For those who dive in cyber-dumpsters, you may have read bizarre, conspiratorial ravings about the Church Towers PILOT (due to expire next March.) They are the mad bleatings of a lunatic. None are true.
GA will debunk those horse turds and answer the question: "Who decides the fate of the Church Towers PILOT?"
GA will debunk those horse turds and answer the question: "Who decides the fate of the Church Towers PILOT?"
HISTORY:
On March 4, 2009, the Hoboken City Council passed a 10-year PILOT extension for Church Towers; the extension was granted amidst warring political factions gearing up for Hoboken's 2009 mayoral election. In a deal with Councilman Russo, Beth Mason threw her support for the PILOT in exchange for votes; Mason also let Russo pick her 3 At-Large running-mates. The Council's only "no" votes on the Church Towers PILOT extension were Dawn Zimmer and Peter Cunningham.
NOW:
The Hoboken City Council Subcommittee on Affordable Housing is charged with determining how the City should proceed upon expiration of the Church Towers PILOT.
The members are: Chairwoman Vanessa Falco, Tiffanie Fisher and Jen Giattino.
Forget the horse shit. Here's the story.
Sources close to City Hall told GA:
"The affordable housing subcommittee met last week and (surprise surprise) Tiffanie wants more analysis before she decides if she wants to protect the affordability of the building or let it revert to market rate and just let the city's rent ordinances provide protection. Jen deferred to Tiff. No Ruben, just Vanessa, Tiffanie and Jen at the meeting. The mayor made the special counsel available to the council's subcommittee but the meeting was the council's, not the mayor's. The mayor's office isn't involved until the council decides what direction to go in. If they want to extend the pilot Ravi will negotiate the terms."
There you go.
Those of you who watched the above 5-minute clip noticed how many opportunities Council President Ruben Ramos, and the 3 Affordable Housing Subcommittee members blew off-- opportunities to tell Councilman Russo that he was conflicted out of involvement in the Church Towers PILOT matter.
Putting it simply, no one told Mike Russo that as a Church Towers resident, he should recuse himself on the Church Towers PILOT matter.
I can tell you why.
Because the anti-Bhalla faction is fomenting the false narrative that the mayor is wheeling and dealing with Mike Russo on the PILOT.
Which is absolute horse shit.
The Council subcommittee on Affordable Housing, then the Council as a whole will decide the fate of the Church Towers PILOT.
Mayor Bhalla does not control the Council, the mayor has no power to influence the majority voting bloc of Giattino, Ramos, Fisher, DeFusco and Cunningham.
Those of you who watched the above 5-minute clip noticed how many opportunities Council President Ruben Ramos, and the 3 Affordable Housing Subcommittee members blew off-- opportunities to tell Councilman Russo that he was conflicted out of involvement in the Church Towers PILOT matter.
Putting it simply, no one told Mike Russo that as a Church Towers resident, he should recuse himself on the Church Towers PILOT matter.
I can tell you why.
Because the anti-Bhalla faction is fomenting the false narrative that the mayor is wheeling and dealing with Mike Russo on the PILOT.
Which is absolute horse shit.
The Council subcommittee on Affordable Housing, then the Council as a whole will decide the fate of the Church Towers PILOT.
Mayor Bhalla does not control the Council, the mayor has no power to influence the majority voting bloc of Giattino, Ramos, Fisher, DeFusco and Cunningham.
You just bought yourself one of our patented “I don’t read this site myself, but someone told me about this article” replies. It’s our strategy for commenting about you obsessively while trying to seem too aloof to notice your existence. We all voted and the results are in: we all agree that our strategy is working incredibly well! You just got served!
ReplyDeleteOr you’ll get served when we get around to reading this fabrication which totally conflicts with our preferred narrative and is therefore 100% false. We just haven’t read it yet, that’s all. Because aloof and whatnot like I said before.
Ahhhhh, so Tiff is trying to preemptively blame the mayor for a decision she is going to make in case it is not well received by the public. What a scummy but entirely predictable move.
ReplyDeleteha-ha - you mean your source close to city hall that has a vested interest in trashing Tiffanie, Jen and Peter? Quite frankly, the only rumor I heard of was the one put forward on this site - which was that Jen was pushing the PILOT. (false) - Is there a new narrative now?
