The Hoboken Girl Team 
In anticipation of the non-partisan municipal elections that Hoboken has on the horizon on November 4th, The Hoboken Girl reached out to the candidates running to be Hoboken’s new mayor about their vision for the city. We also sourced questions from readers + residents for the candidates to address what matters most to Hobokenites. We have broken down the Q+A into a series with articles grouped by topic. There is also an article with the full Q+A organized per candidate here. Read on for the mayoral candidates’ responses to questions regarding their background and qualifications to lead the Mile Square City.
Editor’s note: This article presents all of the candidates’ answers in full. Four other articles have the candidates’ answers grouped by subject. Please find those links below. All candidates and their campaigns were invited to participate. All of these responses are published alphabetically. The Hoboken Girl does not endorse candidates, nor do we allow for any political advertising on our website or social media for political candidates.
The Hoboken Girl: We know Hoboken’s municipal elections are non-partisan, but considering that federal politics often make their way into local politics these days, what political party are you currently registered with (if any)?
Dini Ajmani: I am a registered Democrat. I am a pragmatist who believes in adopting good ideas irrespective of the ideology.
Tiffanie Fisher: Democrat
Emily Jabbour: I am a registered Democrat. But I understand, clearly, that not every national issue is a local one. I have been a Councilperson for every Hoboken resident, irrespective of their political leanings, and will do the same as Mayor. My priority is always the people of Hoboken.
Ruben Ramos: Democratic Party
Michael Russo: I am a registered Democrat—and to this day, my values are deeply rooted in what have historically been Democratic values: fighting for working people, keeping the pulse on the ground in your neighborhood, advocating for the environment and park space, and really trying to keep that cost of living down. That said, I’ll be honest: many of my family and friends are Republican, and I still love them. I do not subscribe to either political extreme. I talk all the time with people who deeply disagree with me and they are welcome at the table. That’s what real leadership is. We don’t talk down to anyone, we let them say their piece and then we make decisions and stick to them.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: What are your top three priorities for your first year in office and what will you do in your first 100 days?
Dini Ajmani: lower taxes and rent, fix parking, bring back [a] sense of safety.
Tiffanie Fisher: Safety + Quality of Life
- Safety: Curb reckless e-bike riding, fully enforce the Tests & Vests law that I co-authored, fully staff all crossing guard posts, and take a more hands-on approach than in the past, with our police – including continuing the work I am doing with neighbors to create a new constituent services role within the Police Department to respond directly and better align police resources to community concerns.
- Quality of Life: Quality of Life: Open City Hall to make access to services and information more accessible, manage infrastructure improvements better to minimize disruptions, prioritize parking as the quality-of-life issue it is, improve maintenance of our parks and public spaces, strictly enforce rent control laws, finalize plans for a new recreation center, create a community advisory board for recreation to ensure programs meet residents’ needs – and require simple, common-sense measures like placing a “Road Closed Ahead” sign one block before the block that’s actually closed, so residents aren’t trapped in traffic detours.
Fiscal Responsibility
- Conduct a top-to-bottom budget review to root out inefficiency, increase transparency, and tie spending to measurable outcomes.
- Review all healthcare contracts to better control rising costs while protecting quality of care for city employees.
- Implement long-term financial planning to stabilize taxes and rebuild public trust in how our money is spent.
Transportation + Infrastructure
- Appoint a dedicated official to coordinate and hold accountable all construction projects, ensuring they are scheduled with a residents-first approach to minimize disruption.
- Continue the citywide water infrastructure upgrade plan I helped initiate in 2018 to reduce future water main breaks.
- Begin plans for a new, electrified HOP/Bus network that has broader reach within Hoboken, expand corner car program (into garages), advance the 15th Street Light Rail stop, connect directly with the Port Authority to advocate for more reliable PATH service, and partner with NJ Transit and NY Waterway to expand 126 bus routes and improve ferry service.
In my first 100 days, my top priorities will be safety, the budget, and the structure of city government. Safety starts with strengthening our Office of Emergency Management and ensuring we have clear, coordinated plans for emergencies and major catastrophes – because this is fundamental to leading a city. The budget is the instrument that funds the services we all rely on, and we must align it with real priorities and fiscal discipline. And reviewing how the city is organized – and where it needs to change – is where we will find better, more effective ways to run our government. None of this is flashy, but it’s the essential work of building a different kind of government – one that works better for you.
