The $92K Milking of Raia


This comment left on GA yesterday caught my attention; the commenter suggests Frank Raia's campaign staff inflated invoices and pocketed the extra loot:
Costs for mailings -- most of which were never sent out -- may be been has high as $92,000 -- when those inside the Raia camp estimated the actual costs to be under $30,000. Just who got the $62,000 difference is what a lot of people are asking near Raia. Obviously somebody got rich off of Raia for a cmapaign in which he came in 7th, and Tim did ever worse. 
$92,000? How could that be?   

GA is told that the Raia campaign issued 5 mailers.  If Frank spent $92K on them, that's $18,400 per mailer.   Even if they did 6 mailers, that's $15,333 per mailer.

My G-d, that's high. Is it true?

Let's take a look at Frank and Tim's ELEC reports.




That's a $51,500 subtotal for mailers reported on 10/25/13...




Add $40,500 reported on 11/25/13...

Frank Raia paid a grand total of $92,000!  For mailers!

Moses couldn't do it, but One Hoboken can


Remember, these figures are not vendor-charges (receipts), these are Frank-charges!  These are the costs his campaign staff reported to Frank (and to ELEC).  

Holy cow. Frank's teats must be sore from all that milking. 

And one needn't look too hard to find other unusual expenses- $6,000 for "Security for HQ".  (What did they need security for? To guard the 25 unopened boxes of lit and dog biscuits they threw out after election day?)

What about  $8,216 for t-shirts, window signs, and walk-around lit?  See anyone walking around with lit?

Oh, there's more.  Have at it!

No consequences for a sitting Board member who propagates lies about  his School District for a political campaign?

Comments

  1. One Man's Guess? Raia is a businessman. He held a grudge against Ramos. The $ spent was probably for 'Satisfaction' [one of his favorite songs] and with knowledge that he would indirectly help Zimmer win and be able to sell his business interests in the future. In this scenario, it was an investment to try and obtain a council seat and for his future talking points. Remember, he supported Zimmer over Campos and ran a spoiler in her race for 4th Ward council, which she won. Again, just one man's opinion. Pupie is a failure as a politician but as smart as they come in business.

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    1. Frank is one of the two benevolent humanitarians on the One Hoboken Move Forward (Nazi truck optional) campaign.

      He wanted us to have that money. I needed another 10K after the election but Frank wasn't feeling benevolent toward me and so Timmy had to have a Sinatra pasta dinner to try and get it for me. Finnboy took all our money.

      I need my money. I want my money. If Timmy or Frank won't give me more money, I'm going to find a man who understands.

      They don't call me La éponge for nothing.

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    2. Anon, not sure about that. While it's fair to say Raia wanted to screw Ramos, the accounting above points out serious overcharges for materials/mailers that never even made it out of the boxes. Those didn't hurt Ramos, nor did bogus security charges, etc. Raia got suckered, period.

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    3. Anon 10:38 You're selling same crap that Swibinski is selling and it doesn't wash. Raia thought he could win the deciding vote on the council and Ramos through russo and Finn Boy did their best to screw Raia out of it. Now you and they are blaming Raia for a plan Finn Boy came up with to use Raia' money against him, even to the point of giving some of raia's money to Swibinki -- Talk about trying to spin things.

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    4. Anon 1056 is correct that Raia wanted to screw Ramos and did not care how it happened. I, anon 10:38 have nothing in common with Swinbinski and IMO Raia did not really care if you voted for Tim O.- He wanted himself and Peter B. Time will tell how Raia fares business-wise.

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    5. A person gets no satisfaction from spending money on a political campaign if the money isn't used to advance the campaign. If massive amounts of money were wasted, then I am sure he gets no satisfaction from that.

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  2. About Raia's flyer - isn't that Biancamano dolt on the BoE Finance committee? How would he authorize such lies about the per student cost for public schools?

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  3. talk to the idiot who rote the flyer. She's also the idiot that wrote the manning letter, which explains it all don't you think?

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  4. So the budget hawk Baicamamo let all this go on and and signed off on those elction reports? I thought him and Frank were close friends. His buddy his mentor? ouch.

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    1. Sweet Peter got elected on Carmello's coattails. Carmello is tied to Russo. In fact, a number of Russo people grooved up to Raia. Peter and some of these so called friends were the ones who insisted they take Sponge on as their press person. Get it? The whole campaign was nothing but moles

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    2. Holmes was with Tim but that never made sense to me since he's a Russo guy. Im told he brought Sponge in, recommended her to Frank, told him how great she was. And a bargain at $10k.

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    3. Peter/Frank, Peter/Carmelo, Carmelo/Russo, Holmes/Tim, Tim/Russo. All out for themsleves. Sleep with eachother one day, sell their mother for a dollar the next. Whats the dif.

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  5. For Frank Raia from one of the websites on con artists:

    In the language of con artists, you're a "mark." And when you fall for one of their scams, you're a successful mark. No one wants to hand over money to thieves, but scam artists are becoming more sophisticated with each passing technological advance.

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  6. I saw several hundred Occhipinti - Raia mailers in a garbage can on Second and Harrison the day before the election. Thought it was odd then.

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  7. Based on Zimmer's ELECs it looks like she paid Around $10,000 per mailer but she doesn't hire big name expensive consultants. Raia hired an expensive firm with a fancy client list (percy sutton, dick cody)so $15,000 per mailer could the real cost. No conspiracy just bad judgment by a guy who thinks its better if it costs more.

