Y'know, when I watched the Council vote on the "Happy Hanukkah Jason-You're Fired" ordinance, I wouldn't help but think: these people are monsters.
The stuff of nightmares.
Instead of writing about what happened at the City Council when the ordinance to fire this young married man, with a wife and a mortgage, GA decided that real monsters deserve their own movie.
Here is how that "Jason, Youre Fired on Hanukkah" ordinance went down:
Step into Jason Freeman's shoes for a moment. Imagine: you have a good, stable career but decide to follow your passion for public service to work for the City you live in with people who share your principles and vision for the City you love. You go to work every day happy to serve the people of Hoboken so much so , you surrender your freedom; your nights and weekends, because the satisfaction you derive from making the City a better place to live in is a greater reward.
The stuff of nightmares.
Instead of writing about what happened at the City Council when the ordinance to fire this young married man, with a wife and a mortgage, GA decided that real monsters deserve their own movie.
Here is how that "Jason, Youre Fired on Hanukkah" ordinance went down:
Step into Jason Freeman's shoes for a moment. Imagine: you have a good, stable career but decide to follow your passion for public service to work for the City you live in with people who share your principles and vision for the City you love. You go to work every day happy to serve the people of Hoboken so much so , you surrender your freedom; your nights and weekends, because the satisfaction you derive from making the City a better place to live in is a greater reward.
That is who you are.
But the other branch of government is run by a coalition who view you as disposable because they are furious at your boss. So, your livelihood is simply collateral damage in their scorched earth war to shit on your boss, whatever it takes, whoever gets hurt. Because if they make you miserable, he will feel pain. So, if you and your wife, who should be enjoying their new marriage together, worry about about imminent economic devastation, that's GOOD! And at the holiday season. So, this vicious, mean-spirited council of sore losers puts up a piece of legislation to force the mayor to "choose" who he wants to keep-- you or the Chief of Staff.
Monsters.
Monsters.
Lastly, GA is calling on Hoboken residents of good will to stand up for Jason, who will be there to help you in an emergency-- like he and John Allen did at Marine View yesterday.
Further, I believe that every Councilperson who voted to fire Jason Freeman last Wednesday should be shunned by this community. SHUNNED. Let's get kinder, gentler ward council people next year. These nightmarish entities are not worthy of a place at the Hoboken table. .
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| Eeenie, MEANIE, miney, moe... who to keep and who to throw? |
How does this fire anyone? The Mayor has always gotten two confidential aides that are outside of civil service, call them what you want.
ReplyDeleteFAP, Mayor Bhalla has 3 "confidential aides:"
Delete(1) Comm manager (Vijay Chaudhuri)
(2) COS( John Allen)
(3) Deputy COS (Jason Freeman)
Now read the proposed change to the ordinance (cropped above). Its right there-- the "or" is even italicized. If you have any questions about whose job would be eliminated, speak to Jason.
Well there's your problem, Ravi wants to hire three aides when he was always only entitled to two.
DeleteIt seems it's Ravi who wants to fire someone so he can hire on Vijay.
The Mayor NEVER had three aides.
FAP, I'm reposting this Facebook comment from Vijay Chaudhuri, in response to your comment @ 6:02 PM:
Delete"As someone who worked in City Hall previously, I’ll tell you firsthand, not secondhand that the Mayor’s office was very short staffed. It was somewhat made up for due to the fact that Juan did the job of 4 people because he was, to put it mildly, a champ. Hoboken has less people working for the Mayor than most other towns or municipalities of similar sizes.
As Mayor, Ravi is allowed statutorily to hire an additional member of his staff, as he sees fit to benefit our City due to our form of government, and not your opinion which you seem to share with Councilman DeFusco who sponsored the ordinance. “The Council is keeping the status quo” is seeming to infer, incorrectly, that the Council has authority over the Mayor’s staffing his office."
I responded to Vijay on ace book and I'll do it again here.
DeleteVijay Chaudhuri as the third person being hired you are literally the worst most conflicted person who could comment on this.
Hoboken and the Mayor's office can have more people working in government the Mayor just may not be able to have more confidential aides.
Vijay if you're arguing that the council can't stop the Mayor from hiring an infinite number of confidential aides then this is something you're going to need to back up with a court decision or statute. And if Mayor Bhalla believes this he should say so publicly and plainly, if he can't or won't then he's going to have to decide on whom is going to be his two confidential aides.
