The Council Inquisitors


"POLITICAL MALPRACTICE"
Mayoral candidate Giattino's call to "investigate" Mayor Zimmer's handling of the City's SUEZ contract  appears to be evolving into a pre-election City Council live execution "investigation." 

Rumor has it that Giattino will designate financial know-it-all  expert  Tiffanie Fisher to lead the gallows "investigation," a  panel of hangmen non-partisans Peter Cunningham and Ruben Ramos

It appears this election-time execution strategy may have been hatched by a pink piece of LOX an accounting genius who along with his pal, a vindictive herring former Councilman, harbor extreme animus toward Mayor Zimmer.

In fact, the firing squad inner circle of the Giattino campaign, largely consist of executioners critics of Mayor Zimmer, and are anxious to seize on an assasination plot a strategy to destroy her legacy, and sink the unelectable turban-guy Ravi Bhalla in one fell swoop.

The ritualistic slaughter  investigation into why an $8.35M was an alleged "unfunded liability" pointing blame at the condemned mayor is the crux of the death warrant matter.

Some inconvenient new facts have emerged this week, which may short-circuit the Council's  electric chair investigation.

It appears that the Inquisition Council did not read the SUEZ contracts nor understand that $8.35M is NOT an "unfunded liability" it is a "contingent liability."

"Contingent liabilities" do not appear on the books. There is no reason for Zimmer, nor anyone else, to have tracked nor to know the dollar amount. It was never the City's debt, or "material" liability (passed on to taxpayers).

Let me give you an example of a contingent liability. 

Person A is a Defendant in a SLAPP Suit.  Scumbag B is the Plaintiff.  Fortunately, Person A has an insurance policy which pays for defending frivolous charges filed by husband and wife scumbags. Five years later, the case, Scumbag  v  A is still being litigated.

The legal defense cost is Person A's contingent liability.  

Person A will never pay the contingent liability- that is paid by his insurance company.  Person A has no idea what the amount of the contingent liability is.  Person A has no reason to know the amount of the contingent liability.  Person A has no need to "budget" for the contingent liability.  

Again: that's because Person A will never pay the contingent liability

And that's why it IS a contingent liability. 

Do you get it?  

The 1% unreachable who want a show-trial and execution are being willfully stupid, their little pea-brains reject all facts which may derail the show trial.   

But the Earth is not Square!  

The 1% unreachable say: "Yes it is!  I dropped my pencil and see? It's not rolling!"

Can anyone talk sense to the Inquisition Jen Giattino, Tiffanie Fisher, and Peter Cunningham?  At their own peril, they will earn the public's  ridicule and scorn if they proceed with this election time farce.  

A wise friend called their  conduct, "political malpractice." Why? Because the manufactured shitshow over a contingent liability may turn it into a material liability. That means it goes on the City's books.  We  will have Jen Giattino, Tiffanie Fisher, Peter Cunningham, Dave Mello, Ruben Ramos and Mike DeFusco to thank for that. 

Oh look... it's Mayor Zimmer,  trying to postpone her show-trial!

Here is her press release, including links to documents including ANSWERS to the Council's Q&A. 

OPEN LETTER FROM MAYOR ZIMMER REGARDING WATER INFRASTRUCTURE & PROPOSED SUEZ AGREEMENT

As perhaps everyone in Hoboken knows, the City's aging drinking water infrastructure is in desperate need of major investment. The City is upgrading the water mains along Washington Street and other priority areas, but much more funding will be needed to cover the extensive costs for city-wide upgrades. The City's proposed Suez agreement would fund investments every year. Taxpayers should not have to pay for all the costs of the upgrades to the system, and that is why reaching a fair agreement with Suez to provide much-needed funding was so important to me. Until the necessary infrastructure upgrades are done, unfortunately, our City will continue to be plagued by damaging, disruptive, and costly water main breaks.

Usually, costs of maintaining and upgrading a City's water system are fully covered by the system itself through the water ratepayers.  That way everybody who uses water shares in the cost proportionately, based on how much water they use.  For example, a car wash will pay proportionately more than a family of four, based on how much water each uses. 

