Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado was in New Jersey last night at an out-of-district event in Hoboken to raise money for NJ-7 repeat challenger Ed Potosnak.
Among the 30-plus attendees were DNC Executive Committee member Babs Casbar Siperstein and Hudson Stonewall Democrats founder Bob Zuckerman.
Polis spoke about the importance of the 7th District and why it's a key to taking back the House in 2012. Of course, we don't know how the 7th will be reconfigured after congressional redistricting, and the possibility New Jersey will be redrawn to force a showdown between a Republican and Democratic incumbent in central Jersey is very real.
At the moment in the current 7th, we're looking at a primary on the Democratic side, with Potosnak, the candidate in 2010 competing for the nomination with Jun Choi, former mayor of Edison.
And there's an interesting wrinkle there. Choi has been telling potential supporters that he was drafted to challenge GOP incumbent Leonard Lance by the DCCC itself. That may be true, certainly. But it is Jared Polis who chairs DCCC's Red to Blue program, which NJ-7 Dem challengers, like Linda Stender, have been chosen for before, and the District is likely to receive that program's boost and attention in 2012.
Somebody sent me to Americablog a few days ago because I was in a crap mood, and Americablog had a frontpaged video of 3 kittens spinning around on turntables. Anybody who knows me knows that kind of thing actually works on me. I reposted kittens to my facebook and got on with my day. Why don't we have more kitten videos at Blue Jersey?
But, I digress. Next to the spinning orange kittens was a link to Americablog's new collection of New York-flavored tee-shirts. Each, an expansion of the iconic Milton Glaser design known around the world. Which, ironically, was designed in the 1970s, when NYC was considerably less "lovable". Less lovable, the way New Jersey feels to me right now. Want to take a guess how much money that logo is hauling in for New York? Or, take a crack at this: How much in tourism dollars New York is about to see from their forward-thinking legislative decision.
I remember when we were lobbying NJ legislators in the run-up to the Senate marriage equality vote January of last year. There were so many reasons to urge support; one was tourism. I was in the room, when that case was made to Sen. Steve Sweeney. Didn't work.
In October, I get to watch two good friends, two men I love separately but especially together, get married on a boat in New York waters. There's water in New Jersey, too, and I imagine this wedding and many others, and a lot of NJ tourism dollars, will go to the city and state that invites it, a city and state that recognizes all of us more fully.
This Sunday, Garden State Equality is holding a rally to celebrate New York State's first-ever day of marriage equality. Co-host is Lambda Legal, which is now coming at Jersey equal marriage through NJ's courts. Couples at the center of that lawsuit will be there. Love will be in the air, both in New York, and across the water in Hoboken, where this rally will take place. The location is symbolic. Hoboken's Pier A Park is only a half-mile across the water from New York and another measure of equality. So close.
Disclosure: I serve on the board of Garden State Equality. I'd write about this even if I didn't.
With four days left before the Legislature breaks for the summer, one of the most controversial and costly bills up for debate - first considered just last Thursday - would provide up to $150 million in state subsidies for luxury condominiums. Think of it as using the proceeds from the millionaires tax to help subsidize condominiums for millionaires.
The proposed legislation, S2972, has as its main sponsor Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), who has drawn controversy over the past year for a number of legislative proposals regarding housing policy. The bill came to light for the first time late Friday, as an amendment to an existing bill that dealt with other aspects of the Urban Hub Tax Credit. The amendment actually passed Lesniak's Senate Economic Growth Committee on Thursday but the text of the bill was not available to the public until 24 hours later.
The amendment would eliminate a requirement that the "Urban Hub Tax Credit" only be used for developments including apartments and condominiums affordable to middle-class families, and instead place no price limit on developments that could be built with $150 million in state subsidies for residential development. With only four days left before the Legislature's summer break, the full Senate could take up the bill as soon as today. An identical bill was introduced in the Assembly on Thursday to allow the legislation to pass by June 30.
We once came upon an elderly state Senator pulling campaign signs for his Democratic challenger right out of the ground. We caught this out our car window at about 45 mph and swerved over to the side of the road to stop. Whereupon, said Senator made a big show of putting them back in the ground, saying he just stopped his car there to straighten the signs out. But I don't think I've seen anything like what goes down in Hoboken.
