As North Bergen introduced a measure to lease the townships portion of the sewer system to the municipal utilities authority (MUA) for $38 million, a faction of Assemblyman Larry Wainstein (D-33) supporters brought the fight to Mayor Nick Sacco and the commissioners.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
At this afternoon’s special meeting, the North Bergen Board of Commissioners unanimously introduced (5-0) an ordinance that would authorize a lease agreement with the MUA.
“North Bergen has become burdened by the increasing costs associated with operating and maintaining the Township system and has determined that transferring operation of said system to the MUA will relieve it of those financial and operational burdens,” the ordinance says.
The ordinance also the MUA will benefit from this because it allows them to operate, maintain, and manage the entire sewer system in North Bergen, with the the MUA issuing bonds and notes for the $38 million through the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank to finance the lease payments to the township.
Public comment was far more hostile than usual during the roughly half hour-long public session, with speakers refusing to let Township Counsel Tom Kobin speak at certain points.
Resident Edward “Bo” Scannavino began by chiding the commissioners for starting the meeting late and keeping couples who were in the Municipal Chambers to get married afterwards waiting, before addressing the proposed lease agreement with the MUA.
He also took issue that he was only handed the agreements consisting of hundreds of pages at 12:30 p.m. before the 1 p.m. meeting was set to start.
Scannavino turned his questions to Sacco to ask if he read it, who sat in silence and smiled amid his comments.
“Could you read all this mayor? Hey, can you hear me? Can you see me?” he exclaimed.
As Scannavino teetered towards disrespect, Kobin then said to direct any comments to him, but Scannavino persisted that he had questions he wanted Sacco to answer.
When Kobin said he would answer any of Scannavino’s questions, Scannavino insisted he was taking up his five minutes of public comment time, so Kobin replied that he would respond after.
Sacco eventually answered Scannavino that he had not read the full lease agreement, but Kobin and Township Administrator Janet Castro then interjected that the mayor was briefed on everything in the lease agreement.
“You know what’s in the package,” Castro told Sacco, also responding to Scannavino that the mayor understands the lease despite not reading every single page.
But that wasn’t enough for Scannavino, who continued grilling Sacco, Kobin, and even Castro.
“What’s here, 100 pages? You didn’t read it? You didn’t see it? You don’t know what you’re going to sign?” Scannavino questioned.
Kobin quipped back: “The mayor’s fully briefed on it.”
However, Scannavino ignored Kobin and insisted that the mayor didn’t know who was going to “pay back” the $38 million in the lease agreement.
When Scannavino asked Sacco who made the deal with the MUA, Kobin again sought to answer, but Scannavino demanded a direct answer from Sacco.
Regardless, Kobin again said he would answer all questions at the end of public comment, to which Scannavino made further derogatory comments towards Kobin and Sacco.
“You can respond to the judge when I ask the mayor a question and you answer,” Scannavino said.
Kobin didn’t miss a step, replying: “The mayor doesn’t have to respond to you. I’ll respond to all the public comments.”
“What I hear about you in the street, I wouldn’t trust you with a dog’s meal,” Scannavino chided back a short time later.
Kobin wanted to keep Scannavino’s comments moving, but Scannavino had a rebuttal for seemingly every word, insisting he was making “true statements.”
“So you’re all going to vote for the $38 million settlement, okay? It’s like the closing of a piece of property. They’re buying it from us, and we’re going to collect the money from them monthly? What if they don’t pay?” he questioned.
“How are you going to vote on it? No one read it.”
Scannavino was finally ready for Kobin to respond, but he deferred until all other speakers had aired their grievances.
Further, Kobin told Scannavino they had answers they would share with him when he was done with his tirade, but Scannavino wasn’t having it, asking: “Mayor, are you feeling that sick that you can’t even answer the questions?”
“The mayor’s fine, Bo. We’re going to conduct the public meeting in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act,” Kobin quipped back.
Scannavino then intensified his questioning toward Kobin and Sacco: “Are you a doctor now? I’m asking the mayor if he’s well enough to be answering the questions.”
“It’s an inappropriate question. Ask whatever you want, and we’ll respond when you’re all done,” Kobin said, holding the line.
Scannavino still did not yield the podium, attacking Sacco further and recalling the decades of bad blood between the political adversaries.
“What do you got? No answers at all? You haven’t changed in 40 years. Remember 40 years ago, I stood here questioning you and you wouldn’t answer questions? This time we’re prepared to take you to court and make you answer.”
Some North Bergen residents, like Diana Ortiz, opted to speak on the topic in Spanish only since she said the majority of the people in the Township speak Spanish.
Responding to concerns from the audience, Kobin said he would have other township staff translate for him to get answers for them.
Jonathan Moya, Wainstein’s Chief of Staff who also sits on the North Bergen Housing Authority board, then also grilled Sacco about if taxes were going to go up because of the bond, to which Kobin repeated that he would address everything at the end.
