BREAKING: No Minorities in Hoboken Reporter's Leadership

Serving news to ethnically, racially and culturally diverse Hudson County

Shocking!

Did you know that ethnically and culturally diverse Hudson County is served by a newspaper whose staff is whiter than the linen department at Macy's?

It's true!  Look at their leadership!

They're whiter than a double-scoop of Ben and Jerry's Vanilla Bean- not one chocolate chip, toffee bar or fudge brownie.   (Even vanilla-based Americone Dream has fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl.) 

GA brings that up because I couldn't help but notice this on the cover of my paper this week:

Recall, this is the newspaper that walked away from 14 new generators sitting uninstalled in a parking lot last February, who published HUD promises they are going to be installed "in Spring."  Those generators are intended to provide emergency power to the largely minority population at the HHA.


An honest newspaper would be asking, "How come the lights went out on the minority residents of the HHA last Wednesday when they ordered brand new generators after Hurricane Sandy to prevent power outages and potential life safety threats? How come an HHA resident got trapped in the elevator when new building generators are sitting uninstalled in plastic wrap?"  An honest newspaper might have even contacted HFD Chief Blohm to ask whether his department intends to inspect the HHA buildings to bring them up to code and make sure dead and/or malfunctioning generators are installed.  That's what an honest newspaper might have done after a blackout at the HHA.  Instead, the only "blackout" in the Hoboken Reporter is anything written to endanger the control of current HHA Executive Director Carmelo Garcia.

And so, in a spin-ridden, ugly article, the HR played the race card in advance of the Hoboken Housing Authority reorganization this Thursday.   The expected outcome is that a 'Carmelo-friendly' Chairman Rob Davis- an African American- will be replaced by a less- Carmelo-friendly whitey.   Apparently 'someone' ordered up a hit-piece attacking the Zimmer administration as 'racist.'  The piece is all spin, and wrong. For example:

"Not counting the Housing Authority board, there are no Latin-Americans filling the 37 major Hoboken board positions and City Hall directorships."

WRONG.   

GA's counted 8 Latino/Hispanic members on the following Municipal Boards: Historic Preservation Commission (Ana Sanchez), Library Board (Arturo Martinez), North Hudson Sewage Authority (Tony Soares), Rent Leveling and Stabilization (Rosemary Orozco), Zoning Board of Adjustment (Anotonio Grana), HHA (Eduardo Gonzales, Jean Rodriguez) and Shade Tree Commission ( Larry Henriques- just resigned). 

Using the HR's "37" number Hoboken Municipal boards are 22% Hispanic/Latino.

That's a higher percentage than the Hoboken's "15.2 percent Latino" population per 2010 Census data.

Get that?

Hoboken Municipal Boards have more Hispanic/Latino's than their percentage in Hoboken's population.
 
Furthermore, we have Hoboken's first JEWISH and first FEMALE mayor.  One of her 2 top Aides, the 'VOICE' of her administration is a Hispanic named "Juan."

We have a Latino Assemblyman, a Latino Executive Director of the HHA.

Some believe that we would have had a LATINO MAYOR, Ruben Ramos, but not for that whitey  Councilwoman Beth Mason running white guy Tim Occhipinti as a white-spoiler.

And for this load of manure:

For many years, it was traditional in Hoboken for the three-member Board of Education campaign slates, including from “reform” factions of Hoboken politics, to include at least one member of a minority group on the slate... but Kids First did not include any members of minority groups on their slate.

Because Kids First ran INCUMBENTS.  Of course, Kids First has had racially diverse tickets, had the HR done a minimum of due diligence to check.  Nah.

When Carmelo Garcia, the most recent Latino Hobokenite to serve on the Board of Education, stepped down in January to avoid conflicts with his new role as a state Assemblyman, he was replaced by the board with Monica Stromwall, who is white.

Oh, you mean Carmelo Garcia, the guy who never showed up for his committee meetings and had lousy attendance for public meetings?  That one?  I suppose white Monica has big shoes to fill.   If she can find them.

Look behind the generators, Monica!

I am not really sure what the HR thinks they're pulling, but they are pulling it from the bottom of the deck.

And our Asian friends? 

The Hoboken Reporter's blown them off.   There was Michael Chong on Rent Leveling and Stabilization, HR pinata, Councilman Ravi Bhalla and his brother, the hilariously funny Amar on the Library Board.

Well, anyone interested in applying for a municipal board position knows where to go:

http://www.hobokennj.org/boards/

Of course, if you support Reform you have a good chance of ending up on the other side of a lawsuit, perhaps even one financed by Beth Mason. 

She's white, by the way.