Dear Editor:
What is the definition of stupidity — doing the same thing again and again expecting different results? Well the government of Hoboken has proven itself capable of colossal stupidity in refinancing the City’s debt in their attempts to balance their budget. One day after using fear and intimidation on City workers to encourage the Council to approve the refinancing that can only mortgage those people’s lives and futures, Mayor Roberts has the gall to hand out layoff notices.
This bond re-issue which puts the City over $15 million further into debt is a travesty. While fuzzy math may have taken Mayor Roberts through life, it is not going to take Hoboken much further into the future without disastrous consequences.
Where was Mayor Roberts’ conscience about spending when in the past two years he added high priced political contributors and friends to the payroll of this City? What about cutting that fat first? That’s never occurred to Mayor Roberts and friends.
At the same time that he’s presented us with this current tragedy of a budget he was presenting us with contracts to rehire his friends for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Seems Mayor Roberts thinks more of lining the tax coffers of Bayhead and Long Beach Island where he and supporters continue to build and buy big summer houses, than with the people of Hoboken.
Mayor Roberts’ puppets vote to dig this City even deeper into debt is a mistake we are going to suffer for a really long time.
For those of you who haven’t had a chance to follow the news, the Administration wanted to refinance the City’s $42 million debt. The proposal that was voted on will cost almost $15 million extra in the long run at significantly higher interest rates than we now pay, and they extended our indebtedness for eight more years.
For those of you who have credit cards or mortgages it’s the equivalent of getting a new card, or refinancing a mortgage, at a higher interest rate. Would you do that? No, it’s crazy, but that’s exactly what this Administration did. And then, even with the restructuring they issue layoff notices. And they did this in the cruelest way possible, leading employees to believe that if they lobbied the council to approve the refinance that those layoffs would not come.
He and his henchman had the nerve to post a list of city employees they said would be laid off and directly linked that list to the City Council agenda. If this isn’t extortion I don’t know what is. There is no excuse for this kind of cruelty to hardworking Hoboken employees and hardworking citizens. The complete lack of regard for sound fiscal policy and the Mayor’s continued penchant for blaming the messenger (can we count how many financial consultants he’s fired for bearing bad news? )have set us on the course for disaster from which I fear we may never recover.
Cordially,
Theresa Castellano