Acting Mayor and Council President Dawn Zimmer gave up her council presidency at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, as she is set to take over as mayor this week. However, she will officially remain the 4th Ward councilperson until she submits a letter of resignation following her election certification.
After Zimmer gave up the council presidency, she left the building. There has been a debate over the past decade as to whether mayors should attend council meetings. The council is an independent nine-member body, but the mayor is entitled to attend council meetings and make suggestions like any other member of the public. Some felt during the reign of Mayor Anthony Russo that he became too involved at meetings, but when Russo’s successor, David Roberts, failed to attend important meetings, some people criticized him for it.
“Like the Pier at Sinatra Park, Hoboken University Medical Center is going under.” – Charlie Mancini
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On Wednesday, Council Vice President Peter Cunningham to ran the meeting.
Cutting salaries, but not as much as Mason wants
On Wednesday, seven of the eight remaining council members voted to reduce salaries for the mayor, City Council, and the city department directors by 10 percent.
The only dissenting vote was from 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason. Mason proposed an amendment to reduce the salaries by 25 percent, the amount many of the council members had said they wanted to cut the budget by.
The salary ordinance was originally proposed over the summer in the first session of the new council, but it has been tweaked and changed since then.
Mason has opposed the ordinance since it was introduced, on the basis that it did not cut salaries enough. But she waited until the second reading for passage of the ordinance to finally introduce a competing amendment.
In making her point, Mason read a list of what she believed to be overspent city departments, although Finance Director Nick Trasente said her numbers were not accurate.
Mason said, “I’m kind of wondering where we’re going to start cutting.”
Her amendment failed when put to a vote, with only council members Theresa Castellano and Michael Russo voting in favor of it.
Mason herself had forsaken her council salary the previous year, but this past year, she asked for some of it back retroactively.
Council members said they were concerned about Mason’s amendment because if it passed, they would need to re-advertise the ordinance and vote at the next meeting. They said it would further delay the matter.
Russo said, “I think we’re fighting over the same thing here. I think we all need to keep that in perspective. When we have a budget…hopefully in two weeks, then we’ll discuss it.”
The council approved the 10 percent salary cut, 7 to 1.
Resident Helen Hirsch said during the public portion of the meeting that the council members who serve on a part-time basis should opt out of the health benefits provided to them if they have some other means of employment that provides coverage.
“The job is part-time. The salary is part-time. But the benefits cannot be part-time,” she said. “They are either on or off. I think you ought to think about that.”
Turning up the heat at Marineview
Castellano has been working for over a year to help residents at Marineview Plaza, an affordable housing complex in the 1st Ward, with a “submetering” issue.
Marineview was the state’s pilot study for a submetering program where instead of all residents evenly splitting utility costs, the building installed meters for each unit to bill directly.
But because the state had to by law use an open bidding process to provide the electric, PSEG was outbid by another utility company from Maryland.
The building started the new program in June 2008, but residents with the same size apartments were experiencing wild variations in billing. One tenant would pay $10 per month, while another would pay $600, Castellano said.
The state found 32 percent of the units in the building had “significant variances in their billing,” according to a recently filed court document.
In August, the state asked that the building discontinue the program, after Castellano organized resident complaints and made numerous phone calls.
Marineview said in a letter to the state that the pilot program has caused “substantial confusion and an administrative nightmare.”
Last week, Castellano proposed a resolution to have the city’s attorney file a brief in support of the program suspension. The measure passed with seven votes. Councilman Ravi Bhalla, who is representing a tenants group in Union City opposing a similar submetering program, was forced to abstain due to the conflict.
Both Castellano and Bhalla have letters in the Reporter this week regarding the issue.
Other items
● The council failed to approved more temporary emergency appropriations, this time opting not to pay for insurance coverage for the Volunteer Ambulance Corp. and for unemployment benefits.
Trasente told the council that these costs were completely unforeseen, but some members disagreed.
“You told us that the last appropriations would last until November and now you’re back a month later,” Russo said.
“I can’t budget things that I don’t know,” Trasente said.
“Don’t we try to anticipate [these costs]?” Mason asked.
“This is the budget. These are the numbers,” Trasente said. “I’m not making it up. I’m not profiting from it.”
Needing six votes to approve spending, the appropriation failed 5 to 3, with Mason, Castellano, and Russo voting against it.
State-appointed Fiscal Monitor Judy Tripodi later approved the appropriations, according to a city spokesperson.
● The council is planning a special meeting to delve into the issues at Hoboken University Medical Center, but they are not sure when it will take place.
Resident Charlie Mancini spoke during the public portion about the hospital.
“Like the Pier at Sinatra Park, Hoboken University Medical Center is going under,” he said. “I was made an unwitting stakeholder in the hospital business [as a city taxpayer], and as a stakeholder I suggest that we stop the bleeding and cut our losses, that we shut down the operation as it exists today, perhaps keeping the Emergency Room and a small number of beds to serve the needs of our community.”
● The council awarded a contract to the lowest bidder to remediate the area of 1600 Park Ave., where the city intends to build a park.
Timothy J. Carroll may be reached at tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.