Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer today ended her Mayoral campaign by congratulating her opponent, Peter Cammarano, on his hard fought victory.
Zimmer said, "I congratulate Peter Cammarano for his victory. He worked tirelessly and campaigned effectively. While I know we will not always agree, I pledge to work cooperatively with him as we address the big challenges ahead."
Zimmer went on to say, "This has been a tough election that ended in a photo finish. Now, it is in the best interest of Hoboken that we move on to the task of governing our City."
Here's a bit more from an email sent to her mailing list...
Given the closeness of the race, and the anecdotal evidence of serious improprieties, many have advised me to pursue an election challenge. I gave much thought to doing so, but I have decided against it. This election was extremely divisive, and an election challenge would literally tear our town apart. My attorney has advised me that the margin of victory -- 161 votes - was large enough to make overturning the result extremely unlikely, even if we could prove that improprieties had occurred.
My own view is that Cammarano stole the election and that, in the interests of justice and of democracy, she should have fought on.
As it is Cammarano will not have a majority of the council "in his pocket" so let us hope that the Zimmer/Mason alliance will be able to reign in any future giveaways to developers and to the corrupt Hudson County political machine.
I understand why Zimmer chose discretion as opposed to valor, and pray that it works out for the best. In some sense it's easy for me to urge her to fight on; but she and her people have to live in that town and be subject to the consequences of an ongoing conflict (especially one in which the police are self interested supporters of the other side). Having said that, I urge any ambitious federal prosecutors out there to initiate a probe of all the underhanded shenaningans that were allegedly perpetrated by the Cammarano campaign.
Screwing with the electoral process is, in my book, a form af high treason and should be treated as such. Elections should be seen as a sacrament of democracy and playing these kinds of games should be seen as sacriligious. We, in New Jersey, have become so cynical about living with corruption that we are loathe to really get to the bottom of things for fear of the systemic disruption it could cause.
Progressives in Hoboken, Hudson County, and the whole state need to adopt a far more muscular approach to cleaning up our state or nothing much will ever change.
Meanwhile, I look forward to Dawn Zimmer and Beth Mason staying on the reform track as allies and becoming aggressive guardians of the best interests of the PEOPLE of Hoboken until the next electoral opportunity to clean things up.
Unless Dawn Zimmer asks for a recount, Peter Cammarano will be the next Mayor of Hoboken by a margin of 161 votes. Even if she doesn't, the victory of Zimmer's council candidates has them still ready to flex their muscles:
"It appears we'll have control of the City Council," Zimmer said yesterday.
"The council majority is going to be able to stop the NJ Transit Western Edge, and other out-of-scale projects that are currently in the works," said Zimmer's campaign manager Sam Briggs. "They will finally make redevelopment work for the people of Hoboken and not just the developers."
The new mayor dismissed those concerns:
"Every mayor has to work with whatever council they are presented with. And no City Council majority is lasting," he said. "Just because you have three council members who are with Zimmer doesn't mean they will always vote in lockstep. You will always have some new issue that will change their minds."
It looks like things will continue to be fun in Hoboken.
Well, the absentee ballots have been counted. With the help of absentees, Peter Cammarano won Hoboken's election by 67 vptes. The final vote count, including absentees was 6,043 Cammarano to 5976 to Dawn Zimmer.
But officials are saying it's still too close to call. There are an estimated 100 provisional votes still out there to be counted, which will be counted tomorrow.
There are 775 absentee ballots, but reportedly 75 of them have been impounded as the counting goes on at the Hudson County Clerk's office in Jersey City.
In case you missed it, Tuesday was Election Day in New Jersey's ostensibly nonpartisan municipalities. In two closely watched races, Jersey City's incumbent Mayor Jerramiah Healy cruised to a whopping 52% victory while Peter Cammarano and Dawn Zimmer will face one another in a runoff to determine which of the two will lead Hoboken.
