In Hoboken’s only televised mayoral debate, the three candidates answered questions about issues including development, parking, government spending, crime, and the light rail system.
The debate, which was sponsored by the Hoboken Reporter and Cablevision Wednesday morning, will air three more times before election day. While the candidates did lob criticisms of each other’s policies, records and ideology, the loud attacks that have occurred at certain council meetings were, for the most part, left at home.
The hour-long debate, which was held at Cablevision’s Studio in Union City, was moderated by NJ Channel 12’s political reporter, Laura Jones. Questions were written and asked by the Hoboken Reporter’s editor, Caren Lissner, and the anchor of Cablevision’s local North Hudson News program, Jeff Henig.
Each of the candidates was given the opportunity for one-minute opening and closing statements. They also had a minute to answer after each question was posed.
The three candidates seeking to win a spot in City Hall in Tuesday’s election are two-term incumbent Anthony Russo, 54, 6th Ward Councilman David Roberts, 44, and community activist and tenant’s rights advocate, Daniel Tumpson, 50.
In Roberts’ opening statement, he attacked the current administration for raising the municipal portion of the tax bill by more than 70 percent, for having less affordable housing than there was eight years ago, and for in Roberts’ opinion, helping to create traffic and parking problems because of “overdevelopment.”
In Mayor Anthony Russo’s opening statement, he said that Roberts has been inconsistent on issues dealing with development, and he said that Roberts’ own actions show that he has supported what Russo has done in office. Besides having voted with Russo for much of Russo’s term, Russo noted that while he has been in office, Roberts has increased his own property holdings in town to more than $5 million. This shows, he said, that Roberts must have liked the direction in which the city is going because Roberts has been investing in Hoboken. Dan Tumpson took the hard line by saying that both of his opponents have betrayed the public’s trust by perpetrating of what he believes is a crisis of overdevelopment that has led to an increase in traffic and a lack of suitable parking. He criticized his opponents for trying to take away tenants’ rights, which later in the debate, both Roberts and Russo denied. Tumpson concluded his introduction by saying that Russo and Roberts have helped to give away the waterfront to developers and decrease the residents’ quality of life.
On development
After a question was posed on what course future development in Hoboken should take, both Tumpson and Roberts said that in the last eight years, development has taken place in an irresponsible manner.
On the other hand, Russo contended that the city was developed properly and that under his administration garbage-strewn lots were turned into productive properties. He also said that under his administration, the zoning and planning boards have updated the master plan and in reality those boards are the only ones who have that authority to do so every five years.
Tumpson called for a strict adherence to the city’s zoning laws and wants to put on hold all future development and put development issues to votes on public ballots.
Roberts’ plan for easing the burden of overdevelopment will be, “to introduce a new master plan and new zoning codes,” he said. “This new master plan will have within it, a capacity study before granting any new residential variances, we have to find the capacity of our community.”
When asked about affordable housing, Roberts replied that Russo has neglected his responsibility to add affordable housing to the city, and believes that Hoboken has lost at least 300 units over the last eight years. Roberts touted the fact that he has personally created 20 affordable units and said that much of the problems could be solved if the people who need to live in affordable housing actually got the chance to. He criticized the mayor for still living in an affordable housing unit himself. (Russo moved into the Church Towers affordable housing building 30 years ago when he met the income limit, and there is no law stating that tenants must leave if their income climbs. The rents are kept artificially low by the government but tenants do not receive subsidies.) Russo responded by saying that if reelected, he will take an aggressive approach to finding more affordable units. “I have planned in my first year, if reelected, 400 additional affordable units,” he said. “Right now, the percentage of affordable residential units in Hoboken is still at about 34 percent.” He said he has also met with state officials to help keep rents in certain affordable housing buildings affordable.
Tumpson, a long-time tenant advocate, stressed that rent control laws need to be enforced. He went on to say that he has several times gone out on the streets to get petitions signed to protect tenants. He is also against giving large tax abatements to developers for what he deems are miniscule amounts of affordable housing.
When it came to traffic, Mayor Russo lauded his traffic diversion program and deemed it successful. He blamed most of the traffic on the 4,000 commuters who enter Hoboken daily. Russo also supports a bypass road on the western end of the city to reroute those commuters.
Tumpson believes that a west-side bypass would only result in what he and other activists deem a “stealth highway” that goes in segments from the George Washington Bridge to Bayonne. He is in favor of maintaining bottlenecks and is against attracting more traffic to Hoboken. His solution is to conduct an environmental impact study and promote use of the light rail train, which is coming to Hoboken’s west side.
Roberts said, “The Mayor has failed to recognize the 5,000 new apartments in Hoboken today and that has added in a tremendous way to the traffic problem. So part of our capacity study is to look at traffic in our community. We are going to work with county, state, and local before any bypass road is discussed.”
Taxes
Taxes are always an important issue when it comes to voters of Hoboken. The candidates were asked, “The current budget of Hoboken is $54.8 million. How will you ensure that the taxpayers get their money’s worth, and if you believe taxes and spending should be cut, please give examples.”
Russo stood by his record of maintaining the tax rate for the past seven years. But in a rarity for election time politics, said that he cannot rule out small incremental rises in the near future.
“I will continue to try to do that,” Russo said. “However, there is a cost to everything and things rise. The price of bread rises, the price of sugar rises. A gradual increase in taxes is healthy so that taxpayers can know what their budget is for the year.” Russo has said that he believes stability is better than cutting taxes one year and hiking them the next.
Tumpson criticized the mayor for raising taxes his first year in office and believes one of the keys to stabilizing taxes is slowing development.
Roberts also criticized the large tax increase during the mayor’s first year and said that believes that taxes should come down more, seeing that there are millions of dollars in new ratables.
But neither Roberts nor Tumpson gave any places where spending might be cut, even though the question asked for examples.
The candidates also were asked whether they would be able to work with their opponents’ supporters if they should get into office. Roberts and Tumpson both said that if they get into office, they would certainly reach out to Russo and other political opponents with experience for advice. Russo said that he has a record of working with political opponents.
All of the candidates said that residents should be educated about how to make use of the light rail train when it comes to the west side.
Other issues that were covered in the debate included why the candidates are willing to expose themselves to the scrutiny and hard work of being mayor; how government can be made more open and accessible to the public; what can be done to improve the city’s west side; what kind of experience and skills they have to run the city; and what each candidate would do to maintain a low level of crime.
For the full one-hour debate, tune in to Channel 70 on Sunday, May 6 at 11 a.m. and Monday, May 7 at 7 in the morning and 9 in the evening.