He brought up how the 2026 budget totaling about $122 million that he said included a 3.5 percent tax increase, and inquired if this would lead to further increases.
“I want their answers. I want to hear from you. We elected you. We voted for you guys. Well I didn’t vote for them but apparently they won. Who knows how?” Moya asked.
Sacco finally responded that they won by getting more votes than their competitors, to which Moya asserted Sacco “knew how he got them.”
“I don’t want to speak about the votes. You’re done. That’s it. I just have a question: are our taxes going to go up because of this bond? Yes or no? Who approved this lease agreement? Is it the state or regulatory committee? Who? Do you know?” Moya continued.
Kobin said he does know, to which Moya demanded to know who, but Kobin refused until after public comment.
Moya then asked for the total price of this including interest, asserting it could be “another one of his hidden taxes.”
“Every year since you got elected, you raised our taxes. Are you going to do it again? Can you say yes or no right now, mayor?” Moya inquired.
After Moya, the board closed public comment and Kobin sought to address residents concerns, however it did not go as planned due to Scannavino’s persistent interruptions.
“Do you want me to answer?” Kobin asked.
“Yes, just have respect, but don’t lie. Tell the truth,” Scannavino shot back.
As Kobin started to talk, he was interrupted again, prompting him to tell the crowd he would sit in silence until the commotion stopped.
This went on for several minutes, drawing the frustration of Kobin and even Castro as he attempted to answer resident questions amid constant interjections.
“Do you want to hear the responses to your questions? You guys obviously just want a dog-and-pony show, so you just want to do your comments but not hear the answers,” Kobin declared.
Scannavino made an additional comments about Kobin receiving a “big, fat check” and “having an itchy leg” among other wise-crack remarks before he was silent enough for Kobin to continue.
According to Kobin, the township is not required to distribute the lease prior to the ordinance’s introduction, only afterwards, but did so anyway because “it’s a good deal for the town.”
“We got nothing to hide whatsoever. This is a good deal for the town. Parts of the sewer system are owned by the MUA. Part of the sewer system are owned by the town. It’s a totally inefficient operation,” Kobin expressed.
He continued that the town spends a lot of money on the aging sewer system to the tune of nearly $500,000 yearly on repairs.
“We do projects to improve it, but we also have to spend a lot of money on emergency repairs and things of that nature. So a lot of money gets invested in that,” Kobin declared.
“And the idea here is transfer the sewer system to the MUA and have one entity operate the sewer system. That’s going to generate a lot of efficiencies with the sewer system.”
In addition, Kobin said this will allow the MUA to bond at better rates through the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank and get favorable interest rates to do projects on the sewer system and improve it over time to get ahead of emergency repairs.
“That’s going to save money over the course of like the next 30 years time: It’s going to save a lot of money having these efficiencies realized.”
Since the sewer system has a lot of value, the township isn’t just transferring it to the MUA, as the authority will be paying lease payments to the township for the sewer assets. Kobin also said state funding isn’t what is used to be when Sacco was in the state Senate.
“We’ve lost a lot of revenue from the state since the mayor was in the Senate. Since the mayor’s been out of the Senate, we’re not getting money from the state, to the tune of over $10 million a year, we’ve lost. So we’re getting less too because of our representatives down in Trenton are not bringing in money. So we had to do something,” he declared, taking aim at Wainstein.
This prompted Moya to yell from his seat that Wainstein’s office reached out to Castro, but their email was not acknowledged to which Castro said they did communicate back, all while Kobin continued to pile on the freshman assemblyman.
“We have to fill a hole from this money that we lost, okay … because we’re not getting the money from Trenton and we have to fill that gap,” the township attorney added.
Moya argued that the cost of living has gone up under President Donald Trump (R), chiding Sacco and the commissioners for endorsing Jack Ciattarelli for governor last year, claiming North Bergen would have lost even more money if he had beaten Mikie Sherrill.
“You can’t tell me I know it, I think we would have got more,” responded Department of Public Works Commissioner Anthony Vainieri, a former chair of the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO).
In the fact of more heckling, Kobin continued that the funds from the lease agreement would help fill the gap left by Sacco’s absence in and Wainstein’s presence in Trenton as the funds are infused into the budget over time.
“Mayor Sacco and the Commissioners’ top priority is making North Bergen more affordable and it’s absolutely outrageous to see disgruntled political opponents like Bo Scannavino and his allies try to sabotage this plan to save local taxpayers millions of dollars,” declared North Bergen spokesman Phil Swibinski.
“Scannavino is a longtime political opponent of the Sacco administration who has unsuccessfully run for local office multiple times and hasn’t even lived in North Bergen in many years — he has zero credibility.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Thursday with a statement from North Bergen spokesman Phil Swibinski.