Jersey City Mayor L. Harvey Smith Phillip G. Webb Louis M. Manzo Jerramiah Healy Daniel B. Levin Personal Choice Total
Updated by Jason: We had a lively discussion with Candidates for Mayor Beth Mason and Peter Cammarano, with candidate Ryn Melberg calling in as well following their discussion. You can have a listen by clicking play to the right.
Each week, Blue Jersey Radio streams LIVE with New Jersey's latest political buzz, interviews with newsmakers, and your stimulating calls.
This week, we will be joined by Hoboken Mayoral candidates Beth Mason and Peter Cammarano for a debate and discussion about the issues facing the city they would like to lead.
As always, we welcome the participation from our callers if you have something you'd like to say about the campaign or anything else. Remember, it's all LIVE, so you never know who might show up.
State monitor Judy Tripodi has some harsh words for the members of the Hoboken City Council:
You are the legislative branch -- you do not run the day-to-day operations. I am very disappointed after I have been so receptive to all your inquiries and recommendations, but I will be rethinking my position in light of your lack of cooperation and fair play. My responsibility is to the citizens of the City, not to play games with Council.
I hope she runs for office. I might move just to vote for her.
Promoted from the diaries - Thurman Last Monday, George W. Bush came to New Jersey to raise money for some conservative Republicans seeking election to Congress. The President knows these congressional candidates will work hard to pursue his policies, and that?s why he came to our State even though his popularity here is abysmal. Now, Leonard Lance and Chris Meyers might have George W. Bush swooping in to raise big bucks for their campaigns, but that doesn't mean we can?t do something about it.
Like most New Jersey residents, I don?t live in a swing district. So I won't be able to cast a vote to stop these Bush Republicans. I won't be able flip a seat to the Democratic side of the aisle at the ballot box on Election Day. But, I still want to do something to give Barack Obama a larger congressional majority. That's why, a week from tomorrow - next Tuesday, October 7th - I'm helping put together a fundraiser for Linda Stender's campaign in Hoboken.
Just to refresh everyone's memory, Hoboken is broke and had to call on Joe Doria - JOE DORIA! - to get its budget finished in time to start working on the new budget. So Mayor David Roberts,
believes he will not only balance next year's budget, but come up with $11.7 million extra to pay off the toys he couldn't afford last year. One supposes an extra sweet letter to Santa is in the works.
Now, this should be enough to make any politician realize that they are skating on very thin ice - maybe even think about cutting back ever so slightly on needless spending. But Dave Roberts isn't just any politician - he's the Mayor of the Mile-Square City. That means he gets to make up reality as he goes along:
Mayor David Roberts will ask the City Council this week to bond for a $4 million Sept. 11 memorial on the south waterfront.
In what could be the Quote of the Year, Dave Roberts says:
"It's a fitting tribute to those young people who went into work that day and never came back."
Yes, what better way to ensure the community will never forget the victims of the worst mass murder attack on American soil than by making them pay for a commemoration for twenty years?
I'm not against commemorating 9/11 - though I don't think that every municipality needs its own memorial. But I'm against borrowing $4 million when a community fund drive would almost assuredly raise as much, if not more, without driving the municipality deeper into debt. I mean, Hoboken has a population of roughly 40,000. $100 per head would raise the money.
Of course it isn't that simple to get $100 per person. But I'm willing to bet some of the wealthier residents - like Governor Jon Corzine, Senator Bob Menendez, and Mayor Dave Roberts - could afford to give a bit more than $100. Heck, even Juan Melli, Hoboken's brainiest resident, can afford to give $100 (I've met his wife and she's a real peach - she'd probably let him bum it if he can't scratch it up).
The thing is that 9/11 was seven years ago. If Dave Roberts actually cared about the people that died, and the families and friends they left behind, he could have easily made this happen by now. That he is only willing to do this now - and wanting to go into debt to do it - speaks volumes about his lack of leadership.
This year, for Christmas, I'm giving Carly Baldwin a big shovel. Or maybe hip waders. Apparently, covering the Hoboken beat requires that one have a certain immunity to bovine feces.
