Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio has asked the office of the state attorney general to step in on the case of alleged fourth ward election fraud, but his reasons for doing so have as much to do with politics as usual in Hoboken as they do the ballots themselves.

"These cases are very difficult because people have their own political motivations," DeFazio said in a phone interview earlier this afternoon.

Last week, the county Board of Elections moved 190 mail-in ballots and four criminal referrals to DeFazio's desk in response to challenges made by the campaign of Mike Lenz, the incumbent who was defeated by Tim Occhipinti in the Nov. 2 election.

In this political season, politicians are earning the contempt of citizen/voters, since they say only what they think constituents want to hear. For example, when I first met former Mayor Peter Cammarano, I suggested that repeated under-budgeting for employee health costs was responsible for Hoboken’s financial issues. His response: He wanted to end those benefits for the Mayor and the Council. He thought that idea would have made him seem unselfish (he was running for council at the time). Well, I know a phony when I meet one, and his remark showed only that he was not to be believed or trusted. Recently, as he was led off to the pen, his attorney announced that he had been abused as a child. As if that gave him license. As our current mayor wrote in a letter The Reporter published on Oct. 10, “the perversion of our government by unscrupulous developers and politicians did not start or end with Peter Cammarano.”

Another phony is 4th Ward councilman Michael Lenz. I first met this career politician in 2001, when he was managing Dave Roberts’ first mayoral campaign. At the time, Roberts’ predecessor was on his way to the slammer. At the campaign’s kickoff, I gave Lenz copies of Common Cause NJ’s draft ordinances to ban “pay-to-play” municipal contracts, suggesting that they serve as the basis of a squeaky-clean campaign. Lenz thanked me, but nothing happened after Roberts won, except that Lenz got a job at City Hall. When a public-spirited citizens’ group got an ordinance banning pay-to-play contracts adopted by referendum, Lenz did nothing to help the effort, but stood aside while suing the city for firing him.

Mayor Zimmer’s last-minute rescinding of layoffs in the police department is little more than a cynical political ploy at election time. Hoboken 4th Ward Councilman Tim Occhipinti called on the mayor to reveal her plans for future layoffs, after Election Day.

“The plan to rescind the layoffs, which the mayor admits she had nothing to do with creating, was accomplished with the sacrifice of veteran police officers and the critical cooperation of the Hoboken Housing Authority (HHA). Both should be commended for their efforts,” said Occhipinti. “Now the mayor should tell Hoboken residents what her layoff plans are for after the November election.”

Occhipinti says the mayor is playing politics with public safety. “First they berated our police force, suggesting the department was bloated and that their layoffs would not affect public safety. Now, after a major public outcry, the mayor has changed her story and is saving the very cops she said we didn’t need. That’s classic political double-speak.”

Two days after her council majority voted against a non-binding rescind order for Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s plan to lay off 18 police officers, Zimmer was hand delivered a letter this morning from Assemblyman Ruben Ramos (D-Hoboken) telling her to pull the plug on the job cuts. Zimmer is in Trenton today and not in City Hall to receive the missive.

“There comes a time in every official’s life when some of the hardest decisions must be made. Often these decisions pit self-interest against providing for the greater good,” Ramos wrote. “I must commend you for your tough stance on this issue, as I know this is not a decision any executive wants to make.”

Hoboken Councilman Michael Lenz is fighting for his all-important, majority-hinging 4th Ward seat in a November special.

And even though he has incumbency, administration support, and financial acumen to spare, he doesn't have 622 absentee ballots before Labor Day.

His opponent, Tim Occhipinti, a newcomer who inherited the betrayed legion of disgraced mayor Peter Cammarano, does. The absentee push in Hoboken - especially since state law loosened restrictions - has notoriously been a slimy, underbelly maneuver that takes advantage of elderly, infirmed, and unwitting participants.

In other instances $35 to $50 ususally does the job, local operatives have admitted.

Appointed to Mayor Dawn Zimmer's ward seat when she took over as mayor, Hoboken Councilman Michael Lenz is running in a special election for the 4th Ward in November.

This won't be his first run at the seat.

