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 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: Residents complain about the scarcity and high cost of parking. What is your opinion and what, if any, initiatives would you support?
Dini Ajmani: Solving parking would be a priority for me. We have issued twice as many permits as spaces available. I would immediately review our permitting practices, which are outdated and from a time when our population was half of what it is today. Non-residents should use private garages that sit empty. I would also look at building garages on unused land like the ShopRite parking lot.
Tiffanie Fisher: Whether you rely on street parking every day or just when visitors come, parking is one of the biggest quality-of-life frustrations in Hoboken – yet it hasn’t been treated that way by this administration. I’ve been the biggest pro-parking councilmember – adding 26 new parking spots in the 2nd Ward and constantly looking for ways to expand parking citywide. We are working with a developer to deliver the long-promised uptown municipal garage, which will free up street capacity in surrounding neighborhoods and have a positive ripple effect across the city. I’ve also pushed the city to rebuild the 916 Garden Garage as parking, and if the Garage B redevelopment moves forward, I will make sure there’s a plan to accommodate the roughly 800 people who currently park there.
Parking is expensive because, like housing, when demand exceeds supply, prices go up. Pricing is more market-driven, and we have fewer tools to keep it low. I support providing lower-cost parking for Hoboken residents – including continuing our below-market monthly garage rates and $52 annual street permits. But we also need smarter pricing. We should explore charging by car size, revisiting the higher rates for second and third cars, and requiring residents of new buildings with on-site parking to pay more to park on the residential side of our streets overnight.
At the same time, one of the best ways to address parking challenges is to reduce the need for a car in the first place. I will push for a more expansive bus system within Hoboken so people can get from one end of the city to the other without a car, and I will secure more corner cars (in the corners of our parking garages, not on street corners!) to give residents convenient shared-car options when they need them.
Emily Jabbour: First, as Mayor I will prioritize the repairs to the midtown garage. It has been incredibly frustrating to hear from residents over and over about the damage to their car due to the melting cement, or the massive amount of bird feces that is present – the City Council passed the bond to do this work in November of 2023 – and it still has not been done. Second, we need to support the addition of at least one more parking garage in the North End of town and ensure that the Garden Street automated garage is updated and brought back online. Adding more garages throughout the city reduces the pressure for street parking. We need to keep those garage parking options affordable and connected to an online or app-based wayfaring system to make it a no-brainer for residents and visitors. Finally, street parking has been made even more challenging with the excessive use of the “no parking” signage on any given day thanks to so many construction projects going on throughout the city – we need to do a better job monitoring and managing how we approve this signage so that it isn’t taking up spaces needlessly.
Ruben Ramos: Parking in Hoboken is both scarce and expensive, and I share residents’ frustration. The city has not done enough to manage parking smartly or to give residents real relief. As mayor, I will push for a comprehensive parking strategy that includes: better management of existing garages, adding residential parking in new redevelopment projects, and exploring opportunities for shared use agreements with private lots so residents can access underused spaces at night and on weekends.
I will also work to ensure that technology makes parking simpler — from real-time availability apps to modernized meters — so residents spend less time circling for spots. Above all, any plan must put residents first, not commuters or outside interests, so that parking is affordable and accessible for the people who live here.
Michael Russo: Parking is objectively one of Hoboken’s biggest nightmares. We all know someone who wanted to meet us here in town, circled the block six times, and then gave up. To do that for a cup of coffee or lunch is insane, and when that happens, our small businesses languish. I’ll expand parking on the periphery of our city, simplify and delineate existing zones and curb space, expand our Hop service to help people get around town without driving, and revise the permit process for parklets so that those decisions are made seasonally and not annually. I’ll enforce the abuse of loading zones, and in my first 100 days I’ll work to repeal Sunday meter fees, which are yet another unnecessary tax on the people of Hoboken.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Even though infrastructure updates are desperately needed, the work to do these improvements is incredibly disruptive for residents and costly for the city. This can even be dangerous, as in the circumstances of contaminated water from a water main break and roadways in and out of the city being closed due to road work. What is your plan to better accommodate the needed repairs while lessening the burden on residents?
Dini Ajmani: Hoboken is bursting at the seams. There is no evidence of thoughtful planning for many projects underway at the same time. Before approving a new development, I would ask – can our infrastructure handle additional load and does the development preserve the village-like feel of our city.