Hoboken, having failed to balance its municipal budget, called upon the state for assistance. Having the cosmic sense of humor that patronage requires, former Bayonne mayor Joe Doria came to town to show people how it's done. The result:
Already in a $10.5 million deficit for the new fiscal year, Hoboken cannot embark on a spending plan without approval from the state Department of Community Affairs, which assumed control of Hoboken's finances after the city failed to pass a 2008 budget.
Yeah - Joe Doria's budgetary leadership put $10.5 million of last year's spending on this year's budget. This, in case you didn't know, is illegal. But it's done.
But don't worry, Hoboken Mayor David Roberts has a plan - tax parking lots, collect parking meter fees, and invite Pepsi to sponsor local events. Either that or lay off 300 people. He's going to let Joe Doria decide.
Make the jump for some of the year's best hyperolic spin - and at least one person who is telling the truth.
I haven't lived in Hoboken very long but I've already gotten a taste for some of the good, the bad, and the ugly. File this one somewhere between bad and ugly.
The Hoboken International Film Festival this past week started off with a bit of controversy when a film shown opening night ruffled some feathers.
"Postal," directed by Uwe Boll, opens with two terrorists on a suicide mission debating how many virgins they'll receive in Paradise. When they discover it's fewer than promised they give up the mission, but accidentally crash into a World Trade Center-like building after passengers storm the cockpit.
You can watch the "offensive" opening sequence of the film here. The only thing I find offensive about this film is the fact that it tries to make up for it's lack of humor with crude jokes. It's just an average/crappy film. It was shown opening night on Pier A park, which is on the Hudson and has beautiful views of Manhattan. The combination of a film including terrorism in sight of New York led to a mayoral boycott and calls for censorship at this week's council meeting from one outraged citizen.
"The fact that it was shown next to the 9-11 Memorial was completely tasteless," said John Branciforte, who spoke against not only the film, but the festival's organizer, Kenneth Del Vecchio, as well. "Certainly the filmmaker has the right to make the film. But does the city have to support it?"
And some members of the council seem to be playing along.
Councilwoman Theresa Castellano suggested that [Director of Human Services John] Pope preview all of the films and ban those he felt were inappropriate. "If a film offends some people then it shouldn't be here."
Of course the city doesn't have to sponsor the festival, but unless they want next year's event to be little more than Baby Einstein tapes on a loop (and even those might offend less sophisticated infants) and the laughing stock of creative communities everywhere, they need to let artists do what they do...creatively test the limits of art and push people outside their comfort zones. If they're not comfortable with that, they should let the festival organizers do their own thing (and I imagine Jersey City has some available venues, too).
The amazing irony of all this is that the government's response to an attack on our freedom is the attempted censorship of politically incorrect/edgy content.
Yesterday, at the Star-Ledger, I referred to the budget crisis in Hoboken as showing a deficit of leadership. Today, several articles in the S-L show that the problem is not limited to the City Council.
But, before we move on, let's just add up the problems facing the City Council. One, they rejected (rightfully so, in my opinion) a one shot funding scheme that would have used a municipal garage as collateral for a rather large loan - somewhere between $13.9 million and $19 million. There were only two problems with that: 1) It still wouldn't balance the budget - leaving at least $3 million in unfunded liabilities; and 2) there would be no guarantee of being able to pay even the interest on such a loan with municipal finances in such a horrible condition.
Two: The municipal budget is in a freaking mess because, in part, last year's budget was fraudulent. There's no way to say otherwise when a significant part of the healthcare expenses from last year were pushed onto this year's expenses - apparently with no one actually making that decision (right - and I'm still taking bids on the Bayonne Bridge). Let's add it up - somewhere between $2.4 and $3.6 million for health insurance, $1.7 million for salary and wages, and an unknown amount for the gasoline bill at Exxon.
Well, that's two good reasons. What else can there be? Make like Kris Kross and jump, jump.