Campaign shenanigans are routinely practiced, though my thinking is there are certain deeds that if committed signify you've lost a bigger battle of right vs. wrong than you may ever lose at the ballot box. And that brings me to Hoboken's 6th Ward.
A video surfaced today, from the kind of quality and angle that looks like standard shopkeeper's security video - grainy and overhead. But it's clear enough to make out a figure the Jen Giattino campaign says is Matt Calicchio. Matt Calicchio works for the Beth Mason - Michael Russo faction of the City Council reelection, which includes Giattino's opponent, Nino Giacchi. It's not the first time we've seen Calicchio's name pop up in connection with complaints of dirty campaigning. According to the account by the Giattino campaign, the man in the video, who does look like Calicchio, walked into her store April 19 saying he worked for Giattino, and that she'd be fined if campaign posters were in the window. The video shows the man removing posters from windows on both sides of the store. In reality, the Hoboken Zoning Office has jurisdictions over signage, and campaign material is exempt from restrictions under the 1st Amendment (signs have to be down a week after election). You can read more here. The video comes via Rami Pinchevsky's YouTube account. But, yeah, this video looks pretty bad:
Outgoing Hoboken Councilman Michael Lenz's supporters say it costs about $22,000.
That's how much his opponent Tim Occhipinti spent on "campaign workers" to win Ward 4's Council seat in November. What's unusual about that? Well, nothing, until you consider that there were about 575 of them, and that for all that Election Day "field" help there was little Occhipinti campaign presence visible on 4th Ward streets (say the Lenz folks). And that Occhipinti paid 575 workers for an election in which only 2,076 people cast ballots (Lenz Election Day paid workers = 17). Most alarming is a spike - a big one - in vote-by-mail ballots, and who it was who turned them in: overwhelmingly it was Occhipinti's "campaign workers". Hoboken Ward 4 absentee voting dwarfs that of every other election in Hudson County, according to the Hudson Clerk's figures. The county prosecutor's office recently referred 190 vote-by-mail ballots to the state Attorney General's office, though it's not known if any investigation concerns the Lenz campaign's allegations.
Take a gander at this graphic, then tell me you don't see red flags. You're looking a chart of the vote-by-mail percentages for the Hudson County general election (data source). Compare Occhipinti's absentee voter percentages with other Hudson races, and with Lenz's race:
We wrote about this Oct. 28, when 3 Ward 4 residents swore out affidavits saying they were offered "$40 as an incentive to vote absentee". But this is bigger now. The new information, via ELEC final campaign spending reports illustrates that the breadth and size of what may be election corruption may be far greater. Do we know there was corruption? We do not. But where this many red flags are raised, there should be investigation. And Hoboken's next election should be monitored by credible election protection experts.
Some of Hoboken's councilmembers are already taking a position: "It looks like he bought the election," says Councilman Ravi Bhalla, who is also volunteer legal counsel for the Lenz campaign. Among Occhipinti donors: Councilmembers Michael Russo and Beth Mason. Among Lenz's: Bhalla, fellow councilmember Carol Marsh and Mayor Zimmer. Bhalla goes so far to allege forgery. Of 99 ballots thrown out election night, he says 82 had mismatched signatures. In 2 Ward 4 districts, about 80% of absentee voters were also employed by the Occhipinti campaign.
For the record, an Occhipinti spokesman denies any wrongdoing, and rejects the suggestion that the payment to "campaign workers" (most paid $40, some $100) was not for their labor but to buy their vote-by-mail. An Occhipinti spokesman:
Campaign workers did everything from wearing t-shirts to making calls to prospective voters, canvassing, walking with Tim, and distributing signs.
In addition, Occhipinti himself says all campaign staff signed a contract outlining duties, agreeing to "lawfully promote and encourage the participation of voters," and to "engage in only lawful conduct." Occhipinti also says it costs more to topple an incumbent, which is why he raised/spent more.
Of Hoboken's 6 wards, only the 4th was in play in November, a special election to Dawn Zimmer's seat, after she was elected out of Council to become mayor. Lenz was appointed to the seat, but had to run to keep it last month.
But take a look at the figures for vote-by-mail after the jump - the math behind the graph above. Ward 4's huge absentee spike may indeed be more than good field work, as Occhipinti's campaign suggests. It may be an attempt - a successful one - to purchase the votes, for not much money, of Hoboken residents who needed the jingle in their pockets and didn't mind allowing their names to be written in on ballots they may not have even filled in themselves. There may indeed be more - much more - than a loser's sour grapes involved in these allegations.