Tiffanie Fisher: I have chaired or served on every City Council infrastructure subcommittee since I first joined the Council. In 2017, I took over from then-Councilman Bhalla, who had myriad conflicts of interest through the law firm he worked for. That same year, joined by my running mate and then-Councilman Dave Mello, I pushed Mayor Zimmer to dedicate funds in the 2016 budget to upgrade our water infrastructure. And when a new water contract was proposed in 2017 that I believed wasn’t good enough, I pushed back – made my case – and then led the effort to negotiate a better agreement that freed up $33 million within the contract to reinvest directly into system upgrades.
What many newer residents don’t know is that before we launched this program around 2018, Hoboken suffered water main breaks almost weekly – incidents that would bring our community to its knees. Since then, we’ve invested about $30 million into upgrades, and water main breaks have dropped dramatically. Maintaining and accelerating this program will remain a top priority for me – including installing leak detection technology – so we can finally live without these constant disruptions. It is also critical that we, as a city, do everything possible to provide better information to residents, have emergency supplies of water ready, and get the system back up and running as quickly as possible – without triggering boil water advisories.
That said, we clearly still have more work to do. More recently, when water service was turned back on in some larger buildings after outages, we saw devastating impacts that had never occurred before. We need to find the root cause and review our building codes to see if they need to be strengthened to better withstand changes in water pressure.
And as it relates to the quality-of-life disruptions from infrastructure work: right now, the city has no one with infrastructure experience overseeing all construction. A top priority for me will be hiring the right person for this role to coordinate projects, hold contractors accountable, and better schedule work to minimize disruption for residents.
Emily Jabbour: With more development comes increased pressure on our infrastructure – so each time there is a new project approved, we must require that the developer improve the surrounding infrastructure as part of the scope of the project. The aging water main system is an issue no matter how much development is occurring, because they are part of the system that is well over 100 years old. The City has pursued a water main replacement program over the past several years – but more needs to be done to move this replacement forward in a timely way. As Mayor, I would implement a new timeline with more rigorous targets to get more of this replacement done in a more timely way.
Ruben Ramos: I’m just as sick of the construction chaos that we’ve seen across our city as anyone, and I’ll work immediately as Mayor to solve it. We need a public infrastructure schedule with timelines residents can track, transparent funding plans tied to grants, bonds, and developer contributions, coordination across departments and agencies so work gets done right the first time, and accountability measures to keep projects on time and on budget.
Michael Russo: I think this all comes down to communication, coordination and proactive leadership. Think about that perfect storm we experienced a few months ago: you had construction on Jersey Avenue at the same time as the PATH was having issues…but then we had the added possibility of a prolonged strike by NJ Transit workers. This is why I am in constant communication with our labor organizations. Why would we have major construction when we knew there was the prospect of a shutdown elsewhere? A City Hall that fails to coordinate and display proactive leadership is a City Hall that subjects residents to an exacerbated emergency in one of the busiest small cities in America.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Public transit users are upset by ongoing delays and the increasing cost of service. What is your plan to advocate for your constituents with PATH and NJ Transit?
Dini Ajmani: I was on the board of NJ Transit for four years. [The] 126 route is very profitable for NJ Transit. I will use this leverage to add weekend service with more uptown pickups. For PATH, I will lobby the Port Authority to cross-honor as soon as there is any disruption in the PATH service.
Tiffanie Fisher: I’ve been the only Hoboken leader consistently showing up in Trenton, Newark, and Jersey City to advocate for better transit – not just when it’s convenient before an election. I have been working since day one, often in the face of resistance from the administration, to secure a new 15th Street Light Rail station for our growing northwest neighborhoods. Early in my term, I also secured the 11th Street crossover and express 126 bus to better balance demand for uptown residents, and I will continue to push for a third 126 route serving the Madison/Monroe corridor.
Reliable, affordable public transit is essential to our quality of life and our local economy. I will work with NY Waterway to reduce ferry costs by bifurcating the fare into a ferry ticket and bus ticket on the other side, which would help lower the cost of crossing the river. And I will work closely with the Port Authority to ensure PATH capacity keeps up with the rapid growth in Hoboken and Jersey City – so our residents aren’t squeezed out by rising demand.
Emily Jabbour: I have been actively part of the advocacy efforts for improved PATH services by partnering with Hudson County Complete Streets – including collecting petitions signatures and speaking out at Port Authority Board Meetings on behalf of Hoboken residents. As Mayor, I plan to continue to engage regularly with Port Authority and NJ Transit to better communicate our needs to them, and share back information with residents so that they are always in the know. Also, I hope more residents work with Hudson County Complete Streets on this topic to make our collective voices heard!
