Last week, the council antagonists revealed their next line of attack on the Mayor's Office. Moments prior to cutting the salaries ("stipend") of top mayoral aides John Allen and Jason Freeman, Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher asked to speak. She began:
"The new security around the mayor--I'm not at all questioning the need for it--"
BOING! Fisher's nose popped out like Geppeto's lying puppet! She continued, her schnozz growing longer than a Nathan's hotdog.
"--so can we have that, um, somehow on this [payroll list] separated out..."
It's all on video:
Did you notice that Fisher speaks for "we" as in "we want to understand the very specific cost in providing security for the mayor..."
Who is "we"? Oh, right.
"We" is the same political faction that plotted to strip the $384 "stipend" from the City's $2.06M payroll. "We" let Fisher lead the charge on stripping the cost of the mayor's security detail out of the payroll, onto a separate line item for some unknown purpose.
But really, what is this "security detail?"
The mayor's security detail consists of (1) Hoboken police officer. (Two officers are assigned: a primary and a secondary- one serves 'regular hours', the other covers as needed) Hours are Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 4 PM. Note: the officer is an existing member of our police force, not an additional hire for the mayor. When the mayor is away, the officer assigned to him goes somewhere else. If the officer works overtime, he gets paid. The Mayor's Office is his 'beat.'
Why is this an issue? Doesn't every municipality put a police officer in the Mayor's Office?
HPD Chief Ferrante told Fisher that the officer's OT for this for this payroll period (March 22- April 4) was 6 hours.
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS
Obviously, this hostile council faction has decided to make an issue of the mayor's security detail.
Going after the mayor's security detail is part of the Old Guard death-by-a-thousand-cuts political strategy: cut salaries, cut resources, keep picking away to make the job unpleasant, economically unfeasible or in this case, dangerous. Eventually, your target will give up- quit, or leave when his/her term expires.
WHAT THEY WANT: A NEW PAYROLL LINE ITEM: "MAYOR'S SECURITY"
Fisher directed Hoboken's Business Administrator to create a separate payroll line item titled "mayor's security" for the Council's payroll sheet (the one submitted for approval).
Fisher wants the new payroll line item to include:
(1) the 'regular' salary of the police officer stationed in the Mayor's Office
(2) any overtime
So...we can expect political theater at every meeting over this "mayor's security" line item. We can also expect to see this number in campaign literature. Certainly, it will backfire.
But... it is forcing the BA to do extra stupid work they can do themselves. (Especially since they're good in math.)
GA'S 2 CENTS
Let the council members (Fisher, Giattino, Ramos, DeFusco, Cunningham) get the information themselves from the HPD's payroll sheets. Our BA shouldn't have to do their political dirty work.
The election cannot get here soon enough.
ReplyDeleteUnderlying this is a shared belief among the butt-hurts that Bhalla created the racist midnight flier. So the implied threat and the emotions the flier tried to tap into were just political ploys. If they believed the flier were “real” they wouldn’t be going there.
ReplyDeleteJerk move. If racism puts the City’s Mayor in danger, it’s problematic that the Tiffanie would call into question the need for security. What a jerk.
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DeleteI see this as an extension of Tiffanie’s race baiting during the campaign. She effectively said then, “I’m not a racist but you know other people are, so Ravi is unelectable and should not be supported for Mayor, Jen the white candidate should.” Now that Ravi’s elected she’s effectively saying, “I’m not a racist, but you know, racism is costing the city money, so Ravi should not be Mayor.” In either case, Tiffanie is leveraging racism to say Ravi should not be Mayor or to undermine his Mayorship. It’s disgusting. I bet she does not even get it.
DeleteBTW - kudos for sticking to required screen names here even now that the election is over. Saves you from the candy-assery appearing daily on the alt-blog where 3 bitter malcontents, all of whom are quite comfortable in their alt-right surroundings, try to pose as dozens of bitter malcontents.
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