Peter Cammarano

If Peter Cammarano refuses to resign, there is not much the people of Hoboken can do to oust him as mayor right now.  New Jersey law prohibits a recall election during the first year in office, and there is no mechanism for the impeachment of a mayor.  The only way to limit the legal authority Cammarano exercises as mayor would be for one of his constituents, Gov. Jon Corzine, to call the Legislature back into session and propose a state takeover of Hoboken.

Assemblyman Ruben Ramos, the Hoboken Democratic Municipal Chairman, has already called on Cammarano to resign.  So has Corzine.   

The push to dislodge Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano from office continued today, as the executive committee of the Hoboken Democratic Party unanimously called on the mayor to resign.

Chaired by Assemblyman Ruben Ramos (D-Hoboken), the committee asked Cammarano to leave "for the good of the Democratic Party, and the good of the people of Hoboken whom Mayor Cammarano has sworn to serve."

The feds have charged Cammarano, in office for less than a month, with taking cash bribes totaling $25,000. 

According to a release, local Democrats will convene a special meeting of the party at 8 p.m. on Monday, August 10, at Willie McBride's, 616 Grand Street, to adopt a formal resolution calling for Cammarano's resignation.

HOBOKEN - A self described "true believer" during Peter Cammarano's run for mayor, who stood with the candidate in front of City Hall to defend him against deadbeat dad charges, today at noon left the mayor's transition team.

"I wish him the best possible outcome," said Jason Maurer, a young veteran of Wall Street who worked hard to get Cammarano elected, particularly among younger voters. 

"We got into this to help deliver better government, but I don't know how this group can continue given the events of the past week," he told PolitickerNJ.com.

In office for less than a month, Mayor Cammarano was charged in federal court on Thursday with taking $25,000 in cash bribes.

"After today, a substantial amount of the transition team leadership will have stepped down." added Maurer, who described the shoulder-to-shoulder impassioned support for Cammarano during the then-candidate's run as "a haunting image."

The Star-Ledger is reporting that Vice President Joseph Biden has moved an event scheduled for Tuesday in Pennsauken to Philadelphia, suggesting that the Obama administration was unwilling to visit New Jersey so soon after dozens of public officials were arrested on federal corruption charges.  Biden and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder were "originally scheduled to hold the event, on community policing grants."

According to a criminal complaint, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano allegedly accepted a bribe on the same day that he attended a Democratic rally in Holmdel featuring President Barack Obama.  Obama also gave a shout out to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who admitted on Friday that he was one of the local officials referred to in several criminal complaints.

Residents demanding the resignation of Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano will hold a protest rally outside City Hall at 6PM tonight.  Cammarano was arrested last Thursday – a mere 22 days after taking office – on federal corruption charges.  He issued a statement on Friday saying that he would not resign, and state law requires elected officials to be in office for one year before seeking a recall referendum.

For Immediate Release;
Contact: Andrew Bloschak(201)-705-2257July 26, 2009 Grandfathered Quadruple-Dipper Caputo Remains Silent on Money Laundering ScandalBelleville-Assembly candidate Andrew Bloschak is asking his opponent Assemblyman and Freeholder Ralph Caputo why he has remained silent on the massive corruption scandal that has destroyed the fabric of New Jersey politics over the last week. Bloschak invited Caputo to join him in condemning corrupt officials in both parties on Thursday, but so far the back-bench legislator is nowhere to be found.

Political operative Tony Soares, who backed Dawn Zimmer in the 2009 mayoral election, wrote a letter to city transition team organizer Michael Novak today, saying he couldn't help as long as Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano remains in office. 

"While I accepted the offer to help Hoboken (despite my continued support of Zimmer) where I could, I never expected Cammarano to bring this black mark on our city," Soares wrote of a mayor now in office 23 days, who on Thursday was charged with accepting cash bribes from a confidential witness posing as a developer.

"Peter must resign," Soares wrote. 

"Thanks again. I know you are an upstanding man and I respect your hard work," he added, in a nod to Novak, a buisnessman who ran unsuccessfully for council this year on Cammarano's slate. "However, I simply cannot trust an administration led by an official who by his own words was selling our city out and threatening to crush folks like me 'into powder'."

Union City Mayor/State Sen. Brian P. Stack (D-Union City), last year.

UNION CITY - Union City Mayor/state Sen. Brian P. Stack has not endorsed a candidate for governor.

Somewhere a crowd gathers in Bergen, but here in a gazebo in Hudson County, a solitary figure in white shirt sleeves stands at the precipitous edge of the palisades with the maw of the river and Hoboken and Jersey City and Manhattan below as he talks on a cellphone.

It's Stack.

"I didn't even know there was a rally today," he says, folding the phone in one hand, referring to Gov. Jon Corzine's rollout of running mate, state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck). "Where is it? What's going on?"

It's not as though Stack's home turf is stagnant in the blaze of summertime, or as if Stack ever really has a tendency to gravitate away from Union City.

"I'm always here," he says with grin, but on this occasion it looks like an especially lonely vantage point, considering the fact that on Thursday, sections of the Democratic Party infrastructure caved with the FBI arrests of numerous political operatives and officials, most of them from Jersey City. 

Councilwoman Beth Mason

Second Ward Councilwoman Beth Mason on Friday called for the resignation of Mayor Peter Cammarano, who on Thursday was charged in federal court with extortion.

In a brief statement before the cameras at City Hall yesterday morning, Cammarano said he has no intention of resigning, and looks forward to overcoming the "baseless" allegations detailed in the feds' criminal complaint.

Mason just wants him to go.  

"Like many residents I am shocked by the allegations leveled against Mayor Cammarano," said Mason. "As someone who has always advocated for open, inclusive and transparent government, I believe it is in the best interests of the people of Hoboken for Mayor Cammarano to resign his office immediately. While Mayor Cammarano is entitled to his day in court, his refusal to step down is both disturbing and arrogant.

The Associated Press reported this afternoon that Mayor Peter Cammarano, charged yesterday by the feds with taking $25,000 in bribes, said he won't resign.

The report says the 32-year old Cammarano plans to continue running the city as he fights the corruption charges.

"The charges are completely baseless," said Cammarano in a brief statement. "I am entitled to a presumption of innocence. I look forward to my day in court to vigorously defend against these charges and to clear my name."

One of 44 people arrested or charged yesterday, Cammarano is out on bail. He is charged with taking cash payments from a confidential witness posing as a developer as part of a federal corruption probe. 

Defeated by Cammarano in a runoff election last month, Council President Dawn Zimmer yesterday called on Cammarano to resign for the good of Hoboken.

So did Councilman Ravi Bhalla.