LETTER: Here’s why I feel that Mike Russo should not be Hoboken’s next mayor

In a letter to the editor, Hoboken 2nd Ward Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher, a mayoral candidate, stakes her claim on why 3rd Ward Councilman Mike Russo should not be the Mile Square City’s next mayor.

Dear Editor,

As I walk around Hoboken and see Mike Russo for Mayor signs hanging from the fences of Applied Properties buildings, I’m reminded why he cannot be our next mayor.

Behind the slogans, smiles, and “relentless positivity” is a long record of backroom politics, developer influence, and self-serving decisions that have hurt Hoboken residents.

In this case, the family behind Applied and Ironstate Properties – Hoboken’s largest landlord and the developer of what was the controversial Monarch project – has donated more than $100,000 to Mike Russo’s campaign and covered their buildings citywide with his campaign signs.

And just this week, they went a step further – emailing their tenants to invite them to a campaign “Meet & Greet” they are hosting for Mike in one of the lobbies of their buildings, a move that has already left many tenants irate.

When landlords who own development sites and thousands of apartments, many that should or soon will be under rent control, use their properties and influence to promote a candidate, it makes clear who that candidate will be aligned with — and it won’t be the residents.

To be fair, I like Mike. He’s always willing to engage, and we’ve agreed and worked together on several important issues over the years. For example, we both care deeply about parking as a quality-of-life issue for residents.

But leading our city, directing resources, setting the agenda, and being mayor requires more than showing up to talk. It demands integrity, independence, and the courage to put residents ahead of political allies and personal interests.

That’s where Mike consistently falls short.

As I speak with more and more people, I’ve learned that for many – like myself – they don’t want to go backwards.

And that Mike Russo is the candidate Hoboken simply cannot afford to make mayor given his record of transactional politics and putting special interests first and residents last. A few more examples.

In 2009, Russo was caught on FBI surveillance offering to sell the influence of his City Council office to Solomon Dwek — the same federal informant who bribed then-Mayor Peter Cammarano and sent him to jail. You can read more about this at RussoCorruption.com.

In 2015, while running unopposed, his campaign paid nearly 250 Housing Authority residents in the 4th and 5th Wards about $18,000 as “campaign workers.” (Source: Russo’s 12/17/2015 ELEC report).

With no race of his own, that money was likely used to help allies, or worse, as similar to the cash-for-votes scheme that sent Frank Raia to prison in 2019.

In that same campaign, Russo hired Arkady, the consulting firm of Sean Caddle — the political operative later sentenced in 2023 for arranging a 2014 murder-for-hire of his business partner. (To be clear, I do not believe Mike had anything to do with that crime.)

In 2021, Russo cut a deal with Mayor Bhalla and his council allies (Emily, Joe, Phil and Jim) to exchange support for the mayor’s agenda (giving Mayor Bhalla a critical 5th vote) for leadership roles on the City Council and having Mayor Bhalla not run an opponent against him in the 3rd Ward race in 2023.

He told me personally, “I don’t know why the rest of you don’t do the same.” That kind of “understanding” keeps the same insiders in power and shuts residents out.

In 2022, he listed business and campaign-funded expenses as personal liabilities on his bankruptcy filing — one of several items the court investigated as potential fraud before removing them from the final settlement.

In 2023, Russo pushed for the city to buy property next to the 2nd & Jefferson firehouse, giving the seller of the property a quick $300,000 profit.

The seller then donated $25,000 to Russo’s campaign (and even more to Mayor Bhalla’s campaign) and was overheard expecting redevelopment rights from Mike in return.

Russo later sought to have the city reappraise the property as if it might be sold back — I stopped it.

And now, as a candidate for mayor, Russo is once again relying on big money from developers, landlords, city vendors and special interests.

Per latest count, over 70 percent of his campaign donations come from these groups — including many who were behind the effort to weaken rent control and some of Hoboken’s largest property owners.

At the Hoboken Library Mayoral Forum, when pressed about this, Mike told the crowd “I don’t have the means to self-fund, so I have to take money like this.”

Read that again.

That’s not independence — that’s self-preservation at the expense of Hoboken residents.

For the past 10 years, I’ve fought to move Hoboken beyond this kind of politics — the deals, the payoffs, the special treatment.

No other candidate for mayor has stood up to corruption and backroom deals the way I have, alongside my late friend and partner in this fight, Jen Giattino.

Together, we’ve demanded transparency and accountability in City Hall because residents deserve a government that works for them.

Hoboken cannot afford to go backward — and it’s not for sale. It’s time for leadership that puts residents first. #TeamTiffanie

Sincerely,

Tiffanie Fisher