State of New Jersey Finds Itself out of Compliance with Respect to Hoboken and Contract Procedures for 2008-2009 Period

I know that is a curious headline but here is the explanation behind it. On February 1,  2011 a letter was sent to Arch Liston from Dorothy Donnelly Director of the Procurement Division from the NJ Office of State Comptroller (OSC) requesting that the city of Hoboken provide an action plan to remedy bidding procedures that it noted were out of compliance for the 2008-2009 period. During that time Judy Tripodi was in charge of all contracts and procedures as she was brought in to oversee Hoboken's financial processes as part of the state takeover of Hoboken. Arch Liston was not the BA at the time and Dawn Zimmer was not acting Mayor until July 31 2009. At that point and for the remainder of 2009 it was Judy Tripodi a State official and not Mayor Dawn Zimmer who was in charge of the contract process. So in essence the State is finding itself in violation by actions incurred by its own appointed fiscal monitor of Hoboken. Don't you find that a bit odd? I do but non-compliance is non-compliance and now the Administration has to clean up another mess it was not responsible for.

I spoke to Juan Melli from the Zimmer Administration and he was able to confirm with me that this letter pertained to the period where Judy Tripodi was in charge of the process. He added that Arch Liston is working on an action plan to correct this issue that was created before he was on board as the Business Administrator of Hoboken.

The February 1, 2011 compliance letter is attached below for your reference:



My Comment: Hoboken411 tried to paint this story differently of course. It is not true that as of August 2009 that the Zimmer Administration had complete control of the contracting process. Just Tripodi was still in charge as the state appointed Fiscal Monitor and had final say over everything. That is what a state takeover means. It would appear that Beth Mason and the "New Majority" through her instrument of Hoboken 411 is trying to do everything she and her pals can to shift the conversation away from ethics and campaign finance reform. If any such discrepancies are found to have occurred in the Zimmer Administration going forward I would expect them to be corrected and in compliance. In this case the problems listed in this memo occurred before Dawn Zimmer had full control of the process.

I look forward to having a constructive debate on campaign finance reform from all members of the City Council.
If members of the "New Majority" are against certain campaign finance reforms proposed by Peter Cunningham or the Administration they should go on record rather the breaking Roberts Rules of Order to stifle conversation and debate. ◦

State of New Jersey Finds Itself out of Compliance with Respect to Hoboken and Contract Procedures for 2008-2009 Period