The Hoboken Blog

Tony D, in the last post entitled Mayor Roberts Should Resign, suggested I clarify why
Mr Roberts should resign as mayor of Hoboken. Tony makes a good point and I responded with a brief list of things that help support my position. To make things a little more noticeable, I’ve cut and pasted my response to Tony in this entry. I hope it clears up my reasoning behind the first post and helps people understand why I used such strong language. Here it is:

1. There have been NO park space built according to the Master Plan. We are still waiting for this mythical Pier C that was supposed to have been under construction by now. Plus, the 1600 Park Ave “park” hasn’t even been started despite having funds alloted to it for at least a year. And the southwest section of Hoboken was promised a 6 acre park and, even though some groups are pushing hard for open space, they hardly can claim to get 1.5 acres of continuous space.
2. Over paid city employees like the fire and police commissioners. One board of education member is reported to get paid $180,000 a year.
3. Many of these city employees have a conflict of interest with the public good; they either own construction companies, consulting firms, law firms, or real estate - many of them landlords.
4. We have no parking solution. Thousands of condos are going up but little parking to accommodate them. It has become a safety issue as people are hurt left and right by hit and runs - possibly due to the poor visibility drivers face when navigating our streets. Plus, the one parking solution that could have worked was botched when the city prematurely and poorly executed the take over of the automated garage on Garden Street.
5. Despite the Freedom of Information Act, the Citizens for Open Government, and other safe guards, the city of Hoboken refuses to provide its tax payers with information requested regarding land deals, abatements, legal contracts, and other financial transactions. When a few documents were released, they blacked out most of the text making the act of releasing the document of waste of paper, ink, money, time, effort, etc. In effect, they deliberately withhold information to the public - even when asked to disclose it!!
6. Sewage problems. Letting the sewer system get this dilapidated is egregious! Hoboken has been fighting floods for YEARS! And with the uncontrolled construction - courtesy of this administration - it has made it worse. Moreover, there is no natural place for the water to go (i.e. parks) and the 80 to 120 year old system can’t handle it all. When the town floods, you drive through or walk in water contaminated with human feces; typhoid fever and bubonic plague are just a few infectious diseases that can be transmitted that way. I’m surprised the CDC hasn’t knocked on the Mayor’s door yet.
7. Complete and total financial mismanagement. We never have a balanced budget without some sort of “sneaky” deal to sell municipal property, back-door deals, or special tax shelters. There are always these abatements given to developers for “one time” tax payments that plug the shortfalls but that model assumes constant construction will happen; with the real estate market taking a hit, growth slows. In fact, there is at least one project that has stopped all together and now it looks like a total waste that attracts pests and other things. The government doesn’t cut spending either - especially to the highest paid people like the ones I mention above; we still have 4 arts festivals a year but we can’t balance the budget. Plus, there are inefficiencies in the way money is spent; has anyone thought of using mechanized street cleaning instead of paying someone to shovel it in a can? The cost of one machine is less than that of a person when you factor health plans, pension, and salaries. Also, the town doesn’t capitalize on revenue like it should; 10 or 12 dollars a year for parking is stupid when you can charge at least 50 a year and it might even cut down on the cars which helps solve the parking problem; have they even studied supply and demand? And one last point on the money mismanagement: total government shutdown. Remember that? Yeah… I do… what an embarrassment!

If I forgot anything, please let me know… it is a brief list, after all.

My jaw dropped as I read this entry from Dr. Frank Kardasz’s blog on police ethics.  As you can see from his blog headline, he Dr. Kardasz follows police ethics and earned is P.H.D. studying it.  Only reading the article will outline the apparent corruption and gross misconduct that is plaguing our city; I couldn’t summarize it all and do it justice. And I, for one, I’m really shocked by these allegations.

I’ve always respected the police for putting their lives in danger when they clear the streets of violent drug offenders, gangs, and double parkers and we should not forget that fact of their job.  But I’ve also feared the police as they have access to surveillance, intrusion, and investigatory techniques that can be misused; in our “scary” world where terrorists lurk around every corner just waiting to release a propaganda attack on our civilized society, we gave law enforcement unprecedented powers which, we now know, were belligerently misused. I ask my wife all the time, “Who will police the police? And who will police those people who police the police?”  She gives the cops the benefit of the doubt but she hasn’t been profiled by the police like I have.

My home town had more transparency and I could trust the police to generally do the right thing.  While I can’t say that everyone of them were saints, no one ever - to my knowledge - abused their powers or entered the gray area of ethical behavior.  Granted, the population when I grew up there was a little less than that of Hoboken - about 30,000 people to Hoboken’s 38,000 - but its not enough to make a difference in the complexity of the government and how it makes itself available to the people.

Anyway, all this long talk is because I was shocked at how abusive our police department seems to be.  I’m sure our leaders are as shocked as I am to hear this… or maybe they allow it to happen.  I know I don’t feel safe here anymore and I’ll be looking at the police with a closer eye in the future.  I hope that the mayor does something about this apparent problem because it makes me believe that by not removing the corrupt people from the city, he himself is endorsing it.