Proving that real men wear pink ties, Juan Melli stands head and shoulders - literally - above the elite of Hudson County politics. Or something like that.
Juan is a bit too modest about these things, so it falls to the rest of us to brag for him. This here Ferrari we're driving was his baby and he has put in untold hours into making it, undisputedly, the leading progressive blog in New Jersey. Thanks for having us along for the ride, Juan, and thanks for doing such a fantastic job.
So, fess up - how many no-show jobs were you offered last night?
If you are asking youself, "Self - who is that guy in the picture over there on the left?", then you can stop wondering. It is none other than Peter Cammarano, member at-large of the Hoboken City Council. I first met Peter back in '04 (remember '04? I do.) just after the John Kerry campaign wound down to...well, something slightly short of success.
I won't blame that on Peter, though. Peter has kept himself busy working on the statewide campaigns of Bob Menendez and Hillary Clinton, in addition to trying to restore a bit of sense to the Hoboken City Council. He even found the time to stop by NJCU and spend the evening talking to my students for a Local Politics Forum last month.
So I decided to ask Peter to go on the record with some comments about every municipality's greatest problem - its finances. Here's what Peter had to say:
Question: Like many cities, Hoboken seems to have budget problems every year. All I hear is that yet another deficit has to be plugged. What's the problem?
Answer: Passing a budget is arguably the most monumental task for local governments to accomplish. It is critically important that we approve an honest and responsible budget after considerable input from members of the public and State government.
The short and simple answer to why we seem to have budget problems in Hoboken is that that we spend more in our budget expenditures than we collect in taxes and other revenue sources.
The more comprehensive answer is that the City continues to hire people, and the cost of employing people continues to rise dramatically - including the cost of collectively bargained salaries and benefits. Hoboken has also developed an unhealthy reliance on one-shot gimmicks and non-recurring revenue as a short term fix for budget shortfalls - for example, the sale of municipal assets like the public works garage.
Last night on our TV screens we saw the power that real people hold through the process of the Iowa Caucus. And today, a little closer to home, we saw how people can come together over a serious policy issue to compel a governmental agency to scale back a poor decision.
When I launched www.StopthePATHhike.com last month, Blue Jersey was one of the first places I came to in order to spread the word. Together, we stopped the Port Authority from raising fares on the PATH by 33%. Earlier today, the Port Authority’s Board of Commissioners voted to only raise the fare 25 cents – half of what was originally planned.
This wasn't just a victory for the hundreds of people who signed the petition to stop the fare hike (many of you here at Blue Jersey included). This was a victory for everyone who uses the PATH and for everyone who believes we should be encouraging public transportation in order to unclog our roads and combat global warming.
I am honored to have played a part in helping to stop the Port Authority’s 33% fare hike. This was an entirely grassroots effort on behalf of the nearly 230,000 riders who ride the PATH every day. There was absolutely no paid advertising for StopThePATHHike.com. It was promoted simply by word of mouth and through local news reports. That is something we can all be proud of. Thank you all for signing my petition and passing it along to your friends.
The PATH system is such vital transportation artery here in Hudson County. Each and every day, hundreds of thousands of people take the PATH to get to work, to go shopping, and to visit friends and family. And I just didn’t think it was right for the Port Authority to bump up the fare on the PATH, especially at a time when we should be encouraging public transportation as much as possible. So I spent the last two months working hard organizing my neighbors – online and on the streets – and voicing my opposition to the Port Authority leadership to keep public transportation affordable. Today’s outcome shows that every minute spent working on this was well spent. And I couldn’t have done it without your help. Thanks!
This is an important issue. How do we incentivize and pay for congestion-reducing, more earth-friendly transportation options while costs continue to rise? Promoted from the diaries -- Juan
Hi. I'm Peter Cammarano. After reading the posts and diaries here on Blue Jersey over the past couple of years, this is my first diary.