Forde- Vijay doesn't comment on blogs. Hence, I copied his post from Facebook. What I wrote there to you to the above:
Delete"You are twisting Vijays word's. The council is not trying to "stop the mayor from hiring an INFINITE number of aides"- that is ridiculous. The ordinance is forcing him to FIRE one of his aides. ONE. Not INFINITE. This is not a theoretical discussion. This is legislation which dictates the mayor of a City of 50,000 cannot have an office of 3, if that is what he needs."
In response to your posting "2013 New Jersey Revised Statutes Title 11A - CIVIL SERVICE Section 11A:3-5 Political subdivision unclassified service," I have a hard copy of a memo and a supplemental memo- 5+ pages- from Corp Counsel which I will scan and publish soon (not tonight), to summarize: "NJSA 11A:3-5 does not impact the organization of the Mayor's office..." and it goes on. You can accept Corp Counsel's legal opinion or ignore it as DeFusco, Giattino, Fisher, Cunningham and Ramos generally do and did on Weds.
G'night.
Vijay shouldn't comment on blogs and he should have the good sense not to comment on facebook about any potential problems with his own hiring.
DeleteI look forward to reading the full legal memo when it is made available to the public.
Forde-
Delete(1) There are NO problems with Vijay's hiring. NONE. READ the proposed ordinance. The issue is the mayor's option to choose EITHER a COS (John Allen) OR Deputy COS (Jason Freeman). Not both. I feel like I'm talking to Rain Man- I keep repeating this, but it seems to bounce off. The proposed ordinance "allows" a communications manager, Vijay.
Vijay is entitled to comment on a piece of proposed legislation which will directly impact the operations of his office, and that is not legally viable (per Corp Counsel). There is no 'conflict' in his expressing his opinion.
(2) It's not your call to tell people where and where not to comment-- if I thought you were going to lay a judgment down, I would not have offered that bit of explanatory information.
(3) Who peed on your cornflakes today?
GA you're wrong. This ordinance doesn't require firing Jason or John, both can stay. The ordinance is quite clearly about how many confidential employees the Mayor is permitted to hire outside of civil service.
DeleteGo back and re-read the ordinance. Because as you've published it the mayor gets
1) ONE Secretary which MAY, not shall, be referred to as Chief of Staff or Deputy Chief of Staff
AND
2) ONE Confidential Aide which MAY, not shall, be referred to as Communications Manager
So the Mayor gets two employees and he can title them anyway he wants, it says he "may" call them somethings but not that he "shall". "May" is an option or a suggestion, "shall" is a command.
So Mayor Bhalla can keep both COS (John Allen) AND Deputy COS (Jason Freeman), he just can't hire a third confidential non-civil service aide, regardless of titles.This seems to align with NJSA 11A:3-5. Again I look forward to reading the legal opinion from the Corporation Council which you says addresses this.
So good news, both John and Jason can stay and keep their existing jobs!
Maybe I can shed some light here. The number of non civil service employees the mayor/City can hire (not counting directors and I think a few specific professional job categories not covered by civil service) is limited by state law to a maximum of 3.
DeleteMayor Zimmer had 2 - her chief of staff (Dan Bryan followed by Juan Melli). Mayor Bhalla has three - John Allen, Jason Freeman and originally Santiago Huber-Melli now Vijay.
As a result of this limitation, Vijay could not have been hired without either John, Jason or Santiago leaving. So when Santiago left, a position conveniently became available for Vijay to fill.
The Council has no appropriate role in any of this - it's all State law. They cannot set legislative limits on the Mayor's hiring. Their Ordinance is, in my opinion, mean spirited grandstanding as well as legally null and void since it's as GA explained, ultra vires.
Hoboken does have, however, a long history of it's City Council overreaching it's authority by passing things like "hiring freezes" that they have no actual power to impose.
FAP- this is getting silly. Your reading is wrong- in fact, your interpretation seems to suit some personal animus I'm picking up toward Vijay Chaudhuri. Copy-pasted*:
Delete(*deleted words with strike-throughs because BLOGGER will not accept the "strike" HTML)
"B. Personnel staff. The personnel staff in the Office of the Mayor shall include one Secretary, which may be referred to as either the “Chief-Of-Staff to the mayor”, or “Deputy Chief-Of-Staff to the mayor” and one Confidential Aide, which may be referred to as the “Communications Manager to the mayor”.
