Who knew that Ramos 'stole' a hospital board seat for a political crony?

Who else knew that the hospital board seat was slipped to a political crony? 

Yesterday we learned that Council President Ruben Ramos appointed a political crony to fill a seat on the Hoboken University Municipal Hospital (HUMC)-- a seat reserved for a member of the City Council.  Instead of making the appointment through a public, deliberative process, Ramos quietly slipped political crony Eduardo Gonzalez into the seat last June. The natural question to ask is: who else knew about the misappropriation of this board seat? Was anyone else on the Council involved?

To recap what happened at the December 5, 2018 Council meeting, Councilwoman Jabbour raised the issue in New Business.  She said, "I have a question about how that appointment was made..."  

BOOM!  Council President Ramos jumped in and ended the meeting.

"Yeah, Council President placed him on. Motion to close."  At blazing speed, someone shouted "Second!"  The vote to close the meeting passed in a nanosecond.  In poker, you'd call that a 'tell'.  Ramos didn't want public discussion regarding his insertion of a political crony on the HUMC board.  Who seconded his motion so quickly?

Jen Giattino. She'd already left her seat and appeared to be reading her phone or texting behind Councilman Russo. 

SLOW MOTION (90%)

WHO ELSE KNEW AND WHY GONZALEZ?  
Why would any of the 7 other Council members sitting at the dais would want to cover up  Ruben's theft of a hospital board seat?   Why did some Council members vote to shut down Jabbour?

Two possibilities: (1) personal animus toward Emily and/or (2) they knew about the board seat theft.

If other Council members schemed with Ruben, why give the seat to his crony, Eduardo Gonzalez? 

What we know about Eduardo's  political engagement in Hoboken: he's been a fixture on Hoboken's political landscape for nearly a decade.  In 2009 Gonzalez replaced Perry Belfiore on the Hoboken Housing Authority board. There he was a staunch ally of Executive Director Carmelo Garcia's; a "Yes-man", if you will.  GA's OPRA of emails left by Garcia on HHA servers returned many showing HHA Commissioner Gonzalez' fealty to the Executive Director, behaving like a subordinate rather than his supervisor. 

HHA Commissioner Gonzalez contacts HHA Board Attorney Charles Daglian to check whether a Garcia antagonist's last meeting will be when his term expires.

In 2013 he ran as an At-Large candidate on Ruben Ramos's mayoral slate an lost. In 2015, he ran for the 5th ward Council seat against Peter Cunningham and lost. As GA has reported previously, Eduardo was the presumed beneficiary of a windfall of $50/per Russo campaign workers.  Russo's race was uncontested. (Incredible how his 145  "campaign workers"  lived in either Ramos' and Gonzalez' wards.)  As far as I know, Gonzalez hasn't sat on a public board since-- someone let me know if that's wrong. 

So, with his Gonzalez' close ties to Carmelo Garcia and Ruben Ramos, what would be the reason to reward him with an ill-gotten hospital board seat?  GA cannot think of why any Council members would benefit from it personally or politically. Can you? So maybe they did not know. Maybe Giattino just cut off Emily for the 'joy' of it, and the others piled on.  Moving forward... 

Given the majority's contempt for Jim Doyle and Emily Jabbour, will they dare try to sweep this ill-gotten board seat under the rug?

They'd better not.  Eduardo Gonzalez has no legal standing to be the "Council designee" on the hospital board.  He should be barred from attending meetings immediately. His seat should be considered vacated and the Council should appoint a Council member in a public process in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA). Going forward, the Council designee should be informing the Council of any HUMC matters which may impact the City or the public.

Finally, Council President Ruben Ramos owes the public an explanation of why he delivered this  Council appointment in secret to a political crony.