Monarch and Campaign Finance

At last week’s council meeting several items came up for discussion. First off was the proposed opposition for the Monarch at the Shipyard development, sponsored by Council President Ravi Bhalla. The NJ DEP has cleared the project which consists of twin 11 story towers, which would block the view of Hudson Tea building residents and would also violate Hoboken’s Master Plan which calls for that area to be open space.

A Hudson Tea owner had told me that Beth Mason supported the project. This didn’t surprise me as the Barry family (Applied) supports her. If fact Beth Mason spent the ungodly sum of over $50,000 for campaign workers, mostly from the Applied complex on the 1300 Hudson St. block. 

Many Tea residents showed up and the City Council voted 9-0 to oppose the project. The resolution has no binding effect, but I was glad for their vote. 

Next came Campaign Finance reform, sponsored by Council Vice President Peter Cunningham. This section referred to limiting outside PAC involvement in Hoboken elections. The limit is now set at $500, per election. At this time only Tim Occhipinti received outside funds, mostly from unions. However, in the past many council members and mayoral candidates received substantial payments, primarily from developers. This has long been a major concern of mine as I witnessed sweetheart deals cut for those same developers, leading to overdevelopment. Tim and public speaker Franz Paetzhold stated that it was unconstitutional. In reality other NJ towns have similar restrictions and none have ever been challenged in court. Typically a state can enact stronger laws that the federal government and so on.  Naturally this passed 5-3, with Theresa Castellano abstaining since she self funds her campaign.

During the claims section Beth Mason held up a stack of legal bills. What she failed to mention is the work by Mayor Zimmer in cleaning up outstanding law suits. The Hispanic officer, Municipal Garage and now Hoboken Unleashed lawsuits have all been settled. By voting no on legal bills and Hoboken Unleashed her moves would have created even more legal bills, costing you, the taxpayer more money. She also voted against the NJ Symphony event, even though it was primarily funded by grants. Personally, I am in favor of these types of events. I didn’t go because of the weather, but someone who did said most people were not from Hoboken. Like our Arts and Music festivals this provides addition business for our local stores and restaurants. I guess Beth Mason doesn’t care about their success either.

As for Hoboken Unleashed, I was the only member of the public to speak in favor of its request to move into larger quarters where the Pilsner Haus is now located, when it first came up for discussion. Now they are moving to Newport taking Hoboken jobs and tax revenue with them. You can thank Theresa Castellano and Michael Russo for that, as well as the legal bills which never would have happened if they were permitted to move in the first place. Theresa Castellano had a prepared statement criticizing the Zimmer administration. The suit was settled for $15,000 or as she stated $15,800. Corporate Counsel Mark Tabakin shot right back stating that we would have won if we were willing to spend $70,000. Once again it’s better to be pound wise, than Castellano foolish.