Hoboken City Councilman Dave Mello Attended yesterday's Hudson County Freeholder meeting and on the agenda was resolution 7 to re-allocate $11 million to various open space projects. Hoboken was originally granted $3 million to acquire the Henkel Site but conditions changed when BASF bought the site from Cognos. BASF will not sell that site until they remediate it themselves. The City of Hoboken as a result had requested Hudson County to re-allocate that money to the South West Park.
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| City Councilman Dave Mello Speaks up for SW Park |
The Board unanimously approved the funding as part of the consent agenda for that meeting. Dave mentioned that he has been advocating for the South West Park for over 5 years and mentioned that flooding remediation is also part of the plan. He showed pictures of Hoboken's recent flooding to the Board. On a side note: shame on the Hudson County Freeholders for holding a meeting at 1pm. How did this time help maximize public participation? Dave was lucky since as a School teacher he was able to take time off. Most other working residents can not. Kudos to Dave Mello for taking the time speaking up on behalf of Hoboken, especially the 4th Ward.
It should be noted that self-professed "Mr. 4th Ward, I drink when Hoboken Floods" Tim Occhipinti didn't show up probably because he was at his day job. Was that fair to Tim to deny him his moment of glory fighting for 4th Ward residents? He should have at least sent one of his allies/handlers to read a statement. At least the 4th Ward has a real advocate for SW Park in Dave Mello. It should also be noted that Anthony Romano was not present at the meeting Caucus on Tuesday when this issue came up. Anthony did support the resolution in the end.
It should be noted that self-professed "Mr. 4th Ward, I drink when Hoboken Floods" Tim Occhipinti didn't show up probably because he was at his day job. Was that fair to Tim to deny him his moment of glory fighting for 4th Ward residents? He should have at least sent one of his allies/handlers to read a statement. At least the 4th Ward has a real advocate for SW Park in Dave Mello. It should also be noted that Anthony Romano was not present at the meeting Caucus on Tuesday when this issue came up. Anthony did support the resolution in the end.
At the previous caucus meeting on Tuesday Chairman Bill O'Dea had expressed his concern over having shovel ready projects in the future. Dave Mello had mentioned his concern over this as Hoboken needs funding for park acquisition and it was clarified by Mr. O'Dea that that was for future funding allocations. It was good that O'Dea was able to clarify that statement and support the resolution. Hoboken finally got a small piece of the park pie.
I will have a second update on other more trivial and unprofessional aspects of the meeting later today. And I thought City Council meetings were theatrical. Good grief!
My comment: Of course Hoboken should be happy about getting this funding extended but we are still under serviced in terms of parks and in general given that in 2010 Hoboken taxpayers shelled out $46 million to the County. Nice start, but Hoboken deserves more and that is one of the reasons why I am running for Freeholder, to ensure Hoboken gets its fair share of the pie.
Dave Mello Speaks on behalf of the SW Park Funding :
Agenda of the meeting is below: http://www.hudsoncountynj.org/Data/Sites/1/freeholders/docs/Agenda/2011-8-11_reg.pdf
