Dear Editor:
The several entities which spend our tax money routinely go through the motions of pledging allegiance to the flag and proclaiming their compliance with the conditions of the Sunshine Law. Neither statement includes a promise of integrity, truth or honest concern for the well-being of the real constituents; the people who live in Hoboken. The primary, if not sole, allegiance is to those who provided the dollars and man-power to put them into office and who now manipulate the troupe of marionettes. The string-pullers seem to exact their rewards by naming buddies to assorted jobs in City Hall and securing hard to find apartments in subsidized housing. When their nominees are less than ideally qualified for the jobs, it is easy to add people who are and who can play back up. When the jobs do not exist they are created to accommodate numerous loyalists.
Now, at the end of the first year of a nominally changed, clean-sweep, reform administration, there are many cast members of the previous, ousted administration who are on the City’s payroll. This embrace includes the municipal roster, the school administration and the parking authority. In order to manage this bloated payroll, in a display of incredible arrogance, and despite warnings that both the State and the County will be reducing or eliminating contributions to the municipal coffers, the Council rubber-stamped a “tentative” budget for the second half of the year which is higher than the first half. This does not include increases in the Board of Education or County budgets which account for about two-thirds of the total tax bill. The simple-minded idea of economizing, belt-tightening, seems not to have occurred to anyone in the administration.
The ultimate insult in this multi-million dollar game is the announcement that the City will spend more money to install cameras at Henderson Street/Observer Highway and Grove Street/Observer Highway intersections so that the police will be able to see from headquarters if there is a need to dispatch a traffic cop when there is a backup at either location. No one has adequately explained the need for surveillance cameras in Sinatra Park.
Helen Hirsch