Emily Jabbour: My top 3 priorities are: public safety, quality of life issues, and responsiveness of City Hall. We need to ensure Hoboken is safe, that Hoboken is accessible, and that Hoboken is fair. In the first 100 days, I will stand up a functional ticketing system that is app-based that allows residents to make reports to City Hall, convene a working group on homelessness that includes Hudson County, move forward on the renovation of the Multi Service Center (124 Grand), and begin meetings with the Councilmembers to take on the budget challenges ahead.
Ruben Ramos: My top three priorities are to address the many pressing quality of life concerns that residents have shared by creating a Code Enforcement and Quality of Life Division, to increase police foot patrols in our neighborhoods and parks, and to move forward with building an indoor Recreation Center in the Northwest through a public-private partnership.
Michael Russo: I am proud to be the first mayoral candidate to release a concrete 100 Day Plan for Hoboken. While my top three priorities, generally speaking, are expanding working class housing supply, tightening up those quality of life and safety issues, and fixing our parking and traffic nightmare, the Team Russo 100 Day Plan maps out exactly what practical steps I’ll take in the first three months. Some of the highlights include: assigning a permanent parks patrol, ticketing unsafe and noncompliant e-bike delivery drivers without exception, introducing right-to-counsel (RTC) legislation similar to Jersey City’s to protect tenants from unjust evictions, introducing legislation to repeal Sunday parking meter fees that have not brought in the money we were promised, and looking at ways to reduce the overhead of our municipal government without cutting services—like consolidating departments, for example.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: How will you foster productive collaboration with the City Council while ensuring accountability and transparency?
Dini Ajmani: Unfortunately, Hoboken’s council meetings are a horror show. Jersey Journal had this headline – “If it’s Hoboken, the council must be fighting”. Our council suffers from chronic dysfunction that hurts residents. Hoboken is about to turn a page. The city is getting a new mayor and four new council members. If given the opportunity to lead the city, I will treat all members of the council and staff in City Hall with respect and dignity.
Tiffanie Fisher: I have a full policy on this on my website — “The Mayor and City Council: A New Era” — because I believe building a strong partnership with the Council is essential to restoring trust and delivering results for Hoboken.
I’ve served on the City Council for nearly a decade and know how important it is for the mayor and Council to work together — and how damaging it is when they don’t. As mayor, I will partner with the City Council so they are fully involved in key decisions and public events, working together for the benefit of our community.
I will attend all City Council meetings, hold public caucuses before each meeting to review the agenda with Council members, and support Council initiatives even if they aren’t directly aligned with my own priorities — as long as they benefit residents. I will also ensure legislative transparency by requiring that every item on the Council agenda include a simple, clear summary so the public (and Council) knows exactly what is being voted on in advance.
Finally, I will work with all elected officials — promoting the best ideas regardless of the source, sharing credit when it’s due, and helping them be the best public servants they can be.
Emily Jabbour: As Mayor, I think it is critically important to be more engaged with the City Council so that their decision-making process has the benefit of all of the information that the Administration can bring to bear. We have a shared goal in strengthening our community – we disagree at times on the order of the priorities and the means to get there. Fostering more open dialogue with regular caucus-style meetings can help bridge this divide.
Ruben Ramos: I’ve served on the City Council for many years and have always strived to work collaboratively to move our city forward. Other Council members know that while we might not always agree, I’m always honest and willing to find common ground whenever possible without selling out my core principles. The working relationships I’ve built over many years will ensure that as Mayor I have a productive relationship with the Council.
Michael Russo: One of my biggest complaints about the current administration is that we’ve always started the budget process WAY too late, and so by the time it comes to negotiations and amendments, everyone is scrambling to pass temporary appropriations. When you play “hurry up and wait,” you forego the ability to scrutinize things as well as you’d otherwise be able to. I will start constructing the next fiscal year’s budget in my first month as Mayor.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Please respond to residents’ criticism of the recent budget that was approved, which included both a tax increase for residents and cuts to operating expenses and salary line items.
