HOBOKEN — The Hoboken City Council announced that it will hold a Special Emergency Meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Council Chamber in City Hall regarding the sale of the Department of Public Works Municipal Garage at Observer Highway.The meeting will be streamed live here at the Reporter site.
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Hoboken Mayor Zimmer issued the following statement:
“The council will be briefed by the city’s environmental and legal professionals, and requested to conduct deliberations in closed session due to the potential for litigation between SHG (Hekemian) and the city of Hoboken. A vote on a resolution to provide direction to the city’s redevelopment counsel, will occur in public session.”
The scheduled date of the closing between the city of Hoboken and S. Hekemian, future developers of the city’s Observer Highway municipal garage property, is this Friday, Aug. 13. But at a City Council meeting in June, S. Hekemian’s attorney wanted to modify the sales contract so that the company could pay something closer to what he said is the property’s current $14 million value, not the more than $20 million that was promised to the city years ago.
The scheduling of the special meeting is unusual, as a regular council meeting is already scheduled for Wednesday.
In addition, Mayor Zimmer announced that she intends to introduce the budget at the first meeting in September rather than the Wednesday, Aug. 11 meeting. The city explained: “This action is necessary due to a number of issues, including further analysis regarding the municipal garage based on the results of the emergency meeting. In addition, further assessments regarding the cost of potential legal exposure in a number of matters must be completed prior to introduction of the budget, as well as a full evaluation of the number of potential retirements.
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