Dear Editor:
I’m reading with great displeasure the interactions between the Mayor’s office and the City Council regarding the issue of run-off elections. My displeasure comes not from the stances of either groups on the central issue (I personally favor letting the voters make this choice directly) but rather from tone each group is choosing to adopt.
It was unseemly and inflammatory for our newly-elected Mayor to characterize legitimate opposition to his veto of putting the topic on the public ballot as having chosen to “align themselves with….beneficiaries of voter fraud.” – a misleadingly opaque reference to an 8-year old assertion. In response we hear rhetoric from Councilman DeFusco characterizing the Mayor’s opposition as “disgusting”, “gutter politics”, and “Trump-like level of deceit and sleaze”. (Is Donald Trump germane to issues like fixing Washington Street? Why are both factions continuing to cheaply invoke him to score points?) This is a throwback to the “kids in a sandbox” tone and hyperbole that permeated Hoboken politics 10 years ago.
It was a disgrace, petty, and an embarrassment. It was apparent from both groups in this last campaign and it grows more apparent now. To both groups the election is over. You’re in office. We’re depending and demanding that you work with each other as professionals. Agree to disagree when you will, but if you think this town wants to revert back to the juvenile, incessant mud-slinging of the past – think again. Here is my plea. Going forward, tone it down and knock it off. Lest the people who voted you in just as easily vote you out. Your constituents deserve better.
Gregg Thomas