On such things, the direction of a city may turn. Vote-by-mail percentages for Hudson County, after the jump.
In 1981, when cars were big boxy tanks and mayors still encouraged more and more traffic to their cities hoping that meant more commerce, a professor of planning and urban design at MIT & U.C. Berkeley named Donald Appleyard wrote a book, Liveable Streets. The centerpiece of Liveable Streets was his study of 3 San Francisco streets; he found that the people on the street with lightest traffic had more social connections with neighbors, and a deeper sense of community.
Cars had their revenge on Appleyard, whose work impacted a generation of planners worldwide; he was run down by a speeding car in Athens and killed in 1982, at age 54. But his work reads like a recipe to restore serenity and build happiness among city dwellers.
Flash forward nearly 30 years. An entire culture of forward-thinking city planning is going on; the city-center equivalent to the suburban anti-sprawl movement. But it 'aint so easy to retrofit a northeastern urban setting, where people are just a river away from teeming NYC, where buildings and streets are already laid out, in the country where the car is still King.
Now, Streetsblog.org, which arises out of Appleyard's initial vision, is recognizing Hoboken for an ambitious bike and pedestrian plan.
It's pretty cool, though a work in progress. Check it out. And hey, if you're in Hoboken look for Mayor Dawn Zimmer riding to work on her bicycle. What, you don't live near Hoboken? You can look for Dawn Zimmer on her bike on a cake on your teevee.
In Hoboken's 4th Ward, candidate Michael Lenz today filed a complaint and order to show cause with New Jersey Superior Court, charging that voters were paid to cast Vote-by-Mail ballots - essentially paid for their votes - according to a Lenz campaign release in The Hoboken Journal.
Working through the details of this:
3 residents of Ward 4 swore out affidavits saying they were offered "$40 as an incentive to vote absentee" (read them here, beginning page 84)
In Occhipinti's 10/25 ELEC report, there are a series of $40 payouts in two sequential groupings. Under Schedule 1(D) - Disbursements, there are 36 payouts of $40 each to individuals beginning on page 13 of 37, then another group of $40 payouts to 43 people begins on page 21 of 37. Each recipient of the $40 is categorized: ADMIN: PERSONNEL/SALARY/TAXES - CAMPAIGN WORKER. Addresses are at or near Housing Authority residences, where some of the city's poorest live.
Crossing the list of those getting $40 payouts with the list provided by the county of vote-by-mail records show 79 of 80 campaign workers have indeed voted by mail. Occhipinti spokesman David Cruz calls this an "anomaly".
Two long-time Hoboken political players are named in the affidavits as involved; Matt Calicchio, and Frank Raia. Raia has denied wrongdoing. Occhipinti spokesman Cruz says their campaign did have people sign affidavits but they were in essence employment contracts for such services as wearing campaign tee-shirts, handing out flyers and "talking up the candidate."
The finger-pointing goes both ways. Yesterday, the Occhipinti campaign released a statement accusing Lenz of taking $1,000 in campaign contributions from two developers in exchange for a favorable vote on a zoning variance, according to nj.com. Occhipinti has called for an investigation by both Attorney General Paula Dow and US Attorney Paul Fishman. Lenz wrote to Dow two weeks ago asking her office to supervise the election to avoid ballot fraud.
For anyone outside Hudson County, this all seems like madness. For anyone inside Hudson County, it may feel maddeningly familiar. This may end up having to be untangled by the Attorney General or the court. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the fact both campaigns are hurling accusations doesn't mean they're both dirty. If you were running a dirty campaign, and word was out, what's the first thing you'd do? Right. You'd sharpen up that finger and get it ready to point.
Hoboken, where getting around in a car is challenging but parking is nightmare, is launching an incentive program to encourage what's already trending there, a culture way less dependent on motor vehicles. What Mayor Dawn Zimmer calls "more convenient, less expensive, healthier, and more environmentally friendly alternatives to owning a car in Hoboken."
Hoboken residents who surrender their parking permits will be trading them in not only for less congested streets (and better air) but also a $500 incentive package which includes a $100 driving credit for Corner Cars, the country's first city-wide car-sharing service (which launched this summer), a commuter bike helmet and other bike safety equipment, running socks, pedometer, running shoe coupon, 6-month unlimited shuttle pass, car rental discounts, freebies for PATH ridership, maps to find Hobokens bike lanes and racks and other goodies.
