Hoboken City Hall

HOBOKEN - The city's deputy director of emergency management has filed a lawsuit accusing Public Safety Director Bill Bergin of discriminating against him because he is Hispanic.

Both Bergin and Mayor David Roberts are named in the suit, filed this week by Joel Mestre, who alleges that Bergin called him derogatory names and gave away his job duties to whites.

Mestre also claims in the suit that Bergin once said to him: "Just because I don't eat rice and beans and don't agree that they should be sold at every store, that doesn't make me a racist."

Bergin called Mestre's accusations "lies."

The Jersey Journal's Jarrett Renshaw reports that the state's criminal investigation of Hoboken's top construction code official has now expanded to at least one neighboring municipality.

The Attorney General's Office issued a subpoena for records from Weehawken's Building Department earlier this week, Renshaw reports. The Attorney General's Office ordered Weehawken's Building Department to turn over documents by Sept. 17 related to its oversight of construction projects in neighboring Hoboken, according to Weehawken township attorney Rick Venino. Read more about the investigation into Arezzo here.

Hoboken's chief construction officer is under investigation by the state Department of Community Affairs for alleged ethics violations, according to several sources.

Investigators from the DCA visited Alfred Arezzo's city office roughly two weeks ago to pick a number of documents, the sources said. The DCA confirmed there is an ongoing investigation, but refused to provide details. The state's uniformed construction code gives the DCA jurisdiction over the state's construction offices, but it does not conduct criminal investigations.

Stripper Invades Hoboken City Hall

Election fever hits the mile square city

Its been a rough and tumble week for the Robert's administration. Following revelations that a pro-administration councilman was arrested in NYC for Driving Under the Influence, City Hall was once again rocked with allegations that "FEMALE STRIPPERS" entertained at a Friday afternoon birthday party in the City Hall Parking Utility Office.

A city hall source reports that three female Parking Utility workers purchased a "stripper birthday-gram" for a male co-worker. Nothing more, nothing less. 

There is no doubt that ELECTION FEVER is alive and well in Hoboken where there are SIX Council seats up for grabs in the May, 2007 election.

Four Hudson County towns are always late - and your wallet suffers
Hoboken approved their 2006 municipal budget 10 months late.  Jersey City was nine months late.  Bayonne was 11 months late, and Union City was also 11 months late.  Since the year 2000, late budgets in these four towns have cost local politicians their jobs, forced tax hikes, and in one case, shut down city government completely.

01/29/2006

Now that a Superior Court judge said the city acted too hastily in choosing one developer for their proposed "Northwest Green" redevelopment area in town, what's next?

On Jan. 13, Superior Court Judge Barbara Curran overturned the "memorandum of understanding" and said that the agreement between the city and Ursa/Tarragon was "arbitrary, capricious and unlawful because the City of Hoboken and/or the Hoboken Redevelopment Authority failed to comply with the requirements of the Local Redevelopment and Housing Law."