Ruben Ramos: The truth is the PATH and NJ Transit aren’t getting any better and the state government and especially the Port Authority aren’t doing anything to fix it. We can and will advocate for better service, but we will also focus on what the city actually has the power to do itself, which is to create a permanent $5 Ferry program for Hoboken residents. This will make commuting by ferry affordable to everyone, giving more residents access to a faster and easier commute while also taking pressure off of the PATH.
Michael Russo: A Hoboken without a working PATH and NJ Transit is like having major arterial blockage. It threatens our economy and our residents’ quality of life. As Mayor I’ll be a relentless advocate: like I mentioned above I’ll always be at the table and my Administration will communicate with every part of our transportation network to make our residents’ lives easier.
This is going to be paramount with the World Cup coming up. We do not have room for failure and it’s going to take all hands on deck to handle the influx of people that will be traveling through our city. I expect the next Governor to be a coequal partner in this effort, and they will be hearing from me nonstop!
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Even though traffic fatalities are zero, injuries continue to occur. Many Hoboken parents are concerned about traffic safety near schools. The area around Willow Avenue between 11th Street and 16th Street, near Wallace School, is part of Hoboken’s High Crash Network and Hudson County’s Bicyclist High Injury network, according to both Hoboken’s and Hudson County’s Vision Zero Plans. What is your plan to address this issue and help keep our children safe?
Dini Ajmani: I will consult experts in urban planning and traffic to ensure safety of our children is paramount in any redesign of this area.
Tiffanie Fisher: I have been advocating to improve safety on Willow Avenue – which partly runs through the 2nd Ward – since I first joined the City Council. One of my own neighbors was hit and broke her pelvis crossing Willow at 15th Street. I get it.
As mayor, I will fully support and prioritize the long-overdue safety improvements already planned for this corridor and will push to accelerate their design and construction. I also recently joined others in advocating for a crossing guard at 11th and Willow. No one should feel unsafe simply crossing the street in their own neighborhood.
Emily Jabbour: The success of Vision Zero, with Hoboken not having a single fatality in the past 8 years, cannot be overstated – particularly as other communities and the state of New Jersey at large is seeing more aggressive driving and massive increases. Hoboken is a national model when it comes to pedestrian safety – but we still need to do more. The “near miss” instances must be investigated and treated with similar vigilance so that the infrastructure improvements that ensure safer conditions can be implemented.
Ruben Ramos: Keeping our children safe near schools must be non-negotiable. While Hoboken has had zero traffic fatalities, we cannot accept the number of injuries, especially around corridors like Willow Avenue near Wallace School, which is identified as part of the city’s High Crash Network.
As mayor, I will focus on commonsense enforcement: cracking down on speeding, reckless driving, and illegal scooter and bike use near schools. I will ensure crossing guards are fully staffed, add safe passage patrols where needed, and strengthen clear, visible signage and markings around school zones.
Vision Zero goals are important, but they only work if they are backed by real enforcement and accountability. My plan puts safety first so every child and parent can walk to school without fear.
Michael Russo: My plan is to implement hypertargeted innovation and enforcement near schools, including protected bike lanes where road width permits, mid-street crosswalks (recent changes in the law now make this easier to implement), simpler signage, and more. Most importantly, I’ll have a dedicated liaison in my office that has a strong relationship with the Board of Education, because we cannot afford to operate in silos.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Hoboken’s public safety director has said publicly that crime is down in Hoboken, yet the City Council has moved to expand the police force and put special officers in schools, and many residents report not feeling safe. How do you square this?
Dini Ajmani: I am glad statistics are headed in the right direction. However, data often does not capture erosion in our sense of safety. I will augment street patrols with officers from Hudson County’s sheriff’s office.
Tiffanie Fisher: Even if crime statistics are down, feelings of safety matter – and right now, many residents don’t feel safe. That disconnect is real, and it demands action.
We need to return to true community policing – where officers are consistently visible, build relationships with residents, and respond quickly to neighborhood concerns – and we need to do it now using the resources we already have. Hoboken has done this successfully before with the same resources we have today, and I know that with a more hands-on mayor, we can quickly work together to better deploy our resources so they meet the community’s concerns.