Hoboken's reputation is as a city of young adults, and clearly some of this is pitched for their maximum mobility, but it also may benefit low income people who can't afford the cost to own and park in Hoboken, and seniors or others on fixed income who need to get around but can use the Hop shuttle and Corner Cars.
Since the launch of Corner Cars, nine parking permits have been turned in, before the official launch of this incentive program. I'll be interested to see two things out of this: (1) Will the city be able to renew some of the incentives after the first year, with for example reduced shuttle fares and Corner Car incentives for those without parking permits, so their lower-cost mobility continues to be supported (2) Will there be a package that is more specifically targeted at seniors or disabled who might be more interested in using the fare/cost reduction goodies and less able to rely on the biking and walking advantages.
More than 500 Hoboken residents are now members of the Corner Cars program.
Friends, for the real scoop on the town between the tunnels, head on over to http://twitter.com/Griswell_RFC
The Reached For Comment News Service - We're covering Hoboken like a dense fog.
Editions 6 & 7 are presently available online, giving a complete analysis of the police layoff crisis and resolution, not just the usual Hudson press comb-over job.
This is the first year since September 11, 2001 that I haven't marked the anniversary at a public gathering. I was stuck in a meeting, so I had my computer open, tracking the timeline and quietly calling out the key events, which may have been unwelcome by the others at the table, but that's tough. And this was a year when it felt like everything about the observance of the day changed. We've blown past We are all Americans today (thanks, George W. Bush), past calling it The Site and now calling it Ground Zero (which sounds less like a place of tragedy and more like a place to be avenged), past when the names were read to the ringing of bells where it happened and everybody in America sat glued, and solemn.
We're now into September 11 as political fodder for assholes like "Rev." Terry Jones, haters looking for the next event on the horizon, and gullible media. So, I was glad to sit this one out with just my timeline of what really happened in front of me.
But that's because I don't live anywhere near Hoboken. And, to tell the truth, I missed word of what that city did to mark the day. So I'm glad somebody who lives there sent me a story about it afterward. And, especially because it happened within site of where the Towers once stood, it's all very encouraging.
At an Interfaith Memorial Service, clergy members read from the Torah in Hebrew, from the New Testament, and from the Quran in Arabic. And the world did not fall apart, freedom was celebrated the way freedom really is (and not as a perversion of one religion against another), and tolerance, respect, and mutual support in grief was experienced. Senator Menendez was there, describing the day for those reliving it. The names of the 57 people Hoboken lost were read out loud. And if a city that lost 57 can have a day like that, we all ought to be able to calm the hell down, stop looking for enemies amongst out neighbors and remember our obligations to each other, as each of those religions, and many more - including the secular humanist traditions - teach us.
The City of Hoboken, New Jersey and Connect by Hertz will launch "Corner Cars" - the country's first true city-wide car-sharing program on June 16th. With the roll-out of this program, more than 90 percent of Hoboken residents will live within a 5 minute walk of a car-sharing vehicle location.
The service will let residents rent a vehicle by the hour, day or week. Starting at $5 per hour, the rental includes gas, roadside assistance, navigation system, and insurance. And I love the way they frame the program as a benefit for not only the residents that utilize, but for the city as well. The quote is from a familiar face here at Blue Jersey:
As city spokesman Juan Melli put it, "We're attacking parking from the demand side, where previously people just looked at the supply side. This is like building a huge parking garage that doesn't cost anything." It's actually far better, from both a revenue and an urban perspective. Hertz will pay the city $100 a month for each Corner Car parking spot, generating at least $50,000 in annual city revenue at a time when all municipal budgets are stretched thin. And the city won't have to devote more real estate to parking, helping it maintain its walkable character.
Not only will they save thousands of dollars, they will actually make money on the move creating a recurring revenue stream. The city also noted that there will be less wear and tear on roads, creating fewer potholes to fix and less frequent repaving needed. Below the fold I'll put the breakdown of benefits the city provided. It seems like a winning move all around.
Hoboken Patch: Hoboken will officially be without a state fiscal monitor as of Monday.
Dawn Zimmer via Twitter: The DCA released Hoboken from having a state fiscal monitor. Judy Tripodi's last day is this Friday. Thank you Judy and thanks to the DCA.
