The biggest news that came out of Wednesday night’s City Council meeting was that the city has decided to reduce the rates at the controversial automated garage at 916 Garden St. for a full year, even though, according to city Business Administrator Robert Drasheff, doing so ensures that the facility will be losing money for at least the next 12 months.
Gerhard Haag, the head of Robotic Parking, the firm that installed the garage’s automated features and currently manages the city-owned garage, said that 203 cars are using the facility now. It can hold 312 cars. It began accepting patrons in October.
The City Council, in an attempt to fill the garage, passed a resolution Wednesday that lowers the rate for an automobile from $235 to $200 a month. The resolution set the new rate for one full year.
“This is a very expensive garage to operate,” said Drasheff during the meeting. He estimated that it will cost the city between $800,000 and $900,000, or between $60,000 and $70,000 per month, for the next year. He added that at $235 per car, and slightly higher for SUVs, the garage would “barely break even.”
Drasheff said that with lowering the prices, if the garage was completely full tomorrow, expenses will be around 15 percent higher than projected revenues over the next 12 months.
Councilman Michael Cricco, who is running for re-election, said Wednesday that lowering the garage rates is a good idea because having a full garage at $200 per car is better than having a half-full garage at $230. Cricco is the councilman for the 5th Ward, the ward where the garage is located.
Secondly, Cricco said, having a garage filled will free up parking spaces in the neighborhood.
“Even though it’s only half full, you can see the difference in the number of available parking spaces on surrounding blocks,” said Cricco. “We need to fill this garage to get cars off the street.”
Haag debated that fact that the city even needs to lower the rate to fill the garage.
“We’re adding five or six new cars every week [at $230],” said Haag. “Within a matter of weeks, the garage will be full [at this price].”
Not everyone on the council was sure that lowering the price will get more cars into the garage.
“I don’t see any evidence that this is going to fill the garage,” said At-Large Councilman Tony Soares, who is running for the 4th Ward council seat Tuesday against Chris Campos, a candidate backed by Mayor David Roberts. Soares argued that the municipal garages on Hudson Street are half empty, and those garages only charge $125 per month. He also said that Cricco, who is running for re-election in the 5th Ward, is pushing to lower the garage rates as a last-minute political move to garner more votes just days before a contentious election.
Councilwoman Theresa Castellano, who is running for reelection in the 1st Ward as an independent, said that that lowering the rates is a gamble, but a gamble worth taking.
“It’s risky, but I think we have to try something,” she said. “Having a full garage is better than not.”
Haag said that before it was ever built, the city conducted a feasibility study that said the garage could turn a profit. Haag said that the numbers that Drasheff presented were greatly inflated and that the garage could be operated for much less than $60,000 or $70,000 per month.
In fact, Haag said, he is still interested in buying the garage from the city if it does put it out to bid. Last Nov. 7, the now-defunct Hoboken Parking Authority (which has since been replaced by a city-run Parking Utility) entered into an agreement to sell the garage to Feldman Equities of New York and Arizona, in conjunction with Robotic Parking. But the city voided the deal because they thought they could obtain higher bids.
New padding at parks
Many parents have noticed in the past couple of days that the children’s playgrounds at Stevens Park, which is at Fourth and Hudson streets, and Church Square Park, at Fourth and Garden streets, have been fenced in by the city. According to the city’s director of environmental services, Cassandra Wilday, the play areas in those parks will be closed for two to three weeks so that workers can rip up the worn safety surface and install new matting.
The project, according to Wilday, is being funded by a federal grant. She added the reason that the project couldn’t have been started earlier is because the weather has to be over 50 degrees for construction to begin.
Belfiore to Housing Authority
This week the City Council received a communication from the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) that former school board member Perry Belfiore has been named as the governor’s appointment to the Hoboken Housing Authority’s seven-member volunteer board. On the Housing Authority there is one position available for a governor’s designee, and the rest are filled by the mayor and City Council. Belfiore is filling a spot vacated by former HHA commissioner Bill Noonan’s resignation in August in 2002. Because of the slow turning wheels of state bureaucracy, it has taken three quarters of a year for the DCA to select a governor’s designee.
The significance of this appointment is that it puts to rest rumors that Belfiore was given or was in negotiations to be given a city job in return for his dropping out of the City Council elections. Before the filing deadline, Belfiore picked up petitions and said that he was considering running. When he didn’t turn in his petitions in March, rampant rumors started circulating that he was given a job in City Hall in exchange for his not running.
This governor’s appointment makes it impossible for Belfiore the have a city job because there is a state law saying that only one paid city employee can sit on the Housing Authority’s board. City Council President Ruben Ramos is already a member of the board, so the DCA couldn’t have appointed Belfiore if he had been working for the city.
It was known that Belfiore was the leading candidate for the spot well before the election season started. Belfiore said recently that he was always more interested in the Housing Authority commissioner’s appointment than the City Council, and that’s why he never turned in his City Council petitions.