Dear Editor:
Whether you’re new to the city of Hoboken, or whether you’re born and raised here, if you pay taxes to our fair city, you’ve been had. Whether from corruption or incompetence, Hobokenites have long been victims of a political culture designed to divert public money from useful purposes and into the pockets of municipal employees regardless of merit.
Last week’s Hoboken Reporter included accounts of some of the details. Page one notes that parking administrator John Corea was recently indicted in connection with the mysterious disappearance of millions of quarters that had been deposited in Hoboken’s parking meters. When Mr. Corea was hired five years ago, I exposed (in a letter to The Reporter) his checkered past as a thief who was barred for life from trading on the New York Stock Exchange. This didn’t seem to bother then-Mayor Dave Roberts, whose fondness for crooks wasn’t disturbed by the info in my letter to the editor which nevertheless seemed to inspire him to pay Corea more than a Council-enacted hiring freeze should have permitted. By the way, Corea earned this “plum” job by joining a dummy slate of election candidates dubbed “Hoboken First” that was created purely to dilute the votes of any opposition candidates that might have run against Roberts and his crew. In another example of taxpayers’ getting ripped off, the previous parking director then sued the city over her demotion and won a $400,00 settlement – all taxpayer dollars.
It’s also worth noting that our present mayor’s choice of Michael Lenz to fill her vacant Fourth Ward council seat, duly supported by her allies on the council, was made without regard to Lenz’s similar win of a six-figure settlement of a case he brought after he was fired from a financial job by the Roberts administration. We taxpayers were on the losing end of that one, too. Will it ever stop?
Last year, in addition to the Roberts administration’s failure to submit a timely budget resulting in the huge tax increase suffered by property-owners, the administration tried to sneak an improper severance pay deal past Trenton. Along the same lines, how ‘bout that huge severance package enjoyed by former Police Chief Carmen LaBruno, who resigned in disgrace after the exposure of the “Hooters” incident during a junket to New Orleans? Another cop involved in that caper still hopes to reap medical benefits for life in addition to his state pension, all at the expense of taxpayers.
Besides continuing the fun and games of siphoning city funds into undeserving pockets, our new administration has yet to live up to its campaign promises to reduce Hoboken’s bloated tax bills. I just paid my latest tax bill, and am sorry to report that it was higher than the previous one, despite those rosy promises. And don’t forget that the initial winner of our last mayoral election is now facing a possible lengthy prison sentence for allegedly accepting a $25,000 bribe from a purported developer. And he’s only the latest in a long line of Hoboken and Hudson County politicians that became jailbirds in the line of duty. Doesn’t it make you proud to live in this town? I, for one, love it!
John Glasel