Unfortunately, in June 2001, during the transition from the Russo Administration to the Roberts Administration, Hoboken amended its 1994 Agreement with our water company in a way that imposes enormous unfair costs on Hoboken's taxpayers.

Unbelievably, that Amendment actually reduced the amount the water company was required to pay each year for repairs and upgrades from $550,000 per year to $350,000 per year (with the City responsible for any repair costs exceeding $350,000) for 23 years from 2001 to 2024. In addition, the agreement stated that starting in 2014, the water company is permitted to "pass through" the "excess" cost of water to the City to the extent it exceeds the water cost levels of 2011 (although the contract doesn't say when or how that "pass through" is supposed to occur).  Not a penny is provided to pay for our desperately needed capital improvements beyond the reduced amount for emergency repairs.

While the City did receive a one-time payment of $2.7 million, which it used to close a budget gap in 2002, the 2001 ten-year extension and Amendment actually COST the City over $17 million compared to simply leaving the pre-existing Agreement in place until scheduled termination, and then extending it 10 more years without any changes. This cost includes $4.6 million in lost maintenance investment ($200,000 less per year for 23 years) and the City's agreement to a "pass through" of bulk water costs for 10 years (costing an estimated $13 million through scheduled contract termination in 2024).
Even though that Amendment was entered into 17 years ago, it is far from ancient history. It still has seven years to run, and terminating it now would cost the City a termination fee of almost $5 million.

In order to address the problems caused by this onerous Amendment, my Administration has been working for 2 years to re-negotiate our water agreement. In June of this year, we reached a tentative agreement, subject to City Council approval, on the terms of a new agreement. The Agreement was presented to the City Council in early July, shortly after negotiations were completed. In hindsight, it might have been wiser to wait until after the November election, so that the City Council could consider it without the distraction of an upcoming contentious election. However, it is still my hope that before the end of the year, the City Council will take a vote so that we can move forward to resolve these critically important issues. The proposed agreement is a dramatic improvement over the existing agreement that would enable Hoboken to finally address decades of underinvestment in our infrastructure.

These are the highlights of the proposed re-negotiated Agreement:

1.  Approximately $40 million in benefits to the taxpayer, including over $30 million in new infrastructure investment (approximately $1.8 million per year, compared to $350,000 per year currently) and almost $10 million from the elimination of unfair costs (relating to excess emergency repair and bulk water costs) imposed under the 2001 Amendment that would otherwise have had to be paid (either by taxpayers or through a rate increase) before the contract expired in 2024.

2. Installation of "smart technology" that would enable detection and repair of small leaks before they become big ones.

3.  Extends the Agreement 10 years until 2034.

Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation has been circulated about this Agreement. For example, the $40 million benefit to taxpayers is NOT simply being shifted to ratepayers. The only rate increases included in the Agreement are 1.8% in the first year to pay for a $150,000 annual increase in the emergency repair budget, an additional 2% per year for years 1 through 6 to phase in the actual cost of bulk water, and annual CPI adjustments.

In addition, some Council members have suggested that instead of resolving the unfair costs described above through a re-negotiation of the 2001 Amendment that caused the problem, the City should have included these costs in past budgets and raised taxes to pay them in past years. I strongly disagree, as did the legal and accounting professionals on whose advice the City relied upon. The charges had not been billed and were not going to be billed until negotiations had been completed. Put simply, the amounts were not yet due and were not likely to ever become due as the result of a renegotiated agreement or the city's ability to pass the costs on to ratepayers. 

Ultimately, it is important for residents to understand that the taxpayers of Hoboken should never have to shoulder the burden of the extremely unfair existing agreement that was passed in 2001 and currently extends until 2024. If the City Council approves the proposed agreement, then the City will be able to annually invest in its water main system and avoid these unfair excess bulk water and capital improvement costs. Holding the taxpayers responsible for these excess costs agreed to in 2001 is not necessary or appropriate now and was not necessary or appropriate over the past two years as some Council members have suggested. Prematurely taxing the people of Hoboken for a cost that was not yet payable and was likely never to be payable by the taxpayer would have been irresponsible and simply wrong.