Dini Ajmani: This year’s budget is just a harbinger for what is ahead. Because of mismanagement of our finances, we could be looking at a 25% increase in taxes next year. This increase, which will price residents out, is a result of excessive spending.
Tiffanie Fisher: This administration has spent the last eight years chasing headline-grabbing projects with little visibility on cost – and we are now paying the price. That is not how you run a city.
The largest drivers of our taxes are interest and principal payments on bonds issued for parks, infrastructure, and the DPW garage, as well as rising healthcare costs and public safety salaries – all difficult to make cuts to.
As someone who has consistently led efforts to cut the mayor’s proposed increases and delivered $35 million in savings over the years, I can tell you that this year there was very little left the Council could cut. The mayor delivered the budget two months late – after most spending was already committed – making meaningful reductions nearly impossible.
Some candidates have made political claims. Mike Russo has said he could deliver a 0% increase, but he started with the wrong numbers and has never done the work on the budget. Ruben Ramos proposed slightly more cuts than I did but refused to collaborate with other council members, instead using his “no” vote to score political points.
The Council did make targeted cuts – in line items we knew were overbudgeted and wouldn’t be spent – to keep City Hall operating and avoid a potential state takeover. Critics will say “Tiffanie cut housing and public safety,” but the truth is those were technical reductions to surplus funds that the administration historically never used. In fact, I’ve long pushed to expand funding for our Housing Department, while the mayor repeatedly diverted their budget to other departments.
We need a return to disciplined, transparent, year-round financial planning – and leadership that treats the budget as what it truly is: the roadmap that funds the services our community relies on. That is what I will bring as mayor.
Emily Jabbour: I think the biggest challenge when it comes to talking with residents about the annual budget is that residents don’t feel like they see their tax dollars at work – they see potholes, litter, and broken trashcans. As Mayor, I will focus on these small details that can add up to make residents feel like their tax dollars are being spent in ways that improve their daily lives. This year, the Administration proposed a budget that came in with a 6.5% increase; the City Council approved a final budget that came in at just over 4% by taking more funds from the city surplus. This strategy has been employed for many years and it is not sustainable, and further, may harm the strong credit rating of the city (A++) if too much of the surplus is used to plug budget gaps.
Ruben Ramos: I voted no on this budget because it not only includes a property tax increase, it also makes significant cuts to important priorities like public safety and housing, where we should be investing more, not less. I worked closely with Councilman Presinzano to identify $2.2 million in responsible cuts from the Mayor’s original budget proposal that could have reduced the tax increase significantly without threatening core services, but unfortunately Councilwoman Fisher and Councilwoman Jabbour refused to consider them and instead voted for an unnecessarily high tax increase. Hoboken deserves better, and as Mayor I’ll get our city back to basics and instill the fiscal discipline we need to protect Hoboken taxpayers.
Michael Russo: I have almost never voted for a tax increase. When my opponents have supported exorbitant tax increases, I’ve made sure that my no vote was leveraged to bring that number down. What I will say is that the City is staring off of a fiscal cliff. There are two schools of thought about how to fix our multimillion dollar structural deficit; some of my opponents want to raise taxes to infinity and beyond, and I want to expand ratables. We do this by expanding housing supply, by having revenue-generating components in new public projects like parks (and a new pool on the waterfront, which I’d like to build), and more.
I’ll also seek to implement zero-based budgeting with the exception of money already encumbered, prioritize inefficiencies and one-time costs before recurring tax increases, seek grant funding wherever possible, and look to public-private partnerships to sponsor bigger projects so our taxpayers don’t feel the burn.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Hudson County politics has long faced concerns about pay-to-play and insider influence. What specific reforms will you champion (e.g. contracting rules, campaign finance limits, independent oversight, stronger OPRA compliance)?
Dini Ajmani: I am not accepting any contributions from developers, unions, or any other special interest. I won’t be beholden to them when negotiating contracts. I will encourage council members to recuse when there is a conflict of interest and I will do the same. I will add resources to expedite OPRA [Open Public Records Act] requests. Preserving OPRA is essential to prevent corruption.
