Hoboken City Council candidate Ravi Bhalla had the following response to the story below, as he could not be reached for comment before we ran it last night. Feel free to respond in the comments section.
Bhalla writes:
“Regarding the story, please emphasize that I did not ask Ines and Jake Stuiver to leave this event. You can quote me as follows:
While I do not know Jake Stuiver personally, I have known Ines for years and I have a high degree of respect for her and her service to our community. Ines served honorably on the Rent Board while I was counsel to the Rent Board. However, I sincerely believe it was important for Mayoral candidates to take a position on the future of our schools, and unfortunately no Mayoral candidate other than Dawn Zimmer endorsed either slate of school board candidates. Significantly, on Election Day, I personally observed Raulito Morales, Jr., a member of the Mason ticket, together with volunteers for [school board candidate] Frank Raia’s slate. In this context, I think it demonstrated poor taste for representatives of the Mason campaign to attend the victory celebration of a slate that they declined to support and appeared to be actively opposing earlier in the day.