Mason Ally Gently Swats Garcia

Ho, ho, ho!   

GA hopes Santa leaves you lots of toys under your tree tonight, and not that nasty stomach virus that knocked me on my ass this week.  Ugh.  Be careful peeps, it is going around.

Well, different (holi)day, same Hoboken (political) drama.

GA was amused to see a known, longtime ally of Councilwoman Beth Mason slug Assemblyman Carmelo Garcia in this week's "Letters to the Editor."

But as slugs go, this was not the brass knuckles kind; it was a tap with a feather pillow.  Because of all the critiques one might make on various controversies which have surrounded the 33rd District  Assemblyman- particularly when he served as the Executive Director of the Hoboken Housing Authority-the Mason ally attacked Garcia on postage rates.

I kid you not!  Here's an excerpt:

Assemblyman Garcia, don’t use first class mail

Dec 21, 2014 

Dear Editor:

I recently received a letter from Assemblyman Garcia that was addressed to all local businesses. While I appreciate that Assemblyman Garcia made the effort to send out a letter, I was disappointed that the letter was sent by first class mail. 

 The few thousand dollars saved by sending his letter bulk mail would not have made a huge difference in the overall state budget, but it would show that Assemblyman Garcia cares about how our tax dollars are spent. Details matter.

...I encourage the assemblyman to do even better by keeping us informed and spending our tax dollars wisely.

Paul Lichstein

Of course, if Garcia used taxpayer funds for the mailing, then GA agrees with Lichstein. (Don't politicians always send their crap via bulk mail?)

But again, a dispute over postage rates is about as benign critique as one could imagine for this Assemblyman, now on his 3rd iteration of an "ethnic cleansing" lawsuit against "The Enterprise."

Nothing happens by accident in Masonworld.

So, while Mason has publicly supported Garcia and wooed his flock of supporters, such as a freebie to the League of Municipalties in Atlantic City ("two busloads of HHA residents"), could she be dispatching allies to take pot-shots at him?

Combine Garcia's clouded political future in the NJ Assembly with published rumor that Mason wants to replace him, are her public overtures of support to Garcia calculated duplicity as surrogates peck away at Garcia's Assembly performance?

Garcia's future as Hoboken's 33rd District Assemblyman has been acknowledged as precarious by Politickernj:

Sources say Assemblyman Carmelo Garcia, a native of Hoboken who joined the legislature in 2013, is in hot water with that leadership and could be bumped from the party’s main ticket next year. The controversy, insiders say, stems from an almost reputation-devastating incident that took place last year, when Garcia was caught having  secretly audio recorded a lunch meeting he had with the husband of Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, as well as former state Sen. and veteran pol Bernard Kenny. The whole incident was exposed when Garcia, as the city’s Housing Authority Executive Director, tried to sue Zimmer for “ethnic cleansing.”

But the move is said to have roiled state Sen. Brian Stack, Union City mayor and indisputable Hudson County political boss, who brought Garcia into the fold last year on a ticket that featured his own name and Jersey City Assemblyman Raj Mukherji, but who insiders say has now had enough of the “high maintenance” Latino.

“It’s not 100 percent he gets thrown off the line — though if I were a betting man I’d bet that he doesn’t come back,” one Democratic source, who requested anonymity, told PolitickerNJ last week about Garcia’s political future.

Lichstein makes a good point- if our tax dollars are paying for the Assemblyman's first class stamps instead of bulk mail rates.

Personally, GA is way more interested tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money spent on generators which, after sitting in an HHA parking lot for nearly 2 years in  shipping materials, we now learn are "not right for the space."

What the HELL does that mean?

GA is curious if any Mason loyalists will tackle bigger questions than postage stamps.

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