Christie to unveil his ‘toolkit’ in Hoboken Monday
On Monday, May 17, Gov. Chris Christie will be in Hoboken to unveil a “Mayor’s Toolkit,” his package of potential legislation to better enable municipalities to control property taxes, at Hoboken Catholic Academy on Monday at 11 a.m. The package reportedly includes controversial limits on salary increases for government workers and a hard cap on property tax increases.
Mayor Dawn Zimmer will join him for the “Town Hall” meeting.
County taxes likely to rise in Hoboken
The county budget of $442.3 million was introduced by the county Board of Chosen Freeholders last Thursday. Spending is up 3.8 percent over last year.
The total tax levy is up, although some towns in Hudson County will pay a lower tax rate if their home values have dropped. Hoboken will be among those hit the hardest.
“This year two towns, Secaucus and East Newark, will actually see a reduction in county taxes,” County Executive Tom DeGise said. “However this state-mandated approach to how the levy is assessed does leave Hoboken, where equalized valuation continues to rise significantly, with an increased share of the total burden. Indeed if we had not requested any increase in the total county levy, Hoboken still would have contributed $3.9 million more than it did in 2009.”
At some point next month, there will be a public hearing and then a final vote on the budget.
Hoboken Freeholder Anthony Romano, who also represents a portion of Jersey City, said he intends to vote against the budget for the second year in a row. “It’s outrageous,” Romano said in an interview last week.
Local financial control regained from state
The state’s Local Finance Board voted unanimously last week to release the city from state fiscal monitoring that sprang from an unpassed, underfunded budget in 2008.
The city met several criteria set forth by the state and will provide monthly financial reports to Trenton until September.
State-appointed Fiscal Monitor Judy Tripodi spent her last day in City Hall on Friday, and gave her vote of approval for the new business administrator, Arch Liston, whom she dealt with when she worked for the state.
Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who appeared before the board in Trenton, said in a release, “The city now has a mayor and City Council working cooperatively together to manage the city’s fiscal affairs, and the reasons for state fiscal monitoring no longer exist.”
The next City Council meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 19 at 7 p.m. and can be seen live at www.hudsonreporter.com.
“They’re certainly on the road to fiscal recovery,” Tripodi said on Friday. “I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Hoboken.”
“She’s made my job very easy coming in the door,” Liston said.
New city spokesman to get $60K salary, no benefits
Mayor Dawn Zimmer hired a new City Hall spokesman last week, days after axing one of the city’s two spokespeople. Juan Melli was hired as a public relations officer by Zimmer last week following the firing of Paul Drexel the previous Friday.
Drexel, a former city spokesperson under Mayor David Roberts, had been a provisional employee not protected by civil service regulations, and thus, the city did not need a particular reason to be laid him off, a city official confirmed.
Melli was the director of new media for former Gov. Jon Corzine and an associate editor at Politcker.com. He lives in Hoboken, holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Princeton, and runs a small communications company.
Two or three months ago, Melli was given a city contract not to exceed $15,000 to handle “new media” like the city’s Twitter account, according to Daniel Bryan, the mayor’s confidential aide. Melli also reorganized and provided content for the city website and developed a map that tracks the location of the crosstown shuttle over the past few months, billing the city for between $2,000 and $3,000.
Now his former contract is nullified, according to Business Administrator Arch Liston, and Melli will be paid a $60,000 salary but receive no health care benefits.
The city also has an assistant spokesman, Bill Campbell.
Annual baby parade today
The Hoboken Histroical Museum is sponsoring the 9th annual Baby Parade, a promenade of Hoboken’s youngest residents in their finest or most creative outfits.
The parade will be held today (Sunday, May 16) and registration is free starting at noon. The parade will kick off at 1 p.m. in Sinatra Park.
The most creative costumes will compete for trophies for best dressed baby, best dressed family, and most creative carriage. Thanks to our generous sponsors, goodie bags will be available to all participants.
For more information, call the museum at (201) 656-2240 or visit hobokenmuseum.org.
Relay For Life
Relay For Life is a fun-filled event designed to bring together those who have been touched by cancer in our community.
Hoboken’s Relay For Life will be held on Saturday, May 22, from 11a.m. to 11 p.m.at Pier A Park where teams of people gather and take turns walking laps. The premise is to keep at least one team member on the track at all times. But Relay is much more than a walk, organizers said, it is also a time to remember those lost to cancer and celebrate those who have survived. During the event, the teams honor cancer survivors during the morning “Survivors Lap” and remember those who have died from cancer during a “Luminaria Ceremony” at dusk.
