Hoboken City Hall Postpones Annual Festival In Southwest Part Of Town

HOBOKEN, NJ — The city of Hoboken has postponed an annual festival in the southwest part of town — which contains the city's public housing — citing staffing changes, according to a "disappointed" councilman for the area.

Fourth Ward Councilman Ruben Ramos, who represents that part of town, said in a message on Wednesday, "The organizing committee had already begun planning for this year's SW Fest but unfortunately, that excitement is now met with sadness because we are being forced to postpone this year's event to the fall ‘24 or June ‘25."

He added, in his newsletter on Wednesday, "With the administration restructuring departments and hiring a new Director of Cultural Affairs, they felt they did not have enough time to assist with coordinating this year's community event, as they did last year, despite its incredible success. I am extremely upset by this development because a lot of the coordination and staffing of the event was done by volunteers."

Ramos added, "We are hopeful that the city can give us a fall date as soon as possible so we can continue moving forward with our plans for SW Fest."

In the last two months, the administration of Mayor Ravi Bhalla (who is currently running for Congress), created a new position of Department of Climate Action, gave the director of environmental services a new title of director of the Department of Parks, Recreation, & Public Works, and replaced the city's soon-to-retire cultural affairs director, Geri Fallo, with a new director, Cristin Cricco-Powell. However, in February, the city said Fallo is staying on to help with the transition to the new director.

The city had also hired a new recreation director, Jessica Lezcano, in 2022 to "revitalize" that department, the city said.

"In my newsletter from April 2023 I was filled with excitement to announce the upcoming SW Fest, which was a City of Hoboken sponsored event that was completely funded by local organizations such as Hobobken Business Alliance, Hoboken Housing Authority, myself, Councilman Russo and more," Ramos said. "Unfortunately, I cannot say the same this time."

The festival took place at Jackson and Third streets in June of last year.

Mayor Ravi Bhalla's chief of staff, Vijay Chaudhuri, said Wednesday that it was inaccurate to suggest that the event might be put off until 2025.

"The city was proud to co-sponsor Southwest Fest last year, to expand family-friendly cultural affairs offerings throughout the city," he said."Due to a reorganization and new staffing in the Cultural Affairs Office, it was communicated to Councilman Ramos that this event would be more efficiently run if it were to be held in the fall of 2024, given the city’s substantial role in helping coordinate the event, along with other scheduling conflicts."

Chaudhui added, "The postponement of the event until 2025 is an inaccurate assumption or statement. Mayor Bhalla looks forward to a successful event this fall with residents."

'Extremely Disappointed'

Ramos said in an interview Wednesday, "We were planning to do it in a shorter timeframe this year. Last year, Jessica Lezcano, of the Recreation Department, was helpful, and everyone was helpful. We weren't reinvesting the wheel...we learned from our mistakes, what we could do better. We had people reaching out to us, because it was so much fun. We started reaching out through the administration. We were going to have our first planning meeting. There was kind of like, silence."

He said, "I'm extremely disappointed about it. It brought people to the southwest. We wanted to make it a little bigger this year."

But he added that he is hoping that the city will give him some tentative dates for fall soon, so organizers can start reaching out to vendors and planning ahead.

He noted that the event was paid for by its sponsors, not with taxpayer funds. The city was a co-sponsor, with various departments pitching in (including the Parking Utility posting signs), as well as organizations, business people, and officials who donated time, money, or goods.

Hoboken's twice-yearly Arts and Music Festival is still on, taking place on Sunday, May 19, 2024, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Washington Street. The rain date is June 2.