The Port Authority is trying to call the PATH hike an "adjustment." But, let's call it what it really is: a 33% increase on the fare each and every time someone uses the PATH. With global warming, clogged roads, and our nation's dangerous dependence on foreign oil, we should be incentivizing public transportation - not punishing those who use it to commute to work, spend time with their families, or shop in the downtown areas served by the PATH system. This is especially true for urban areas in North Jersey that are directly serviced by PATH.
I was googling around for info on the Hoboken City council race and stumbled here. Hope this diary fits.
I'm a 4th generation Democrat who has watched the recent 4th ward election between Chris Campos and Dawn Zimmer with interest. I moved to Hoboken's 4th ward about 6 years ago and was shocked at the disinterest my friends and neighbors had in our City representation. To put it another way getting them to the polls was a close to impossible feat.
Leading up to 6/12 the run off and in the last few weeks I encouraged my neighbors to register and at least look at the candidates. While registering voters I've noticed two things which I found of interest, one of which is somewhat disturbing.
There has been a lot of ink spilled about how Dawn Zimmer was forced to vacate the Hoboken 4th Ward Council seat she stole through voter fraud - like mishandling absentee ballots, having "voters" who don't even live in Hoboken cast ballots and handing out lottery tickets along with campaign literature in an attempt to buy votes.
But, right now, I want to focus on some of Dawn Zimmer's major-league hypocrisy. There's nothing that gets my blood boiling more than a "holier-than thou" attitude - especially when its coupled with a "do as I say, not as I do" mantra. Below is a video that really hammers home this point.
For some context, I want to show how this isn't just an isolated incident of Dawn's hypocrisy. For example:
Dawn Zimmer promised to never, ever take any HCDO money... but she then went right ahead and took thousands of dollars from that very group. I'm not saying their money is dirty, just that Zimmer went against her word and broke a crystal clear pledge. Check out her original comment in the 4th Ward forum on Hoboken411.
And speaking of Hoboken 411... Dawn Zimmer claims to be a reformer who believes in transparency. But last week it came to light that she gave thousands of dollars to the moderator/creator of Hoboken411 - who hid the transaction from his readers and then went on to make the website's 4th Ward forum a free-for-all to bash Chris mercilessly - while censoring comments and banning those who support Campos or point out Dawn's deficiencies. And might I add that, along with its racist and classist undertones, Hoboken411 has recently shown its right-wing colors by lobbing attacks at Bob Menendez, Neil Cohen, Cory Booker and even that nasty, dirty organization People for the American Way. RealHoboken.com did a fantastic job of running down the story.
Dawn Zimmer talks about the evils of politics and how nasty machines are... but then her campaign's brain trust goes ahead and breaks bread at an HCDO fundraiser with recently-indicted Guttenberg Mayor David Della Donna, just days after Della Donna was indicted.
And now, to cap it all off, Dawn Zimmer - who has railed against developers and blamed them for every problem in Hoboken - is taking money and support from uber-developer Frank "Pupie" Raia... a man who said "I can buy anything." Well, apparently his money has now bought Dawn Zimmer. (In case you were curious, the woman in the back of the elevator in the above video? You guessed it. Dawn Zimmer.)
Throughout this campaign - aside from talking about fecal fruit - the only two things Dawn Zimmer has been saying on the campaign trail are: a). Developers are bad and b). Flooding is bad.
Well, then I just have to ask why on earth has Dawn Zimmer decided to take money and support from Pupie - a developer who has exacerbated Hoboken's flooding over the last few years. This makes her hypocrisy even worse.
For 16 years, uber-developer Frank "Pupie" Raia sat on the North Hudson Sewage Authority while the floods came time and time again. And Pupie did nothing. Moreover, Raia's ShopRite development project was so poorly executed, it turned 9th and Madison into one of the worst flooding corners in Hoboken. Yet, Dawn seems perfectly content to take his "dirty" money and walk arm-in-arm, door-to-door talking with voters.
