In a Mile Square city it's not hard to get an answer from a public official, especially one whom you know.
This election was so contentious that the campaign rhetoric of partisans morphed people whom we've supported since 2009 and 2011--with very similar voting records-- into unacceptable choices to lead Hoboken.
That is what political campaigns do. Politics is not "Miracle on 34th Street" where the Macy's Santa Claus tells kids that they can buy the toy at Gimbals. No, the political equivalent would be the Macy's Santa telling voters that Gimbals sucks and their toys are made from toxic materials.
That's the unfortunate reality of the two Reform campaigns. Its called comparative advertising. Ravi and Jen tell Hoboken voters why their toys are better, why their opponent's toys suck. Both campaigns did it.
If being linked to the National Republican Party and Trump is "low road," so is a "not-electable" whisper campaign and insisting a candidate doesn't really care about about Hoboken, that he's using all of us as a stepping stone to Trenton. Both campaigns hit and got hit hard.
Now there's a mess to clean up.
Now there's a mess to clean up.
Bhalla has started. A source tells GA that he's invited all of the mayoral candidates to participate in his Transition: Bhalla has personally invited Giattino, Romano, DeFusco, Nason and Bautista each to lead a Transition Committee.
But, you know what really what inspired this post was a comment I read on Facebook.
"Hopefully mayor elect Bhalla will soon clarify what he meant by jaw dropping development. "In addition, the north end of Hoboken has incredible untapped potential, as do the Hoboken rail yards, as the two entrances to our city. They are very important projects and I want people who come to this city via those routes to drop their jaw.”
GA copy-pasted the Facebook comment and sent it to Bhalla: "Can you clarify?"
Ravi replied:
"People who are predisposed to wanting to think negatively about me twist my words in a negative way. What I meant was that people should have a good first impression of Hoboken. When someone comes to your home for the first time, you want to make a good first impression. You don't want people to see blight; you don't want the city to look blighted. It doesn't mean overdevelopment, or height or density or any of that. It means when you enter a city the impression should be one that's charming and welcoming."
If anyone needs more than that- maybe a pint of blood or a body part- get it yourself.
The campaign is over. Time to move on.
The campaign is over. Time to move on.
Whooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaa!
ReplyDeleteJust because we said we look forward to working with him to move the city forward doesn't mean we have any intention of working with him to move the city forward. What doesn't he understand about the words "Resistance Government in Exile"?
Boy, they don't call him Unelectable for nothing.
I am an unapologetic cheerleader for Hoboken and have been very fortunate for the last decades to see it get better and better. I too want residents and visitors to be impressed when the enter the place I have chosen to live. We have the very real opportunity in the next few years to make that happen in Hoboken. To me that will take world class architecture and design which has been something in short supply in Hoboken. It will take looking beyond and clinging to old commonly held knee jerk reactions to new development. That also will take vision from those we have elected to carefully make those decisions.
ReplyDeleteThe solution that was reached with the Monroe Arts Center development where height was increased to add large public open space and amenities while still holding to the same overall allowable density, is the direction I think we should be looking for future development at the north and south portals of Hoboken.
I have zero problem with anyone using making Hoboken a successful, vital, beautiful city as part of their credentials to their next position.
Cunningham doubles down in the Reporter on his claim that "The major things were out of our control. The Bhalla campaign knew that and took a bet which paid off. Unfortunately, the overall result was one of the ugliest campaigns on record in Hoboken," and that Peter "wouldn't change a thing."
ReplyDeleteIf that's the takeaway, it does not bode well. When Peter ranks his list of ugliest political incidents on record in Hoboken, I wonder if he counts the time Marianne Camporeale, the nominee he sponsored to the HHA, told then-Council President Bhalla she would "ring that gavel around your neck."
I suppose to that group, the ends justify the means. Either that or they really don't care how they behaved, they only care that they lost. And not one of them wants to take ownership over what their online proxies did and continue to do. It is going to be a long 2 years.
DeleteThe hyperbole about "one of the ugliest campaigns on record" is objectively absurd. As is the idea that whatever went wrong for Jen's campaign was outside their control.
DeleteThat said, it's normal for losing campaigns to see themselves as victims who were somehow wrongfully robbed of a victory to which they were entitled. That's much easier than accepting the reality that they themselves made mistakes, and that they were in fact rejected by the voters.
With time, sometimes comes more objectivity. Hopefully that will be the case here, though ultimately that only matters to the extent it affects how councilmembers do their jobs going forward.
The first meeting post election had some good signs, and some not so good signs and the brief agenda didn't provide much opportunity for mischief, especially given that recent events regarding UDD made mischief regarding that issue (which might have been planned when the vote was delayed) politically suicidal.
Let's hope that commitment to public service wins out over a desire to settle grievances on the public's dime. I for one am cautiously optimistic.
It got to be a secondary issue with Jen and her inner circle. That inability to deal with a contact sport. What they got in the campaign was mild, but indicated that they weren't anticipating anything at all.
DeleteWhat were they going to do when Swibinski filled city hall with cops in matching t-shirts screaming that the tight-fisted mayor wanted to get young families killed, with the support of wave after wave of "concerned" (OG-candidate-friendly) citizens?