The following documents provide additional information on this important issue:



BACKLASH
Anecdotally speaking...

Jen Giattino, Tiffanie Fisher and Peter Cunningham's attacks on the integrity and competence of the mayor, both directly (at last week's City Council meeting) and indirectly (constituent emails) and in the press (call for an "investigation") are backfiring.

Canvassers report that they are not being asked about the SUEZ contract, but they are hearing, "Why have "they" all turned on the Mayor?" and, "But she helped them get elected!"  

This perception of election-time betrayal has surprised many voters who like and trust the mayor.   

They see malice in the actions of Giattino, Fisher and Cunningham, in particular their cries for a show-trial. 

Mind you, these same  folks have watched Mayor Zimmer and her City Council for the past 8 years and liked what they saw:  
(1) bringing the City back from a budget deficit,
(2) leading remarkably well through the Hurricane Sandy,
(3) getting 2 flood pumps online that are demonstrably helping,
(4) acquiring 9 acres of open space for Hoboken,
(5) getting us a $230M Rebuild-by-design grant, and
(6)spending the last 1.5 years re-negotiating the horrible SUEZ contract, signed by Councilman Tony Soares and Ruben Ramos.
The Giattino-Fisher-Cunningham attacks on Mayor Zimmer's honesty and competence are being perceived as a tawdry assault on her legacy, a politically-motivated betrayal.

Comments

  1. Someone from Corporate Communications will be in touch with you. We want to use your dungeon picture for the Team GiaFusco Annual Holiday Party Invitation.

    It just screams "festive."

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  2. If Ravi comes in 2nd and Jen comes in 4th I hope she has a plan to get out of town before she's tarred and feathered.

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  3. Kamikaze campaigners never die. They just get jobs at the county.

    The "Real Reform" honchos will cut a deal with DeFusco - with a little help from their old friend in his midst - get a bigger seat at the table in the new regime, and all will be exactly as planned.

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    1. Which means if it's not Ravi or Jen then it needs to be Romano?

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    2. I'm sure they can get their hooks in him too. They're crafty and relentless. It's got to be Ravi. Make it so.

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  4. as mike tyson once said, "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." i sense MDF's OG team will soon be throwing punches at their "teammates".

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  5. Another example of Giattino's Masonmorphosis !!

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    1. Good point. It's definitely a metamorphosis in her case. No one really had any illusions about Defusco.

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    2. DeFusco's metamorphosis was when he pretended to be a reformer to run against Castellano. Many of us who knew his political pedigree knew what to expect, but Castellano was simply so odious that the bet he might be at least marginally more tolerable seemed like a sound one at the time. All things considered, it probably was - he may be an opportunistic blowhard and a political whore, but that woman was truly wicked.

      What some may not remember is during Cammarano's 24 days in office, there was an enthusiastic coterie of mostly young men who really viewed his victory as theirs and saw themselves as the new guard who would be effectively running the city for a few years and then riding Peter's coattails to somewhere other than where they wound up. This crew was cultivated and groomed by Maurice, who saw Peter's win as proof of his own candidate-crafting skills and saw this junior guard as his growing bench of future councilmen, freeholders, board chairs, assemblymen, you name it. Occhipinti was obviously the top dog at the time, and when he picked up the 4th Ward seat, even more people started to believe in Maurice as a wizard of political stock-picking. Others in the group included Eduardo Gonzalez, Jason Maurer, Scott DeLea (not as trusted as some of the others because of his own shape-shifting predilections, but inside enough to get their backing for a 5th ward run), Mike Goldberg (no longer around), Mike Novak (also out of the picture), Jason Orlando, a few others. During Cammarano's month in office, they were everywhere, and their swagger was palpable. They thought they were kings of the world, and for 24 days, they kind of were. Mike DeFusco was very much in this group, in the very inner circle. He was pretty enthusiastic. Everywhere you'd see him, he was gushing with excitement about the team he was on and the wave they were riding. He was on the team 110%, and never left.

