As a condo president in Hoboken during the mid-1990s, I learned firsthand how the system worked when it came to Mayor Anthony Russo. This was particularly true concerning the parking garage that existed next door to our building.
Members of our board routinely noticed that the garage managed to get away with a variety of things such as trash build-up and failure to shovel its walks, when we rarely could.
During one campaign when we were visited by various candidates on various slates, we would bring up the subject of the garage. Inevitably, the politician seeking our vote would lower his or her voice and say, “Don’t mess with those people. They’re connected.”
True or not, whenever we pressed for an answer to this, we were told to see Russo. Coming to Hoboken from outside Hudson County, we were not yet acquainted with how things were done in this part of the world. We let it go.
Later, when I was assigned by the board to conduct massive repairs on our building and discovered that the contractors converting the brownstone into condominiums had misdirected ducts and screwed up water and heating systems, I went looking for plans. City Hall directed us to the architects. The architects said they no longer had copies of the plans and suggested we should talk to Russo.
Still a little slow on the uptake, we had no clue as what the mayor could do about our problem.
Things got worse. During repairs, our contractor brought to our attention that the garage next door was undermining the foundations of our building and we could expect the brick facing to fall off at some point in the future. This, our contractors claimed, was due to the deplorable condition of the garage roof, which allowed water to seep into the foundation of our building with each rain storm, pushing out the mortar between the bricks.
When we approached the garage owner, he laughed and said he didn’t have to do anything. We talked to several people in City Hall, each of them saying this was a private matter. Our recourse was to sue. But the city employees also would lower their voices and say that since the garage owner was connected, maybe we should talk to the mayor.
Faced with the potential loss of our life savings, I eventually wrote the mayor a letter explaining the situation. Two days later, the garage roof was repaired.
This story is not an attempt to imply that there was anything illegal done, but to show a culture in which the best, or only, way to get something done was to talk to the mayor.
The charges filed against Russo by the U.S. Attorney last week are part of a campaign not to bring down the former mayor, but to end a culture that has existed in Hudson County for over a century – where connected people seem to get special treatment, where strong leadership often seems associated with abuse of power.
I remember standing in front of Russo on the post office line one day and joked loudly, “Hoboken would be a great town if it wasn’t for the mayor,” knowing he would overhear it.
Russo didn’t explode in rage. He puffed up his chest in the spirit of the joke and said, “You mean Hoboken is a great town because of the mayor.”
A few minutes later, we saw him scrutinizing contractors reconstructing a local tavern.
“I was just checking to see if they had the right permits,” he said.
Russo has been described in numerous ways by numerous people as political bully or a strong political ally – often depending upon whether he was against you or on your side. Whether he is guilty of the charges federal authorities accuse him of, a court will decide, but Russo is unmistakably a huge figure in the culture of Hudson County’s politics, living by its strange rules.
Hoboken unsettled issues
Russo’s son Michael Russo seems determined not to let the charges against his father sway him from running for his father’s council seat in the 3rd Ward. Why not? Russo is expected to plead innocent, and even if proven guilty, the old Biblical saying still applies the sins of the father not being passed down to the sons.
Former Hoboken Chief Financial Officer George DeStefano has not come to any settlement with the city in his fight to save his reputation after being removed from his position last year. He still believes he has done nothing wrong. (DeStefano is, incidentally, Anthony Russo’s brother-in-law.)
Meanwhile, Hoboken Mayor Dave Roberts is still clashing with Michael Lenz, another former Hoboken chief financial officer, over what constitutes “overspending.” Roberts claims his budget is the same this year as when he took office in 2001. Lenz claims this was done with smoke and mirrors, and points an accusing finger at the police supervisors’ contract. Roberts claimed the contract was reasonable. Lenz called it outrageous. Lenz said he lost his job with the city partly due to his criticism of Robert’s budget.
Political trivia?
Jersey City-born actor Frank Vincent made a cameo appearance at the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission last week to plead the case for a movie studio to be constructed in Secaucus. Vincent, who is noted for his cigar smoking and his roles as movie tough guy mobsters, is due to appear in upcoming episodes of HBO’s Sopranos.
Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, who posed for picture with the star, later leaned back and said, “I supposed this means I’ll be in your column next week as a mobster?”
David Chang, the man at the center of the supposed Robert Torricelli fundraising scandal of a few years ago, was released from prison last week. After all the hoopla, Torricelli has yet to be charged with any crime resulting from the scandal.
The question as to who will Jersey City Mayor Glenn Cunningham support in the upcoming election for the 4th District Freeholder seat was answered at the opening of Steve Lipski’s headquarters. Cunningham announced his support for Deputy Mayor Anthony Cruz. This was a tough choice since of the five people running to fill the seat vacated by the bribery conviction of Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon. Three of them – Cruz, Republican Carl Czaplicki, Cunningham’s aide, and former Mayor Gerry McCann – are all close.
Union City Mayor Brian Stack held a press conference sitting on the back of a new police motorcycle. He said the cycle’s public address system would make a remarkable campaign tool – as if the motorcycle was not enough.