Hundreds Show Up To Oppose Lay Offs

Hundreds of police officers, supported by their friends and family came out to Wednesday night's council meeting to urge the mayor and city council to re-think the 18 lay offs and 19 demotions in the police department. 

"Don't lay off my police officers," said Anthony Wieners, the president of the New Jersey Police Benevolence Association, the parent organization of Hoboken's PBA. The officers' last day will be on Sept. 24.

"Here in Hoboken," said Wieners, "if there's lay offs, crime is going to go up."

Police officers wearing yellow shirts that say "oppose the Zimmer lay offs," starting walking up to city hall around 6 p.m., the time of the Hoboken PBA's press conference. 

The officers are calling for no demotions and no lay offs at all. Reducing the amount of officers in the police department should be done by attrition, said Captain Anthony Romano. Romano, who is also Hudson County Freeholder, is set to be demoted to lieutenant. The amount of captains will be reduced from three to four. 

"We understand that numbers have to be reduced," said Romano. "But let's think outside the box."

Whether or not the large police presence during Wednesday night's meeting is going to change Zimmer's mind is yet to be seen. But either way, said Donald Ross, the PBA's attorney, "the fight doesn't end." 

Ross said he already filed an appeal with Civil Service to dispute the "good faith of the decision." Ross argued that the mayor's reason to lay off the officers is personal, rather than financial. 

"It appears to many of us," said Ross, that the lay offs are based on "personal anger against unions and cops." 

When she announced the lay offs, Zimmer said the decision to lay off and demote officers was because of the tough economic times. 

"We're not Warren Buffet," she said during that press conference. "We're more like a hard working  family that needs to make choices."

The city is currently running on a cash surplus of nearly $12 million, which is part of a total surplus of $19.9 million. In an explanation about the transitional budget earlier on Wednesday night, Zimmer said a surplus is needed to have in case of a "rainy day."

"This is a rainy day," said Hoboken PBA President Vince Lombardi to a crowd of applause during Wednesday's public portion. "This a thunderstorm, a hurricane."

Furthermore the police officers have been without contracts since Dec. 31, 2007. A memorandum of understanding, signed on Jan. 13 by then-State Fiscal Monitor Judy Tripodi, would have included a 12.4 percent increase in salary for all officers and ranks. Because the officers have been without contracts for nearly 2.5 years, the retroactive pay would have been close to $3 million. 

The City Council voted down those contracts unanimously. The police union will go into arbitration. According to Ross, the issue of the contracts and the lay offs are related. 

The lay offs are based on the findings of a state audit. The PBA later hired its own firm to complete a counter audit. 

The lay offs also took a personal turn during Wednesday's meeting's public portion, where roughly 45 people (an unusually high number) had signed up to speak, when police officers explained what the lay offs meant to them personally. 

"We're not numbers, we're people," said Josue Velez, a cop who is about to be laid off on Sept. 24. Velez, 24, served as a specialist in Iraq from July 2009 to June 26, 2010. Velez said that he has to postpone his wedding to his 24-year-old fiancee Susan Ko because of the lay off.

"I'm asking—I'm begging you," he said, "to reconsider what you're doing to me."