ReplyDeleteFor the record, the only thing that Jen was pushing was for this item (PILOT expiration) to be dealt with so the residents weren't in limbo. She ran a tutorial on rent control because, according to our laws, if nothing else, the building will become rent controlled.
Thank you, InDenial! (sp?). You’re right - We have a perfectly good narrative on our home site. It has NOTHING about this so-called subcommittee!
DeleteIt’s about Unelecable and Russo meeting behind closed doors and Mike being a consigliere and stuff like that (we work in mafia-speak wherever possible!).
People love our narrative. No one wants to hear about some stupid subcommittee and our friends on the council being responsible for the decision. Boring, boring, boring!
And hey, extra credit for making like council committees and standard operations are “rumors” and “narratives”! Well done!
Face it rent control queen, the person whose boots you are licking has to actually decide something before the mayor will do anything to implement that decision. No decision means no negotiations. And if the place goes rent controlled because she refuses to entertain the notion of a PILOT, then she takes the blame for the big fat increase in rent they get to pay b/c of the new far higher tax bill. Her goose is cooked. She, Mike and Tiff will never get the OG vote on anything. And Jen/Tiff already lost the reform vote and can't afford to buy the HHA vote. Politically she is a goner and with her - you too.
DeleteLook what the wind blew in! Thank you for your, um... contribution. Now don't let the cyber-door hit your hiney on the way out!
DeletePlease be advised, we will be holding an emergency meeting of the “More Voices That Are Always Better Committee.” Namely Mostly Trusted and The Tiffanatrix. They will be addressing some of the committee imbalances that were created when Jim Dull and New Girl refused to be posted to certain key committees. (Yes, that is our recollection of how it went down.)
DeleteTo show that there’s no hard feelings, Dull and Girl will staff the Affordable Housing Committee, with our favorites “leaving to spend more time with their families” until the pilot decision is made.
Do the right thing, you two!
Indie is Jen against proving Church Towers any program other than existing rent control?
DeleteIf you want to know, ask her.
DeleteWe don't need to ask her. The ball is in her court. She either does it or she doesn't. Not that it matters. She successfully sabotaged her political career - with no small amount of help from you.
DeleteThe owners did not comply with the terms of the last PILOT extension agreement. Not only should this not be granted now, but the tax revenues we should have received through the last extension should now be paid - with interest.
ReplyDeleteThe kooky site called MSV would have had you believe during the election that Ravi was making deals with NJ Transit to build huge buildings in Hoboken. Remember those insane accusations? I wonder how they square those conspiracy theories with the reality that Ravi is fighting NJ Transit all the time and advocating strongly for Hoboken’s interest on the issue of Union Dry Dock. Fools. The combination of Roman and Kurt is a super conductor of idiocy. Their fidelity to facts is non-existent. I hope Tiff,
ReplyDeleteJen, Peter continue to be tied to MSV. Roman makes them look nuts and they have no one to blame but themselves for it.
Councilman Russo very effectively fired a warning shot at Councilwoman Giattino as one of the Church Tower buildings and it it's large voting block is in her Ward and who they vote for in the next election will be reflected in how the feel about her her committee's solution. Councilman Russo has historically had great influence over how Church Tower voters cast their votes.
ReplyDeleteWell Jen, Tiff and Pete wanted to set policy for the city. Perhaps they should stop being such cowards and make a frigging decision. They can't hide behind horse manure's keyboard forever.
DeleteI don't have any idea what is actually happening with this but it should be approached in an intelligent and coherent way - not by using the words "church towers" and "PILOT" as if they were curse words.
ReplyDeleteAssuming rent control otherwise applies and a renegotiated PILOT is legal (no idea if either of those are true) it's possible that a well negotiated PILOT would both provide more revenue for the city than it would get under rent control and allow the City to impose regulations to ensure the subsidy goes to those who need it - something not possible under rent control.
