Reactions to the State of the City

Although she liked much of Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s on Tuesday night, Council President Beth Mason said she fundamentally disagrees with Zimmer on one topic: the city’s surplus.

While the mayor said on Tuesday that a surplus is “a necessity if we’re going to be able meet the future needs of our City,” Mason disagreed, adding that the surplus should be returned to the tax payers.

It’s still unclear what the surplus is, because the 2011 budget hasn’t been introduced yet. Finance Director Nick Trasente will present the budget to the council on March 2, Zimmer said.

“There are a lot of things we share in common,” Mason said about the mayor’s discussed policies in the speech. The difference, said Mason, is how the two prioritize the issues.

is  a , which means moving money from one donor to another to avoid campaign finance restrictions.

Mason, together with the rest of the council majority, voted the ordinance that included that new law down.

“If she gives me a true wheeling ordinance,” Mason said, “and it’s legal … I’m sure the council will be happy to pass it.”

Mason added that she would have liked to hear more about the city’s business community in the speech, mentioning the many empty Washington Street storefronts.

Council Vice President, and known critic of the Zimmer administration, Michael Russo also mentioned the surplus and fiscal responsibility in remarks sent out after the State of the City address.

“The mayor’s so-called fiscal responsibility is easy to accomplish when you have millions of dollars in taxpayer money set aside for pet projects and politically convenient “tax relief” come election time,” Russo said in a press release. 

Russo and Mason are both up for re-election in May. 

During her remarks, Zimmer mentioned the impending sale of the Hoboken University Medical Center. Until the hospital is officially sold, the city is on the hook for a $52 million bond guarantee.

But, Russo said in his press release, “The mayor fails to mention that the proposed buyer of the HUMC was itself purchased by a Real Estate Investment Trust, a fact that has serious implications for the future of our hospital remaining an acute care facility.”

The DeBaun auditorium on Tuesday night was filled with Hoboken’s politicos from both sides, and many of the mayor’s supporters. But on the right side of the auditorium, wearing their Sigma Phi Epsilon shirts, sat a group of roughly 20 impartial Stevens students.

The students said that the address was “more informative” than they thought.

The speech covered “everything we have to look forward to,” said 20-year-old Junior Kevin Gajewski. “Hopefully we’ll see it fall into place.”