Beth Mason

Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz

HOBOKEN - Not many elected officials have announced their support for a given mayoral candidate in this intensified contest with no obvious favorite, but this week Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz threw her name behind 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason.

Energized by the prospect of a woman in office in the square mile city, while also recognizing Raul Morales, one of Mason’s three running mates, the Middlesex mayor wrote a letter to voters on Mason’s behalf.

Diaz last year shocked the New Jersey political establishment when she upended longtime Mayor Joe Vas, who was indicted earlier this year by the state Attorney General’s Office on theft and bid-rigging charges.

2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason

HOBOKEN – Councilwoman Beth Mason’s just left her campaign headquarters, and if anyone ever needed evidence that big money moves in and out of this narrow front door, in her absence, the candidate’s mobile face on a flat screen TV speaks to passersby on Washington Avenue. 

She’s on cable TV, too, and a Brian P. Stack-sized banner hangs on the side of campaign headquarters. Overlooking Washington Avenue in fullblown Diego Rivera glory stand Mason and her three crusading running mates. 

Circulating on these same streets, meanwhile, a Mason mailer shows Councilman Peter Cammarano’s head with rabbit ears popping in less than auspicious fashion out of a hat held by exuberant magic man Mayor David Roberts.

The implication is that Cammarano represents an elongation of the now gasping Roberts era. But the larger campaign implication is just as telling from this and a constant barrage of counterpunching mailers targeting Cammarano and not Mason’s other chief competitor in a six-person field:  if there must be a runoff, the Mason campaign wants to eliminate Cammarano now and deal one-on-one with Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer later.

Councilman Peter Cammarano

HOBOKEN – The rat mashed to death in the parking lot across the street from the PATH station was a sign of where the mayoral campaign was with five days left: somewhere between ugly and grisly.

Hours after a blog piece broke on Hoboken 411 highlighting what its author sees as the distance between Councilman Peter Cammarano’s family man image and the fact that he fathered a child out of wedlock when he was 18 who is not mentioned in his online biography and depicting him as a deadbeat dad, Cammarano stood in front of City Hall at noon and denounced the story as scurrilous and vile.

“I’m specifically laying it at the feet of Mason and Russo,” said the councilman, who had called the press conference to set out a “blueprint for the future” as a contrast to what he said were the personal destructive political machinations of one of his rivals in the mayor’s race, Councilwoman Beth Mason, and her ally, Councilman Michael Russo.

Richard Tremitiedi

HOBOKEN - The man Beth Mason defeated in her 2007 bid for the City Council, who famously griped that given Mason's coffers he was "practically up against Corzine-Bloomberg over here," today formally endorsed At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano for mayor.

“As a longtime resident, fire chief, and civic activist, I am honored to endorse Councilman Peter Cammarano and his diverse team, Frances Rhodes-Kearns, Michael Novak, and Angel Alicea,” said former fire chief Richard Tremitiedi. “They will be there for every resident of Hoboken and truly represent the hard working families of our city.”   

Tremitiedi applauded Cammarano for holding the line against layoffs of public safety workers. 

HOBOKEN – If you see CIA types wearing abbreviated Burger King head-sets idling in front one of the hipper fitness joints here, that probably means the governor’s inside, pumping iron. He lives here, of course, and that’s an unstated given in this urban yuppie pleasure dome that still has some harder core, untamed edges in the span of its crunched together six wards, where several mayoral candidates now gather to face off in this debate at Our Lady of Grace Church.

“Will the candidates please come to the stage?”

Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer and her running mate, Ravi Bhalla

HOBOKEN – Purists don’t like the Hoboken mayor’s race because they don’t readily identify in any of the three main candidates the kind of old school character who might just as well have been a barkeep, tavern owner, longshoreman, tug boat operator, barge hand or fireman as mayor.

But while At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano, 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason, and 4th Ward Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer probably can’t trace their respective family histories back to a distant uncle who pitched in the world’s first baseball game played in Hoboken, the Tremitiedis, Russos and Raias of the world opted out of this year’s contest, leaving these like ‘em or not new mold Hobokenites on the field.

Whoever gets elected must confront a financial wreck as residents here still reel from the effects of a 47% tax hike in one year, and hours before the first mayoral debate tonight at Our Lady of Grace Church, the slow-moving contest threatens to intensify.

To date, few have been willing to venture a guess as to who’s in the lead, but 4th Ward Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer has relished blowing up the old model of what Hobokenites are supposed to be and framed herself as the do or die reformer. 

Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer

HOBOKEN – Locked in a mayoral contest, Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer notched some bragging rights last night when the School Board slate she endorsed won.

"The Kids First slate's victory is a win for Hoboken's children and taxpayers,” Zimmer said in a statement. “I congratulate Theresa Minutillo, Maureen Sullivan and Ruth McAllister on their successful effort. It shows that Hoboken voters want change. 

 "I look forward to assisting them as they work to invest more resources in the classroom by cutting excess administrative costs and put in place evidence-based performance measures to monitor student, teacher, school and administration progress," added the candidate.

Howell: The School District’s decision to close Southard Elementary School opens up the prospect of where to route the children displaced by the closing – but that decision occurs only if voters approve the School Board’s proposed budget today.

Robbinsville: This is one of those towns where the School Board hopes to reverse a tide of voter discontent, but faces a political environment worse than last year, when voters rejected the budget. Robbinsville’s $38.6 million price tag for schools represents an increase of about $1.4 million from what it is now. The increase would result in an extra $189 for a homeowner assessed at $400,000, from $4,334 to $4,523. Last year, after killing the School Board's initial proposal, residents settled for a 3-cent hike engineered by the Town Council.

Hoboken: While the Zimmer Team supports the Kids First Slate in the School Board Elections, her opponents are ostensibly staying out of today's fight. “Part of that reason is I wanted to keep politics out of it - the mayor doesn’t support the Board of Education,” said councilwoman Beth Mason, while the Cammarano Team this morning issued an email blast reminding people to remember to register to vote.

Councilwoman Beth Mason with her slate, from left: Anthony Pasquale, Raul Morales II, and Vincent Addeo

HOBOKEN - Second Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason today questioned Mayor David Roberts’s “outrage” over a billboard ad plastered by a Jersey City real estate company offering PATH commuters help to leave a city saddled with a 47% tax incease.  

“I do not want the hard working people of Hoboken to leave our city,” Mason said in response to Roberts’s ultimately successful efforts to get Metropolitan and Waterfront to ditch its ad yesterday. “But Mayor Roberts' temper tantrum over this billboard is a complete and total lack of personal responsibility.  The state monitor reported that the tax increase was brought on by under-funded budgets and uncollected revenues. Mayor Roberts’ reckless mismanagement is the very cause of the billboard."

Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer, second from left, with Dave Mello, Carol Marsh, and Ravi Bhalla.

HOBOKEN – To the most hardened street operatives, “reformer” is just another word for someone who wasn’t born within reach of a Hoboken fire escape. 

But if adamant old-timers here pride themselves on being connected to the waterfront birthplace of the Chairman of the Board, 4th Ward Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer’s slate this year has less to do with trying to duplicate the Rat Pack look as trying to convey the opposite: that her candidates don’t have a devil-may-care attitude about a 47% Hoboken tax hike.

“I feel this crushing tax burden strikes everybody in Hoboken, and we need to move very strongly beyond this mentality of us-versus-them to what is for the benefit of everyone in Hoboken,” said Zimmer, a photographer, who heads up a “new Dawn” ticket consisting of former Councilwoman Carol Marsh, school teacher Dave Mello and attorney Ravi Bhalla.