The Hoboken "old guard" or "loyal opposition" as Hudson County machine bootlicker and NJ.com columnist Auggie Torres likes to refer to them as, is working on putting up a referendum to stop the elections being moved to November. Emboldened by recent victories in the Hoboken Democratic Committee and BOE races that faction is now looking to put a stop to moving the elections to November. That initiative was recently passed by a margin 5-4 by the pro-Zimmer majority earlier this month.
I ran into Frank Raia holding court at St. Ann's Festival this week. Frank is the self-professed and purported glue of the "old guard" or "loyal opposition" to Mayor Dawn Zimmer. I was able to confirm from him and other sources that the drive for petitions to challenge moving the municipal elections to November is indeed in play.
What has been talked about loosely but has not been confirmed is that there is also under consideration a potential drive to start a recall petition of Mayor Dawn Zimmer. Approximately 9,000 signatures would be required to put that on the ballot (25% percent of the 36,000 or so registered voters on Hoboken's voter rolls). Does the "loyal opposition"/ "old guard" really think that they could get 9,000 signatures to get this on the ballot? Time will tell if this is not bravado from the emboldened Raia, who sees himself as the central king maker to turn back the clock on the reforms that Mayor Zimmer has implemented.
Total Recall? Not very likely but welcome to the wacky world of Hoboken politics. How much for the movie rights? In response to losing in a real election the City Council majority it looks like the old guard has gone referendum crazy in order to deal with their loss. Welcome to the Californication of Hoboken politics. ◦
