Hoboken’s most pressing concern is its finances. As your elected representative in the sixth ward my top focus will be eliminating wasteful spending. This is because we spend too much in Hoboken and get too little in return. We are commonly taken advantage of private companies: because our ‘team’ isn’t sophisticated enough to negotiate or ‘see through’ what is being shown to us. Each time the cost comes on our backs, through higher taxes or fewer services.
Some examples…
The city council removed a deed restriction and required use of the property after a profitable movie theater building owner feigned a loss. The developer then sold the building at an enormous profit on our backs. (https://hudsoncountyview.com/op-ed-heres-why-the-loss-of-hobokens-movie-theatre-was-a-universal-failure/)
The city bought property from a privately owned ferry service for $7,000,000 more than the they had recently paid. The city now rents them back use of the property (thousands of square feet) for what a 1200 square foot apartment in the neighborhood rents for. (https://betterwaterfront.org/court-documents-reveal-details-of-settlement-agreement-between-city-of-hoboken-and-ny-waterway/)
The city promised a developer they could build a certain height building with a certain square footage, then retract that promise costing the developer millions. After going to court, the settlement lets the developer build an even bigger building with less benefit to Hoboken residents. https://hudsoncountyview.com/hoboken-council-oks-partial-western-edge-settlement-despite-union-citys-opposition/
And finally, I imagine Garage B will be more of the same. An oversized building with much needed affordable house, where a developer (conflicted with contributions to our elected officials) profits again off our backs. https://betterwaterfront.org/the-city-of-hoboken-keeps-the-public-in-the-dark-concerning-development-proposals-for-the-garage-b-site/
We can do better, and when elected: I’ll do everything I can to make sure we do.