The Hoboken City Council rejected appointed a hearing officer to handle zoning appeals related to outdoor dining for an adjoining bar and club at last night’s meeting.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“Our laws allow for the city council to be the hearing officer if there’s an appeal for an outdoor parklet or outdoor seating and a street-ery. And we also approved this law by a vote of 5-4 to allow for a designee and I just don’t know why we have to have [one],” said 2nd Ward Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher.
“I mean, I know there was reason last time why we had to have a designee because there were conflicts with council members: I’m not sure there’s conflicts with council members with this one.”
She also questioned if a decision could be rendered within 30 days of the appeal as is numerated in the resolution, noting that the last cause involving McSwiggans, which had a hearing officer, took around seven to eight months.
Therefore, she preferred having the council hear the appeals in question for Mike’s Wild Moose Saloon and Birch, located in the 1st Ward at 92 River St.
Hoboken Assistant Corporation Counsel Alyssa Bongiovanni said it was fully up to the council’s discretion to vote on approving a hearing officer or doing the hearing themselves, noting that residents had agreed to extensions last time and that the hearing would be done “with consent of all parties,” meaning the 30 days wasn’t necessarily make or break.
Fisher claimed that in the McSwiggans case, the residents were forced to accept the extensions, which allowed outdoor dining to continue throughout football season and the case dragged on.
1st Ward Councilman Mike DeFusco said that if this occurred in the ward of any of his colleagues, he would defer to them and he hoped they would show him the same courtesy here.
“I just think that elected representatives of this city have the authority to hear an appeal like this, especially a ward councilperson that should be able to opine on the nature of their own neighborhood. As we all know, our wards aren’t exactly expansive, right? We know what’s going on at all corners,” he said.
“I would really just second what Tiffanie said. I support the administration, I support their intentions, I don’t need to go back and rehash history. But I do think we have an opportunity, as a group, to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Councilman-at-Large Joe Quintero then asked what would happen procedurally if the council decided to vote this resolution down.
3rd Ward Councilman Mike Russo, who is also the council vice president who ran the meeting in the absence of Council President Emily Jabbour, said that they would typically hold a standalone meeting to hear the matter.
After some confusion about whether or not that was the case, Quintero said he had concerns about expediency, also noting that a hearing officer is one person, while a council hearing would rely on nine people.
5th Ward Councilman Phil Cohen pointed out that the process should not be that difficult for a hearing officer to handle since the two matters would be heard as one, given that they share an address, though he added he wasn’t opposed to either option.
“I would hope that if we did it in this chamber, that we could do it efficiently and that it wouldn’t be a three-hour hearing, because I don’t think that serves the public well. I don’t know if we have rules that are in place, I have seen that there have been hearings in this chamber that have gone past midnight on various things,” he stated.
“And if that’s what this is gonna lead us down the road to, I think that’s not the best use of the council’s time or the public’s time … I don’t have a strong feeling one way or the other, I do reject the suggestion that it can’t be done fairly by outside counsel – outside counsel can do a fine job on this, that’s what they’re paid to do.”
The measure was ultimately voted down 7-1, with only Cohen voting yes and Jabbour absent.
The meeting was originally scheduled for last Wednesday, but was postponed due to last week’s unexpected air quality alert as a result of Canadian brush fires.
So, Cohen broke ranks with his colleagues and voted yes to show that he is capable of doing something on his own. He then said he “wasn’t opposed to either option,” giving himself air cover in case the vote is referenced in the Fall. Classic.