VICTIMS have ways of FIGHTING BACK.

    Yet, because the Old Guard senses their foul times are nigh (or, from the Horsey view, "neigh"). They are still unintelligibly and linguistically brainlessly goonish enough to try the "old ways," which, in times past, unfortunately usually had their desired effect of cowering opposition.

    This is why gov't involvement in housing at the local level, apart just from creating market-dysfunction. Gov't involvement in housing and other part of the economy where jobs and spots can be patronized. You get "one-party" "brook no opposition" and "goon-patrolled" government. Until quite recently Hoboken was RIFE with this kind of Gulag Gov't, and it was so much "fun," for the "insiders and goons," who ran the Gulag. They ain't giving up the goon so easy?

    But thankfully, as blatantly exemplified in this very story. There are ways for previously stifled well-meaning folks to FIGHT BACK.

    Having here had many a down-side run in with various flavors of goons across the board (although NOT from Gov't Gulag Goons). Having been on the hard-knocks side of goon-displeasure (but never backing down).

    The Goon, like the Bully, invariably especially when exposed for the glass-chin p-s-y they usually are. When they have a numerical advantage, they're badly dangerous. But alone, isolated, they start looking around frightened like the nut-less pansies they frequently are.

    Having paid the price for standing up to Goons, wouldn't necessarily, "encourage," that aspect. Yet to defeat the Goon, and it's definitely do-able. One must stand up to the Goon.

    HOWEVER, such, "standing up" need not be a foolish, "frontal" approach which is the one frequently and less-successfully engaged here. Rather, when battling the Goon, it's all fair in Love and War. If fighting the Goon means exposing one's victim-story on blogs, so be it. The Goon can't be everywhere, and when the Goon tried, the Goon becomes exposed and isolated - and vulnerable.

    The only dicey aspect is bad as Goons are "as is." Bring DESPERATE Goons to heel expects exquisite planning, bon-courage, and it helps to have encouraging FRIENDS and support. DickSheppard HCNJ

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  10. Here's a question any resident might quite reasonably ask: "Where are we supposed to live while our, "promised," new residences are being built?

    And the real, hidden answer is, "NOWHERE." Residents who must vacate their present housing will have NO CHOICE but to immediately find a NEW and likely costlier place to live. And how long will these new buildings/housing take to be completed? Long enough so the old residents finally realize that all along they were expected to be "promised" new housing. But meanwhile, they have to go find alternative places to live. And in doing so, time goes by, and they forget their anger and disappointment at getting scammed. They must, having vacated their long-term residences. They must move on with their lives. Even if the unlikely opportunity to "move back" to their, "promised" new housing. How long will that take? They will, in the meantime, have re-settled and in many cases will be un-motivated to try to force the current slimebag pols to keep their (by then) long-ago "promises."

    Yeah, some of the "insiders" who are currently in cahoots with the Vision fraud, the vocal and menacing fellow tenants who are themselves in on the sell-out of what they lyingly call their, "neighbors."

    These types of housing promises and ploys are the bread-n-butter of the Housing Thieves, look around at the current examples of gov't subsidized and developer-cahoot housing, chock full of political parasites and scummiest self-interested loudmouth frauds, "We LOVE Hoboken" miscreants. No, they love their taxpayer-subsidized scammed housing is what they love. DickSheppard HCNJ

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  11. Pardon some slightly off-topic observation. Having posted for a very long time on nj.com JC/Hoboken/Bayonne forums. Posting "as is," under me modest genuine real-deal, real-mccoy, real name. I.e. DickSheppard.

    Had stopped posting there for a while until recently re-appearing on those nj.com outlets. And up-front admitting NOT posting recently "as-is" gee-whiz, it wasn't surprising when this off-kilter, and ummm, "verbose," brand of posting re-appeared. Everyone esp. at JC realized, "Shemp is back.."

    However, as many who may from time to time visit those outposts. Wouldn't EVER deny anyone their fully entitled fun in posting whatever however so long as it's within the rules, esp as they relate to the entitled rule-conscious nj.com.

    But without even "warming up" in my new posting persona. Hadn't even worked the stiffness out of the keyboard fingies before posts started disappearing like quarters from Hoboken parking meters.

    Thus to say to those nj.com posting pards, esp. fellow JC'ers who among them include some hearty and goodly historically beautiful JC fellows and icons.

