Beth Mason

Former Hoboke Councilwoman Carol Marsh with her 2007 running mate, West New York Mayor Sal Vega

HOBOKEN - As elected officials here in the face of public discontent try to make their various arguments for why the state has assumed control of the municipal budget, at least one former elected official is watching from the perimeter.

Talk to locals about the mayor's race next year and most of them factor former Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Carol Marsh's name into a mix that includes Councilman Peter Cammarano, Councilwoman Beth Mason, Councilwoman Dawn Zimmer, Councilman Michael Russo and Mayor David Roberts.

In a phone conversation today with PolitickerNJ.com, Marsh said she was unlikely to run for mayor in 2009, and in one scenario would absolutely rule out the possibility.

"I'm 100 percent in support of Dawn if she runs," said Marsh, who ran unsuccessfully for the Assembly last year in the 33rd District on a ticket with West New York Mayor Sal Vega and Nicole Garcia of Union City.

Mayor David Roberts

HOBOKEN – Talk to the street players and they tell you Mayor David Roberts will run again next year, but talk to the man and he won’t reveal his intentions in what looms as a big battle, within a crucible of financial unrest.

“I have not been entertaining conversations about the upcoming mayor’s race,” Roberts told PolitickerNJ.com. “I’ve got other issues: the movie theater, the clock tower.”

But he concedes those are props in this unfolding drama, where the massive issue remains the fact that a state monitor assumed responsibility for the city’s finances. Taxes in Hoboken have ballooned in a government effort to collect $12 million in reserve accounts or to make up for money that otherwise couldn’t be accounted for in city coffers.

Roberts acknowledges the issue with pain in his voice.

“The mayor wants to have it both ways; he wants to withhold information from the public and then he gets angry when someone resorts to the courts to get the information the public is  entitled to.”

HOBOKEN - Councilwoman Beth Mason tabled her proposed salary Assemblyman/Councilman Ruben Ramos: Politicker file photoand benefits ordinances at tonight’s council meeting, a move that likely did nothing to diminish the prolonged stare-down from now until next year’s mayoral election between Mason and her opponents.

Broken into two reform pieces, the freshman councilwoman’s proposed ordinances would scrap benefits and limit to $1 the council salaries of council people who hold more than one public job.

She sent them to committee tonight, but not before rousing her opposition.

Mason’s antagonists see the prospective mayoral candidate’s measures (backed up by Councilman Peter Cunningham) as an attempt to bait At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano and humiliate Assemblyman/At-Large Councilman Ruben Ramos, the governing body’s lone dual elected office holder.

Cammarano was out of town. Ramos fought back.

Hoboken Councilman Michael Russo: Politicker file photoHOBOKEN - Councilman Michael Russo won’t vote for Councilwoman Beth Mason’s salary ordinance at the Hoboken Council meeting tonight unless Mason amends the ordinance.

Patterned on Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop’s reform initiative, Mason’s ordinance would restrict to $1 the salary of any councilperson who already draws a public salary.

"I would vote for it if it only pertained to restricting elected officials from receiving two or more salaries, absolutely," said Russo. "But I would never say a person who’s a janitor or policeman shouldn’t receive an additional salary as a councilperson.

"Let’s take a janitor," Russo said. "Maybe he makes $25,000. You think I’m going to restrict him from making another $25,000 as a councilman? No, I’m sorry, I couldn’t do that."

HOBOKEN - Councilwoman Beth Mason will introduce an ordinance on2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason: Politicker file photo Wednesday night that would limit public salaries of city council representatives who already hold public jobs to $1 apiece.

The Mason ordinance would also prevent council members from receiving healthcare benefits.

A Hoboken elected official who receives health benefits from employment outside the city would be given financial compensation in lieu of the city’s health benefits to a maximum of $2,500 per year, according to a release issued by Mason.

At-Large Councilman Peter Cammarano: Politicker photo 

HOBOKEN - Even members of his inner circle swear that they don’t yet know whether Mayor Dave Roberts plans to run for a third term in 2009.

Whatever his intentions, other Hoboken diehards are surfacing. No one’s announced yet, but fierce political battles now will undoubtedly have political consequences next year in this city stung by the embarrassment of a state takeover of its finances.

There are all of the usual speculations surrounding possible candidates. A sighting of former Councilwoman Carol Marsh at a municipal meeting provokes the conclusion in come corners that she’s definitely running. A recent inundation of photos of Mayor Roberts on the Hoboken website prompts someone else to opine that Roberts is running - bet on it.

Businessman and neighborhood kid made good Frank "Pupie" Raia?

Of course, he’s running, say Hoboken insiders. He always runs, and no doubt he will perpetuate his longstanding animus this year with Councilman Michael Russo, who clubbed him last year in their 3rd ward showdown.

This is a victory for New Jersey citizens' rights to access to government information

Hoboken’s 2nd Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason is trying to carve out  a reputation for filing lawsuits in the pursuit of “open government” –  to date filing at least eleven such suits over access to public records.

But yesterday, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously smacked down  Mason – who has filed 125 separate requests for public records from the  City of Hoboken, saying those who seek records must do so in timely  manner. In the Court’s unanimous ruling, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote of Mason’s 17 requests for city records – including every single  financial transaction by the City of Hoboken in 2003 and 2004: "Citizens  are entitled to swift access to public records, and both the public and  governmental bodies are logically entitled to have any disputes brought  and addressed in the same, rapid manner."