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    3. After Peter's arrest, Maurice kept the group tight. You'd often see them off to the side at city events like parades and festivals, eyeballing Zimmer team members and visibly stewing, plotting, scheming, laying the groundwork for their comeback. They got a quick rebound with Occhipinti, but fumbled with DeLea and then Gonzalez.

      Say what you will about DeLea and Gonzalez, in many respects they were lambs to the slaughter. It's hard to run against a relatively popular incumbent Zimmer ally on the Cammarano message of good government with competence and experience, or however he put it. The coalition you need to build is all the Old Guard votes plus a few suckers you can peel off from newcomers who don't know any better. It's hard to find enough suckers in the 5th ward when anyone with eyes can see that no matter what you call yourself, you're running as a stand-in for Belfiore.

      DeFusco had a different angle. He ran in an Old Guard ward, against a six-term councilwoman who ever her own allies thought needed to be put out to pasture. So he was able to craft a different message and strategy. He was able to establish credibility as a reformer with people who were willing to see him as whatever they needed him to be as long as he was running to beat Terry. He did a great job, ran a great campaign, built a great coalition, managed to ally himself with Zimmer enough to be seen as acceptable to her base. She always knew it was only a matter of time before he showed his true colors, but thought he had the integrity to dance with the person who brought him to the dance for a little longer than it turned out.

      But the problem is, the person who really brought DeFusco to this dance was Maurice Fitzgibbons. Along with Tim Occhipinti, Eduardo Gonzalez, Scott DeLea, and Peter Cammarano.

      That's his team. That's always been his team. And he's always been beyond psyched to be part of that team. The gusto he displayed at all the civic events back in July 2009, that giddy pride in running with a bunch of well-groomed thugs, of being the acceptable, camera-friendly face of the Matt Calicchios of the world, has always been the central fuel of his political fire.

      Make no mistake about it. I didn't.

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    4. reformbaseball -You are my favorite poster ever.

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  6. People don't change. Only circumstances change. And watching how people behave in changed circumstances is how we learn who they have always been, not who they have suddenly morphed into.

    Mason was always Mason, DeFusco was always DeFusco, Lenz has always been the same Lenz, Soares the same Soares and Giattino, Cunningham and Fisher have always been the people we see today.

    All that has changed is their perception of their own self interest.

    The same is, of course, true for Zimmer though IMHO (admittedly biased)she has remained true to the person she appeared to be throughout . What we thought we saw when she started out 10 years ago is what we actually had all along and still have today.

    Not so for the others.

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    1. I have definitively questioned Zimmer's judgment on some specific issues, but never her integrity and sincerity. Certainly not going to question it now when she is on the way out and has nothing to gain from the parts of her agenda she is trying to wrap up before she leaves.

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    2. It seems obvious Zimmer did not want to dump the problem of solving the mess caused by Mayor Russo, Ramos, Soares and others on her successor. It's ironic that at least 2 of her potential successors are kicking the gift horse in the mouth instead of saying thank you.

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    3. RE: 2 potential successors - I think their strategy is, if it's a good idea and they can't take credit for it, shoot it down or put if off until they can take credit for getting it done.

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    4. Dawn Zimmer has remained true to her core principles over the last ten years, despite being beaten up and put through the wringer by every sleazy politico who's tried to take her down for his/her personal gain. Now, in the twilight of her highly successful career as Mayor of Hoboken, "Jen" Giattino, Tiffanie Fisher and Peter Cunningham have put a shiv in her back to score some political points. Shame on all three of you! The Suez Water contract brouhaha is a faux scandal. Anyone who understands basic accounting knows that. These attacks on Mayor Zimmer will backfire in a big way. She has way too many loyal supporters who will not stand for these bogus, totally politically motivated attacks. They will push back IN A BIG WAY!

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