Hoboken is one giant leap closer to home rule this afternoon, as Hoboken officials presented the city's case for returning to home rule at a meeting of the state Local Finance Board in Trenton today, and the decision was to hand the city back most of its independence. Hoboken will still be required to send monthly finance reports to Department of Community Affairs, but it gained considerable freedom for self-direction.
The state poked its head in to Hoboken's fiscal affairs in June 2008, after city council opposed (then) Mayor Dave Roberts' budget and refused to pass it. That started a chain of events that led to Trenton pulling Hoboken's finances out of local hands and into the hands of a state-appointed monitor, Judy Tripodi.
Except for some severe flooding, Hoboken came out of the storm fairly unscathed.
Severe flooding caused the NJ Transit station to shut down, and made parts of the city look like Venice. But hey, no big trees fell down, and the lights stayed on, so everything must by peachy.
Jon Corzine is looking to be reelected governor of New Jersey. He is going up against a "Bush/Cheney" republican in Chris Christi. And Christi really is in every way measurable. He used is office and government resources for selective prosecution just like his boss Alberto Gonzalez. Christi is suspected of protecting people like his brother from prosecution while claiming to be anti-corruption. New Jersey, like the world, is struggling under a financial crisis, and Christi has no - absolutely no - financial experience, especially government finance, which is arguably the most complicated.
Jon Corzine on the other hand has the proven financial chops: led a multi-billion dollar, global corporation and successfully reduced the burden on New Jersey tax payers by 4 billion dollars, yep billion with a "b". He also, as he promised four years ago, aggressively attacked corruption with an absolute zero-tolerance policy, passing a pay-to-play ban state wide, ending double and triple dipping on state benefits and pensions, and even got a ban on dual office holding. Corzine successfully reduced the opportunities for corruption and the costs to New Jersey's tax payers. He did all of this on the cusp of the worst financial crisis to hit our state in literally 59 years.
On paper, Corzine's re-election looks like a no-brainer. So why is the Governor struggling in the polls and even in his "home base" of Hoboken and Hudson County? Most columnists will claim Corzine is tainted by the corruption scandal of 44 individuals in New Jersey and New York arrested in July on charges of wide-spread bribery, money laundering and human organ trafficking. The picture of Gov. Corzine with former Hoboken mayor Peter Cammarano at Cammarano's inauguration is the most sited.
Is it possible in a city and county that has a history of corruption that traces its infamous roots back to the Revolution War truly likely to be so swayed by one picture? To be honest, the answer is no. Sure a few "reformers" may be but the majority of voters know that if all elected officials were branded guilty by association, then there would be no one running for governor or running any government in New Jersey at all. And Jerseyans have proven that they aren't going to throw the "baby out with the bath water".
So what is holding Jon Corzine back in his bid for re-election? In short, Jon Corzine. New Jersey's unemployment is over 9%. In Jon Corzine's home county of Hudson it as consistently been the highest unemployment rate in the entire country and as been over 10% since the spring. And all the ills of unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcies, increasing crime, etc., have plagued Corzine's base.
And here is the rub, while Jon Corzine comes from humble Midwestern roots he is and has been for many, many, many years a billionaire - yep billion with a "b". Corzine during the best of times is not a warm speaker. He tends toward professorial, corporate speak like he is in front of employees and shareholders. It is a valuable skillset in the right context but not this one. Corzine is weak speaking off-script (did you see him on The Daily Show) and weaker still when speaking from the heart.
And he didn't help his heart-chances in the selection of is running mate. Loretta Weinberg is 74 years old, double the median age of New Jersey voters (36.7), and from about the third sentence in her acceptance speech as Corzine's running mate, she has been the attack dog of the campaign. From the mind of the 30-45 year old voting block of the Hudson, Bergin and Essex Counties, grannies got teeth when they want a hug.
Somewhere, somehow the Corzine/Weinberg campaign needs to recognize that people vote from the heart or gut far more then their head and they need someone who can speak to those voters. When people are daily fighting to keep their homes, preserve their businesses, are losing sleep over financial worries, what case can a billionaire make to them? What can Corzine or someone from his campaign to relax their tense muscles in their shoulders and stomachs? Who with a voice of authenticity can say "I'm voting for Jon Corzine because my financial situation would be worse if he wasn't my governor" and "I can't afford, my family can't afford anyone else but Jon Corzine as our governor".
