Dear Friend of HFHA,

After a very long winter we’ve finally got the month of May in Hoboken.  But we still have an undemocratically, falsely, wrongly overturned election from last November.

As many of you will recall, the forces defending rent control (that’s us) soundly defeated, on November 6th, the ballot initiative known as “Hoboken Public Question #2″, which would have severely weakened Hoboken’s rent protections and put many of our friends and neighbors in immediate or short-term risk of losing their homes.

The landlords’ group MSTA (you may know about them by now) didn’t like that.  Sothey drew up a list of over a hundred names of folks who voted outside of Hoboken and declared them all as displaced and “disenfranchised” by storm Sandy, said they all might have voted against rent control and that this could havec hanged the election result, and gave it to a local judge.  Presto — election results “set aside.”

Once we were able to get our hands on this list — and that wasn’t easy — wediscovered that most of names on it didn’t even live in town on election day.  Or, they did live AND vote in town, but were registered elsewhere. The list was almostentirely fraudulent.

We’re now attempting to supplement the court record with proof that the list of voters used to overturn the election was false, and obtain status to appeal that local judge’s decision.  We’ll have a new decision from anappeals court panel of judges within a few weeks.

As you might guess, all of this has cost us a pile of money.  So, as we did lastJanuary when we began this process, we’re appealing to you –  our friends,supporters and fellow-travelers, for help.  (And we really want to thank everyone who donated in January.)

Here’s the question:  How much is your rent-controlled dwelling-place worth toyou?  And for those of you that don’t rent your homes, how much is the stability of the community in which you live and where your friends and neighbors rely on our rent protections worth?

One thing’s for sure — if rent control in Hoboken goes the way of the dinosaur,there will be a mass exodus of all but the wealthiest among us.  That massexodus may well include you.

And if we don’t do everything we can to make sure the election that we already won stands — to protect the sanctity of the democratic process itself — then thewhole meaning and purpose of a democratic election becomes “fungible” –manipulable by those with the deepest pockets.

If a special election is held on the rent-control question, it will bemanipulated, one way or another — bent to the desired results of MSTA and itsattorneys.  And they have no interest in what is best for Hoboken.  Their membership consists largely of outside developers.

So, once again, we want to urge everyone reading this — you, and you, and you — to, at the very least,  join Hoboken Fair Housing Association if you are notalready a member.  It’s 25 bucks a year.  You’ll automatically gain membershipto NJTO, the New Jersey Tenant’s Organization.  (They’re the ones responsiblefor the fact that our state is one of only a few in this country that still hasfunctioning rent control.)

If you can’t afford that, we want to urge you to contribute five dollars.  Twenty folks donating five dollars gives us $100 that we didn’t previously haveto fight this legal travesty.

And if you are already a member or if you can give more — how much is yourrent-controlled dwelling-place worth? — please do that.

After all, if you don’t help us build strong rent-control protections ina 1.3-square-mile town swarming with big landlords, realtors and developerschomping at the bit for stratospheric rents, who will ?

Help us continue to fight for LOCAL DEMOCRACY and

Rent Control protections alike.

PLEASE MAKE A CONTRIBUTION BY

USING THE PayPal “Donate” BUTTON ABOVE

We don’t think you’ll regret it.  In fact, we think it’ll help you enjoy the month of May knowing you’ve done the right thing.

HFHA SUPPORTS APPEAL FILED TO REINSTATE

WRONGLY OVERTURNED ELECTION

With the full support of Hoboken Fair Housing Association, Ms. Cheryl Fallick has filed an appeal of New Jersey Superior Court Judge Christine Farrington’s ruling to overturn the results of last November’s vote on Hoboken Public Question # 2 (HPQ2).

Ms. Fallick was the campaign manager for HFHA’s successful effort to defeat HPQ2, a ballot initiative sponsored by a small well-funded group of landlords, developers and realtors, the Mile Square Taxpayers Association (MSTA), that asked voters to approve the elimination of Hoboken Rent Control protections for all new tenants.  The judge’s ruling revokes the certified results and orders a re-vote to be held on either November 5, 2013 or in an earlier special election.

This outrageous ruling not only undermines the democratic will of the majority who voted to continue rent control protections, it also disenfranchises all of the 16,444 citizens that voted on HPQ2.

When the results were in on election night, the “NO” vote prevailed on the machines by 560 votes.  After the Vote-by-Mail ballots were counted, the lead dropped, but HPQ2 was still defeated by 52 votes.  The final tally was 8,248 to 8,196. In December, fifteen supporters of MSTA filed an election contest to overturn the result.

