Sometimes it helps me to tell an especially depressing story with visual aids.
It was bad enough to see the collapse of civility at the City Council, it's entirely another thing to see the majority grabbing appointment powers from the mayor to reward Giattino campaign cronies.
I repeat: an anti-Bhalla politically partisan council majority has engineered themselves appointment powers that they do not currently have, in order to give (2) political friends back their board seats, while denying the mayor's 2 new appointees the courtesy of a VOTE on February 21, 2018.
It gets worse...
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| 2015 Tweet from Warren Hall, the mayor's 2018 appointee to Hoboken's Rent Leveling Board . Ramos and Giattino pulled Hall's appointment from the agenda on February 21, 2018, denying the former priest a board seat. |
GA found out that one of the mayor's appointees, Warren Hall, is a well known, beloved Hoboken resident and former priest at Hoboken's St. Peter's and Paul's Church. Michael "Traitor" DeFusco, a congregant, knows him well. And, Father Hall didn't leave the church voluntarily, he was forced out by an Archbishop because Hall is openly gay and a vocal supporter of LGBT advocacy groups. So when Warren Hall put in his application to serve on Hoboken's Rent Leveling Board, he was chosen because he is deserving; a man of compassion, a man of principle.
The same cannot be said for the Council members who denied him a vote last Wednesday.
Because of arrogant, crony politics, Hall and Urban's appointments were pulled off the agenda in a Banana Republic-style power grab by Council Prez Ramos, and Council VP Giattino.
The corrupt choreography was prepared in advance. The room was packed with friends of the (2) not being reappointed. The Council majority proceeded to approve 5 re-appointments but not the mayor's two "new" appointees. Heath Urban and Warren Hall had been told that they would not get voted on that night by Council VP Giattino and Councilwoman Fisher.
Next...
Once the public was told that CL-6 (Urban) and CL-9 (Hall) were pulled off the agenda, Giattino announced she was introducing ordinance "CL-12" to remove the mayor's appointment power for 3 full seats and 2 alternate seats.
Then... Ramos dropped this bombshell admission that the Council was grabbing appointment power for two NAMED INDIVIDUALS, and he put that on the public record. Ramos actually said that if the mayor did not "rethink" the two NAMED INDIVIDUALS, then the Council majority would finalize the ordinance to take his appointment power away and they would reappoint these NAMED INDIVIDUALS to the Rent Leveling Board.
Its all on video below. Watch it, it's 1:12 minutes.
Okay, here's the visual aid:
Here is the video (3 short clips)- pay close attention to Clip #3.
Did you hear Ramos say why Father Hall and Heath Urban are not "deserving" to have been appointed that night?
I didn't.
During the council meeting, Councilman Doyle asked a question that anyone with knowledge of the Council Rules, which ought to include all Council Members, would have thought was rhetorical. Councilman Doyle asked whether the Council rules allowed consideration of non-agenda items in the absence of an emergency.
ReplyDeleteCouncilman Ramos answered "Yes." In fact, the answer is "No." Councilwoman Giattino certainly knows the correct answer because she demanded that Mayor Zimmer and then Councilman Bhalla provide statements of exigency on the 1st reading of the UDD eminent domain Ordinance because it was submitted to the clerk 10 minutes after the submission deadline. That, of course, actually was a real live exigent matter in which the City's vital interests required that action be taken without delay, and the Giafusco crew proceeded to jeopardize those interests by delaying nevertheless.
Obviously there was no conceivable emergency associated with either of the two non-agenda items put forward last Wednesday. The Council could have submitted their questions to the Mayor without a resolution or they could have passed the resolution at the next meeting. The Council could have tabled the vote on the Messrs. Hall and Urban and properly noticed their power grab for the next meeting.
But because the Council Rules don't include political grandstanding or Michael Lenz and Cheryl Fallick's entitlement within the definition of an emergency, Council President Ramos and Council Vice-President Giattino chose to simply ignore the Council Rules. Then when Councilman Doyle asked about it, Councilman Ramos simply lied.
Not forgiving. Not forgetting.
ReplyDeleteEvery time you think things can't get any worse, they do. Absolutely disgusting - all to reward 2 individuals who are absolutely horrible people all around. SMH
ReplyDeleteBeth didn’t even do shit like this. If recalls weren’t a waste of scarce resources I’d heartily endorse one.
DeleteFunny, Beth is like a distant memory, but to the best of my recollection, she caused a lot of mischief and was a terrible councilperson and a toxic human being, but the amount of her nonsense that rose to the level of actual corruption was pretty nominal compared to this bunch. One of her most consequential stunts was suing to block Doyle from being seated on the council - to fill a vacancy that was created in the first place because Lenz didn't get his way. Funny how shit comes full circle.
Deleterusso and ramos must walk out of each city council meeting and laugh their head's off giving high-fives at the amazingly good fortune that's landed in their laps through literally no effort on their part. they haven't even had to wheel and deal and scheme to get the upper hand from reform, all they've done is sit back and watch a group of deluded faux reformer crybaby sellouts pull obstructionist hissyfits.
ReplyDeletehoboken becomes seinfeld's bizarro world.
Is former State Senator Bernie Kenny pulling Giattino's strings in an attempt to get back in power? After all, he was her election guru, and controlling agency appointments is a way of setting up a nice lobbying business.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy sense is that 2 out of power hacks --- Bernie Kenny and Michael Lenz --- have significant sway over Jen's approach to everything. It's clear, and I have lots of different people who work and have worked with Jen sharing anecdotes here, that Jen on her own is not competent nor even capable of cogently putting together English language sentences (not unlike Tiffany, who as crappy as her sentences are, clearly "writes her own stuff").
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I wouldn't say that Jen is as incapable as Beth Mason, but let's just say that Hoboken really did make the right choice when they put her in fourth place in the Mayoral race. That's actually where she belongs based on pure competence, professional experience, and emotional intelligence.
What's happening with regard to Lenz and Fallick from my perspective is that 2 people smarter than Jen and extremely self-centered (they love themselves so much) are running circles around Jen for their own enrichment to the detriment of Hoboken. Jen, if she was serious about her job, would think about the policy implications of what she's doing here. She's not. She's acting out of continued anger that Ravi called her out for maintaining her Republican party affiliation in an age of Trump, not getting that her new membership in the Democratic Party is an admission that she made the wrong leadership choice and that Ravi was right in calling her out on it. In the meanwhile, Hoboken is suffering out of her anger and I'm sad to say, her being totally out of her league. She's working with Mike DeFusco. Need I say more?
Jen is nice. That's not enough to be a member of the City Council. We should expect more. And now she's just acting out of anger. It's like we're in high school.