Simply: voters need to know Jon Corzine feels their pain and has a prescription to make it go away.
Hoboken city attorney Steven Kleinman announced this morning to the media that Mayor Peter Cammarano had submitted his resignation, effective at noon. The City Attorney read the contents of the letter to the media:
Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano resigns in a letter to the city
As a parent and Hoboken resident said on NJN tonight, their child is 4 months old and has now had their third Mayor. Good luck to Dawn Zimmer leading Hoboken. She will serve as Mayor and run in the special Election to be held this November.
Peter Cammarano will resign tomorrow, less than one month after that Young Turk, whose political future looked limitless, took the oath of office as Mayor of Hoboken.
Cammarano was stubbornly working at his desk, and swearing to stick it out without resigning the day after he was arrested for taking $25,000 in cash bribes - including $10,000 just days ago - from Solomon Dwek, acting as the government's cooperating witness.
But in the end, it looks like a deal brokered by Gov. Corzine - and transacted by attorneys from the Governor's office coming to terms with Cammarano's own lawyers - is what sealed the deal.
Cammarano is a lawyer, too, and was the protegee of Democratic uber-lawyer Angelo Genova, the Democratic Party's go-to guy on election and campaign finance law. And that makes it all the more repulsive, if the charges against Cammarano are true; he must have known precisely, and in detail, what a vicious twist of justice he was perpetuating.
At just 32, Cammarano was a rising star of the Golden Boy variety, who managed a fragile alliance of Old Hoboken forces and New Hoboken blood, and rose through a complex and dramatic election, to Mayor of the hottest place to live in the state of New Jersey.
Peter Cammarano will resign tomorrow, less than one month after that Young Turk, whose political future looked limitless, took the oath of office as Mayor of Hoboken.
Cammarano was stubbornly working at his desk, and swearing to stick it out without resigning the day after he was arrested for taking $25,000 in cash bribes - including $10,000 just days ago - from Solomon Dwek, the government's cooperating witness.
But in the end, it looks like a deal brokered by Gov. Corzine - and transacted by attorneys from the Governor's office coming to terms with Cammarano's own lawyers - is what sealed the deal.
Cammarano is a lawyer, too, and was the protegee of Democratic uber-lawyer Angelo Genova, the Democratic Party's go-to guy on election and campaign finance law. And that makes it all the more repulsive, if the charges against Cammarano are true; he must have known precisely, and in detail, what a vicious twist of justice he was perpetuating.
At just 32, Cammarano was a rising star of the Golden Boy variety, who managed a fragile alliance of Old Hoboken forces and New Hoboken blood, and rose through a complex and dramatic election and run-off to become Mayor of the hottest place to live in the state of New Jersey.
I have no sympathy for those indicted in the corruption busts. Yes they can defend themselves and are innocent in the eyes of the court, but the accustations put a taint on the work that I and many others try to do for no other reason than we think it's the right thing. But like Jay said in his video diary, sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. NJDemocrat sent out a tweet earlier yesterday linking to a photo on Hoboken411.com that is apparently popping up on telephone poles around town in Hoboken:
On the one hand, I think it's humorous that someone is putting these up. In fact, a friend said that 1989 called and it wants their dot matrix printer back. On the other hand, it's a sad commentary on where things stand. For his part, Cammarano says he's innocent and he won't resign. Even if he's innocent, he's going to have to put a good deal of time and attention into defending himself. Plus, all the actions he takes while in office are going to be tainted by the previous accusations and indictments hanging over his head. He may not think that right or fair, but at this point it's what it is.
The Mayor of Hoboken, sworn in just days ago and arrested yesterday amid one of the largest and strangest corruption sweeps in New Jersey history, says he's not going anywhere.
Cammarano announced today he is planning to plead innocent, is back at work in the Mayor's office today. He says he has done nothing wrong, is innocent until proven guilty and can serve his duties in office while his case is pending.
Cammarano's bail was set at $100,000 and it was posted shortly after a federal hearing yesterday in Newark. The charges against Cammarano, 32, read as follows: charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. He is accused of taking $25,000 in cash bribes, including $10,000 just last week, from an undercover witness.
Maybe this is just what looks like business as usual in Hoboken, to him.
Assemblyman Reuben Ramos was too busy vacationing in the tropics to take a stand against the corruption tsunami engulfing his district. So in the meantime, here's Ramos actually defending his right to be bribed.