We’ve already made progress on staffing. We have backfilled 23 previously open positions (which had been hard to fill due to outdated residency requirements), I supported adding 10 more officers, and the Council just approved another 14. The latter will take time to hire and train, but as mayor I will not wait – I will work with our public safety leaders to increase presence on our streets while new hires are phased in. We also approved hiring retired police officers to work in our schools and free up additional police resources.
This kind of approach is exactly what I am doing right now with neighbors around Church Square Park – stepping into the role my late colleague Jen Giattino once filled – bringing police leaders and residents together to directly address safety issues. As mayor, I will build on that approach citywide and create a constituent services role within the Police Department to respond directly to community concerns.
Safety isn’t just about numbers — it’s about visibility, trust, and responsiveness.
Emily Jabbour: Hoboken is a safe city. That said, there are still challenges with respect to our urban setting that can cause residents to feel anxiety that reflect this point in time. The quarterly Community and Public Safety (CAPS) meetings have been a very successful tool for residents to engage with our public safety teams directly and get credible information – and we need to be even more transparent and forthcoming about the information that is shared (to the extent that it does not jeopardize investigations, etc). I voted in support of expanding the number of police officers hired in order to create a dedicated community policing team – the presence of officers in places like Church Square Park and along Washington Street can prevent and deter negative situations from developing.
Ruben Ramos: We had one of the most harrowing criminal acts in recent Hoboken history last year in Church Square Park, so I believe that residents are absolutely justified in feeling less safe than in years past. I’ve spent my entire life in Hoboken and I know that residents do not feel as safe as they did in the past. To correct this, I believe we need to free up our police officers to do their jobs and not be pulled in different directions, which is why I will create a dedicated Quality of Life enforcement team to handle issues that police do not need to be involved in. I’ll also bring back foot patrols to have a more visible police presence in our parks and neighborhoods.
Michael Russo: Close your eyes and really ask yourself if you feel more safe in Hoboken than you did five years ago. Part of the reason the answer is “no” for most people is that a lot of these quality of life issues go unenforced. We have e-bike drivers on our sidewalks, we have mental health outbursts in public, and we have violent crime incidents that beg for more constant patrolling, particularly in places that are frequented by families and students.
I accept that our police department has reported a slight decrease in violent crime. Nevertheless, assaults, catcalling, public defecation, and complete disregard for traffic safety are all problems we have to deal with. These have all been reported in the last year and it’s not infrequent. These are basic quality of life issues—and even if they are not all able to be classified as “violent crimes,” that doesn’t mean that it’s not lawbreaking, and it doesn’t mean that our residents don’t have the right to feel concerned about it. In my first 100 days I will ramp up enforcement of the laws we actually have on the books, and I’ll install a permanent parks patrol. It’s a start to getting where we need to be.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Many residents have expressed hygienic concerns with the amount of dog feces on Hoboken’s sidewalks; would you address this problem, and if so, how? And how do you feel the City of Hoboken has handled it currently?
Dini Ajmani: First, I would install bag dispensers around the city. I think the citizen-run Instagram campaign has been very potent as a deterrent. I will work with this group of committed citizens on the resources that they need.
Tiffanie Fisher: This is absolutely a quality-of-life issue — and the city has not taken it seriously enough.
As mayor, I will increase enforcement of Hoboken’s pet waste cleanup laws, expand the number of bag dispensers across the city, and partner with large building owners and property managers to improve compliance in high-traffic areas. I will also upgrade our outdated reporting system and include a feature that allows residents to submit photos of violations so problem locations and repeat offenders can be tracked — and if someone is identified more than once, they can be issued a ticket.
Right now, the city’s approach has been inconsistent and reactive. I will make it proactive, visible, and citywide.
Emily Jabbour: As a dog owner myself, I am constantly frustrated by this issue – and as a mom, nothing is worse than having a kid step in poop! It is a super challenging issue because no matter how high you make the fine – and the City Council did double that fine back in 2018 – it is incredibly difficult to catch someone in the act, if only because human nature means that people generally don’t do this unless no one is watching them. As Mayor, I would do an inventory of the existing “adopt a station” program to ensure that the residents who signed up for these stations are actually filling them – and if they are not, we need to step in. The city can also take a more active role partnering with residents who can share camera footage of violators – similar to the recently created Instagram page called Hoboken Poop Patrol. As Mayor, I would also invest in portable power washers that can be used on a regular basis to properly and more thoroughly clean our sidewalks, rather than just pick up litter.
