OUTRAGE: DeFusco sponsors ordinance to FIRE Jason Freeman

Thanks to 1st Ward Councilman Mike DeFusco, next week there will be two ordinances on the agenda to amend Hoboken Municipal Code Chapter 51: Office of the Mayor.  They are:

(1) ORDINANCE B-82
Ordinance B-82 was deemed "invalid" and "unenforceable" by Corporation Council Brian Aloia when it passed on First Reading about 6 months ago.  The reason: the amendments--reporting requirements for the  mayor's outside employment--are not the purview of the legislative body but require review by an ethics board.  Either Hoboken has to create an ethics board, or the ordinance has to be approved at the state level.  So...rather than create a local ethics board or send the ordinance to the state for approval or else remove it, DeFusco, Ramos and Giattino keep it on the Agenda. Month after month... it's still there. Lazy, sloppy housekeeping or a finger in the Mayor's eye?

 12/05/2018 Hoboken City Council meeting Agenda

(2) "JASON, YOU'RE FIRED" ORDINANCE

This ordinance up for First Reading specifies that the Office of the Mayor personnel shall include "one Secretary" then defines "Secretary" as either a "Chief or Staff to the Mayor" or a "Deputy Chief of Staff to the Mayor."  Can I say it? 

WHAT A PRICK.  DeFusco is playing the worst kind of politics of personal destruction- taking a man's job.  This is not a pizza or a croissant. This is a job.  Freeman has a new wife and mortgage and left his good, steady job because he has a passion for public service and loves the City of Hoboken. In other words, Jason changed his career to work for the City of Hoboken-- and it's not a political job. The guy WORKS days, nights, weekends. Jason has allowed the productivity of the Mayor's office to exceed far beyond what it will be after that empty suit forces him into unemployment. Imagine, some little worthless prick of a credit-stealing councilman wants to take away a good, decent, honest public employee's job.   Yes, he does.

It is unclear whether the "Jason,  You're Fired" ordinance is also "invalid" and "unenforceable" like DeFusco's Ordinance B-82.  It seems to me that whatever agreement Mayor Bhalla made with Freeman-- and a contract can be oral-- would be grandfathered in.  So, the ordinance may not even accomplish DeFusco's Death By a Thousand Cuts objective. But one thing is clear: Councilman DeFusco's ruthless, heartless, and evil intention is to exact political vengeance on Mayor Bhalla by taking away this young man's livelihood. 

 12/05/2018 Hoboken City Council meeting Agenda

DEFUSCO'S "JASON, YOU'RE FIRED" ORDINANCE

Yeah, it is evil.  And I hope we get a good crowd to turn out for Jason and against the Council majority's politics of personal destruction. 

This is one MEAN Council majority.  They weren't satisfied with an apology from Holtzman, they had to throw him off the Planning Board.    

Fisher questions Brown's "qualifications"

And you know that Councilwomen Fisher and Giattino have been trying to scuttle the promotion of  Christopher A. Brown, PP, AICP, LEED-GA.  Chris has served as Hoboken's Principal Planner to Director of Community Development for 8 years, under Director Brandy Forbes. When Forbes resigned, the mayor-- who has also worked with Brown over the years-- selected him to replace Forbes. What happened next? Fisher questioned Brown's "qualifications" to lead the department in the press, violating his civil rights to be served a Rice Notice prior to public discussion of his employment, including promotion.   

Giattino, played her part  by pulling Brown's promotion off the Agenda, claiming the Council needed "time" to consider it.  Right, working with him for 8 years was not enough "time." Let them explain to the NJ-NAACP why this eminently-qualified, highly respected, longtime Hoboken Principal Planner is unqualified to lead the Department. 

And yesterday, Hoboken's Police Chief Kenneth Ferrante dropped a 9-page letter responding to "major false narratives" spread by Councilpersons Tiffanie Fisher, Michael Defusco, and the proprietor of the Horse-shit blog. Ferrante's letter is a rare, stunning rebuke from the top of  Hoboken's Police Department to members of Hoboken's City Council.  In 9-pages Chief Ferrante dismantled a litany of the trio's "major false narratives" about the SUV used for the mayor's security detail.  He indicted Fisher, DeFusco and their horse-shit blogger for the harm they are doing to his 166 person-force, noting how "lies" spread on social media and on that horseshit-blog undermine public confidence in our police and in him, their chief.  Ferrante carefully deconstructed each lie-- showing that no journalistic due diligence was performed by the horse-shit blogger, nor were allegations about Ferrante's alleged failure to inform the council true. Ferrante did just that 3 separate times. Most astonishing: HPD Chief Ferrante called out Fisher, DeFusco and Horse-shit Man for "politicizing public safety for political gains against the mayor."  

Wow.

People, in November 2019, let's bring kindness, compassion and cooperation back to our City Council. This meanness, this politics of personal destruction, this disregard for the truth and the rule of law- which mirrors what's happening at the national level-- has no place in a city of good people like Hoboken.  Let's do it, Blue Wave style.