Dear Editor:

Last Wednesday’s council meeting once again showed how incompetent the minority members are, when they tried to pass a sneaky referendum resolution.

Hoboken was one of the nonpartisan election NJ towns where under the guise of “let the people decide” voting supporters hired an army of “campaign workers” to ensure signatures, who typically do very little canvassing. In Hoboken they also mostly magically vote by mail for the candidate who pays them to work for them, even though they live less than 5 minutes from the polling station. In the 4th Ward, this is known as an “anomaly” by a former senior operative from Tim Occhinpinti’s campaign.

It’s not about letting the people decide, it’s about maintaining voter apathy so their side has a better chance of attaining or keeping power.

This time our legislature’s got it right. The school board election change can be enacted in any of three ways, this time by resolution, not by ordinance, which cannot be challenged by a City Council sponsored referendum, which would be illegal:

1) A majority vote by the BOE.

2) The BOE law petition must be 15 percent, of those who voted in the last presidential election, approximately 20,000 total votes with a legally valid petition (approximately 3,000 legally registered voters).

3) A majority vote by the city council, aka “the local governing body”.

I do believe that an important issue such as this should be legally noticed so that concerned citizens can give their input to the city council, and/or the BOE as opposed to a live resolution, even though that is legally permitted.

Once again a local website’s fiscal miscreant ghost writer appears to be using Beth Mason financial logic, stating that Hoboken taxpayers are on the hook for $58 million for BOE taxes. The budget is actually $59.8 million, however the amount to be raised by taxes is 60 percent of that incorrect figure.

Here’s the actual budget and BOE tax levy:

http://www.hoboken.k12.nj.us/files/User%20Friendly%20Budget%202011-2012.pdf

See page 2 for the local tax levy which is $36.8 million if you include repayment of debt (page 10).

If you believe as I do that November voting is more organically ingrained on our nation’s voters and that will lead to a higher percentage of voter participation, then please support this cause. Hoboken elections cost approximately $100,000, quite a huge sum of money. Saving taxpayer dollars should be something that reformers support. As I have previously written the minority couldn’t care less about fiscal responsibility.

There is also the canard that this measure would “complicate” the ballot and Hoboken voters would be “confused.” The legally incompetent minority have no faith in our electorate to accomplish this task. They think you are dumb, I believe the opposite is true.

The move must be accomplished by Feb. 17th. Once completed, the law would last for a minimum of 4 years.

Read this link for more details:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/79575132/DOE-Moving-BOE-Elections-To-November-FAQ

Scott Siegel