The Hoboken residents and members of the Citizens’ Campaign today unveiled the results of the “Citizens’ Rights and Responsibilities Survey” that explores opportunities for improving civic community in the City of Hoboken.The Citizens’ Campaign is leading a Jersey Call to Service, a public service initiative to inspire citizens to participate in the leadership of their communities. This survey is designed to provide an overall sense of the community’s civic strengths and weaknesses and identify opportunities for stepped-up civic involvement.
John Branciforte, Hudson County Chair of the Citizens’ Campaign and Hoboken resident said, “The results of the survey proves that there are opportunities for everyone to get involved. It will also be a useful tool for our government to improve it’s community outreach.”
Hoboken residents interested in learning more about Hoboken’s leadership opportunities can attend a free Call to Service Forum on Tuesday, November 17th, at 7pm at Our Lady of Grace School at 5th & Willow. For more information contact John Branciforte at johnbranciforte@aol.com.
Survey Results
The survey evaluates civic health in Hoboken in 16 separate areas. It shows that Hoboken is doing a good job on eight of the components, has four missing components and needs to strengthen an additional five.
Eight positive civic attributes of Hoboken are: (1) requiring developers to disclose political contributions; (2-3) protections against “pay-to-play” practices in government contracting and redevelopment; (4) open application process for citizens to apply for board & commission positions; (5) a procedure for citizen input at City public meetings; (6) the Board of Education’s website maintains an updated list of meeting times and dates, agendas, and minutes; and (7) the Hoboken Democratic Committee bylaws that provide representative powers to its committee people, and a very low number of vacancies within the Hoboken Democratic Committee.
Four components of optimal civic health are missing in Hoboken. They include: (1) local party constitutions that provide for input from registered party voters on the Committee’s platform; (2) a very high number of vacancies within the Hoboken Republican Committee, as well as the bylaws information not being readily available to members of the public; (3) a City ban on political fundraising in government offices; and (4) adult civics education classes are not offered on citizen’s rights and opportunities for participation in local government and politics.
Five areas of civic health in Hoboken that exist but need strengthening. Needed improvements include: (1) controlling levels of campaign spending for local elections to bring them within the reach of average citizens; (2) improving the list of City boards and commissions to include all information required by the Citizen Service Act; (3) listing the vacancies on City boards and commissions in an up-to-date fashion; (4) a more current listing of minutes for City Council, planning board and zoning board meetings, as well as making agendas available in a sufficient amount of time before such meetings; and (5) expanding the civics curriculum in the high schools to deal with the powers of local government and citizen participation.
Background
The survey was conducted by Hoboken citizens with support from the Citizens’ Campaign. Similar surveys have been conducted in Jersey City, Newark, Paterson, Plainfield, Trenton, and Hamilton. The Citizens’ Campaign is a non-partisan organization which promotes citizen leadership in government and politics and reforms which open up access to such opportunities.
Below is the full survey on Slideshare:
Hoboken Rights & Responsibilities Survey
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