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    1. People close to raia said even with the high profile firm the mailers should not have cost more than $30,000

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    2. Since he had 6 mailers (at least - I have 6 in my pile of saved election junk) the idea that it should have only cost $30,000 is even sillier than the idea that he paid $92,000. 6 citi-wide mailers cost around $60,000 from less expensive shops and people like Mason and Raia do not use less expensive shops. They hire expensive consultants who charge them the highest price they can get away with.

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    3. Those closest to Raia said he didn't pick the shops, the inbetween rip off aritst did. In fact Finn Boy and Cryan did all the shopping to their personal clients -- so if there was a picking and kick back it went to Finn Boy and Cryan, not Raia or mason -- which the high price seems to justify believing there was a kick back to them. this is the point. Raia got ripped off by operatives for Russo, who spent his money freely, but clearly unproductively, and were most likely getting kick backs from the over charging.

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    4. NONSENSE.

      Dick Codey, Percy Sutton is a "fancy client list"? Have you seen LebowitzIGould's client list?

      Deutsche Bank
      Dormitory Authority of the State of NY
      Economic Dev. Corp. of NY
      Ernst & Young
      Estee Lauder
      FX Networks
      General Electric
      Hard Rock Hotels
      Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
      Henri Bendel
      The Hertz Corporation
      Host Marriott
      JPMorgan Chase
      Kravco/Simon
      Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
      Loews Hotels
      Marriott International
      Marx Hotels Group
      MetLife Real Estate
      Port Authority of NY & NJ
      W Hotels
      World Trade Center
      Oh yeah.. and Mayor Dawn Zimmer

      And she didn't spend $15.3K per mailer for hiring a top-tier design firm. Not even sure she spent $10K. I am told their budget was $9K.

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  8. Not to mention the $1,000 Cryan asked for from Raia the day before the election that turned out to be $10,000 to pay for their fancy press person

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  9. If they overspent this much from Raia in one short election, you have to wonder how much Finn Boy steered to his friends out of Beth'a accounts during those long years when he served as her lacky

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  10. bottom line: regardless of how much money frank spent, he came in 7th place. none of his ticket came even close, and timmy couldn't even win his own ward. no matter how you slice it, that's about as bad as it could be. trying to spin it as "oh, you don't understand, winning wasn't the main goal, it was more important to tank ramos" is just plain stupid.

    frank spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money and got nothing in return. wake up.

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    1. Raia didn't win because Ramos people -- AP, Cryan, Holmes and Finn Boy were running his campaign -- or not -- and taking his money. Ramos people meanwhile are pretending that Raia had hurt Ramos when it was Russos doing all the damage to Raia. This only helped Zimmer -- which is why the Russos hurt Raia.

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  11. Don't assume that Raia or Mason didn't know about the inflated invoices. If an unethical vendor or service provider is willing to play along, the padded bill and the resulting kick-back is another way of having more non-recorded cash to play with, including a way of sheltering a bit of one's income.

    It's one of the oldest tricks in the double-book

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    1. Sure, Raia and Mason just love getting ripped off. They aren't the ones that got the kick back, it was the inbetween people who likely did -- the people who supposedly ran the campaign, but were most likely running it into the ground on behalf of the russos with Finn boy as their operative

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  12. money chasing money - good them they're not in charge of any city budgets (yet)

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  13. My take is Michael Russo unelectable now because of his and his family's sleazy and criminal past, thinks he may have a shot to be mayor in four years but if Ramos had won he had no shot at all. ever.

    Running a spoiler ticket insured he still had a chance.







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  14. Frank "Pupie" Raia has been a moron forever. Any questions?

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    1. My question: You really think that Raia was always a stupid person [moron] and will remain one forever? Can you also give me the winning lottery number as well? One thing he doe show, [IMO] he has poor judgement in some matters.

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    2. my guess is he's not particularly a moron, more like he's just not able to outsmart con men. for as sleazy as the russos and fish boy are, they are skilled at what they do.

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  15. Frank is no moron - its just that like Mason the money at the end of the day doesn't mean that much to him since he has so much. The guy who got ripped off in this election in a way that must really hurt wasn't Raia it was Ramos. He paid thousands of dollars to be made into a laughing stock for a flying ad at the Dylan concert and paid David Liebler thousands of dollars to entertain his opponents online. Then Ramos and his family had to reach into their own pockets for money they couldn't easily afford since they're not rich like Raia or Mason to get through the homestretch of an election he was going to lose anyway.

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    1. If that guy was paid for his online nonsense than I feel bad. It most likely drove countless people to vote for Zimmer and slate

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    2. I have no sympathy for Ramos, nobody forced him to run for another job. He already has a job as a school teacher, isn't that enough?

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    3. Ramos didn't get ripped off. He gave it away. He and his henchman, Russo, thought they could strong arm Raia into supporting Ramos. When that didn't work, Russo sent his moles into the Raia campaign to make sure Raia didn't get the council seat. The moles decided they might as well get their share of the wealth while they were at it. Meanwhile, Zimmer got to laugh her way back into control of the city council. Raia gave away his money to a pack of con-artists on the assumption he could buy a council seat. What he found out is that he brought those moles an orgy.

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    4. Raia let his anger toward Ramos cloud his judgement. He was out to destroy Ramo's bid for Mayor whatever the cost. He did not treat politics as a business - it should not have been personal, just business! As JFK said "You have no friends in politics, just allies."
      Previous enemies or foes can become current allies. Remember, Stuiver and Holzman were once in Mason's Corner.

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  16. And you know what? At the end of the day, after all the OG mishegas, Mayor Zimmer and the reform ticket just did their jobs during their past terms and told the people of Hoboken what they would do to continue to move the city forward if they were so fortunate to be re-elected...and THEY WON EVERY POSITION ON THE BALLOT.

    Perhaps someday the OG will realize you can get elected if you're honest and do a good job.

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