Nino was honored with a plaque for his years of service and people from both sides of the political fence applauded him out of respect for the man and the position but not necessarily his policy decisions.Below is outgoing Nino Giacchi receiving a plaque from Terry Castellano for his years of service.
First on the Agenda were two ordinances to cut both the Mayor’s Salary and that of her Directors. Zimmer is already on the record that she was going to veto the legislation. After some raucous debate it passed along the usual 5-4 lines with yes votes from the Council of No including Mason, Russo, Occhipinti, Giacchi, and Castellano. This group is hell bent on doing as much damage they can to the Zimmer Administration before they lose power.
Here some of the comments from City Council and the public about the salary cuts:
- People should volunteer for the positions of Director (Helen Hirsh).
- Angel Alicea only made $27K and he was the only Latino Director (Mike Russo played the race card here).
- The salaries of the Mayor of Hoboken are the highest in the County (Beth Mason who claimed to also have done her research).
- Paying someone the fair amount could help eliminate corruption ( Dave Mello).
- This is a “slap in the face” to the directors (Dave Mello).
- We are not taking food from their mouths (Mike Russo).
- Peter Cunningham didn’t believe that Beth had interpreted the data on salaries correctly.
Editor’s Note: Beth Mason, Mike Russo, Nino Giacchi and Terry Castellano had no problem when 23 day Mayor Peter Cammarano hired his directors at $125K per year. They didn’t even bat an eye.
This will not be the last meeting that Beth Mason will chair. A special meeting has been called on June 29th to wrap up the budget Amendments before the “Old Guard” loses the Council Majority.
Here is the soon to be departed as Council President Beth Mason in action at last night’s meeting:
Now for the fun and admittedly childish part of the meeting:
Nancy Pincus showed up at last night’s meeting. She is the blogger for the controversial website Grafix Avenger, infamous for some edgy graphics that lampoons local politicians and their political operatives. Lane Bajardi, Beth Mason’s key minion and presumably on the dole is obsessed with taking her picture and was seen trying to get as many shots as he could with his camera phone. He also enlisted both Callichio brothers Nick and Matt to take pictures of Nancy from different angles. Nancy responded by taking a few shots of her own and then I took a few shots as well. and so it went back and forth for several minutes. I could not help but laugh. The pictures of Lane Bajardi that I took I think will be instant classics . I will let you the reader judge for yourself but these are the shots I got of Lane in the latest battle for……
HOBOKEN CAMERA WARS 2011
◦
