November 1, 2002 Dear Hudson County Voters:
I am the Green Party candidate for Hudson County Freeholder, 5th District. The Greens asked me to run because we share a conviction that citizens who want to have an impact on their government and on their world, must unite, organize, and get candidates who really represent them elected to office.
In May, 2001 I ran for Mayor on a platform that Hoboken's rampant overdevelopment must be stopped. I ran because the other two candidates had long records of facilitating overdevelopment and I didn't believe that they could be trusted with Hoboken's future. As major development projects continue to be approved under the Roberts Administration, I am ever more convinced that I was right.
I have demonstrated my understanding of the important local issues and my willingness to get involved and have an effect. I have organized seven referendum and initiative petition drives to protect tenants' rights and to stop the giveaway of our waterfront to developers. Thanks to my efforts, hundreds of tenants still have affordable housing and Hoboken's voters were given the opportunity to reject the Port Authority development of our southern waterfront property in two referendum votes.
Hudson County government is a complete waste of taxpayer money. Most local services, such as maintenance of most of our roads and parks, garbage collection, sewerage, water, police, fire, building and safety inspection, are either provided by the municipality or are privatized. The County maintains only a small fraction of our roads, schools, parks, and hospitals, and does little else. And yet 39% of our property taxes go to the county, compared to 24% to the City. Where does the County money go? Meanwhile, serious regional problems involving multi-community impacts of overdevelopment, regional highway systems, etc. should be addressed by the County but are not. Our Freeholder Maurice Fitzgibbons appears at fundraisers and on brochures around election time, otherwise he is out of sight. Most Freeholder meetings are held at 1 PM, when few citizens can attend.
As Freeholder, I will promote County Government investigation and regulation of these regional development problems and will work to eliminate all County functions which are redundant or wasteful. I will also seek to open up county government to public participation, with evening Freeholder meetings and local meetings with constituents to discuss the issues and solicit input.
I will be on the November 5th ballot with my Green Party running mates, Claudette Meliere (Hudson County Executive), Henry Faulkner (Congress, 13th District), and Ted Glick (Senate). Together we stand for protecting our environment, our civil liberties, and our right to have a say in what our government does.
You know what I have done as a citizen activist, for no recompense, and it has been consistently for your benefit. You also know what the existing representatives have done: they have allowed our area to be overdeveloped and our quality of life to be compromised for the benefit of their developer sponsors, and they have wasted your tax money.
You have a clear choice -- will you exercise it this election?
Further discussion of my Freeholder candidacy may be found below. Additional biographical and other information generated during my run for Hoboken Mayor (most of which is still amazingly relevant) may be found at HobokenCitizens.Org. If you would like to discuss any issues, please contact me at 201-656-7774 or symbitar@aol.com.
Please don't forget that the election is Tuesday, November 5th; the polls are open from 7 AM until 8 PM. The Green Party slate is on the ballot in Column F, on the right side of the ballot.
Please forward this e-mail to everyone you know who might be interested and please encourage them to forward it as well. We are running our campaign on a shoestring, and your forwarding this e-mail will help tremendously to make voters aware that we are on the ballot and that they have a real choice this election.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Daniel Tumpson
Green Party Candidate for Hudson County Freeholder, 5th District--------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAN TUMPSON
GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE,
FREEHOLDER, 5TH DISTRICT,
NOV. 5th GENERAL ELECTIONDan Tumpson is the Green Party candidate for Hudson County Freeholder, 5th District (which includes Hoboken and parts of Jersey City) because he believes that there is an important role for both county government and for the Green Party to play in preserving our environment and our rights.
We must elect representatives who respect our environment, our rights, and direct democracy.
Dan has spent 21 years working to protect tenants rights, stop overdevelopment, and empower Hoboken's voters through the referendum process.
Early on Dan found that lobbying elected officials is not enough to guarantee that citizens have a voice in local government. Corporate money ultimately speaks louder than any expression of public will.
In an effort to give citizen actions "teeth", Dan organized many successful referendum petition drives in Hoboken. Twice, Hoboken's voters rejected financially and environmentally disastrous Port Authority waterfront development projects. Three times referendum petitions protected tenants from losing their rent control protections.
