Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Letter to the Press on Mason's Rent Control Committee Actions from Eileen Lynch 2nd Ward Resident

Here is a letter sent to me from renter's advocate Eileen Lynch.....

To Mayor Zimmer, Members of the City Council, City Clerk and all:

At the City Council meeting of February 3, I addressed the Council asking for an explanation of a perplexing action taken by Councilwoman Mason at a Sept 15 council meeting. In this piece of video Councilwoman Mason can be seen passing along suggestions for the re-writing of the community's rent control ordinance from a group of developers and landlords, Mile Square Tax Payers Association. In this video you will see Councilwoman Mason making sure MSTA's suggestions get to the city attorney and hear Councilwoman Marsh ask Councilwoman Mason if MSTA saw the re-written rent control ordinance before the members of the City Council did, a question that never gets answered. I have also tried to get an answer to this to this question since September. I have sent numerous emails to Councilwoman Mason, had a letter published in the Hoboken Reporter asking for an answer, and attended public meetings to directly ask Councilwoman Mason and still have not received an answer.

What I see in this video is egregious. Some of you may not agree. But I would still like an explanation of Councilwoman Mason's actions and an answer to Councilwoman's Marsh's question: Did MSTA see this version of the ordinance before the members of the City Council? And while we are at it, why in the world is Councilwoman Mason working for MSTA?

Below is the link and the embedded video of the 9/15/2010 Hoboken City Council Meeting video at USTREAM. It starts at 1:23:28 and Counclwoman Mason is seen holding the envelope with the MSTA response at 1:24:05 and passes it at 1:27:13.


Link of 9/15/2010 Hoboken City Council Meeting: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9602149

- Eileen Lynch

My comment: Regardless of where you stand on the issue of Rent Control, here is another case where Beth Mason's transparency and ability to conduct herself above board is being called into question by another resident. Maybe that explains all the candy hearts she gave out yesterday, some sort of sugar induced atonement to the citizens of Hoboken's 2nd Ward. ◦
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Comments (5)

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Obviously Ms. Lynch does not understand that Mrs, Mason does not answer questions when she doesn't think the answers will be of benefit to her . ;)
Agreed. Beth won't apologize for her repeated usage of the false $20 million surplus let alone this. Obviously MSTA has a lot to say about the ordinance.
When called on her inside deal, she immediately, without so much as missing a beat, starts in with "all parties have been working in a very open and transparent way"? I think many underestimate Ms Mason - she can or at least used to divert focus / topic with some of the best of them, and you don't get the feeling she believes it herself, but she used to be really on tempo with ticking off the talking points. Haven't really seen that in her role as Council President. BTW who's idea was it to videotape council meetings?
So on display here is the power of the denial directly in the face of circumstances to the contrary.
Lesson to be learned by Ms Mason - never hand an envelope like that openly, certainly not on camera. Always use a drop. Never know when someone just might be paying attention.
And this is the person at the helm after threat of a "no confidence" vote?
Man-o-man I miss Ms Marsh in that chair. The difference is like night and day I tell you.
hullabaloo's avatar

hullabaloo · 739 weeks ago

I'm not sure Mason would confirm her name if asked. She defines obfuscation.
This re-written rent controlled ordinance must be scrapped as no tenant or property owner not connect to MSTA would ever believe it to be fair, honest, balanced and legal. Mason must resign from that sub-committee and Hoboken must delegate this to professionals.

Because Mason has demonstrated that she's unethical in the extreme, flouts election law and ignores her constituents, who would trust whatever answer she gave?

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