Vijay Chaudhuri, Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla’s chief of staff, received $13,000 from his boss and his council allies during a relatively uneventful first quarter of 2023, reports filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission show.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Bhalla, who is in his second term and not up for re-election until November 2025, reports $130,965.56 cash on hand, though just $6,100 was raised with $14,323.85 spent on the first quarter, according to his April 17th report filed with NJ ELEC.
His donations came from three entities: $2,500 from the New Jersey State Laborers’ PAC, $1,000 from Acting Fire Chief Anton Peskens, and $2,600 from Michael Spears, a North Carolina resident who works for a Bergen County-based company.
Chaudhuri, who earns $135,000 annually at City Hall and also serves as the campaign treasurer for Bhalla and four of his allies on the city council, received $6,000 on February 6th from the mayor for compliance, legal, and accounting services, the report says.
Council President Emily Jabbour paid him $500 for accounting services and then an additional $1,500 for a campaign manager expense related to their November 2021 mayor and council-at-large races.
Councilmen-at-Large Jim Doyle and Jim Quintero also reported the same identical expenses, while 5th Ward Councilman Phil Cohen paid $1,000 for compliance/accounting.
Also of note, Jabbour, Doyle, and Quintero paid Rob Horowitz, of Rhode Island-based Rob Horowitz and Associates, $1,500 for research and polling, while Cohen paid him $1,600 and Bhalla wrote a check of $5,000, for a total of $11,100.
The biggest flux of campaign cash is flowing into the 5th Ward.
While Cohen only raised $2,050 in Q1, he has a hefty $36,829.28 cash on hand, according to his April 17th campaign finance report.
His declared challenger, Liz Urtecho, raised the most of any Hoboken council member of candidate in Q1, bringing in $16,928.94 – which includes a $3,000 loan – and $11,268.31 cash on hand, her April 14th ELEC report shows.
2nd Ward Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher reported $5,763.13 cash on hand as of April 15th, which includes a $2,500 loan.
4th Ward Councilman Ruben Ramos, who just held his campaign kickoff on Thursday, reports $8,522.98 cash on hand, while 1st Ward council challenger Paul Presinzano has a similar early war chest: $8,170.70, according to their respective ELEC reports.
No one else on the city council had a report available on NJ ELEC’s website as of Monday evening.
The non-partisan Hoboken City Council races for the six ward seats are set for November 7th.
People need to wake up and realize that the reason this gang doesn’t care about this town becoming more unafforadable in so many different ways is that they keep giving each other money when it becomes more unaffordable! Anyone notice they don’t really care about renters? Anyone notice you can’t afford to keep a car in town but they give each other money and can thus afford their own private parking spot’s? Anyone notice there are no summer recreation programs for families again this year aside from what was in place already, absolutely nothing that was promised? Wonder why? Maybe they want to keep the poor in one part of town so they don’t have to work in summer despite their high salaries to work year round. In about 100 ways they don’t care, they don’t want town to be affordable to those making a normal salary and even those who supported then before need to speak against this. While this is my personal opinion I keep hearing it and now believe it until things really change.
Vanity poser boy Mike DeFusco who never met a beach selfie he didnt like ( of himself) is so upset that he wasn’t listed in this article!
Just because he was travelling ( for his very important job in marketing at CBS ) and running a hotel on Park Ave I Hoboken ( out of his condo) is no reason that he was not acknowledged- after all we are sure Mike would love to hire Vijay now that Mike is part of Team Bhalla’s pack of nasty bros
Who is that uber rich far right Republican who wants to but the First Ward City Council seat ?
Could he behind all the anti DeFusco hate?
The guy who made that fake terror flier making it looks like Mike was racist? Wasn’t that one of the mayors employees?
Russo has been kicked to the curb (until further notice), they needed another vote and DeFusco’s was most readily available. In exchange for that newfound “loyalty” – -DeFusco gets some financial support in the fall.
For the betterment of the city, to give it back to the people rather than the developers and unions who underwrite our current form of government, if you can call it that, we need to vote some of these folks out. Presinzano shows up and offers a point of view that is not in lock step with the administration. Urtecho has to be a major upgrade in the 5th. Let’s start there.
Mayor Bhalla will again NOT run against their BFF Councilman Russo who has signed on to carry carry water on the City Council.
Remember this infamous “You do for me Ido for you”
This guy got us AOC in congress, and should be raked over the coals for that. Naturally he was campaigning against her, but if he was any better at his job she wouldn’t have won, so the point stands.
The dog’s name? Emily.
(Chodereally has a less aggressive female dog too…named Phil.)
Hoboken’s First Family OF Crime rises again