Rent control provides a non targeted tax subsidy. Wouldn't a targeted subsidy be better, especially if it resulted in more revenues to the City and schools?
numbers, no one here has used those words as pejoratives. This post is not a policy discussion- it's to edify the public on who is responsible for the Church Towers PILOT policy decision going forward- to clarify the role of the council v the mayor, in the context of misinformation that's been pumped onto the internet. Tiffanie Fisher and Jen Giattino, both on the Affordable Housing subcommittee, know the truth of the matter. Their silence supports the production of horse shit on the Alt Right site and in HCV comments; further, they appear to be leaking the mayor's email to The Angry Thing. At least they haven't hacked the mayor's account, like what happened to Zimmer!
DeleteGA I was not referring to here but to the discussion on the site that will not be named that you were responding to.
ReplyDeleteYou are quick on the draw! I thought so- just wanted to clarify. The horse manure producer is trying to muddy the waters in advance of a policy decision, so that the Council MAJORITY (who will own the fate of the Church Towers PILOT) doesn't get blamed. I've ignored the disinformation campaign for weeks-- too dopey. But, now's a good time to let people know who is doing what!
DeleteThe site has made the transition from unreadable to creepy. It now has faux commenters calling themselves ravibots because in the fevered projections of the proprietor, we’d be perfectly content with that designation. The projection continues with the self-identified ravibot unable to mount an opposing argument and just telling the proprietor to keep quiet about the painful truth instead. Pure wish fulfillment masquerading as dialog.
DeleteThe obsession with this site is everywhere and seems to get uglier by the day.
It will be interesting in a train wreck sort of way to see what happens as Trump’s presidency begins its final descent and the faux democrats have to wedge their pablum between ever-darker I-hate-GA posts and ever more vehement calls for violent revolution against the tyrants (and evidence..) usurping the People’s President.
I have noticed that over the last few years, all of the Hoboken political blogs have had an internal goal of trying to put out at least 1 piece of content a day during the week. That is a lofty goal but it is far easier if you either make crap up, double down on conspiracy theories or recycle old stories. It is an incredibly hard goal to achieve if you have so alienated your "sources" that nobody credible will talk to you and you can't get information. So I am not surprised that horse crap has gone further and further off the rails each subsequent month after the election. It is only a matter of time until even he has to admit his blog is so irrelevant that he pulls the plug on it.
Deleteyuck you made me look! and sure enough they are calling Ravi sexist for not letting #tiffthewhiff speak at the NYWATERWAY event. Yes and every time Emily gets guff/grief/etc from the #notfabfour (even though two are women), I don't see that being flagged on MSV. Sorry @DaJojorojo he won't go away anytime soon - it is much easier to make up content and say how great guns are etc like he does now then to do the actually work that he use to....
DeletePILOTs are used to incentivize developers which was necessary when CT went up. Not needed now. The mortgage has been paid off, and the last extension should not have been granted. Nor should this one. As each unit becomes vacant, let it go to market rate housing, like the Applied buildings. Add to the fact that the buildings, and the fictitious waiting list, have been really mismanaged, and that many residents would never qualify to live there, and it's time to bring the curtain down on this farce.
ReplyDeleteVery valid points. However, whatever is decided with respect to the PILOT has to be decided by the council and then implemented by the mayor. So it is a policy decision they have to make - and they will take the heat for it however it turns out. This is their first real chance to set policy for the city and I for one think they will screw it up. They are really good at nitpicking, second guessing and such but when it comes to hard decisions, they don't want to make them. That is why horsecrap has been making a stink of this whole issue b/c he knows the CC is the one that really makes the decision but he is trying to distract everyone from that and turn attention to the mayor. It ain't working. All it does is show none of them have any idea of what being a leader means or being held responsible for your decisions.
DeleteSo get your popcorn folks. Time to watch Jen/Tiff & the gang sweat as they take the heat from the fallout of their decision on the CT PILOT. One way or the other, half the town is likely to hate whatever they decide and the other half one give them 1 ounce of credit for making the decision "they should have always made". LMAO
Correct, Rojo, and what they know about PILOTs and low income housing comes from the addled mind of one vocal lunatic, and the inside, fourth generation grifters, so whatever they choose will be a hot mess. They never miss an opportunity to screw something up. At least they're consistent.
Delete