The City of Hoboken had its second City Council meeting of 2009 last night 1/21/2009 starting at 7:00PM.It was a relatively light agenda but there were many speakers regarding the tax increase and Church Towers.
The Second reading and final vote on two bonds $1.9 Million for Road Improvements (DR-388) and $2.2 Million for Parking Utility Improvements was pulled from final vote when a question was asked whether or not the bonds had actually been issued. This will be postponed to the next meeting and hopefully this and other concerns would be addressed. The main line of reasoning was if the City has already payed the bill and the bonds have not yet been issued, then why bond? Donald Pelicano had stated his objection to any bonding on the Parking Authority when he spoke during the public portion. He didn't see the reason for it given the revenues that the Utility has been able to generate over the years.
Originally these two ordinances were supposed to be a formality since the assumption was that the money had already been spent against the bond. My take: I hope the bills have already been paid since this would be another area where the City could save almost $4 million.
The highlight of the evening was when Council Woman Terry Labruno and citizen activist Donna Antonucci went at it verbally after Donna had spoken about the numbers regarding what the City spends on firefighters. Here is the video of the outburst:
Sorry for the poor camera skills, the adrenaline was getting to me.
It is important to note that Terry Labruno later apologized about her outburst. Also, Donna Antonucci was also talking and even laughing at one point with Acting Fire Chief Blohm after they had both stated their case in the public portion. Tempers did cool down after a while.
More on the meeting to come later. ◦
