Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, the 'accidental politician'

Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer: Wouldn't it be wonderful if she had her car booted at 3 a.m.? I wanted to ask her about it but she dodged my phone calls.

(Reena Rose Sibayan/The Jersey Journal)



In her "Bamboozled" column last week, my Star-Ledger colleague Karin Price Mueller reported that the city of Hoboken will have to give refunds to 2,322 drivers who were victimized by the city's over-aggressive policy of towing cars.

That should add up to a tidy sum. But it would amount to peanuts compared to what the town has taken from drivers whose cars have been booted in apparent violation of state law.

Drive into Hudson County and you risk having the boot put on your car by the money-seeking Democratic machine of Hudson pols like Dawn Zimmer.

Typical was

Joby Warrick.

He’s a Washington Post reporter who grew up in Ocean County. Warrick now lives in Virginia. His daughter goes to Rutgers.

One evening she visited friends in Hoboken. Driving into Hoboken was her first mistake; the city has declared a jihad on the infidels who drive. Her second mistake was parking in one of those “residents-only” zones the city has set up to make life even more miserable for those who make the first mistake.

When she got back to her car at 3 a.m., Warrick said, she saw a ticket on the windshield. She threw it in the car and drove away, he said.

“She didn’t know a boot was on the car,” he said. “She heard a clunk and there’s this piece of metal on the road. It’s Hoboken in the early hours of the morning and she just keeps going.”

When she got home and read the ticket, she found out the clunking sound had come from a boot put on her wheel by some deserving Democrat whose expertise must have not been in the automotive field.

Since Warrick owns the car, it was left to him to sort it out. He soon learned that Hoboken wanted to charge him a $500 “runaway boot fee” as well as another $300 in assorted fees. After some negotiation, he ended up paying $468, “all for parking for a couple of hours in a residential zone, with no prior tickets.”

No prior tickets? I had always thought the boot could only be used on the cars of scofflaws.

So did Declan O’Scanlon. That’s not the case. The Monmouth County Republican Assemblyman has been conducting a crusade for drivers’ rights. He promptly emailed me a copy of state statute 39:4-139.13, which states that a town may immobilize or tow a car only “if there are any outstanding warrants against the vehicle.”

When I called Hoboken’s public relations guy, Juan Melli, he told me the city routinely boots cars for parking offense even if there are no outstanding tickets. Melli said he’d get back to me with the number of the statute that permits this.

By day’s end, he had no statute to cite. Instead he sent a statement on behalf of Mayor Dawn Zimmer to the effect that “The City of Hoboken is currently conducting a comprehensive review of our parking policies and procedures.”

So far, so good. But then Zimmer went on to say, “I am not sure why a state legislator from South Jersey is providing commentary on issues unrelated to his position …”

When I ran that by O’Scanlon, he told me that as a state lawmaker he considers himself fully qualified to comment on state laws. But even if Zimmer could come up with a statute that permits this, he said, she should still be ashamed of herself.

“This is just a blatant abuse of motorists,” he said. “You’ve got handicapped people, senior citizens returning from dinner, single women, anybody really.”

O’Scanlon, who is the most vocal critic of those dreadful red-light cameras, said this is yet another attempt by towns to partner with private corporations to shake down motorists.

Booting victims in Hoboken are given a phone number to call to pay the ticket and booting fees by phone. They then get a code to release the boot. O'Scanlon said that when he called the number late at night, he got a woman named Tanya who worked in a call center in Seattle. She asked him for a credit card number.

“Let’s say you don’t have a credit card on you,” he said. “What do you do, sleep on the street?”

O’Scanlon said he will be calling on Hoboken and any other city running this scam to reimburse the victims for the booting costs.

That would be a good start. But the big question that needs to be answered is why the state government doesn’t keep an eye on local officials who prey on people.

Maybe Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno can ask the mayor about it next time they chat.

Zimmer seems to have quite a good memory — except when she forgets to follow the law.

ADD: Declan's email describing his conversation with the woman in Seattle:



Also, here's the statute in question. See if you can find any wiggle room here for Zimmer's Hudson County Democratic machine (italics mine):

COMMENTS: I have deleted many comments accusing the car owner's daughter of various things on the night in question. Do not post any such charges here unless you have evidence to back them up. Such accusations are libelous and have no place on this website. Please restrict your comments to the issue, not the people.

