Dear Neighbors,
Our recent national election saw impressive levels of participation from Hoboken voters despite the hurdles caused by increased COVID-19 cases and the almost exclusive use of vote by mail by New Jersey voters. Sending a big shout out to our Hoboken and Hudson County Clerks’ Offices for expertly managing the challenges of running a national election during a pandemic.
Here’s the latest on important issues affecting our community.
COVID-19 Updates
As of Thursday, 1147 Hoboken residents have been confirmed as testing positive for COVID-19 and 1001 residents have fully recovered. The number of positive tests in our community has unfortunately substantially increased in the past few weeks. Likewise, New Jersey’s new daily positive cases have risen to levels not seen since May, which caused Governor Murphy to extend the State of Emergency for another 30 days. As our State-wide COVID-19 transmission rate has increased to 1.27, reflecting that active cases are rapidly increasing, the Governor ordered on November 9th that all New Jersey bars and restaurants must end indoor bar and restaurant service by 10 pm and take other steps described in Executive Order 194.
Hoboken’s recent increase in positive cases includes 21 new cases on October 31st; 11 on November 2nd; 20 on November 4th; and 25 new cases on November 7th. In July we celebrated the landmark of having no more COVID patients at Hoboken University Medical Center (HUMC). However, we now have 15 COVID patients being treated at HUMC, including 2 Hoboken residents.
If you have any reason to believe you have been exposed to COVID-19, please quarantine and then schedule an appointment for a COVID-19 test with Riverside Medical Group at 15th and Jefferson or Prompt MD at 605 Jackson Street at least 5-7 days after potential exposure. Scheduling appointments no longer requires phone calls to our CERT team, you can easily go online at www.hobokennj.gov/riverside to book an available time slot with Riverside. Riverside offers rapid 15-minute COVID-19 test results to Hoboken residents. Employees of Hoboken businesses also can get tested through the City’s partnership with Prompt MD. Testing is available 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday.
Partnering with Prompt MD, the City is also hosting COVID-19 testing on Mondays and Thursdays at 605 Jackson Street from 8 am until 3 pm, with weekly Friday testing being added beginning on November 20. It’s easy to schedule an appointment - visit www.hobokennj.gov/promptmd. Please remember: wearing a face mask and practicing social distancing is the key to keeping our community healthy and safe. Results are typically provided through Prompt MD within 48 - 72 hours.
In addition to Hoboken’s public COVID-19 facility, you can visit City MD at 231 Washington Street or PromptMD at 309 1st Street, and walk-in without an appointment to get your COVID-19 test at their private facilities. To be safe, you can call ahead to confirm test availability.
Assessing A Re-Design for Protected Bike Lanes on Washington Street
I am proud to have authored a resolution encouraging Mayor Bhalla’s Administration to retain the services of a traffic engineer to assess a cost-effective retrofit to transform the unsafe, unprotected bike lanes on Washington Street into protected and separated bike lanes. At our November 4th City Council meeting, the Council adopted the resolution (6-3) calling on Mayor Bhalla and his administration to reassess the Washington Street bike lanes in the coming year. My thanks go out to co-sponsor Councilperson Jabbour as well as my Council colleagues DeFusco, Doyle, Fisher, and Giattino for supporting this resolution.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the experience of the State of Emergency make clear that businesses on Washington Street seek increased foot traffic to help compensate for financial loss. Introducing protected and separated bike lanes will also boost businesses and revitalize commercial districts throughout the country. With the introduction of outdoor dining and sidewalk space, separated bike lanes will allow people of all ages and abilities to ride on Washington Street without competing with NJ Transit buses, trucks, and cars. These bike lanes will also allow people using motorized wheelchairs and other mobility devices to access our restaurants and businesses more easily. As they are currently designed, the bike lanes on Washington Street are rarely used by families or children. It is unfortunate that in 2016 the City Council failed to adopt a recommended, protected bicycle lane design offered by Mayor Zimmer’s Administration, but I believe that we can fix this mistake without breaking the bank.
Hopefully next year we will see a traffic engineer’s report addressing the feasibility of a Washington Street redesign with an eye to minimizing the length of time of such a project, the potential disruption to our Washington Street traffic patterns -- and importantly -- minimizing the cost of the designs. Then, Mayor Bhalla and the City Council can assess the costs associated with protecting the safety of our cyclists and pedestrians, furthering the City’s Vision Zero goals of eliminating all traffic-related injuries and deaths by 2030, and meeting the goals of the City’s 2019 Climate Action Plan.
A Protected Bike Lane Bisects a strEATery on
Amsterdam Ave. in NYC
If you would like to read the resolution, which includes input from Bike Hoboken and the New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition, and cites research from the University of New Mexico and different cities demonstrating how protected bike lanes have enhanced business districts all over the US and Canada, click here and go to pages 813-814 of the Council agenda packet. You can read more on it here.
