In a letter to the editor, Hoboken resident Cheryl Fallick lays out why she feels 1st Ward council candidate Rafi Cordova is committed to housing justice in the city.
Dear Editor,
As a 40-year resident of Hoboken, former Rent Board Chair, former candidate for City Council, and longtime rent control activist, I am enthusiastically supporting Rafi Cordova’s candidacy for 1st Ward Council in Hoboken.
I firmly believe that Rafi Cordova will bring an important perspective to the City Council that we desperately need: a strong voice for housing justice.
Hoboken’s elected leaders have for too long done too little to address the housing affordability crisis facing many of our residents.
As a result, many of Hoboken’s working people, families, and seniors – particularly those who have lived here the longest – are being squeezed by rapidly escalating housing prices at a time when the cost of everything else has substantially increased due to inflation.
If Hoboken is to remain the inclusive, dynamic community we love, we need elected representatives who are dedicated to the mission of helping to control housing costs.
This is why Rafi Cordova’s candidacy for Hoboken City Council excites me.
Having known Rafi for years and watching him now serve as Hoboken’s Rent Board Chair, I am confident that he will work hard to protect our neighbors from being pushed and shut out of their City.
In other words, Rafi will work every day while in office to preserve what makes Hoboken great: its people.
As we know, Hoboken’s housing legacy is anything but just. Alongside our many successes, we have a sad, almost heartless legacy to contend with (landlords literally burned down buildings in the 70s and 80s to get rid of tenants they did not want), and today housing justice rarely is a focus of any candidate’s election season platform.
Rafi Cordova is an exception, having declared housing justice to be a central pillar of his campaign. To be sure, housing justice is not the only cause that Rafi will support and champion.
Check out Rafi’s website, raficordova.com, and you will see well-reasoned plans addressing public safety, the needs of our seniors and the disabled, people-first development and, of course, Hoboken’s rat infestation.
But Rafi is the only candidate in the 1st Ward race for Hoboken City Council who is committed to addressing housing in all of its dimensions: affordability, insecurity, taxes, tear downs, and displacement.
In deciding to support Rafi, I had to acknowledge that he is supported by Hoboken’s mayor and others who I believe have wrongly kept me off the Hoboken Rent Board (notwithstanding my many years of service), and who’ve also at times denigrated me and others who disagree with the recent changes to Hoboken’s rent laws because we believe those changes do not best serve the needs of tenants.
Nevertheless, I have set aside my pride and disagreement with how current elected officials have addressed rent control and housing in Hoboken to support Rafi because I believe he has the strength of character to be an independent voice and a leader on the council, committed to ensuring that those who live and work in Hoboken have a home here for many years to come.
Ultimately, this election is not about what is in the best interest of any one person or faction, but what is best for Hoboken as a whole.
And I believe that electing a representative like Rafi Cordova who will prioritize issues such as displacement and housing affordability is paramount.
Indeed, in my opinion Rafi is the only 1st Ward candidate who will take on this challenge seriously because he is the only one who appreciates its urgency.
On November 7th or during early voting, I encourage all voters in Hoboken’s 1st Ward to vote 3E for Rafi Cordova to be the next Council Representative for the 1st Ward.
Thank you,
Cheryl Fallick
Wow, What does this person think she is? Endorsing someone in every ward?
But this one, endorsing a Bhalla Puppet? WOW!
What was she promised?
Bitter because she’s still stuck in the same crap apt for 40 years and spends her life complaining about her unjust life. When she’s not yelling at mommies with strollers she’s yelling at cyclists…
Perhaps she is endorsing Mayor Bhalla’s candidate to get an appointment to a board ?
This endorsement provided me w a good and hearty chuckle. Where to begin….
What in the world is housing justice? Does that mean keeping Cheryl’s rent low? As a 40 year resident how does she not own property that was neary free in the 1980s? And doesnt she work or did work in real estate?
Regardless, Hoboken has high real estate prices due to being a good place to live w proximity to Manhattan. Not due to injustice whatever that means.
