Dear Editor:
During the course of the past few weeks I’ve been hearing an absurd criticism of councilman, and mayoral candidate, Peter Cammarano regarding his affiliation with Mayor Roberts. Granted the two ran together four years ago, it doesn’t take a political analyst to point out that Councilman Cammarano represents the people of Hoboken, not the mayor. Starting with his disapproval of the mayor’s plan to sell the municipal parking garage in a glorified short-sale, until today, Mr. Cammarano’s record is not a clone of the mayor’s. So, pegging him as “the next Roberts” is a clever, but factually untrue, political move on the part of his opponents.
Although Councilman Cammarano expressed serious concern over the size and scope of the mayor’s 2009 budget, he saw the consequences of not unifying together to approve it. Last spring Cammarano warned of a 50 percent tax hike if the budget wasn’t approved, we ended up with one that was 47 percent – 3 percent off. While the councilman was trying to avert a state take over, Zimmer and Mason were busy opposing the mayor to make a point and gear up for their mayoral runs. Mr. Cammarano was the only one who stood up for the interests of taxpayers across the city.
For the first-half of their first-terms, Ms. Zimmer and Mason have represented their individual wards well, but the fact that they couldn’t negotiate a better budget in the interest of taxpayers shows that they aren’t ready to take on a larger city-wide roll. When they both disputed the mayor’s original budget, they had my support, but when they did nothing to improve upon it, they lost my trust. Inaction by default is an action and it angers me that they both went to Trenton without any contingency plan in hand. We’re all taught in school to “play nice” and in business we all know that you need to produce results, but they did neither. As a direct result of their inaction, we now pay more for dwindling city services and might have to size back our hardworking police and fire departments.
We live in a great city, but the cost of living has quickly out paced the quality of life. Our city has grown too fast and without proper management, but if one good thing has come from this rapid growth, it’s that there is finally new blood in Hoboken. Councilman Cammarano has the support of this young property owner because I respect hard work, straight forward policy and an overall reform of city hall that embraces our past and looks to the future. I ask all voters to listen to the message of an intelligent, dedicated and passionate man who is being inappropriately characterized by his eager opponents.
Michael DeFusco