Mayor Contacts the State, Says City Won't Be Able to Pay Bills, Employees

the mayor has written a letter to the Division of Local Government Services in Trenton, claiming the city won't be able to pay several bills to city employees and lawyers.

After Nov. 30, Mayor Dawn Zimmer wrote, the city will not be able to pay its firemen and women. (The letter has been attached to this story.)

Although there is enough money in the budget to pay for the cost, some line items will be overspent if the money isn't transferred. A municipality is not allowed to overspend a line item in the budget, as dictated by state statute.

Finance Director Nick Trasente called the measure "routine" on Tuesday night.

The members of the council minority—who oppose Zimmer's administration and voted against re-allocating the $2 million in funds within the budget—maintain they didn't get the information they needed to vote on the line item transfers.

Zimmer also wrote that the city will be unable to hire special legal council needed in a legal challenge to a Zoning Board of Adjustment decision. The city will also be unable to pay $500,000 in legal fees to bankruptcy attorney Paul Hollander, who represented the city during bankruptcy proceedings in the negotiations leading up to the sale of the Hoboken University Medical Center.

"I will call you tomorrow to follow up to discuss the City of Hoboken's appropriate course of action going forward," Zimmer wrote to Director Thomas Neff.

The city could face a state take over or some type of state intervention as a result of not being able to pay its bills.