Tiffanie Fisher: I have a policy on my website called A New City Hall: Built on Trust, Transparency & Fiscal Responsibility — because restoring public trust starts with ending the perception of insider deals and political favoritism.
It’s important to be clear: there’s only so much Hoboken can do on its own right now because the state legislature and governor recently changed New Jersey’s pay-to-play laws to effectively allow the kind of political contributions that used to be prohibited. These changes overturned what were once some of the strongest local protections in the state — protections that Team Bhalla and Mike Russo tried to weaken three years ago.
What we can do is focus on transparency and disclosure. As mayor, I will lead by example by disclosing any political donations that could relate to legislation — and I will ask the City Council to do the same. This simple step will help ensure transparency and prevent conflicts of interest.
I will also push to strengthen our local ethics rules, require more detailed public disclosure of campaign donations and business relationships, and improve OPRA compliance so residents can easily see how decisions are being made and where money is going.
Emily Jabbour: Given the history of politics in Hoboken, I understand this concern. As mentioned previously, implementing changes like a standard checklist for all new businesses ensures a level playing field. At a larger level, I would love to see New Jersey strengthen public finance laws by applying them to the local level and a strengthening of pay-to-play laws for the state. While Hoboken was once able to establish a stricter landscape of pay-to-play laws for our local elections, the state overruled these local laws and instructed us to follow state law.
Ruben Ramos: Hudson County politics has a reputation for pay-to-play and insider influence, and Hoboken deserves better. As mayor, I will champion strict contracting rules that prevent politically connected firms from cutting special deals and ensure contracts are awarded fairly and transparently. I will push for tighter campaign finance limits so that no candidate can buy influence through oversized contributions. I will also strengthen OPRA compliance so residents can get answers quickly and without delay, and I will support independent oversight to keep City Hall accountable to the public, not to insiders. My priority is simple: government should work for residents, not for special interests.
Michael Russo: Right now OPRA (Open Public Records Act) requests take too long to fulfill. This is a function of limited manpower combined with an ever-increasing volume of requests. A lot of these requests are generated by artificial intelligence, and I believe that our municipal government has a responsibility to respond in-kind, because at the end of the day our residents deserve to know what’s going on in a timely manner. I’ll explore the use of AI to assist our City Clerk’s office with OPRA requests as other municipalities have done, while still leaving second-round review and manual redaction to our qualified professionals.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Who is another local government official you respect + admire?
Dini Ajmani: Mayor Dawn Zimmer.
Tiffanie Fisher: I deeply respect (and miss) former Hoboken Council President Jen Giattino. Jen always put residents first, led with integrity, and never shied away from doing the hard work behind the scenes to get things done for our community. She showed that local government works best when it’s focused on people, not politics — and that’s the approach I’ll bring as mayor.
Emily Jabbour: Council President Jim Doyle is a true public servant, and a colleague who I deeply admire and respect. Jim had no interest in becoming Council President, but stepped up at a time when leadership was needed on the Council to bring us together in the aftermath of the tragic passing of Councilwoman Jen Giattino. Jim got into local politics because of his strong sense of activism and commitment to public good. When I was first elected in 2017, Jim was my running mate and I have learned so much getting to work alongside him these last 8 years. I also appreciate that Jim is deeply humble and has a great sense of humor – it is always about people for Jim, not politics.
Ruben Ramos: One public official I deeply respect is former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, who reminded us that all politics is local. O’Neill believed that while a representative must always stay true to their conscience, they also have a duty to put the needs of their district at the center of every decision. I admire that balance, and as a local leader in Hoboken I strive to do the same — to act with integrity and to always put the voices of our residents first.
Michael Russo: Our City Clerk, James Farina, is a Hoboken legend…and I can think of few who love this city more. Some may remember this, but in addition to being a phenomenal clerk, Jimmy spent 36 years on our Board of Education. He’s sung in the council chambers for charity, brought awareness to community causes, and has been involved since before I was born. But what I love most about Jimmy is his demeanor. In a world that’s politically crazy, he is the most friendly, neutral, professional person. And I think we need that now more than ever.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
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