There will also be family-friendly activities, including clowns, a water-balloon toss, team tug of war, costume-theme laps, and more. A variety of local bands are also scheduled to play throughout the day, including cover band Not For Nothing, alt-rock group Turnpike South, pop rock quartet Emergency Now, classic rock cover band Mad Dog Mary, and Radiohead tribute group Fitter, Happier.
For more information on Relay For Life or to get involved, please visit their website, www.relayforlife.org/hobokennj.
County: Sports, AP classes face the ax
Some of the county freeholders and local mayors may be changing their minds about eliminating the sports programs in the county schools in order to save money, now that parents are protesting.
On Thursday, May 13, dozens of parents lobbied the freeholders to keep appropriations for the sports programs – and the Advanced Placement classes, which also face the ax – in the county budget next month.
Recently, all of the mayors of the towns in Hudson County publicly agreed to eliminate sports at the two countywide public high schools, which are magnet schools for students who would rather go there than their own local public school. The mayors said cutting sports at the county schools would save money, noting that the same sports are offered at the individual towns’ schools – and that the county coaches have been unfairly recruiting away talent from the towns’ schools. But some parents of athletes at the two Hudson County Schools of Technology don’t want to see their sports programs die.
Hoboken Freeholder Anthony Romano said the county schools made the call for the cuts, and even if the county offers to subsidize the programs, the schools may not accept the payment.
“We’re going to try to [save the programs],” Romano said.
More than 50 parents and students lined up at the podium at Thursday night’s freeholder meeting to express their outrage, saying that politics should play no role in cutting programs that include sports and Advanced Placement classes, which will hamper promising students from being accepted into quality colleges.
Parents asked if the move was political rather than financial. They said local mayors who may have approved the cuts may be doing this because of pressure from school districts who see talented sports students leave for the county high schools.
HCA 5K run with Cake Boss
The Hoboken Catholic Academy will host its annual HCA 5K Run/Walk event on June 5 and Hoboken’s “Cake Boss,” Buddy Valastro, is going to bake a cake for the event to present to some of the kids from the school.
The event follows the waterfront running route and funds the school’s technology efforts to put computers and smartboards in each classroom.
To make the day more lucrative for the school, only the runners and walkers who raise $100 in donations will get to see the cake and meet Valastro and his family.
Participants can register for the race at active.com and start collecting those donations at activegiving.com. Walk-in registration is available at East Coast Spine, Joint, and Sports Medicine, 739 Bloomfield Ave.
Secret Garden Tour
Behind Hoboken’s brownstones and former factory facades is a world of lush gardens and unusual courtyard spaces. Gardeners and non-gardeners alike are invited to indulge their curiosity and pick up urban gardening tips on the Hoboken Historical Museum’s 13th Annual Secret Garden Tour, Sunday, June 6, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Rain date: June 13).
Eight to 10 residential gardens will open their gates to tour goers to support the museum’s fundraising efforts. The tour is sponsored by Hufnagel Landscaping, with support from other local gardening centers and assistance from the Hoboken Garden Club.
Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 day of tour. Hoboken Historical Museum members and Hoboken Garden Club members may purchase tickets for $20, and children under the age of 13 are admitted free. For advance tickets, stop by the museum at 1301 Hudson St., or call (201) 656-2240.
Tickets are also available at several retail locations around town: Hudson Place Realty, 132 Washington St.; Amanda’s Restaurant, 908 Washington St.; and Baskets of Distinction, 1102 Washington St.
Comfortable shoes and sun protection are advised. Volunteers are also needed; if interested, call the museum at (201) 656-2240, or e-mail volunteer@hobokenmuseum.org. Visit www.hobokensecretgardens.com for more information about the tour.
Public access show needs participants
This Public Voice Salon, a new weekly television show seeking a creative citizen dialogue that mixes talk of art, politics, personal stories, and the burning issues of the day, is set to premier on the Hudson County Public Access Cable Thursday evenings from 8 to 9 p.m.
Producers are looking for residents who would like to appear on the show, as an antidote to media “talking heads.”
“We seek to be a rare, hopeful, non-scripted space for people to discover their public voices; while learning the art of creating an authentic community,” producers said.
The show is open to guest speaker like authors, artists, or activists. If you’d like to be considered as a salon participant or guest, e-mail a brief paragraph about yourself and why you’d like to be part of this project to John at jfbredin@hotmail.com.
The first show will be taped at Symposia Bookstore in Hoboken on May 20 at 7 p.m. Space is limited to 15 people per show, but your name will go on a list for future meetings.
Hoboken resident John Bredin, the creator and host of the Public Voice Salon, is a writer, real estate agent, and professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.