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| Why don't they use their time for Hoboken residents instead of political smears on the mayor? |
"In conclusion, Boswell and Lite are not in violation of Hoboken’s Pay-to-Play ordinance. They have not made any contribution in excess of the limits in either the calendar year preceding the contract award or during the contract award. As indicated above, Councilwoman Fisher has failed to adequately analyze this matter or correctly apply the City’s Pay-to-Play ordinance. Simply put, Councilwoman Fisher’s resolution rests upon the assumption that the aggregate amounts on the ELEC report were donations made on or after June 19, 2017, which is not an accurate assumption."
- Corporation Counsel's Memo re: Fisher/DeFusco Pay-to-Play charges against Mayor Bhalla
Uh-oh! It looks like the anti-Bhalla Council's latest smear on the mayor has hit a speed bump called, "The Truth!"
If they hadn't wasted so many of Corporation Counsel's billable hours on chasing malevolent accusations, GA would be laughing.
If they hadn't wasted so many of Corporation Counsel's billable hours on chasing malevolent accusations, GA would be laughing.
THE MAYOR, TEAM BHALLA, SANDBAGGED WITH P2P ALLEGATIONS
On May 2, during the Council meeting, Mike DeFusco and Tiffanie Fisher announced allegations of Play-to-Play allegedly gleaned from Bhalla for Mayor and Team Bhalla ELEC reports. It was not clear when DeFusco and Fisher identified the alleged violations, but it is clear that they opted to sandbag the Mayor and their Team Bhalla council colleagues in public, instead of being "collaborative" and apprising the Mayor's Office of they believed they had found alleged P2P violations.
Notifying the Mayors office would not simply have been a courtesy, it would given City Hall an opportunity to review their claims, review with vendors, vet the accuracy of the allegations, and respond.
But, in a game of "GOTCHA" there is no benefit to collaboration or civility- or media coverage.
Had they notified the Mayor's Office prior to the allegations aired to the public, Fisher and The Gang of Three might have avoided the egg they are scraping off their faces today.
CITY INVESTIGATION COMPLETE: FISHER/DEFUSCO P2P CHARGES ARE FALSE
It's all in today's Memorandom, released to the Hoboken City Council. In short, Corporation Council investigated the allegations with Bhalla Treasurer and vendors Boswell and Lite. The findings of fact identified the alleged "violations" are aggregates which reflect up to 3 different calendar years; no one donation violated P2P in each respective calendar year.
Boswell Engineering donations:
January 2015: $250
February 2017: $50
March 2018: $300
Victor Afanador (Lite) donations:
[collective prior to 2017] $300
March 2018 $300
MEMORANDUM TO COUNCIL: FINDINGS OF FACT
Fisher was so eager to fire reliable city vendors as proxies in her vendetta against the Mayor's Office, she did not bother to collaberate with the vendors, and the Mayors Office.
FISHER SMEAR GAME: RECKLESS RESOLUTIONS TO TERMINATE BOSWELL AND LITE CONTRACTS BASED ON UNVERIFIED, FALSE P2P ALLEGATIONS
Last meeting's "gotcha" was a wind-up to tomorrow's hanging- see below.
Think about the recklessness of Fisher's 'falling ax' legislation, which simply cannot wait for the investigation to conclude. Nope, that would require competence and civility. Fisher has forged ahead with 2 resolutions to fire Boswell Engineering and Lite DePalma Greenberg.
Not only did facts show that Fisher was wrong, her reckless actions would have damaged the progress of ongoing work by both vendors. Ultimately, hiring new vendors, bringing them up-to-speed on ongoing work, and how to navigate the Hoboken bureaucracy would have made these projects more expensive for Hoboken taxpayers.
Further, terminating contracts based on false facts- allegations which may cause reputation (economic) damage- would likely result in costly litigation.
Did Fisher think for a moment to practice due diligence prior to dropping the ax on reliable city vendors Boswell and Lite?
Apparently not.
Incompetence of this magnitude begs for a recall election. Yeah, it'll never happen, but Second Ward peeps deserve competent representation. That is my opinion.
These are Resolutions CL-3 and CL-4. Check out the verbosity.
Incompetence of this magnitude begs for a recall election. Yeah, it'll never happen, but Second Ward peeps deserve competent representation. That is my opinion.
These are Resolutions CL-3 and CL-4. Check out the verbosity.
A publicity stunt pure and simple. Anyone who hasn’t realized yet that Beth Fisher is running for mayor 24/7/365 is in deep denial.
ReplyDeleteBy ANY standard, even when you are hostile to the mayor, your first step would be to point out the supposed ELEC irregularities to the mayor, and ask to have them addressed before proceeding with the vendor. Especially such small amounts which suggest an oversight rather than quid pro quo. (Unlike Defusco’s much larger violations in which you’ve magically lost interest. Doing for him now in the hopes he’ll do for you later. We get it).
Tossing the vendor out is your LAST step, only to be used when ALL other options have been exhausted. And only after you have CONFIRMED THAT A VIOLATION DID IN FACT OCCUR IN THE FIRST PLACE.
On the other hand when you are conducting a 24/7/365 run for mayor, staging a theatrical event on live TV in council chambers is your FIRST move. You can use it later in your campaign ads.
The lousy at math and lousy at understanding the law dumbass should repay the taxpayers out of her own pockets for the time corporation counsel WASTED doing her homework for her while she put all her time and energy into her latest publicity stunt.
I do hope we’ve heard the last of Beth Fishers pablum about “trying to work with the mayor whenever we can.” Like her namesake, her only priorities are trashing the mayor and promoting herself.
Considering she got tossed out on her ass from her role as chair of the local party apparatus, she is delusional if she thinks she has any chance at ever becoming mayor.
DeleteShe’ll lose of course. But she may succeed in handing the city to Defusco/Ramos, etc.
DeleteThat is the whole reason Jen ran, to try and screw over Bhalla. They knew Jen had a 0% chance at winning all along.
DeleteAgenda item pulled. No walking back of the overheated character assassination rhetoric coming from Friends of Tiff, however. Predictably the first comment assails the character of corporation counsel. Every move is from Beth’s playbook. Just never expected anyone to dust it off and use it again.
ReplyDelete