Dear Editor:
The article concerning the wording of the rent control question on the upcoming November ballot was a disservice to Hoboken. How does an entire article dealing with the wording of the question omit the wording itself? It makes it seem as though there might be a legitimate contention as to the wording’s clarity when there is not. Here is the question:
PUBLIC QUESTION: “Shall the City of Hoboken continue annual rental increase protections for current residents of rent controlled properties but allow property owners to negotiate rents for vacant apartments and exempt buildings with one-to-four units and condominium units from the rent leveling ordinance by adopting the proposed amendment to Chapter 155 of the Code of the City of Hoboken?”
Had you given your readers the opportunity to see the question, they would have come to the same conclusion as the judge and the City Clerk: the petitioners, entirely within their right, set forth the question that is to be decided, and the voters have sufficient information within the question to make a decision.
Both the question and the ordinance are completely clear that there will be no change in protection to existing residents, so that clause should have been included.
There is a reason that the city and the extremist rent control activists are on a huge losing streak against property owners: it’s because they are consistently wrong. Their politicization of the rent control law, and now their attempt to manipulate election law, have cost the city thousands in legal fees and tens of millions in tax revenue – not to speak of the hundreds of millions in property value they have destroyed. Their fear mongering is a disguise for the politicking we will see all through this election cycle.
However, all the voters need to do is read the question, and they will see it’s fair: no changes for existing tenants who stay in their units; new tenants pay a fair rent. Rent control does not disappear – all buildings with five units and greater will go back under rent control after a new tenant moves in and pays the new rent. But family-owned properties like condominium units and 1-4 family houses will be able to operate as they do in every other city in New Jersey.
Ron Simoncini,
Executive Director,
Mile Square Taxpayers Association