Ms. Fallick originally filed a motion pro se (without an attorney) to intervene in this case because HFHA lacked funds to afford legal representation.  Ms. Fallick’s position was that she had a separate and substantial interest in the outcome of the election contest, and that neither her own interests nor those of HFHA and the 8,248 residents that voted to maintain existing rent control protections were being adequately represented by defendants specified by the MSTA lawsuit.  These defendants, the City of Hoboken, Hudson County, and the State of New Jersey, stated that they had no interest in the election outcome but only a fair election result.

By denying Ms. Fallick the right to intervene, Judge Farrington denied the voters of Hoboken the right to have representation that would have demanded an evidentiary hearing and questioned Hoboken’s vote-by-mail tally.  Unfortunately, neither the defendants nor the Judge challenged the flawed arguments or lack of legitimate evidence that the MSTA plaintiffs presented to the Court to support their motion to overturn the election.

It is HFHA’s position that Judge Farrington’s ruling to overturn the election result is legally and factually wrong and is based on the false assertion that 114 voters who voted provisionally outside of Hoboken were denied their right to vote on HPQ2.  Neither the Judge nor the defendants questioned the plaintiffs’ false claim that these voters had the right to vote outside of Hoboken on a Hoboken issue.

Hoboken Fair Housing Association believes that the originally certified election results defeating HPQ2 represents the true will of the citizens of Hoboken; we call upon the State of New Jersey, the County of Hudson and the City of Hoboken to immediately join Ms. Fallick in appealing Judge Farrington’s inappropriate ruling and demonstrate that they truly are interested, as they have claimed, in a fair election result.

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NOW YOU CAN READ THE COURT TRANSCRIPTS:  After lengthy delays from the court, a transcript of the case that tries to “set aside” a Hoboken election result has finally been made available.   You can read it yourself here.

You can also read here the transcript of the hearing in which HFHA’s Cheryl Fallick was outrageously denied standing to intervene in that case.

  AN APPEAL

To All of You Who Support REAL DEMOCRACY

AS WELL AS Rent Control Protections

This past election day—with a full ballot of candidates from U.S. president to local school board, an array of state and municipal questions and a rent-control ballot question cynically worded to deceive voters into thinking a “yes” vote was a vote for rent control when in fact voting “yes” was to vote against it—the pro-rent control forces prevailed, by 560 votes “on the machines,” as they say.

We won Hoboken Public Question Number 2.

Of course the “machine votes”—that is, the votes of you and I who go to the polls—really don’t win elections.  The absentee votes, the vote-by-mails (VBMs)—hundreds, sometimes thousands of them—harvested from employees, seniors and subsidized-housing tenants—these are what decide elections.

And in the election of November 6, 2012, once those votes were counted, the pro-tenant lead had mysteriously slimmed from 560 to just 52 votes.  Close, yes. 

But we still won.

But MSTA is nothing if not a bunch of very sore losers.  Mile Square Taxpayers Association (Hoboken’s notorious big-landlords group) has taken—yet again—to the courts (here is a PDF of their embarrassingly shoddy brief) to attempt to do there what they couldn’t do at the polls—even after having been granted the gift of an extended deadline for submission of VBMs by an extra thirteen days, until Friday, Nov. 19th.

MSTA’s attorneys—Sean Smith and Charles Gormally—now contend that the vote should be overturned because (1) the sample ballots were sent out too late; and (2)  the Hudson County Clerk improperly rejected, they say, more than 53 valid VBMs that supposedly voted in favor of Hoboken Public Question No. 2.

We say, “bull.”

Our position is simple:

• No. 1 is plain insane because if it were found to be true it would invalidate the entire election.

• There’s always a small percentage of VBMs that are rejected, for various reasons.  MSTA insists that 53 of these votes were rejected unfairly, and that those 53 votes are “yes” votes—anti-rent-control votes—on HPQ#2.

We have to ask:  How does MSTA know how people voted?  Have they seen these absentee ballots?  And if they have—why, how have they been given access to voter’s confidential ballots?

Maybe they know because they recognize the names and they know what they paid—X number of dollars for X number of “yes” votes—and the math isn’t adding up. Oh, but wait—that sort of thing could never happen in Hoboken, could it?

How many times will they get away with trying to steal this election?

First they word the ballot question so that people would think it protects rent control rather than destroys it.

