The Hoboken City Council held a special meeting last Thursday to vote on a resolution to enforce current pay-to-play regulations in relation to the upcoming municipal elections in Hoboken.
Present pay-to-play rules, according to a statement by City of Hoboken representative Vijay Chaudhuri, indicate that committees are “limited to $500 contributions for individual candidates for elected office” and disallows individuals with Hoboken City contracts to contribute to campaigns. These rules are designed to maintain honesty in the election process, so that all candidates have an equal playing ground during their campaign.
Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher believed that this resolution was “a giant political stunt.”
“[This is the] Mayor wanting to actually unwind our pay-to-play laws,” she added. “It started during contract negotiations with our local municipal workers union when the administration got a union leader to write letter to the council asking to rescind our pay-to-play laws so our municipal union could make bigger contributions to elected officials. Just think about that for a second. That is what started this whole process.”
Councilman James Doyle, who proposed the resolution, was disappointed by the tabling of the resolution and the statements made by other members of the council. “Councilwoman Fisher’s slanderous comments about the mayor… it was a little bit shocking,” he told the Hudson County View in an interview, “and she’s fabricating a conspiracy that the mayor put the union up to request a legal opinion is so far fetched, I’m a little speechless, frankly.”
Councilwoman Emily Jabbour claimed that during the 2017 mayoral election, Hoboken Mayor Ravi S. Bhalla abided by the pay-to-play law for his campaign. Bhalla expressed his disappointment in the Council’s actions in a statement sent to The Stute.
“It’s unfortunate, but unsurprising that once again the Hoboken City Council majority failed to protect the integrity of our elections and safeguard our city contracting and redevelopment process. This was a very simple choice for the Council: would they agree to abide by the law or ignore it for their own personal gain. The decision to purposefully avoid a vote, led by Councilmembers Giattino and Fisher, made it clear that they’d rather disregard the law and allow special interest groups and developers to unfairly influence their own elections. I’m grateful that Councilmembers Doyle, Russo, Jabbour and Falco were ready to take a stand and put a good government vote ahead of petty politics.”
On the motion to table the resolution, Councilmembers Ruben Ramos, Peter Cunningham, Jen Giattino, Mike DeFusco, and Tiffanie Fisher voted yes, and Vanessa Falco, Michael Russo, James Doyle, and Emily Jabbour voted no. This failure to vote on this resolution comes several weeks in advance of the November municipal elections.
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