Not everyone has the hide for what a reform mayor has to deal with, from Pat Ricciardi stealing and distributing your email to lord knows who, to snowplows where the blades are just a little too high so it looks like the city doesn't know how to clean up after a storm. It ain't t-ball. It's better everyone found out now who expected that it was.
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DeleteCouncilman Cunningham's letter was very disappointing. I didn't expect a mea culpa but a little generosity would have gone a long way.
DeleteI don't dispute his assertion that this was, "one of the ugliest campaigns on record in Hoboken," but the negativity came out of the four major campaigns whether it was official campaign communication or online comments from various supporters.
As a voter who followed the race closely, I was confronted with plenty of assertions that Ravi was in the pocket of developers or the person actually behind the midnight flier that tied him to terrorism. On this blog, commenters (not GA) questioned Jen's status as a trader at Goldman Sachs and I found suggestions that she was "just an administrative assistant" demeaning and unnecessary. Her political affiliation however is fair game. Had Ravi been sworn in as city councilperson by hmm...I don't know...Bob Menendez, would the Giattino campaign not have used the recent federal indictment and trial as ammo? Of course they would and I wouldn't have blamed them for doing so.
What really irks me about Cunningham's letter is the inference that the leadership behind Jen's campaign are somehow victims in all this. Take a step back. Why did a Reform movement emerge in Hoboken? To eliminate graft, ensure that tax dollars are well spent and make municipal government work for everyone, not just special interests. If there's so much agreement on big picture policy and goals, why start an insurgency reform campaign? As someone who looks at this from the outside, the split in reform seemed to be more about personal grievances than serious policy differences that affect most Hobokenites.
What this voter wants to see now is City Council and the Mayor-elect come together and get stuff done. The sour grapes I'm seeing from Councilpersons Fischer and Cunningham is distressing. The grace Bhalla exhibited when the terrorism flier came to light, not taking the bait and going ballistic on DeFusco at the last council meeting and the way he is reaching out to different factions in Hoboken only reaffirms that I voted for the right candidate.
Beautifully said, HobokenGarden.
Delete"The major things were out of our control." LOL...hey peter, here's one "major thing" that was in your control: putting forth a genuinely nice person who happened to be a lousy candidate.
ReplyDeletehere are a few others: not having a clear, compelling reason why we needed a second reformer in the race, the candidate's unwillingness to speak for herself on key issues, the candidate ceding the campaign's figurehead role to a 2nd ward councilperson who clearly lacked strategic wherewithal and probably alienated more voters than she attracted, allowing political hacks with chips on their shoulders to influence the campaign, significant lack of voter support and fundraising, disregard for polling that showed the candidate was in 4th place for most of the campaign (aside from one brief "surge" to 3rd) and had no path to victory.
aside from that, as the saying goes, you was robbed.
Compared to some previous Hoboken political campaigns the one was actually pretty tame.
ReplyDeleteWith all of the candidates basically saying, I approve of and was a part of what the Zimmer Administration has been doing for the last eight years, but some how if elected I can do it a just a little better. Mayor Zimmer went into the election with a 71% an overall approval rating which left many deciding to agree with her choice of someone to carry on her legacy.
I'm not sure I agree with your take on the messaging put forward by the losing candidates, though perhaps it would have been wiser had they followed that course. It seems to me that both Giattino and DeFusco at times seemed to be running more against Zimmer than against Bhalla, a strategic choice that made little sense for either of them given Zimmer's popularity and Romano's presence in the race gobbling up much of the dedicated anti-zimmer vote.
DeleteGiattino and DeFusco definitely ran against Zimmer to some extent. The whole Suez contract debacle was all about trashing Zimmer and by extension Bhalla. They couldn't trash her over open space and such, so they used Suez. Their attacks were completely political motivated and even their online proxies said it was all political. Of course, they claimed it was Zimmer who was being political and completely ignored the fact that all their baseless accusations and objections were politically motivated. It really was disgusting.
DeleteBTW, I am convinced that Suez was to Giattino what CT was to Mason.
Our erstwhile blog administrator has THE PROOF: Team Unelectable did the fliers!
ReplyDeleteHe is simply withholding THE PROOF from the police due to a standing policy of "not interfering with ongoing investigations." For once your
propaganda site was accurate with its headline: Unelectable Guilty!
Our good-at-math Directress of Grudge Nursing (we are still waiting for Unelectable to create and more importantly fund the Department), agrees that it is time to take the investigation away from the Hoboken Police and turn it over to the professionals! Or as she puts it, " With all due respect* to the Hoboken PD, it's probably time to bring in outside help on this investigation." Stay tuned to find out who our resident math whiz selects to receive THE PROOF that Team Unelectable did the fliers!
*Please note that by saying "with all due respect" our D of GN automatically removed the insult to the competence of the police force that immediately follows. You can't get much better at math than that!
Also, we'll be re-running a Fan-Favorite created by our All New! editor on our All New! corporate website: a posed picture of people campaigning on a pier next to a random picture of another (unelectable) group campaigning. It's all THE PROOF you need that we actually WON!
KurtBart: The Place to Go When You're Sick and Tired of the Facts**
**Our All New! corporate website is definitely not called Same Stiff, Different Morgue. Stop calling it that!