There is a "shall" in there. Per DeFusco's amendment to the Mayors Office, the Mayor cannot "keep" both COS and Deputy COS. It's there in writing. Your narrative of Vijay as third wheel because he filled an existing communications position last week is silliness. These positions are not interchangeable. If you have an issue with Vijay's suitability in that role, OPRA his resume, or perhaps he'll give it to you if you ask nicely. Then make an informed judgment.
But, interpret the ordinance as you will. It's a free country, and you are free to be misguided. The rest of us will see this as a politically motivated effort to force the mayor to eliminate one COS position. Dunno what more to say.
Thanks for stating facts, Numberscruncher.
DeleteThe council clowns waste so much time and energy on their viciousness and unenforceable nonsense, all playing to their dwindling supporters.
The only ones who need to be fired are Cunningham, DeFusco, Fisher and Giattino.
Only 333 more days until they are voted out of office.
Nancy the "shall" in the ordinance refers to how many non civil service employees the Mayor is allowed to hire. According to NJSA 11a:3-5 that number is two and this ordinance simply restates that.
DeleteThe "may" language refers explicitly to what the confidential assistant and secretary could informally be referred to as or "nick named". This has no bearing on the duties the secretary and confidential assistant can be assigned.
I have no animus to Vijay and would be say the same thing if a Mayor Defusco or Mayor Giattino or a Mayor Russo was trying to hire more non civil service employees than the law allows. A strike doesn't suddenly become a ball because you like the batter, just so the law is the law is the law.
If the Mayors office is understaffed the Mayor can hire additional people who fit the civil service requirements.
Again please publish or send me the legal opinion from Corp Counsel when you get a chance so I can see the reasoning why NJSA 11a:3-5 doesn't apply and constrain Hoboken's Mayor to two non-civil service employees. I could be wrong on this and I'd like to see the reasoning.
FAP- I'd like to say I admire your stick-to-it-ness and baseball analogies. I'd like to. You've made your opinion clear here and on Facebook (which is not here) and from how your articulated some opinion, I caught a whiff of animus toward Vijay-- in particular, calling him the mayor's "third hire" - when he took an existing position in the Mayor's Office. Seemed like a gratuitous shot. But if you say that is wrong, and balls and strikes, and beer and hotdogs and all that - you would know what's in your heart, not me. You know, I've been trying literally for days to get a copy of CC's opinion for this blog-- made a giant pest out of myself, too. Got it Fri. night, but as I wrote somewhere, a hard copy. Patience, dear FAP!
DeleteI called Vijay the third hire because in this context he is. John and Jason are the current two hires and Vijay has been hired after them making him the third hire. As NJSA 11A:3-5 only seems to give The Mayor two non-civil service hires trying to hire a third is problematic.
DeleteIf Mayor Bhalla wants to have Vijay as a non-civil service hire that is his right and I won't say otherwise. However as it appears he can only have two non-civil service positions in the that means he has a decision to make regarding either Jason or John.
If the City Attorney's opinion can reason why NJSA 11A:3-5 doesn't apply I open to reading it.
His head-- It just kept getting -- bigger -- and bigger -- and bigger---
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone want to hire Vijay after his despicable performance as Joe Crowley's campaign manager? He should he laughed out of town trying to get any political job. Keep Jason. Drop Vijay. And Ravi should still apologize to aoc for the things he said about her while campaigning for corrupt ass establishment Crowley. Reform stops at the Hudson I guess.
ReplyDeleteWhat B.S. I suppose Vijay's "despicable performance" brought 2018's progressive blue wave that elected the most racially, ethnically diverse House in American history including the most WOMEN. If you're looking to lay blame for the election of progressive women like Occasio-Cortez, I'd start with the "despicable performance" of the P*ssy-Grabber-in-Chief.
DeleteBlaming Vijay for Crowley's loss is pretty stupid, especially when the poster is also saying that Crowley losing was a good thing.
DeleteCrowley was taken by surprise and lost to a candidate who was a better fit for a district that he spent years losing touch with as he became immersed in his ambition to become speaker.
That's hardly Vijay's fault.
Crowley definitely lost touch with his district. He moved to VA and just had a mail drop (family owned apartment he used sporadically) in NY. It is unfortunate for the voters in that district they elected a twit who almost makes Trump seem well informed. Expect many outrageously uninformed sound bytes to make the evening news from Crowley's replacements.