    Had to "fare-they-well" and having encountered this and the "Horse" blog while canoodling around on the nj.com Hoboken outpost. Having been "linked," from there to here, found these places enliveningly inviting and prospectively tolerant of what by now is this "indescribably endless indefinably wha?" posting style and content.

    It used to sting like a small insect bite having composed - admittedly more likely in full-bore, thoughtless off-the-top-of-this-head posting. Still, while maybe not a lot of thought or time went into those nj.com verbal affronts. It pinged like having a nose-hair plucked when the occasionally accidentally sparkling Shemp post would be eradicated, "poof" without explanation nor, really, reason. Have so far here strayed a bit from the overall intention of "keeping it clean," and not refuting to using blue-language. Sometimes, as many might also experience. Sometimes while dishing a post off the top of the brain. On a particularly alluring topic. Not to excuse, but sometimes blue-language issues forth, and once appearing, "looks" as if it (not likely, moreso rarely) it "looks" in the prospective post as if the blue-language enhances one's commentary, and one keeps it in. In reviewing previous posts hereon, have included somewhat wishy-washy blue-language, in the sense of leaving out letters of otherwise identifiably blue words (i.e., gee, how difficult is it to realize that P-s-y can be interpreted as a rather distasteful word. And when flung at some public official, really it detracts otherwise even when the word PERFECTLY applies.

    And believe it, this fellow off-board is a ghastly foul-language practitioner, a full-bore vulgar lout.

    It's so tempting to hurl the PERFECT blue word with a straight face. But otherwise from here, when trying otherwise to VEHEMENTLY make a point (in 1 million words or less).

    It's nice to have a spot to expunge one's weary keyboard fingers and motivate one to AVOID low-brow if perfectly descriptive labels. To be able to creatively describe/label rival public officials in ways that are stinging and pinging and readable by a 13-year-old.
    DickSheppard HCNJ

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  12. Mr. Shep,

    I too am a practitioner of ghastly-foul language, a full-bore vulgar lout-ess. Perhaps we can start a self-help group?

    Post on, Mr. Shep. Your comments are as scrumptious as a plate of cannoli, with the virtue of being calorie-free. I promise I will never pluck your nose hair.

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    1. Thank you, there's never guarantees in life, and the thrilling intention of making promises sometimes exceeds one's ultimate ability to hold them.

      But will ever strive to respect fellow commentors on this forum, moreso those who are disagreeable...

      Whereas when it comes to public officials who are just itching for a hearty Joe-Biden "garden-variety" verbal smack-down...well, if public officials invite such heat, and then can't take it, evidently they're in the wrong place, and it would be impolite not to point that out to them. DickSheppard, HCNJ

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  13. If they vote against the reform council and Mayor Zimmer and the bad guys take over, Vision2020 will be a done deal. I wonder if they will continue to take the $40 to vote against their interests.

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  14. If the Mayor & her reform council are smart. Instead of flip flopping, they should openly & viciously attack Garcia and their opponents who support Vision2020. They could even get the support of the upper class who live in Hoboken, too, because certainly they might like their property value to go up by evicting all the people of color out of Hoboken, but certainly not at the risk of losing their homes in a destructive race riot, which can occur as it did in the 1970's. In fact, there's serious talk on the street about organizing race riots, which we need to prevent at all costs, because no one can benefit from them. By the reform council aggressively attacking Vision2020, they are showing the majority of the residents of this ward they truly support them both the people of color and their wealthier neighbors who own condos & co-ops in the neighborhood. Savetheprojects@yahoo.com Join the struggle for Justice.

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    1. Anon, gotta say you have it wrong on the Mayor and the Reform council.

      As I see it, they are the only ones who have stepped between the bulldozer and Phase 1 of Vision 20/20. (The Old Guard Council helped too- booting Jim Doyle off the City Council guaranteed a Zoning Board too small in number to hear the project.)

      There has been no flip-flopping on Vision 20/20 from the Reform council nor the Mayor.

      Read the Mayor's 5-1-13 letter to Garcia pursuant to his request for tax abatements for Vision 20/20. That is not an endorsement letter; she states she "cannot support moving forward with Phase 1 of Vision 20/20 at this time".

