Ramy Walks the Beat E13.S1

NJ.com reported on the Hudson County proposed budget that would increase taxes for six municipalities in the County. The budget will be up for vote during the June 8th Board of Freeholders meeting.

Under the proposed budget North Bergen will see a sight increase of 1% while cities such as Jersey City will see an increase upward of 9%.

Read more at NJ.com

Hudson County View – Claudia Baselice, the top candidate in an election that featured 17 candidates for voters to choose from, scored 3,639 votes on the machines, according to unofficial tallies from the Hudson County Clerk’s Office that do not include absentee or provisional ballots.

Her running mates, Kanaiyalal “Kanu” Patel and Luis Diaz, the latter being the only incumbent in the race, unofficially came away with 3,340 and 3,253 votes, respectively.

The three-person slate, who were all elected to three-year terms on the board, were far ahead of all the other competition.

The Save Our Schools slate, who was endorsed by Sacco’s arch nemesis Larry Wainstein, of Rene Hidalgo-Gatty, Jose Santos and Viviana Salcedo, finished with preliminary vote tallies of 497, 540 and 490.

Read more at HudsonCountyView.com

North Bergen residents received literature of the upcoming April 25th election. “The Team That’s Working with Mayor Sacco to Bring a New High School to North Bergen!,” reads the double-sided flyer.

Up for re-election is Vice President of the Board of Education, Kanu Patel, and board member Luis Diaz. Claudia Baselice is the newcomer. HudPost reached out to the candidates, however, they were not available for comment.

“Our kids are doing incredibly well, especially given the lack of resources our district has had to deal with due to lack of state aid funding. They will be able to achieve even more with a new High School and smaller class sizes,” says Mayor Nicholas Sacco.

The flyer states the new high school will save tax payers $150 million dollars by converting the current High Tech High School into a new North Bergen High School by 2019.

There are 17 candidates running this election – a significant difference from last year’s unopposed election of Patricia Bartoli, Luis Rabelo, and Sai Rao.

• Claudia Baselice 1A

• Elizabeth DeMarchena 2A

• Raquel Soutuyo 3A

• Kanaiyalal Patel 4A

• Luis Diaz 5A

• Jesse Moya 6A

• Gregory Segovia 7A

• Ana Gomez 8A

• Zeneida Larios 9A

• Alexandra Sherlock 10A

• Gustavo Gomez 11A

• Kathleen Lagomarsino 12A

• Mercy Trujillo 13A

• Rene L. Hidalgo-Gatty 14A

• Jose Santos 15A

• Viviana Salcedo 16A

• John Toomey 17A

Three candidates were recently backed by unsuccessful 2015 mayoral candidate, Larry Wainstien – Jose Santos, Viviana Salcedo, and Rene Hidalgo-Gatty.

The election will be held on Tuesday, April 25th from 2:00PM – 8:00PM.

“It’s time we have truth and honesty in the North Bergen school system. We currently have board members that are involved for the wrong reasons,” says Larry Wainstein in a new ad for the April 25th Board of Education election. “They shouldn’t be on the government payroll and they shouldn’t be reporting to boss Sacco.”

The videos were posted Monday April 10th from Wainstein’s YouTube account. In total, 8 videos were posted half in English and the others in Spanish.

The three candidates backed by the millionaire are Viviana Salcedo, Jose Santos, and Rene Hidalgo-Gatty.

“The reason I am running…I’ve been here for the last 20 years. I grew up in North Bergen. I first saw how the education failed me – as a student,” says Salcedo. “I had difficulty actually when I went to college – with the math and writing.”

“Coming to North Bergen for the last two years, I’ve been teaching (martial arts) voluntarily. I want to see kids to be successful,” says Jose Santos. “I’ve been watching the school system and talking to the parents. And things are not going well. The kids need equipment, and new books, and we need to expand the school….they are not using the budget correctly”

“I graduated from North Bergen High School in 2010 – not that long ago. Then I went to Rutgers University, a public school that was very competitive. I graduated with a lot of my friends that came from North Bergen High School,” says Hidalgo-Gatty. “We were all placed in lower level classes…it irritated me because kids from other schools were so far ahead of us. I just wish my high school provide that type of education.”

The election is April 25th from 2:00 PM – 8:00 PM.

I am sorry that Ms. Lynch, President of the North Bergen Federation of Teachers, misunderstood my letter to the editor concerning the reaching of an agreement between the teachers and the Board of Education. Of course no one individual can take credit for bringing the contract negotiations to an end.

As Ms. Lynch points out in her letter, contract negotiations began in January, 2016 and for more than a year the teachers worked without a contract. Also the NBFT reached out to members of the public by handing out flyers to inform the public of the situation of working without a contract.

As a member of the public, I not only received the information contained in the flyers handed out by the NBFT, but I also received requests from untold numbers of teachers as to the conditions facing our teachers and students and requesting that I, as a member of the public, attend the February school board meeting.

The NBFT requested help from the public and, as a member of the public, I responded. I attended and spoke at the February meeting of the Board of Education, on behalf of the teachers, students and the people of North Bergen.

I also wish to reiterate that I sincerely believe that the members of the Board of Education owe their loyalty to the students and teachers and not to a 35-year-old Sacco political organization.

To Ms. Lynch, I say I am sorry you misunderstood my position and I wish you and the NBFT continued success.

Larry Wainstein, North Bergen

“At that meeting I, in my capacity as president, spoke on behalf of the teachers and clerks, not Mr. Wainstein,” writes Elizabeth Lynch, President of the North Bergen Federation of Teachers. “I was very surprised and dismayed to read Larry Wainstein’s letter…taking credit for being the voice of the teachers of North Bergen and for helping to bring the contract negotiations to an end.”

Lynch is referring to Larry Wainstein’s, former Mayoral candidate, letter claiming to be instrumental in the contract agreement between the board of education and teachers’ union. The letter writes, “Nicholas Sacco was forced to settle…because he knows that I was supporting you…he knows I am coming.”

Wainstein’s letter comes after one of his first public appearances in North Bergen after a failed attempted to unseat the current mayor in 2015. During the public meeting, Wainstein referred to the Board of Education as “tools” and suggest all members will be “in front of a grand jury.”

“The North Bergen Federation of Teachers’ (NBFT) negotiating team and the Board of Education’s negotiating team had been meeting regularly since January of 2016 at the time of the February 15th Board meeting attended by Mr.Wainstein,” says Lynch. “The negotiations were very long and at times very contentious and had reached a stalemate towards the end of January 2017.”

“No one individual can rightfully claim credit for bringing complex negotiations to a settlement–it is the result of people who care putting aside their personal agendas and working together to focus on students instead of politics.”

NJ Spotlight – The first element of Gateway, a mission-critical bridge, may not get the needed — and expected — federal funding, possibly derailing entire initiative

Work on a key bridge that’s part of the ambitious Gateway plan to build two new rail tunnels under the Hudson River is supposed to begin this year. But whether that will happen seems up in the air, as the initial preview of President Donald Trump’s first budget has put the project’s substantial federal funding in question.

Read more at NJSpotlight.com