Then they manipulate the timing of the court proceedings on the subject of the wording so as to ensure that the tenants don’t have a real voice in the matter.

Then they hand out flyers urging tenants to vote yes on question 2 because it supposedly protects them (even though it puts them in extreme danger of losing their homes).

Then, after they lose the election, they go to court to try to undo the democratic process.

In an attempt to defend the votes of 8,248 resident Hoboken voters, tenant activist and campaign manager for Hoboken Fair Housing Association, Cheryl Fallick,  filed, pro se, a motion to intervene and dismiss (PDF) this ridiculous case with a brief so well written that Judge Christine Farrington actually complimented her on it and her arguments, but then dismissed her motion and denied her from having any presence at the next hearing because, in the judge’s view, Ms. Fallick had no “unique stake” in the legal challenge.

Matt Shapiro of the New Jersey Tenants Organization had this to say about the Judge’s ruling:

Consider, if you will, the analogous situation of a losing candidate for office who files a legal challenge to the election result. Would any judge even think twice about allowing the winning candidate to become a party to the case? Not in a million years.  Prohibiting Ms. Fallick from becoming a party in this case is a clear miscarriage of justice.

The reason Ms. Fallick filed a motion to intervene and dismiss pro se is because HFHA didn’t have the money to pay an attorney for this action.  Unlike MSTA, we don’t keep attorneys on perpetual retainer.

In order for us to fight this assault on one of our most basic constitutional rights, we are appealing to everyone reading this to please join Hoboken Fair Housing Association as a member for $25, or donate whatever you can toward the hiring of an election-law lawyer. 

Just five or ten dollars

from several of YOU is everything to US.

If you are capable of larger amounts, consider the importance of this cause, and contribute accordingly.

Every single one of the 8,248 residents who voted to maintain rent control protections for themselves and their neighbors will have their vote reversed, abused and disenfranchised by this insulting, frivolous litigation.

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN IN HOBOKEN! 

Help us fight for LOCAL DEMOCRACY and Rent Control protections alike. 

PLEASE MAKE A CONTRIBUTION BY

USING THE PayPal “Donate” BUTTON ABOVE.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Wednesday October 24, 2012, DAN TUMPSON of HFHA and MATT SHAPIRO of NJTO — the New Jersey Tenants Organization — debated Ron Simoncini and Charles Gormally, lobbyists for the Mile Square Taxpayers Association.  The debate was sponsered by the Hoboken Quality of Life Coalition and can be seen in its entirety on their website.

One side beat the other hands down.  Which side was that, you ask?  We’ll let you decide.

Hoboken Fair Housing Association would like to extend a very big THANK YOU! to Mayor Dawn Zimmer for her endorsement of the “NO” vote on “HOBOKEN PUBLIC QUESTION #2″ to SAVE RENT CONTROL in the upcoming November 6th, 2012 election.

The Mayor made her statement in a Letter to the Editor of the October 14th, 2012 edition of the Hoboken Reporter:

“Hoboken Ballot Question 2 is a proposal to move our rent control system toward vacancy decontrol.  While the details are too complicated to explain in a  short letter, I do not feel that the proposal contains sufficient protections to  ensure that existing tenants are treated properly.  While the proposal does  contain some penalties for the harassment of tenants, the penalties  are, in my  opinion, relatively toothless and an insufficient deterrent in light of the  substantial financial incentives in the proposal to create apartment vacancies.  I will therefore be voting NO on Hoboken Ballot Question 2.”

Ms. Mayor, you have made the right choice to protect the stability and integrity of our special city, for the betterment of every citizen—renters and owners.

Read the Mayor’s entire letter at the Hudson Reporter website.

THANK YOU, MAYOR ZIMMER!

HFHA would ALSO like to thank Hoboken City Council members Theresa Castellano, Dave Mello, Ravi Bhalla and Jim Doyle for publicly taking a stand AGAINST changes in Hoboken’s rent-control ordinance.  They will all be voting “NO” on “HOBOKEN PUBLIC QUESTION #2″ to SAVE RENT CONTROL!

THANK YOU, Council Members!

*      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

And a super thanks to everyone who came out for our “Delivered Vacant” screening and to support the crucial ongoing cause of saving rent control protections in Hoboken.

We all saw again the enormous power and relevance for today of that film and its companion piece “Hoboken Waterfront Referendum.”

Thanks especially to Joe Della Fave for an enlightening, authentic and heartfelt perspective from someone who lived this local history and shaped it for the better.