      In fact, Zimmer raises issues about disappearing FEMA money that the HHA was given after Hurricane Irene in 2011 to raise generators- the work was not done. What happened to the money? And the mayor defends the need for affordable housing units to go to the needy. Please have a look.

      http://www.scribd.com/doc/139004915/5-1-13-Letter-Zimmer-Garcia

      No flip-flopping from the Reform Council- they voted 'no' on both 30-year PILOT agreements and a declaration of need to HUD, and have held firm while being attacked by Carmelo and his roadshow- and Mike Russo- called 'racist', 'KKK', one member accused of calling residents "monkeys"-- all absolute bullshit and slander. No, they've stood firm in the face of Carmelo's bullying tactics, and done the right thing. Please have a look:

      http://www.hobokenhorse.com/2013/05/resolutions-for-emergency-resolutions.html

      Remember they are legislators. They have done their job- stopped the project from going forward- and comported themselves with dignity while under a barrage of uncivil discourse from Carmelo and his entourage. No, they haven't ripped him a new asshole, but folks shouldn't mistake style for substance.

      The threat of "race riots" has 'Carmelo Garcia' written all over it.

      Riots would be a tactical DISASTER for the residents of the HHA. A DISASTER. The blow-back would clear the way for Vision 20/20, and Carmelo knows that- that is what he WANTS. He wants to foment support to tear down the projects, and a race riot would certainly do that.

      That's Carmelo's M.O.- playing the race card and making threats when he doesn't get his way. Now he's trying it on a city-wide scale with this 'race-riots' stuff.

      I believe your instincts are absolutely right about the motives behind Vision 20/20. Whatever you can do to throw water on this 'race riots' talk would help. Let me guess, rioters get a stipend- $10? $40? Is there a special t-shirt being made for the riot?

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    2. There might just be a T-shirt available. When I first heard certain people of the criminal element making threats in my neighborhood, but refusing to join an opposition movement, I was puzzled. Maybe because I'm an honest person and such levels of dishonesty don't easily come to mind. But it made absolutely no sense whatsoever. More so, when it seems to be coming, not from residents, but people I believe are from Jersey City. If you're against being evicted, it makes more sense to fight before you're evicted rather than later. From the point of view of tenants it makes no sense, which explains why these threats don't appear to be coming from people who seem like residents and why certain tenants are frightened. It only makes sense for developers who have something to gain. I would put nothing past Carmello nor the private developers backing him. They'd have no problem selling the town, so they can make profits. In fact, there'd be even more open land available if a race riot "just happened" to light the town up. Everyone in the 4th ward should keep this in mind. If race riots were to take place it would affect us all. We need to work together to prevent this and one of the ways to do this is to work together to prevent Vision2020 from going into affect & making sure no one associated with this plan or approving it is elected. Carmello is effectively trying to make residents feel isolated & helpless. We need to come together to show it's not true. We're talking about really evil people, who would stop at nothing to get what they want. All they care about is their wallets. As to harassment of women by HHA members. I know women who slept with both Ruben Ramos and Carmello to get an apt. No secret there and if they didn't they got axed from the waiting list. It's sad people are forced to live under these conditions. Fight for Justice! Housing is a Right! Savetheprojects@yahoo.com

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  15. Believe it or not, there are wealthy white people in the 4th ward that don't mind living near the projects. All you have to do is look at all of the new development on Jackson, Monroe and Harrison Street and the prices that those homes have sold for, which indicates not only have they retained their value but gone up in price. People live in the 4th ward for a variety of reasons, and none of my neighbors have ever expressed concern about home values because of HHA. Yes, we would like to see the HHA better maintained, but there are several houses on my block that are in worse shape than the HHA and I certainly would like their owners to improve them, just because I would like to see a better looking block. AS far s eh residents go, it all comes down to mutual respect. I have an issue with the culture of fear and intimidation that ha festered in the HHA under CG because that intimidates residents from speaking out for fear of retaliation. I also know all about some of the supposed employees who harass the women at HHA, without any repercussions, because they can get and away with it. I find that despicable. If you can think of a way in which we could help stop that nonsense and restore a sense of security for those women, , count me in. I think that you have more genuine support in the greater Hoboken community than you realize. CG doesn't want you to think that, He wants the residents to think that they are isolated and looked down on and scorned. That situation is easier for him to control.

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    1. Dear Khoboken,
      We would welcome you're suggestions & assistance. Contact us as savetheprojects@yahoo.com. Check us out on Facebook: Save the Hoboken Projects or give a ring at 201-855-9732. You don't need to give your name or anything personal.

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  16. West of Willow Ave. has come a long way in Hoboken. Up to the late 40's, the mostly Italian families that lived West of Willow were not welcome East of Willow Ave. without a fight. The melting pot is still melting for the better. By the way, marriage helped. The new breed created was fondly called Mickey-Whops.....lol

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