Even if this guy is “good” for housing how is being on city council going to be more effective than being in his current position that has direct influence on housing?
Then there’s the lack of loyalty to Paul. He’s far from a great candidate (and I am thankful I am not in this ward so dont have to choose) but she ran on his team in 2021 and theoretically supported and shared his ideals for the city. Does that mean she has to endorse Paul? Of course not. But to give the bear hug to his opponent reeks of lack of common decency. And to do so to a Ravibot when Ravi hates her guts and maligns her makes it even worse.
Spot On HV,
Cheryl Fallick is sloppy with her words, friendships and loyalty to decency.
The fact she ran with Paul, has so many complaints against property owners and open hatred towards anyone who owns a condo, house or development is evidence she has something truly wrong with her brain.
People who have known her for decades never met Rafi at any of her gatherings, they never heard her speak about him when he OUSTED her from the rent Control board and they never saw Rafi at a single RC Board meeting
She has never supported the better candidates unless she was on the slate, she throws her endorsements on candidates who didnt ask for them.
If she really wanted Liz or Jen to win, she would endorse their opposition.
Cheryl only hurts Rafi….
Peace, land, and bread, Comrade.
Rent Control Office?
Housing Director?
Rent Control Board?
Or even better, a no show role ?
I take issue with Ms. Fallick’s assertion that Rafi “has the strength of character to be an independent voice and a leader on the council” and fear that he will be another Ravi rubber stamp. Unless and until we get a majority council who will not vote with the Mayor’s position 99% of the time, the residents of Hoboken will not truly be represented. The rats will win, the budget will continue to inflate, bikers will continue to ride on sidewalks and bad business decisions will persist (think Union Dry Dock, Monarch, etc.) It’s time for a change. We need Paul in the First Ward and Liz in the Fifth.
Why doesnt Fallick ever state numbers or displacements or eviction?
I have concerns here: one, he referenced the fact that he went to Yale more than once in the first few minutes of his first debate. This came across as a bit arrogant/elitist. Second, I remain concerned about the amount of outside money he received during his first week as a candidate. We already have elites who regularly take money from outside interests and look where it has gotten us. Still scratching my head on this one.
Ivy League and patriarchy
Ivy League and Colonialism
Ivy League and Trump
So Rafi continually drops the Yale thingy, but what degree?
Was it a weekend course?
4 year under grad?
Grad school?
Was it Yale Divinity with their 80% admission rate?
Rafi
Rafi has the SAG AFTRA logo on his website, but no endorsement from them can be found online
It’s clustered together next to the slimy 32 union that Fallick maligned as well as a big money union with few Hoboken residents
Rafi may be an actor, but this performance deserves TWO THUMBS DOWN
Who cares if he knows 5 languages
And which are they?
He never says…
I may only know one language, and it’s the only one needed to learn this guy embellishes to say the least
At the most he’s a phony, deceitful con artist
May he never get near a city council seat
If he’s lying now … and is associated with a activist who trashed building affordable housing for homeless vets , that’s all we need to know
What are the So Called Yale Graduate’s opinion on Hamas?
The last thing we need is an apologist like the students we see on elitst Ivy league campuses
I’d rather have a High School drop out than this clown and leftist lunatic and Rent Control Communist like story teller
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/yales-campus-newspaper-criticized-for-censoring-report-on-hamas-atrocities-against-jews/articleshow/104853489.cms?from=mdr
After months of pathetically trying to persuade people to believe Rafi is not part of Bhalla, Cheryl Fallick finds her very alone amongst those of us in the indepently together alumni.
While Ravi is blasting and threatening her friends like Fisher and Giatinno, Fallick is still claiming Rafi is independant
Only possible good news is her landlord will probably be part of a new cluster of sales around her and be combining into a new development.
Fallick and Cordova are a match made in Bhalla World
All I can say is I’ve seen Rafi in action at a rent hearing…..and….he should not “chair a chair” let alone chair a rent hearing and certainly not the first ward.