We’re going to win the vote on November 6, but we need you to help make that win happen: Vote “NO” on “HOBOKEN PUBLIC QUESTION #2″ to SAVE rent control in our town. As Joe said and as the film showed us, as few as a dozen votes can make the all the difference in the world.

Nora Jacobson’s Delivered Vacant, the movie the New York Times called “a story of greed, hope, political action, bewilderment, free enterprise, idealism and rampant opportunism” will be shown at the Community Church, 606 Garden Street on Saturday, October 20 at 7pm.

Also screening will be the WORLD PREMIERE of the unreleased 35-minute Jacobson documentary film on the first waterfront referendum when Hoboken voters rejected the Port Authority’s massive development in favor of a what is now Pier A park by twelve votes.

Both films are being shown as a fundraiser for Hoboken Fair Housing Association, a citizen-activist group dedicated to protecting rent control.

From Delivered Vacant

Don’t You DARE miss

the Hoboken Fair Housing Association’s

SAVE RENT CONTROL

Maxwell’s Blow-Out MUSIC BASH!!!

Thursday ROCKtober 25th, 7 p.m.

A benefit for the Hoboken Fair Housing Association

and to get out the “NO” Vote on election day!

URGENT VOTE COMING NOVEMBER 6TH, 2012

ON RENT CONTROL PROTECTIONS

If you are visiting this website for the first time, the most important thing you need to know is that there is a CRUCIAL VOTE coming up in Hoboken on November 6th, 2012.

Rent Control and your affordable apartment are under attack. 

On November 6th, the day of the presidential election, there will be an initiative on the ballot  that calls for the COMPLETE and immediate destruction of Hobokens’s longstanding rent control protections.

You can read the actual Rent Control amendment proposed by a local landlords’ group here (pdf).

Rents could be doubled, even tripled.

Most CURRENT tenants will still be protected (until you move out of your apt.), but for current tenants, there is now a target on your back:  think about it — you’re the only thing standing between your landlord and the enormous rents he wants and will be able to get if this passes.

THIS INITIATIVE MUST BE VOTED DOWN.

Hoboken is facing an emergency.

HFHA needs your help with getting this message out to EVERYONE in town, and with “d2d” — our door-to-door informational, membership and voter-registration drive.

If you can help, please contact us at:

hobokenfairhousing@gmail.com

and join our Facebook page (friend us) at:

https://www.facebook.com/hobokenfairhousing

Stay tuned for another EMERGENCY TENANTS MEETING.  Our next meeting will be a strategy session for our door-to-door informational and membership drive.

We all need to shed our naivite NOW about what’s happening to us and to our town.

We need to become an active CITYWIDE tenants group movement.

There are more tenants than landlords in Hoboken.  Let’s get the word out now.

But we need YOUR help.

We now have a video interview on our Vimeo page with Rebecca Lewis, who recounts her experiences with landlord harrassment.

Landlord harrassment could become a major problem in Hoboken if on election day — November 6, 2012 — the proposal to kill rent control that will be on the ballot isn’t voted down.

EMERGENCY  POST

     Rent Control in Hoboken is under IMMEDIATE THREAT

Tenants Beware:  The Mile Square Taxpayers Association (“MSTA”) is a group of wealthy and politically connected Hoboken landlords and developers. A few years ago they hired a two-man hit team to destroy Rent Control (“RC”).

This hit team is attorney Charles Gormally, from a law firm in Roseland, NJ (Brach Eichler), and Public Relations mouthpiece Ron Simoncini, who runs a PR/Marketing company in Secaucus (Axiom Media).  Their history is that they’ve gone from town to town in NJ destroying RC.

Simoncini is at every city council meeting, hounding and filibustering the council with never-ending lies and distortions.

Gormally was responsible for getting a judge to allow him to have the wording of the interpretive statement to the RC question on last November’s ballot changed, so that a counter-intuitive “yes” vote was needed to vote  *against*  their RC-weakening changes. This was a completely cynical move to trick the voter. And it worked for them, and against us. Hoboken renters lost that vote. RC was weakened.

Now they want to take it all the way.

Specifically, last week they submitted signatures to the city clerk for an anti-RC initiative. This initiative will almost certainly go on the ballot in the presidential election on November 6th, 2012, to be voted on by the Hoboken voters.