In 2001, Lenz was campaign manager for David Roberts's mayoral run.

Shortly following Roberts election win – he was the reform candidate that beat soon-to-be-indicted Mayor Anthony Russo – Lenz was bartering for a job and threatening to run in the 4th, according to one eyewitness. It's a storyline that Lenz disputes and condemns as backtracking into a political ghostland as the campaign accelerates with typical Hoboken viciousness toward Election Day.

Perry Belfiore was another integral part of Team Roberts, and it's mostly his memory at work in reconstructing Lenz's moves on the 2001 political terrain. These days, Belfiore's backing Lenz's opponent in the 4th, Tim Occhipinti.

Belfiore recalls the job-or-else threats that Lenz pushed in 2001, and another job push he made in 2002, stylistics that clash with Lenz's prominent placement as the local brains behind Zimmer's reformer image. It’s that image Lenz's allies intend to burnish in the face of Occhipinti, once a dedicated ally of Mayor Peter Cammarano, who after pleading guilty to taking bribes is on his way to jail.

The Hoboken 4th Ward isn’t easily won. Manhattan by day, Hoboken by night condo owners want dog runs. Project families want someone to acknowledge them even when there isn’t an election.

But this is Hoboken; there’s always an election. Just ask Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who withstood three 4th Ward knock-down drag-outs before running the gauntlet of another three elections to become mayor. She actually lost one of those elections, but took over after Mayor Peter Cammarano’s cup of coffee and arrest.

But after six elections in three years, the mayor now has five votes on the City Council, enough to control most wranglings.

The 4th Ward special election on November 2 will determine who has the vote for a few months until ward elections next May. Zimmer needs the vote to continue to push her agenda through the winter.

Michael Lenz has meandered his way through Hoboken politics since the early 1990s, and now he will return in a pivotal role as the interim City Council representative for the 4th Ward – the powder-keg southwest corner of town where public housing projects meet condo palaces.

He fills the seat that was vacated by new Mayor Dawn Zimmer on Nov. 6.

A special election for the 4th Ward seat will be held with the general election in November 2010, according to the city. And the seat will be up for election again in May of 2011.

Lenz is one of the most controversial figures in town, but after intense debate, procedural protest, and legal consideration, he was appointed to the seat at the seven-hour council meeting this past Monday.

Roberts once called him a 'genius,' Times said some saw him as political 'Karl Rove'

Former Hoboken Board of Education President Michael Lenz was chosen by the City Council Monday night to fill the 4th Ward seat vacated by new Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer.

The 4th Ward is in the southwest part of town -- a politically heated part of town where the public housing projects sit side by side with new luxury condos.

For years, politicians looked askance at the 4th Ward as simply a place to pay low-income residents $40 each to help get out the vote on Election Day. The rest of the year, the thousands of residents of the projects were left to live in poor conditions.

Until the mid 1990s, the ward was represented by political families -- the Francones and the Amatos. "Reform" candidates who lived in the ward like Tony Soares and Ruben Ramos began bringing the problems in the ward to light during that decade, problems like flooding and nebulous public housing wait lists.

11/22/2004
Hoboken Reporter

How quickly they forget

Dear Editor:
 
Selective memory. That phrase characterizes the actions of a small group of "reformers" who were associated with, or ran with me in the 2001 municipal election. Council members Soares and Marsh and former CFO Michael Lenz have been very vocal on the issue of campaign finance reform, practically implying that the former method was corrupt.  In fact, they are actually treading on new levels of hypocrisy by their actions.

City officials were reacting last week to a $183,000 settlement reached in a lawsuit filed by the city's former acting chief financial officer.

Michael Lenz, who was only on the job for around eight months, will be awarded the money in return for dropping his "whistleblower" and defamation suit against the city.

"A lot of statements were made implying that I misled the council or my advice was in some way biased or political, none of which was ever true," said Lenz Thursday. "If others are willing to make me whole financially and put this behind us, then so am I."

Even though the city did not admit wrongdoing, it has agreed to pay a lump sum payment of $150,000 and around $8,000 in lost pension to Lenz. His attorney, David B. Rubin of Metuchen, will collect $25,000 in legal fees.

