Council Meeting Wrap-Up: March 6, 2024
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Good morning, Hoboken and welcome to my last Council summary of winter! Today’s summary of our March 6, 2024, meeting will be somewhat unusual, as most of it will be spent on items not voted on by the Council during the meeting. But don’t worry, we’ll talk about e-bikes. Strangely enough, we’ll also discuss telephone poles. Let’s get started.
Actual Council Business – Firefighters and Rats
First let’s cover actual business of interest - not that water consumption charges or public access easements aren’t interesting.
The biggest things I think that will have a near immediate affect on the lives of all Hoboken residents happen to be two things I either sponsored or co-sponsored, increasing our fire department table of organization by eight and the approval of a contract with Paramount Exterminating for City-wide pest management services… in other words rat mitigation!
Firefighters
As discussed in my last update the Hoboken Fire Department currently operates at below national standards for the number of firefighters on a truck when it goes out on a service call. Today, whether it be a call to rescue a cat, check on a gas leak, or put out a fire, only three firefighters typically arrive on a truck. The national standard is four. This is dangerous because each firefighter is assigned a specific task, and with only three arriving, they must split duties or decide what will (or won’t) get done. As I stated in my comments during the meeting, so far we’ve been lucky that there haven’t been any injuries or worse as a result, but when it comes to public safety, I don’t like relying on luck. Our firefighters are professionals and so my view is we should give them everything they need to get the job done correctly and safely, whether it be equipment or personnel. I’m glad my Council colleagues agreed with me (this passed unanimously); however, I was concerned that some of my colleagues would continue to focus so much on cost and liability, rather than just doing the right thing. For me it is simple, if any function of our City operates with below standard resources that can put people at risk, we must do everything possible to fix that situation… period.
Killing Rats
Now to rats – or rather, how we are trying to kill them! On Wednesday we awarded a two-year contract to Paramount Exterminating to try to get a handle on our rodent problem. Yes, rodent activity has been much lower in recent months, but most of us believe it’s due to the cold weather. Now that it will be warming up soon, we expect the rats to come back (but sadly no ninja turtles). Paramount has a good reputation in the area having worked with numerous governments in neighboring cities. Specifically, this contract will focus on mitigation (i.e., baiting, trapping, and so on) specific to our government buildings, City-owned parks, sewer inlets, and other City-owned areas. Areas of focus will be fluid depending on activity levels. While this is but one of the things we are doing to get a handle on this issue (others being improved sanitation – such as our new lidded garbage can requirements, education, etc.), we hope engaging with Paramount will have a positive effect on controlling the rodent population in the City.
To Move a Pole?
One item that got interesting attention was a resolution to relocate a telephone pole from its current location on Garden Street between 7th and 8th, to the corner of 8th and Garden. This seemingly benign move was complicated by our understanding that the move was at the request of a resident who will be paying for it. The question at hand is, whether it is good practice to permit residents to move telephone poles upon request if they agreed to pay for it. Also, there is a question as to whether doing so now would set bad precedent opening the City to permit other such moves. There is a lot still unknown here, including the reasons behind the request and whether there are any prohibitions or factors we aren’t considering, so during Council discussion on this item the administration agreed to remove it from consideration so more information could be obtained.
E-Delivery Ordinance
Now for things not specifically discussed by the Council. Once again, we saw the inclusion of an E-Delivery ordinance up for first reading. This ordinance was an update of the previous ordinance which came up in early February and had sufficient material changes to it that it had to go back to first reading. However, as this ordinance did not address my concerns specific to forcing delivery drivers to register with the City, I voted No again (I was joined by Council Vice President Doyle and Councilman Cohen this time).
Again, my concern with this proposal is that it puts the burden on delivery persons and the City to register, test, license, etc. hundreds of people over the next few months (this is a big over-simplification of my concerns with this registration piece). I think at the very least this will be an ineffective administrative nightmare that is set up for failure. My preference is to put the burden on the apps and businesses that employ those delivery people. Nevertheless, this passed on first reading 8-3, so let’s see what happens between now and second reading.
Related to this – during the meeting we reference the E-Delivery working group which was recently put together. This group, which includes Council representatives, members of the administration, law enforcement, Hoboken Business Alliance, and community members met on March 5th to discuss the current ordinance and paths forward. In short, we all agreed on the goal… safer sidewalks for Hoboken. We also agreed that there are four elements to accomplishing this: Visibility, Education, Accountability, and Infrastructure.
On Visibility, we generally agreed that it was a good idea to mandate delivery people wearing yellow vests while working. This makes it easier for pedestrians and cars to see them, making life safer for pedestrians and delivery persons alike. We also agreed that education works, whether it be police pop-up tents, handing out materials, better signage, etc. Our main point of disagreement came down to the accountability element. How do we create a program to identify delivery persons and hold them (or someone) accountable for violating our ordinance? There were some questions with respect to the enforceability of the proposed ordinance, there were discussions of who should shoulder the burden of registration (drivers vs. apps), and there were discussions of the role infrastructure (hard and soft) should play in the solution. Overall, it was a constructive meeting, and a follow-up discussion is in the works. I’m confident we’ll find a path forward here.
Rent Control Referendum
During public portion, Ron Simoncini, who leads the Mile Square Taxpayers Association announced they were launching a referendum effort pointed at rent control. First, what is Mile Square Taxpayers Association? It isn’t really an association of taxpayers because I know plenty of people who pay taxes, but aren’t represented here. Rather, this is a lobbying group representing several landlords in town. Which is fine. This is America after all, there are plenty of advocacy groups out there. The name is kind of misleading though.
What are they proposing? In its simplest form, this referendum seeks to create a way for landlords with rents at below market value (due to rent control) to be able to bring their rents up to full market value with a one-time payment of $2,500, which would go into Hoboken’s affordable housing trust fund. Sounds fair right? Well, I have some big concerns, but before I get to that let me share my basic philosophy on the purpose of rent control as I think this is where the divide is.
I believe rent control should serve two purposes. First rent control should protect existing tenants from being at the mercy of wild price jumps. These are people’s homes we are talking about, and they shouldn’t be at risk of being priced out of those homes year-over-year due to the real estate market getting hot. Most of us agree on this. However, I also believe rent control serves a second purpose, that is to help ensure we maintain a stock of below market value homes in Hoboken so people like teachers, cops, firefighters, nurses, and the like can afford to live here. This does not mean affordable housing, that is a separate thing and is handled in other ways in Hoboken (e.g., the Hoboken Housing Authority).
In a city like Hoboken where there are extreme limitations on building new housing stock due to our size and existing development, one of the ways we can ensure we maintain a stock of below market value housing is through mechanisms like rent control and so this is where I find a problem with the existing proposal. If this referendum passes, I worry that our stock of below market value homes will evaporate in a very short period, leaving us with just market rate units and “affordable housing” units targeted at lower income residents. I worry this means we’ll end up being essentially a city of the haves and have nots.
My vision of Hoboken is one that promotes socio-economic diversity, with a healthy middle class, and since I believe this referendum (in its current form) will result in the elimination of that, I am against it.
Still, it is still early in the process, signatures need to be gathered and verified, dates need to be set, and so on – there is still time to talk. I do believe our rent control ordinance needs some enhancements, let’s take this time to address those issues and emerge with a solution that achieves our goals for rent control and is sustainable for decades to come.
If you’d like to more on any of these items, or have questions about other issues, please email me at councilmanquintero@gmail.com. Also, if you’d like to get these messages directly, please visit joequintero.com or sign up directly here (https://joequintero.com/joe-email-list) (note: no need to sign up if you have already, direct emails will launch soon).