But ultimately, corporate interests won out over direct democracy. Changes in NJ State Law took away our rights to a referendum on the Port Authority project, and our local representatives sold us out, approving what the voting majority rejected. Changes in NJ State Law removed rent control from buildings built after 1987, so now only a minority of Hoboken's tenants have rent control protection. Thousands of hours spent on petitions and campaigns, and the will of the voting majority, were overturned by treacherous acts of our state and local "representatives", out of our view and beyond our control.
If we want to protect our environment and our rights, we must elect government representatives who hold these values dear and who will not sell us out. The Green Party not only advocates for these values, we are also organized to run candidates for public office.
What is a Freeholder?
A third of our local tax dollars goes to Hudson County. Most people have no idea who or what the Freeholders are or what they do with our money. Many wonder why county government even exists.
The Board of Chosen Freeholders is Hudson County's legislature. Freeholders have the power to investigate issues of county-wide importance and to enact county-wide laws. And these powers could be used to the benefit of Hudson County residents.
Hudson County's #1 Problem: Overdevelopment
During the 1980's, there was a widespread belief that development would benefit Hudson County's municipalities, upgrading run-down neighborhoods and adding ratables to municipal tax bases, lowering taxes.
Unfortunately that belief turned out to be an illusion. The change in scale, traffic, parking, stress on infrastructure, and other ills of overcrowding from overdevelopment have reduced our quality of life. Taxes have actually increased.
Still, the zoning and planning boards keep approving large projects, convinced by consultants hired by developers that these projects will cause no public harm. When citizens protest that they will be harmed, that their windows are being covered over or that their light and air is being blocked, the boards disregard their testimony, since they are not "planning experts". The boards lack their own independent source of information about development impacts, so they have no way to judge the testimony of developer-hired "experts".
Freeholders should monitor and regulate development.
This is where the Freeholders could use their investigative powers: to assess the cumulative impacts of development on a regional level, to provide data and information to the local zoning and planning boards and to city councils to help them amend zoning laws and to evaluate the impacts of individual development projects.
The Freeholders could also adopt laws and procedures to facilitate communication and coordination between municipalities for assessing projects that have multi-community impacts.
For example, Gateway One at 101 Marshall Street in Hoboken is 17-story project which will have a massive impact on both Hoboken and Jersey City, including worse flooding in southwest Hoboken, more frequent sewer overflows, and blocking views and air flow patterns. Gateway One required many zoning variances to build 17 stories in a 4-story zone. The Gateway One developers failed to provide proper public notice to Hoboken, Jersey City, and Hudson County that this project was being considered by the Hoboken Zoning Board, so that citizens were denied their legal right to protest.
Dan is working with a group of local citizens, the Hudson County Alliance, to stop this project in court, citing that lack of proper notice nullifies approvals given it by the Hoboken Zoning Board.
The Freeholders and County Planning Board should inform the public about projects that have multi-community impacts and should create county-wide zoning that responds to regional overdevelopment.
Instead they have been a rubber stamp for the local boards, councils, and developers. If Dan is elected Freeholder, his first priority will be to bring true county-wide regulation of development into reality.
County government should resist the erosion of our civil liberties.
Police surveillance cameras are being introduced into Hoboken and Jersey City. This is an unjustified intrusion into the privacy of law-abiding citizens. We believe that the practice needs to be regulated by the County. The tragedy of September 11 has been used as a pretext to undermine the Constitution and diminish our civil liberties through such federal actions as the USA Patriot Act; we must ensure on the local and county level that such intrusions into our rights to privacy and due process are resisted.
Now You Have a Choice
We can no longer afford to vote for the "lesser of the evils": both Republican and Democratic parties are undermining our environment and our rights. The Green Party exists to give the voters a choice.
Green Party Candidates
Ted Glick for Senate, 1F
Pat Henry Faulkner for House of Representatives, 13th District, 2F
Claudette Meliere for Hudson County Executive, 3F
Daniel B. Tumpson, Hudson County Freeholder, 5th District, 4FFor information:
www.hudsongreens.org
or call 201-435-3804