The Hoboken Journal- Archive Site

Here is another retro BOE video gem from Hoboken watchdog Eric Kurta. Some people have been wondering why perhaps it is hard to find a Superintendent of Schools that already has been or is a current Superintendent of Schools that really wants to work in Hoboken. The simple answer could be: Who in their right mind who is already a Superintendent in a good school distict would want to put up with crap like this? This video is from a BOE meeting in November of 1993. Note that current 4th Ward City Councilman Michael Lenz is on the School Board in an unpaid and non-county position:

Here is Eric’s summary of the video:

In November 1993, the Choice for Change reform majority on the Hoboken Board of Education voted to hire an individual from outside the district to become the new principal of the Demarest Middle School (I only remember that his last name was Diaz). Back then, most of the kids at Demarest were Latino and many had parents who spoke little or no English. Conferences between parents and the principal often had to be held with the school janitor translating (he was supposedly the only employee that could translate). Mr. Diaz came with great qualifications and was highly recommended as someone who had turned problem schools around. He was also Spanish-speaking, an added bonus given the school population.

Many locals took offense, however, at his hiring. Larry Sciancalepore was the favorite in-district candidate of the Hoboken born-and-raised crew led by the recently-elected mayor, Anthony Russo. Seconds after the Board voted to hire Diaz (00:26), Sciancalepore’s son let it all hang out, espousing the sentiment that was quite common then – and still is, to some extent – among Hoboken’s born-and-raised community.

“This is OUR town! Get out of our goddamn town!”

Diaz was hired, but Anthony Russo would gain control of the Board of Ed the following April and Diaz was let go. Sciancalepore took the position, but had difficulty performing and eventually stepped down after suffering a heart attack.

As an extra perk, I left in a few seconds of me and Perry Belfiore competing for Best/Worst 80s hairdo.

- Eric Kurta

Eric Kurta is a former Hoboken for People for Open Government (POG) President and citizen activist/archivist/watchdog. He also had a nice full hair frizz on display for this video. There must have been some serious humidity in the air that day since I am pretty sure Eric didn’t use Jheri Curl back then.

Today’s photo of the day is of the Hoboken train terminal that is normally very busy but this shot shows what it might look like if people were to suddenly disappear.

Upcoming Hoboken City Council Budget Workshop Meeting 1/30/2010 from 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM - Live video feed! – with Cover it Live! Live blogging software starting at 9:15AM:

Schedule:
9:30am to 9:45am – Introduction
9:45am to 10:30am – Public Safety
10:30 am to11:15 am - Environmental Services
11:15 am to 12:30 pm - Health and Human Services
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm – Lunch Break
1:30 pm to 2:15 pm - Community Development
2:15pm to 3:00 pm – Transportation and Parking Utility
3:00 pm to 4:30 pm - Finance/Administration/Corporation Council/Courts
4:30 pm to 4:45 pm – Office of Emergency Management
4:45 pm to 5:00 pm – Administration

Editor’s Note: The live streaming portion will be available for tomorrow’s budget workshop.

Earlier I had called a few people to confirm if this special meeting would be covered via the live feed and I contacted 4th Ward City Councilman Michael Lenz who issued this statement:

“From the begining, in order to get the most information out about the budget to the public, the Mayor, City Council and Finance Committee have made clear that the expectation is that all City Council meetings are indeed filmed and live streamed online.

If this special meeting is live streamed tomorrow then the Administration and the City Council should get the credit they deserve. If not, then criticism for it not being available would be justified.”

Here is a funny picture of a truly fat cat basking in what appears to be a very small portion of a TARP funded JP Morgan Wall Street style bonus. Photo courtesy of http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I got confirmation that the budget workshop tommorow will be video taped and live via the City of Hobonen’s UStream website. Here the schedule for the meeting tomorrow:

COUNCIL BUDGET WORKSHOP SET FOR SATURDAY, 9:30 AM

The Hoboken City Council will hold a day-long workshop on the proposed 2010 municipal budget on Saturday, January 30th beginning at 9:30 am in the Council Chamber in City Hall. The session will conclude at 5 pm.

The entire workshop will be streamed live at http://www.hobokennj.org/ and supporting documents can be downloaded from the site. Tomorrow morning a video of the workshop will be aired on Channel 78. The public is invited, but questions will not be taken during the meeting.

The schedule is as follows: 9:45am to 10:30am – Public Safety, 10:30 am to11:15 am – Environmental Services, 11:15 am to 12:30 pm – Health and Human Services, 1:30 pm to 2:15 pm – Community Development, 2:15pm to 3 pm – Transportation and Parking Utility, 3 pm to 4:30 pm – Finance/Administration/Corporation Council/Courts, 4:30 pm to 4:45 pm – Office of Emergency Management, and 4:45 pm to 5 pm Administration (continued). There will be a lunch break between 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm.

Each department director, along with Finance Director Nick Trasente, will lead their respective workshop.

Update 1/29/2010:

The HUMC has released the draft copy of their budget for 2010. It is just the high level numbers and subject to change as it is a draft:

Original Post 1/28/2010:

From left to right CEO Spiros Hatiras, Commissioners Desai Tejal,  Jonathan Metsch, Toni Tomarazzo and Steve Rofsky

The HUMC meeting last night was packed with mostly employees for the Hospital and a few concerned citizens. Spiros Hatiras addressed the audience and said that “the Hospital will not close.”:

Here are some highlights of his report:

• $3 Million of the $7 million stablization money has been paid out to date. $1 million will be applied to the 2009 budget.
• The union and management employees have agreed to 10% salary cuts across the board and that will result in a total savings of $6.5 million for 2010. Another $5 million will come from vendor reductions totaling $11.5 million. That coupled with the $6 million dollars of stabilization money applied to 2010 will make up a gap of $17.5 million in total compared to the prior year.
• Physicians also volunteered to take pay cuts as well.
• Her explained the the new Governor’s transition report did not include the voluntary 10% wage cuts from employees when it made the assessment that the hospital would close in several months.
• Spiros reiterated his thanks to all the employees for coming together and helping the hospital to trim its expenses to continue its operations (paraphrased).

