Council Prez Giattino to Jabbour: "STOP SHAKING YOUR HEAD"

How come every time At-Large Councilwoman Emily Jabbour opens her mouth at the Council meeting, one of  her Dark Side colleagues either interrupts her, dismissively shuts her down or even closes the meeting.

The video above captures (and subtitles!) Council President Jen Giattino's rudeness toward Jabbour when the At-Large Councilwoman urged the Council not to ignore a budget issue causing the layoff of 5 City employees. As the clip shows, instead of dealing with the matter Giattino shut down Jabbour and asserted in Trumpian fashion that she is The Decider; it's her way or the highway.   

This is a pattern of rudeness shown to Jabbour over and over again by the Dark Side council majority.

Remember when Jabbour discovered that then-Council President Ruben Ramos had secretly slipped his political crony Eduardo Gonzalez into a hospital board seat?  And when she asked him about it at the council Ramos abruptly called the meeting closed.  Ending the meeting  to cover -up Ruben's theft of a board seat got full consent of Dark Side cronies Tiffanie Fisher, Jen Giattino and Michael DeFusco.  It's all on this short video: 

Note: Jabbour was correct, and Eduardo was booted for cause by the Hospital Board of Trustees, replaced by Councilman Peter Cunningham.  

With Giattino, there's this weird and one-sided competitiveness with Jabbour, an effort to demean her that seems more personal than political; like she's plucking the leaves off a new plant to stop it from growing.  When Jabbour worked with Hoboken Assemblywoman Annette Chaparro on a resolution urging the state to allow instant run-off elections, ever-competitive Giattino replicated Jabbour's resolution and had crony Council Prez Ruben Ramos place it first on the agenda.  

This passive-aggressive campaign to deny first term Councilwoman Jabbour any legislative victories is not an accident.  Nor has it gone unnoticed.  

  

Is it because Jabbour embarrassed her by exposing that Giattino had accepted a free legal opinion to support taking Rent Leveling Board appointment powers from the mayor's office- the opinion came from a North Bergen Mayor Nick Sacco ally.   It's no secret that Sacco has been trying to build a power base in Hoboken, with our city's potential for contracts and patronage jobs.  Giattino either naively or with corrupt intent created a debt to the powerful Hudson County political boss.   

Jabbour was right again. Giattino quietly buried the Sacco "gift" as an in-kind contribution on  a 2015 ELEC.  GA documented  the chronology from birth to burial of this North Bergen gift to the Dark Side Council in my post, "Evolution of a "freebie" legal opinion into a campaign."  

Well, who knows why leadership of a coalition with a majority's power shows such gratuitous petty aggression toward a colleague in public.  It's not necessary.  It's not dignified.  It is not productive.

One more thing: happy birthday, Councilwoman Jabbour.