New RFP for Secure Bike Storage
At our November 4th Council meeting, I also introduced a resolution authorizing the City to advertise for Requests for Proposals to identify vendors who can build secure bike storage in Hoboken. The resolution passed unanimously. Secure bike storage providers offer high-capacity, weather-protected, secure indoor and outdoor storage for extended periods of time at no cost to the riders, generating income for the City through advertising. These public bike storage facilities exist in Journal Square in Jersey City and in Brooklyn allowing bicycle commuters to store their bikes for free, knowing their bikes are truly safe. Units like the one pictured below in Journal Square have been very popular and encourage folks to avoid using cars and buses in order to safely and economically travel to work or school.
A New Ordinance Cracking Down on Hoboken House Parties
Governor Murphy’s Executive Order Number 173 limits occupancy of indoor gatherings in Hoboken during the COVID-19 State of Emergency. The Order leaves it to municipalities to enforce these limits. In response, with the support of Mayor Bhalla’s administration, I sponsored an ordinance that the City Council passed on first reading on October 21, allowing for fines of up to $1,000 when indoor house parties are attended by more than 25 individuals and the house parties also violate other City ordinances such as our excessive noise or public intoxication ordinances. These stiff fines can be assessed against both tenants and landlords. Those with disruptive house parties below 25 people will also be subject to all rules and fines as determined by the Hoboken Police Department.
The Hoboken Police Department has responded to many house parties over the past few weekends, several of which were traced by contact tracers from Hoboken’s Health Department to recent positive COVID cases. So, not only are these house parties disruptive to neighbors but particularly, given the recent spike in COVID cases, they threaten to fuel the spread of the virus through our community. Because this was an urgent matter, Mayor Bhalla and Council President Giattino called a Special Council Meeting on October 29 for the City Council to pass this ordinance on second reading, but, as I described in my last newsletter, 5 Council people did not attend the meeting, and we were unable to get this ordinance on the books before Halloween. This was unfortunate because on Halloween weekend the Hoboken Police broke up 27 house parties.
Thankfully, at our regular Council meeting on November 4th, the Hoboken City Council unanimously adopted the ordinance, allowing for a summons to issue with up to a $1,000 fine when the house parties are attended by 25 people or more with both tenants and property owners potentially subject to the fine. The Council waived the ordinary 20-day waiting period before the ordinance goes into effect, and Mayor Bhalla signed the ordinance the next day. With this ordinance in place, the Hoboken Police Department now has an important new tool in its enforcement regime -- as the weather gets cooler and parties move indoors -- to further our efforts to stop these dangerous “super-spreader events”. Hoboken is the first community in New Jersey to take such a proactive measure, and I spoke with Eyewitness News about the new legislation in a story you can see here.
To be clear, this ordinance only applies when the Hoboken Police Department is called to the scene of excessively loud or rowdy parties, and when on the scene, an overcrowded house party is discovered. This new ordinance applies to house parties at any time --day or night -- whereas the pre-existing noise ordinances only permit summons to issue during the evening and early morning hours. This new ordinance protects both our community and members of the Hoboken Police Department from the spread of COVID-19, as the Police are on the front lines of responding to potential “super-spreader” events that we want to stop, as long as the State of Emergency is in effect.
Remembering Jeanette Quiles
I was saddened by the recent death of my friend, Jeanette Quiles. I want to send love and comfort to Jeanette’s family and friends in Fox Hill where Jeanette was an important part of the Fox Hill community.
Jeanette took a real interest in me and my campaign when I knocked on her door early last year, as I was a first-time candidate seeking her support to become her Councilman. Jeanette believed in me and we worked throughout the campaign right up to Election Day. Jeanette and I stayed friends after the election and she regularly kept me up to date about the issues in her life and the Fifth Ward. I will never forget Jeanette, the important help she gave me, or the trust she placed in me to help the people in Fox Hill. I will miss her so much. You can read her obituary here.
Rest In Peace, Jeanette.
Coffee with Cohen . . . the home edition
To practice social distancing, rather than eliminate my monthly Coffee with Cohen constituent events, I turned to the internet. On Monday, I hosted my most recent Coffee with Cohen Livestream event. Over 250 people have already viewed the event. This week I revealed the results of my poll on whether you voted in the national election and if you voted by mail or in-person (spoiler alert: 100% of the responders voted!). I also shared news about a brand new interactive, online zoning map that can tell you about how any property in Hoboken is zoned and more. My favorite part is answering your questions, and this week you asked about my views on funding public and charter schools in the Hoboken Public School District from the 770 Jackson Street PILOT. If you haven’t seen it, you can check it out here.
You can also submit your questions for my next event to HobokenPhil@gmail.com, as I try to answer each question you submit. The event is hosted on my Facebook page @Philcohenforcouncil and you can watch it here. As long as we have this state of emergency, I plan to continue hosting Coffee with Cohen twice a month online. My next event will be at noon on Monday, November 23rd and I hope to see you there.
In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter at @philiphcohen here. As always, if you’d like to reach out with any questions or concerns, or if I can be of any assistance to you or your family, do not hesitate to contact me at HobokenPhil@gmail.com.
Stay safe everyone!
Phil Cohen
5th Ward Councilman
City of Hoboken, New Jersey
HobokenPhil@gmail.com
(862) 234-9053
P.S. You can learn more about me and my ideas for Hoboken (as well as read this newsletter and my prior newsletters) on my website philcohen.org.
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Paid for by Phil Cohen for Hoboken City Council |
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