On May 2, 2012, the Hoboken City Council passed an Ordinance amending Chapter 68 "Alcoholic Beverages" to change and update the hours of operation of licensed liquor establishments.

Viewing the City Council meeting video, one would tend to believe the City's reason for making the changes “the City Council wishes to more closely align the City's hours of operation for licensed establishments with the modern holidays recognized and celebrated by the City of Hoboken."

There were no public speakers and no substantive discussion among Council members.  Short, sweet, and the ordinance passed on the second reading.  

Upon closer examination of the “well intentioned changes,” Hoboken now has THREE late night bar closings!  Either by accident or design, Thursday night joins Friday and Saturday nights with lucrative 3:00a.m. closings.

Last week, the state Local Finance Board put Hoboken under "supervision," a polite term that sounds better than a limited takeover. This comes two months after the city failed to approve a balanced municipal budget.

While the mayor and the City Council will be able to propose and vote on municipal business, Susan Jacobucci, director of the state Division of Local Government services, will have final approval on all fiscal matters (expenditures above $4,500), union contracts and the hiring and firing of employees.

Kenner, Louisiana Mayor Phil Capitano and representatives from his city were in Hoboken last week to express their appreciation for the residents' charitable donations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Shortly after the hurricane hit in August, the Hoboken City Council voted to "adopt" Kenner, a town of about of 70,000, which is about 15 miles west of New Orleans.

Residents donated baby food, baby wipes, diapers, flashlights, batteries, and a multitude of other supplies. Enough items were collected to fill an 18-wheel tractor trailer.

Last month, Mayor David Roberts and Councilman Michael Russo were part of a large group that embarked on a 30-hour, 1,300-mile journey to Kenner.

HOBOKEN - Standing in front of a mound of earth and plywood that now blocks the entrance to the historic Sybil's Cave, Mayor David Roberts announced that the first phase of the city's plan to reclaim the archeological site is back on course.

Progress on the project to restore the cave on Frank Sinatra Drive, at the foot of the cliff below Stevens Institute, has faced several glitches, including safety concerns, stop-work orders - issued by the city's own construction officials - and insurance concerns from the landowner.

The first phase is estimated to cost between $50,000 and $70,000 and includes 6-foot fencing, an iron gate at the mouth of the cave, a stone replica of the original gothic-style facade, landscaping, and four lights to match those across the street.

HOBOKEN, N.J., June 21 — The Cave of the Sibyl, where Virgil’s prophetess received Aeneas before leading him to the underworld, was a vast cavern in southern Italy with a hundred mouths. When the Sibyl spoke, her words came in a hundred voices.

A cave today in Hoboken has a similar name, but lacks some of the grandeur. The prophetess is spelled “Sybil,” and the cave’s lone mouth was sealed shut this month with loose dirt.

Nearby, teenage skaters show off in a riverside park, and cars dash by on Sinatra Drive, mostly unaware that this 20-foot-deep cave has its own enthralling history, and possibly historical treasure waiting to be found. It was a 19th-century retreat for wealthy New Yorkers who drank from the fresh spring inside the cave, paying a penny a glass for water that was thought to be medicinal.

In 1841, the bloodied body of Mary Cecilia Rogers drifted to shore near the mouth of Sybil’s Cave, and into legend, the subject of a thriller by Edgar Allan Poe. By the late 1950s, the cave and its magnificent facade had disappeared into the rock and shrubbery.

HOBOKEN — Tensions within City Hall exploded into a brawl between the mayor and the city clerk this afternoon, several sources told The Jersey Journal.

But Paul Swibinski, a spokesman for the mayor, denied there was a fight and said it was simply a heated argument between old friends, wildly embellished for political reasons.

Two police cars were dispatched to City Hall in response to reports of a scuffle, but nobody made a formal statement, according to police sources.

According to sources who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, there was an exchange of punches between Mayor David Roberts and City Clerk and School Board President James Farina.

Let's hear how mayor spins it

December 22, 2006 JJ
Letters to the Editor
 
My last letter raised a number of important questions.

1) How long have the apartments owned by Mayor Roberts on First and Monroe streets been vacant rather than be offered to needy families?

2) After all the grandstanding, how many dollars of the mayor's salary have actually been paid to homeless Hobokenites?

3) Exactly how much does Mayor Roberts get annually as his pension? And oh yeah, how much would that pension be if the less than five years he served as a firefighter weren't counted in his municipal service?

These are questions the city's public information officer should be answering.

Mr. Bill Campbell shouldn't be spending his time making legitimate questions about the mayor's finances into political sport. And while he's getting answers to those important questions, let me ask one more: Why does Mr. Campbell, who waxes poetic how wonderful it is to live in Hoboken, choose himself to live in Union City, in direct violation of Hoboken's residency requirement for city employees?

TONY SOARES UNION CITY

Recently, Mayor Roberts made two stunning announcements. The first, that he will no longer accept his $124,000 mayor's salary - Hudson County's highest.

One thing Roberts left out was that he recently started collecting a very large pension from his time served as a firefighter. If my memory serves me correctly those years total about four years tops, the rest served as leaves of absence while he was 6th Ward councilman. But the public pension systems being what they are in New Jersey, Mayor Roberts can now cash out as 16 years served as a councilman. Nice spin.