Six candidates have filed for Hoboken mayor, 15 for three city council-at-large seats, and four for a special election to fill the vacant 6th Ward council seat, all of which are non-partisan races on the November 4th ballot.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The candidates seeking to succeed Mayor Ravi Bhalla, a Democratic nominee for state Assembly in the 32nd Legislative District, are 2nd Ward Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher, 3rd Ward Councilman Mike Russo, 4th Ward Councilman Ruben Ramos, Councilwoman-at-Large Emily Jabbour, former U.S. Treasury official Dini Ajmani, and Pat Waiters.
The council members and Ajmani declared their candidates early, all in the first quarter of this year, and while Waiters did not, she has run for nearly every elected office based out of Hoboken multiple times, so her candidacy is not completely unexpected.
For council-at-large race, Council President Jim Doyle is not seeking re-election, while Jabbour is effectively giving up her seat at the expiration of her term to run for mayor.
Therefore, Councilman-at-Large Joe Quintero is the only incumbent seeking another four-year term. He will be on Jabbour’s ticket and his running mates are newcomer Caitlin Lawson and Zoning Board Commissioner Steve Firestone, as they announced in July.
Fisher’s ticket consists of former Councilman-at-Large Dave Mello, Liz Urtecho, and Carter Craft. She is also backing Diane Imus in the 6th Ward race to succeed the late Jen Giattino and Imus has the support of Joe Giattino, Jen’s husband.
As for Russo, who was the first mayoral candidate to unveil his entire slate in June, is running Nicole Magaña, Peter Keeling, and Dean Murray at-large, while also supporting Ryan Cunningham in the 6th Ward.
Meanwhile, Team Ramos’ running mates at-large are Alfredo Veloce, Britta Ouano, and Laura Miani, which he finalized about two weeks ago, while Ajmani is backing Shashi Khemlani, Kim Giddens, Nicholas Gorka.
She had not previously announced Khemlani as a council-at-large candidate.
Additionally, Ian Rintel and Manny Rivera Soler, both who signaled an interest in running weeks ago, filed to run in the 6th Ward.
Since Giattino’s seat has been vacant since her untimely passing last year, whoever runs the four-way dance in the 6th Ward will sit upon the dais immediately.
The filing deadline was Thursday at 4 p.m. and the deadline to cure petitions was yesterday at 4 p.m.
The Hoboken City Clerk’s Office did not respond to emails, calls, or texts seeking the candidate list, which was eventually sent by city spokeswoman Marilyn Baer today after this report tweeted about the situation.
In addition to the gubernatorial race that pits U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11) against former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, neighboring Jersey City also has their mayor and city council races, with a whopping 52 candidates filing for the fall municipal contests.
Dini is running with the secret backing of Dawn Zimmer who fled Hoboken after CarmeloGate at the HHA
Dini had a hard time finding a 3rd council member so she called Dawn and Stan for help
They in turn called HCDO and Craig Guy operative Jenny Davis ( zimmers former campaign manager)
Jenny went through the Puppets they had on h
and and offered up Shashi Khemlani
Nice to know the HCDO is finally concerned about Hoboken
we almost thought they were against building our flood Walls or allowing us to build affordable housing along the western edge.
So nice to see that Dini is going with these fiscal conservatives at the HCDO to help. Maybe she can ask them to cut the county taxes too.