Dear friends and neighbors –
Hope you all had a great weekend. Today feels like an official break in the weather and a trend towards Spring… fingers crossed. There is and was a lot going on this week, so here are a few quick reminders / updates:
- Tonight! Budget Workshop from 6 – 9 pm at City Hall
- Tomorrow night (3/27)!
- 7pm at Demarest - Adoption of the Preliminary School District Budget for 2018-2019 (rescheduled from 3/20)
- ***RESCHEDULED TO 4/9 – 7-9pm at Wallace: Northwest Resiliency Park Design Selection!
- Wednesday night (3/28)! Budget Workshop from 6-9 pm at City Hall
Budget Workshop Tonight: Hoping we can beat last week’s record of 7 members of the public attending in person! Tonight covers a lot of topics many of you frequently ask me about. If you cannot attend in person, you can watch live at home by clicking here:
6:00 pm - City Clerk / Jimmy Farina – OPRA requests, elections, and all public records
7:00 pm - Corporation Counsel / Brian Aloia – Tenant Advocacy, In house / External Activities, Lawsuits, Redevelopment, Municipal Courts
8:00 pm – Administration & Finance / B.A. Stephen Marks – New Constituent Services Team, Debt Debt Debt, Ratable expansion, Washington St., Infrastructure, and Suez
Reminder - the draft budget including parking utility increased $5.2M or 4.2% mainly driven by significant increases in healthcare and pension costs (excl parking, $4.1M or 3.8%). The tax rate remains flat (so the municipal portion of your tax bill would not change) due to significant ratable expansion and excess prior years surplus are to offset these cost increases.
School Board Meeting Tomorrow night (3/27) at 7 pm –
Schools account for approximately 24% of your property tax rate (Hoboken accounts for 30%). Do you want to see the funding for our pre-k 3 and pre-k 4 program? Are you interested in how much our schools invest in curriculum? This meeting is the first to discuss the budget. There will be an official public hearing on May 1st with a planned adoption of the budget on May 8th.
***RESCHEDULED TO 4/9 (No longer tomorrow 3/27) Northwest Resiliency Park Design Selection!
Do you want sports fields? Or meandering paths? Or a little of both? If you have been part of the process or are just eager to see what our new, biggest park will be, then definitely plan to attend. The meeting will be held at the Wallace School from 7-9. Click here to see the two alternatives that are being used as the basis for the final design. I am on the Northern Community Development subcommittee (chaired by Councilman Cunningham) and provided input last week to the administration and am eager to see what the final reveal is…
Wednesday – 3/28: If we cannot break attendance records at this meeting (remember, bar is currently only at 7) then I honestly don’t know what will get people to come out! Parking and Safety! If you cannot attend in person, you can watch live at home by clicking here:
6:00 pm – Hoboken Parking Utility/Director Ryan Sharpe – Meters, Intersection Safety (Stop Signs, Bump Outs and Traffic lights), Bike Lanes, Parking Tickets, the HOP, and Road Improvements
7:00 pm – Hoboken Fire Department / Chief Brian Crimmins – From 4 alarm fires to burned popcorn and everything in between.
8:00 pm – Hoboken Police Department / Chief Ken Ferrante – Walking Policemen, Monitor Dangerous Intersections, Crime Statistics, Homeless residents
Please feel free to email me at hoboken2nd@gmail.com or call me at 201/208-1674 if you have any thoughts about or want to discuss any of this. As Chair of the Finance, Administration and Infrastructure subcommittee, I will be presiding over all of the workshops. Thank you in advance for continuing to engage in all of these important topics! I received 47 responses to my email "Guns & Children, Taxes and Buslines" and have taking into account this feedback in our budget discussions. Keep the feedback coming. More voices are always better!