The intiative’s items:

(1) PERMANENT VACANCY DECONTROL FOR 1-4 BUILDINGS.  When a tenant vacates either a condo or a building with 4 units or less, that unit will be permanently exempt from RC.

This means that if you currently rent a unit in a building with 4 units or less, including condos, your unit has rent control only as long as you live there.

If you currently live in an owner/occupied building with 3 units or less, the landlord can ask you to leave in 60 days without cause. Although that’s always been true, if this gets passed, and your landlord believes that s/he can get more rent for your unit, your landlord is going to want to get you out as soon as possible.

(2) THE SKY’S THE LIMIT.  Their 2nd item is worded somewhat differently, but it’s basically the same thing: For larger buildings, complete Vacancy Decontrol instead of the current Vacancy Decontrol once every 3 years with a 25% limit.

Once a tenant moves out, the landlord can charge whatever he wants. They call this made-up rent a “mutually agreeable level between the landlord and the propsed tenant,” but all it really means is if a “proposed tenant” doesn’t agree, that proposed tenant won’t get the apartment.

It also says these RC-exemptions can only happen “upon the voluntary, un-coerced vacation” of the previous tenant, but then says the determination of no harassment is A STATEMENT BY THE OWNER OR MANAGER.

Don’t just believe us: you can read the initiative yourself on the MSTA website:

http://hobokenmsta.com/pdfs/Vacancy_Decontrol_Amendment.pdf

Think this doesn’t affect you because you already pay 2 grand a month? Think again: THEY KNOW THEY CAN GET $3500 A MONTH, or more!

If your rent is below the maximum an owner can charge, that gives them A LOT OF MOTIVATION to get you out. The lower your rent, the greater their motivation.

IN SHORT, they want:

* To eliminate rent control altogether for smaller buildings (1-4 units) (Goodbye unless you’re VERY rich);

* Complete vacancy decontrol in larger buildings (5 & up) — Each time a tenant moves, the rent goes up to whatever the landlord can get — no limit at all!

Do you think the landlord might have a reason to get you out of your affordable rental home?

Do you feel that “bulls eye” on your back?

This will be the effective end of rent control in Hoboken.

We need a massive townwide tenants organization to fight this, not just a few volunteers.

If you care about your rental home, vote “NO” on “HOBOKEN PUBLIC QUESTION #2″ on election day, Novembr 6, 2012.

Please friend us on Facebook, join the discussion, and help us organize:
https://www.facebook.com/hobokenfairhousing

 Tenants:  Know Your Rights!

Hoboken tenants are being given leases that are not legal.

Before you sign a lease, make sure it follows New Jersey state law.

If you rent a unit in a building with more than three units, and your unit is neither a condo nor a co-op, if you are given a lease stating that your unit is about to be converted to a condo, if that lease claims IN ANY WAY that your tenancy can be terminated upon sixty days’ notice, IT IS MOST LIKELY ILLEGAL.

Such leases are currently being given to tenants in Hoboken.

If your unit is neither a condo nor a co-op, even if there are plans to convert your unit to a  condo or co-op, these are NOT grounds for a 60-day eviction.  The state of New Jersey has clear laws that detail the exact process for condo-conversion.

Such a notice of 60-day termination can only be given to a tenant whose initial tenancy began after the recording of either the condominium master deed or the agreement establishing the co-operative.

For these post-conversion tenants (or prospective tenants), the 60-day notice must also be given as a separate statement, in addition to being in the lease.

Here is a link to the full text of the New Jersey Eviction Law.  For the laws regarding condo rentals, see Section 2A:18-61.9, Notice to tenant after master deed or agreement to establish cooperative.

If you have questions about any of the above, call NJTO — the New Jersey Tenants Organization, at 201-342-3775, or e-mail the Hoboken Fair Housing Association at hobokenfairhousing@gmail.com.

Know Your Rights.

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Hoboken Rent Leveling Board meeting videos now online

Hoboken Fair Housing Association has made available online videos of the meetings of the Rent Leveling and Stabilization Board for the following dates (and for all of the more recent meetings not listed here):

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Wednesday, June 13, 2012 (3 separate videos)

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

For ALL of the more recent meetings, interviews with tenants, urgent exhortations from “Granny Violin”and to watch our recent Willie McBride’s music rally and benefit, go to

the HFHA Vimeo site

You can click on the above links to the videos and, in each case, watch the video of the entire meeting. Big thanks to Joel for recording the meetings.

Why not bookmark HFHA’s Vimeo.com page and see all of our videos when they’re posted?

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