DeleteMy favorite so far is "200 million Americans make less than $20,000, that is 40% of this country". I had no idea that we had 500 million people in this country. Not to be outdone by her comment where she says "unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs".
Yeah, she is going to be a fun one for SNL to mock over the next 2 years. Skits w/ a fake Trump and a fake AOC sharing the screen will make you laugh so hard you will pee in your pants.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHappy holidays! I got a new baby! Keep Jason. Council is the worst.
DeleteWhoa, Sam Briggs! On a different subject, can you believe (finally) some locally notorious alleged VBM farmers were (finally) indicted? Remember your lawsuit for the 2010 Lenz campaign with those 4 affidavits that went NOWHERE...
DeleteBetter late than never-- allegedly!
MAZEL TOV, Sam!!
DeleteFisher's statement on the "personal attacks" at the council meeting is a hoot.
ReplyDelete"The second speaker, who read prepared remarks (poorly I might add), is a 26 yr old named Anthony DeLeonardo who is less familar [than Patricia Waiters]. Their combined bullying was clearly coordinated...
"Poorly," she might add, being a hopelessly self-absorbed git. The fact is, it takes courage to overcome the anxiety that stops the great majority of poeple from speaking their mind into a microphone. Mature elected officials recognize that achievement, whether they like what follows or not. Otherwise, you have to cite all the poor reading of supporters and non-critics. "I really liked hearing from constituent X in support of my ballot initiative. But I would be remiss if I didn't also note the poor quality of X's reading. Please work on that, X. Standards, you know..."
If you need any more proof of Fisher's insularity, her theory that Waiters and DeLeonardo have formed a cabal - as they were "clearly coordinated" - is a corker. You'd have to be living in an ivory tower inside an ivory tower to believe that Patty Waiters is in a conspiracy with anyone. A rose is a rose is a rose, and Patty is Patty is Patty. But Tiff's disconnectedness and narcissism allow her to believe in such miracles. It now becomes clearer how she found her home base for distribution on the www. A shared love of bizarro conspiracy theories.
Last interesting note - she included his age. He didn't. She got it someplace and thought it was important enough to add to her derision of him. What's the relevance?
Something I noticed first during the Giattino campaign - reverse ageism. Questioning the credentials of opposition voices based on their age or how long they have lived in the city. It is, as the say, not a good look. But well established now. Just look around and you'll find these popular reverse-ageist epithets used on DeLeonardo. "slob" "kid" "20 something" "clown" "retardo." And the favorite of all cranky old bastards down through the years - "punk."
Maybe Fisher and her like-minded pals can introduce an ordinance to proportionalize votes based on age. 18-25 - 1/2 vote. 25-30 - 3/4 vote. Tiff can let everyone know what she thinks the right age is to be accorded a whole vote. Obviously the reader - "poorly, I might add" - of unpleasant opinions, Mr DeLeonardo, would get well under 1 whole vote. But some day perhaps when he sees that brilliant light emanating from the terminally butt-hurt clubhouse........
in her defense, deleonardo's ball landed in granny fisher's yard three times before she confiscated it.
Deleteinteresting and important conversation. one thing i would say GA is that you have to stop responding to questions about ravi's hirings by saying, well this person has a family to support. everyone has a family, if not kids, then another kind, and that can't be used as justification alone for defending someone. there are lots of qualified people in this community that aren't applying for these jobs or ever getting the chance to do so and it's fine but call it what it is. jason gets no points for having a family, as a neighbor pointed out to me, everyone trying to pay taxes in this town has families too. he left a different job that paid more to come here? i am sure his commute is better here and there are benefits to working for goverment. some people volunteer here too to make the community better, point being you could defend anything any politician does by saying he has a family to support or was so kind to take a pay cut to work in city hall, please dont use that as your argument because it is not reform. lots of people in this community would not mind having a job like his or at least aplying for it. thanks for keeping the conversation going
ReplyDeleteYou are certainly right- the lousy optics make a political argument. A political argument is not a legal argument. Whether the Council's legislation to cut staff in the Mayor's office is legal, and if so/not why-- that is the issue. I am not qualified to make a legal analysis, so finally got it on Friday night, it's posted today. It confirms that we have a rogue council. Gonna disagree: reform is about the respecting law, not bending it or breaking it to one's political will. Hoboken's mayor is not over-staffed; bending and breaking the law to make our City run less well IMO, shows corrupt intent. Thanks, Anon.
Delete