You're judged by the company you keep and held to the standards you set. When all is said and done, Dawn Zimmer has said far more than she's actually done to make Hoboken a better place. And what little action we've seen is simply riddled with hypocrisy.
Dawn Zimmer has been shown to be quite a hypocrite in many ways these past few months... but taking money and support from disgraced developer and flood-enabler Frank "Pupie" Raia really takes the cake.
Hoboken Mayor David Roberts has an interesting set of alliances. During this last primary election he supported Hudson County Democratic Organization candidates like Sal Vega for State Senate. On August 6 of this year, Roberts made a $450 contribution to Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. And on September 25 he gave $500 to Congressman Albio Sires, who backs HCDO's rival organization, Democrats for Hudson County.
It never ceases to amaze how tone-deaf some politicians can be. Take, for example, the entire Hudson County Democratic Organization. Last week, State Senator and North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco held his annual HCDO fundraiser in Garfield (which is, incidentally, in Bergen County, but I digress). It was, as I've been told, the place to be seen in Hudson County politics.
Guttenberg Mayor David Delle Donna certainly thought so. Fresh off an indictment for extortion and mail fraud, Delle Donna joined a number of HCDO luminaries at the fundraiser. But some of the attendees were not what I'd lovingly call the usual, ahem, suspects.
There was a strong Hoboken contingent in attendance, for example. Carol Marsh, the HCDO's primary candidate for Assembly from the 33rd District, Frank "Pupie" Raia, the HCDO's candidate for Council from Hoboken's 3rd Ward, and gadfly Michael Lenz all showed up. What's interesting about this group is that they make up the brain trust, as it were, of 4th Ward Council Candidate Dawn Zimmer's campaign to legitimately win the seat she stole through election fraud in June and then vacated when challenged in court. And yet somehow, Zimmer still claims she's not an HCDO candidate.
A few weeks ago, the anonymous poster Jersey Boy went to bat for Hoboken Council candidate Dawn Zimmer, claiming she wasn't part of the HCDO machine and that attacks against her for taking HCDO support were hypocritical coming from those who had also accepted HCDO support in the past.
It's time to knock down the spin and set the record straight.
The problem here is not the extensive support Dawn Zimmer has received from the HCDO. That's her right. Good people have accepted that backing in the past and will again in the future. The problem is that Zimmer's a hypocrite, consistently denying that the support she's received makes her an HCDO-backed candidate. Dawn has presented herself as an opponent of the organization and, well, that's a tough sell when they're providing her core of support.
My campaign has not received, and will not accept, any contributions on a personal or organizational level from the Mayor, the Hudson County Democratic Organization, Brian Stack, or any of the other players involved in the battle for control over the Hudson County patronage machine. We have had no discussions whatsoever with any of those people or organizations in which support has either been solicited or offered.
That's a promise she broke repeatedly, taking thousands from HCDO-aligned County Executive Tom DeGise, HCDO Chairman and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, and the HCDO itself. In response to this, Zimmer has said that she only took $4,000 from HCDO. She clearly misses the point. She made a campaign promise to take nothing from them.
Again, neither I nor anyone else associated with her opponent, Councilman Chris Campos, think there's anything wrong with Healey's or DeGise's money, but Dawn Zimmer has gone on the record in the past saying that there is. Politicians are free to change their minds, of course, but there's always a price to be paid for it. And in Zimmer's case, she needs to stop denying that she is a beneficiary of HCDO support. After all, DeGise and HCDO consultant Paul Swibinski didn't end up at her campaign headquarters on election night by accident.
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Updated by Jason: We had a lively discussion with Candidates for Mayor Beth Mason and Peter Cammarano, with candidate Ryn Melberg calling in as well following their discussion. You can have a listen by clicking play to the right.
If you are asking youself, "Self - who is that guy in the picture over there on the left?", then you can stop wondering. It is none other than Peter Cammarano, member at-large of the Hoboken City Council. I first met Peter back in '04 (remember '04? I do.) just after the John Kerry campaign wound down to...well, something slightly short of success.