Here is a more detailed summary of the meeting on Hoboken Patch:

http://hoboken.patch.com/articles/hoboken-university-medical-center-proposes-draft-budget-for-2010

Part 1 of Spiros Hatiras’ remarks:

Part 2 of Spiros Hatiras’ remarks:

The Hoboken Museum Reopens Sunday, Jan. 31, With Two New Exhibitions and Volunteer Appreciation Party, 2 – 5 pm.

Examples of many of these instruments will be on display in the Museum’s Main Gallery starting Sunday, Jan. 31, with the opening reception from 2 – 5 p.m., for Surveying the World: Keuffel & Esser + Hoboken, 1875 – 1968. At the event, we will celebrate our many volunteers, and outline volunteer opportunities for 2010.

Visitors will be able to interact with some of the items on display, including slide rules, surveying instruments, lettering systems and drafting tools. Descriptive plaques will describe how these tools were used in building railroads, farming and exploration. School groups can arrange tours through education director Sherrard Bostwick, at education@hobokenmuseum.org or 201-656-2240. The exhibit is made possible in part through a Special Project grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, and the generosity of corporate sponsors: The Applied Companies, John Wiley & Sons, and Bijou Properties.

The company’s founders, William J.D. Keuffel and Hermann Esser, built a series of large factory buildings around the 300 block of Adams, after opening their headquarters in New York in 1867. In 1975-76, the concrete “West” building became one of the first examples of adaptive re-use of an industrial building, known as The Clock Tower Apartments for its iconic four-sided clock, and joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. The “East” building was converted in 1984 to residential use.

Hoboken: A Study in Geometry and Light

Photographer Peter Ziebel has been walking around Hoboken with a camera shooting photos of the changing urban landscape off and on for the past 30 years. Since April 2009, he has met the personal challenge of posting a photo a day on his website, www.kingnopa.net. He calls it “a daily log of light and geometry.” That’s the inspiration for Ziebel’s current show in the Upper Gallery of the Museum, Hoboken Light and Geometry, A Selection of Photographs, which also opens on Jan. 31. Most of the photographs are drawn from images he’s taken in the past year, although some go back a little farther.

“My work is a continuing attempt to depict my experience of the ever-changing face of Hoboken’s urban landscape,” Ziebel says. “I am particularly interested in the visual juxtapositions of old and new, classic and kitsch, growth and decay, public and private, the mundane and the majestic, that define the visual character of this city.”

This is Ziebel’s second HHM show. Ziebel also teaches an evening series of photography classes at the Museum, in which he helps demystify digital cameras. He teaches art and photography at the Hudson School, and he published a children’s book in 1989, “Look Closer,” which inspires kids to identify objects from close-up photographs. He’s been a professional freelance photographer for the past 20 years.

About the Hoboken Historical Museum

Founded 1986, the Museum’s mission is to educate the public about Hoboken’s history, diverse culture, architecture and historic landmarks. In 2001, the Museum moved into one of the oldest buildings on the waterfront, in the former Bethlehem Steel shipyard, at 1301 Hudson St., Hoboken, where it maintains a series of rotating exhibits. The Museum is open six days a week, 2 – 7 pm on Tues. – Thurs., 1 – 5 pm on Fridays, and noon – 5 pm on weekends. It offers special exhibits, tours, events and lectures, as well as educational programs for adults and children on a weekly basis. An updated schedule of events and an online catalog of many items in its collections are available at http://www.hobokenmuseum.org/. The Museum is a not-for-profit tax-exempt 501(c) entity.

Here is an update from Donna Antonucci on departing Governor Corzine’s last minute appointments to the NJ Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) which is an important commission when it comes to potentially reforming the way union contracts are handled going forward for the State of NJ and its many municipalities. This article presents both facts and opinions and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of this editor or the steering committee on the whole of Hoboken Revolt to which she belongs. Here is her update…..

What happened with the PERC nominations….

Paul Sarlo
John Girgenti
Nia Gill
Ray Lesniak
Bob Smith
Bill Baroni
Chris Bateman
Gerald Cardinale
Those who abstained
Brian P Stack
Lorretta Weinberg

Statesmen (those who voted no):
Jen Beck

Absent (someone too busy to do the job he was elected to do):
Joe Kyrillos

Senators Buono and Smith could have blocked these through senatorial courtesy once they got to the floor but they did not.

Please spread the word. Everyone should know who is responsible for selling NJs future.

- Donna Antonucci

Steering Committee Member of Hoboken Revolt on her own behalf and not that necessarily of the entire committee

Note- the article is also on the Hoboken Revolt website; link is below:

http://www.hobokenrevolt.com/forum/topics/corzines-11th-hour-public

Today’s Retro Ad serries from 1957 features Stanback’s for pain relief. What in the heck neuralgia anyway? Is that a Dr. Marcus Welby term or real medical terminology?

Here are some photos of Hoboken during yesterday’s light snowstorm….