Lenz has agreed to drop his suit against the City of Hoboken, Mayor David Roberts, Business Administrator Robert Drasheff, and the Roberts-aligned City Council members who first voted for Lenz's termination. Lenz is currently working as the CFO of Mansfield Township, a small town in central New Jersey.

A report from the city's auditors charges that the city's Finance Department miscalculated how much in emergency appropriations would be needed to run the city.

The city's finance director, who was fired by the city three weeks ago, defended himself by saying he was being on the safe side in making sure the city had enough money to pay its bills.

The report was officially filed with the city on June 2 but is dated April 23, 2003.

Last month, the city cited the report as a rationale to fire the city's acting Chief Financial Officer, Michael Lenz, who was also said to be supporting candidates who opposed the mayor's candidates in the May 13 City Council election.

A report from the city's auditors charges that the city's Finance Department miscalculated how much in emergency appropriations would be needed to run the city.

The city's finance director, who was fired by the city three weeks ago, defended himself by saying he was being on the safe side in making sure the city had enough money to pay its bills.

The report was officially filed with the city on June 2 but is dated April 23, 2003.

Last month, the city cited the report as a rationale to fire the city's acting Chief Financial Officer, Michael Lenz, who was also said to be supporting candidates who opposed the mayor's candidates in the May 13 City Council election.

GONE - Michael Lenz, pictured at a recent City Council meeting, was let go this week amid allegations that he mishandled the city's budget. Lenz says that the mayor is just trying to distance himself from a spending increase.

In a somewhat vague statement, the city announced Tuesday that acting Chief Financial Officer Michael Lenz has been terminated as the result of an "internal city investigation" into the city's budgetary process.

"Acting CFO Michael Lenz has been discharged from his official capacity today, May 13, 2003, based on the outcome of an internal investigation supervised by the corporation counsel with the assistance of the city's independent auditors," read a statement released by Bill Campbell, the mayor's spokesperson. Corporation Council Joseph Sherman and auditors from Ernst & Young were charged with undertaking an investigation into the budget. They have recently presented the mayor with what Sherman described as an "interim report."

HOBOKEN - Michael Lenz has been fired as the city's chief financial officer, just eight months after he was hired, it was announced yesterday.

The Election Day announcement came in a one-sentence press release from Mayor David Roberts. He said Lenz "has been discharged.based on the outcome of an internal investigation supervised by the Corporation Counsel with the assistance of the city's independent auditors."

Roberts had ordered the investigation last month after the City Council approved an emergency appropriation of $1.3 million. Roberts said he feared the administration had been misled about its financial situation, although he didn't name anyone he thought might be responsible.

10/28/2001
Hoboken Reporter

Dear Editor:
For the benefit of the public I must expose Mr. Lenz for his misleading statements in recent advertisements and interviews.

Mr Lenz complains about "Big Campaign contributions"
Truth: Mr Lenz had no trouble cashing those checks when he managed our campaign.

Michael Lenz does not have children yet, but when he does, he said, he wants to send them to public school. In Hoboken, this is novel; the school system has long been considered one of the worst in the state. Parents who can avoid it usually do.

And Mr. Lenz, who works in the financial department of a Woodbridge real-estate firm, could afford to send his children to private school. Instead, he ran for the Board of Education. After getting elected last year to a fill an open seat for one year, he won a three-year term on Tuesday. Moreover, his slate, "Choice for Change," unseated an incumbent with 37 years on the board and won two out of the three seats up for grabs this year.

Mr. Lenz and his allies, who had been on the short end of a 5-to-4 split on the nine-member board, now hold the majority.

School board elections may seem like small-potato politics, but in Hoboken, Tuesday's vote was a sea change. For the first time since young, upwardly mobile professionals discovered the charms of this port city in the 1970's, they control the direction of -- and the money and jobs dispensed by -- one of Hoboken's most powerful bodies. And the election came only a week after a referendum in which voters defeated a waterfront redevelopment plan that had divided the city, with some exceptions, into bitter camps of newcomers and natives.