HOBOKEN — Local taxpayer group Hoboken Revolt is urging all taxpayers to e-mail their councilperson (or an at-large councilperson) if they have questions or concerns about the city budget.
There will be a budget workshop on Saturday, January 30th from 9:30am to 5pm at City Hall, 94 Washington St. At the workshop the council will discuss the budget and ask questions of the department directors. While the workshop will be open to the public, the public will not be able to comment or ask questions. Revolt strongly encourages members of the public to provide the council with the budget questions you want answered. Taxpayers can have their voice heard by speaking at this week’s council meeting, (Wednesday January 20th 7pm City Hall) or by emailing councilmembers, addresses are provided below.
For those who have not seen the budget documents you can find what is available to the public here: http://www.hobokenrevolt.com/forum/topics/fy2010-budget-docs
Per Mayor Zimmer’s letter to the Revolt Steering Committee, the DCA promised to released the police audits to the city by today, January 18th. Mayor Zimmer stated that she will provide the police department and public safety director one week to review the audits before releasing them to the public. Based on this time frame the public should expect to see the audits by next Tuesday, January 26th before the budget workshop.
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Council e-mail addresses:
Council President Peter Cunningham cunninghamforhoboken@gmail.com
Councilwoman Carol Marsh cjmarsh09@gmail.com
Councilman David Mello djmello70@gmail.com
Councilwoman Beth Mason beth@masoncitycouncil.org
Councilman Michael Russo councilmanrusso@aol.com
Councilman Michael Lenz mikelenz@aol.com
Councilman Nino Giacchi mgiacchi@juno.com
Councilman Ravi Bhalla rbhalla@rsblawfirm.com
Councilwoman Theresa Castellano email@castellanoforhoboken.com
The council is also meeting this Wednesday (agenda should be available here soon), and you can watch it here live.
One of the topics will be moving elections from May to November to save money.
Councilman-At-Large Ravi Bhalla announced last week that he will introduce an ordinance in response to state legislation, passed by both the New Jersey State Senate and the New Jersey State General Assembly, that would allow municipalities to hold their local elections on the same date as general elections, in order to save on costs of multiple elections and maximize voter turnout.
“This new legislation would not only save our city money,” Bhalla said in a release, “but also address fatigue among voters who have simply seen too many elections this past year. We asked Hoboken residents to cast their vote four times in 2009, which resulted in voter fatigue and avoidable expense. In addition to saving money, coordinating the timing of local elections with state and national elections will maximize voter turnout for our local elections.”
The city spent about $160,000 in 2009, Bhalla said, for the May 12 and June 9 elections.