Ruben Ramos: This is just one of many areas where quality of life in Hoboken has fallen off, and the city needs to prioritize making improvements here. I’ll create a Code Enforcement and Quality of Life Division by reorganizing and retraining city workers we already have. Their job? Not just handing out tickets, but working with residents, solving problems fast, and bringing pride back to our neighborhoods.
Michael Russo: I talked about this in one of my recent town halls, but there used to be a time in Hoboken where people who left animal waste on the sidewalks would get called out by name. This is a quality-of-life issue. I’ll partner with community advocates to expand the availability of waste bags around the city at the same time as I ramp up enforcement. The enforcement component is important here, but even more basic is fostering a community where people really don’t feel great about being the type of person to casually do something like that. At the end of the day, it’s a choice.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
The Hoboken Girl: Hoboken residents also expressed concern over a lack of accommodations for the elderly and disabled, particularly the lack of benches, ramps, and handicapped parking spaces. What’s your opinion and what, if any, initiatives would you support?
Dini Ajmani: I fully support assistance that enhances the life of our citizens and seniors, including benches and ramps. There are numerous ways to design benches that offer a respite without attracting overnighters.
Tiffanie Fisher: We need to make Hoboken far more age- and ability-friendly. Right now, it can be difficult for many seniors and residents with disabilities to get around safely and comfortably — and that has to change.
I co-sponsored an ordinance to prohibit the removal of public seating anywhere in the city without City Council approval, but it was voted down (4–4) by Team Bhalla. The recent removal of benches along Washington Street has been very disruptive, and it shouldn’t take public pressure campaigns or finger-pointing to replace something so basic.
As mayor, I will implement a citywide seating plan to add benches on corners throughout Hoboken. This will create natural resting points that allow people to travel farther and access more of our city — and it could even support businesses in less-frequented areas by encouraging more foot traffic.
This is personal to me. My mother used a wheelchair for the remainder of her life, so I understand how important accessibility is to maintaining independence and dignity. I will add more general handicapped parking spaces citywide and conduct a full ADA accessibility assessment to ensure Hoboken not only meets the legal standard but exceeds it. I will also create a municipal ADA & Accessibility Commission to guide these improvements, hold the city accountable, and ensure residents with disabilities have a direct voice in shaping solutions.
And beyond infrastructure, we must also expand our recreation programming for seniors and residents who are differently abled. I will create a Community Recreation Advisory Group, including representatives from both groups, to help design programs and activities that truly meet their needs and make our public spaces more welcoming for everyone.
Emily Jabbour: At the end of my mom’s life, she was in a wheelchair – so when she would visit with us in Hoboken, I was regularly thinking about the accessibility of our town. The city needs to prioritize doing an inventory of accessibility throughout town – for example, residents often flag for me when the edge of the curb is not in line with the street and it causes a bump or fall because of that gap. While I appreciate that residents take the initiative to flag this concern, I think the city needs to actively examine construction projects that result in this condition – and prioritize upkeep of resources like the truncated domes (bumpy red square pads on corners). Benches are also a vital aspect of the city that must be maintained for senior citizens and people with mobility challenges – we need to commit to investing in benches that are accommodating and can be easily cleaned as part of our regular sanitation activities.
Ruben Ramos: Hoboken must do a much better job of making our city accessible for seniors and residents with disabilities. Simple improvements like benches, ramps, and additional handicapped parking spaces are not luxuries, they are basic necessities that allow all residents to move safely and comfortably through our community.
As mayor, I will prioritize an accessibility audit of city streets, parks, and facilities to identify gaps and fix them quickly. I will also ensure that redevelopment projects and city-funded improvements include ADA-compliant features from the start, rather than leaving accessibility as an afterthought.
This is a back-to-basics issue of equity and respect. Every resident, regardless of age or ability, deserves to feel that Hoboken is a city where they can get around safely and with dignity.
Michael Russo: Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act is incredibly important to me. One of my biggest supporters, for example, lives on Jackson Street, and her son is a wheelchair user… she’s told me there have been times where he needed to leave the sidewalk and go into the street because the deterioration was so bad. In my first 100 days I’ll begin an ADA audit citywide. We have to remember that this is the law, and our government’s responsibility is to make sure that anything public is accessible to every single resident. That is non-negotiable.
Patricia Waiters: did not respond
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