Did your landlord tell you why the rent was increased? I just resigned my lease and wanted to make sure I didnt get ripped off. I would check out this website about rent control in Jersey City. I found it very helpful. It says how and why your landlord can increase your rent.

http://www.getnj.com/jerseycity/rentcontrol.shtml

It applies to buildings with 5 or more apartments. Also, I found this on another rent control website.

"If your apartment or house is not covered by the rent control ordinance, the only limitation on your landlord's right to increase the rent is that the landlord cannot evict you for refusing to pay an increase that is so large that it is "unconscionable" (extremely harsh or so unreasonable as to be shocking).

The courts have not defined what the word "unconscionable" means in dollars and cents. But some rents clearly appear to be so harsh or shocking as to be unconscionable. For example, if your landlord raises your rent more than 20% without a very good reason, the increase may be unconscionable. On the other hand, even a 5% increase could be unconscionable if the conditions of the building are very bad and the landlord has failed to make repairs. "

So there you go. I think 30% is shocking enough to be unconscionable

That's a ridiculously high percentage, but that would bump you up to $975 for, I assume, a 1 BR. Unfortunately, I suspect that's probably about market rate. Not sure about the legalities.

Rents will continue to go up in the area. Question is, will people pay them. Or will they just move to other parts of JC, Union City, Weehawken, or parts of Newark, etc.

Yesterday the owner of the building where I live notified me of a 30% increase in my rent -- this is on top of my usual rent increase, which happened in December.

Is this the future of Harsimus Cove? Is there anything I can do about this, or should I just pay or move out? I know there is no rent control, but there is a state law protecting tenants from unconscionable rent increases. I know downtown is booming ... would 30% be considered unconscionable? (by a Judge, I mean) I've lived here 12 years but I really don't want to get into some big legal battle unless I had a good chance of winning.

Also, where can I live for about $750 a month? Besides Antarctica?

Pleads guilty in Heights man's killing
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City resident Michael Comacho, AKA "The Sandman," has pleaded guilty to killing an 18-year-old man in November 2002 using his trademark sleeper hold, then dumping the body in the defunct Reservoir No. 3, authorities said yesterday.

Officials said the sleeper hold was Comacho's "preferred method of intimidation," earning him the nickname "The Sandman."

He entered the plea of guilty of manslaughter Friday before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Kevin G. Callahan, said Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Mike D'Andrea, and will be sentenced in early July.

Comacho, who's been in jail since his arrest in January 2003, admitted killing Jesse Martinez, another Jersey City resident, during a dispute.

The plea carries an up to 25-year sentence, and because of the nature of the crime Comacho must serve 85 percent of the sentence before being eligible for parole, D'Andrea said.

The nature of the dispute between Comacho and Martinez has never been fully determined.

What is clear, according to D'Andrea, is that on Nov. 9, 2002, the two argued inside a basement apartment Comacho rented at 86 Prospect Ave. Comacho grabbed Martinez around the neck with his forearm and biceps and literally "squeezed the life out of him," D'Andrea said.



Comacho, who carried out the murder by himself, kept the body in the apartment for a day. Then he bound it, covered it with bedspreads and paper bags, put it in a shopping cart, and wheeled it in

Aide and her husband joined Epps on his trip

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

By JARRETT RENSHAW

JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

An associate superintendent and her husband joined Jersey City Schools Superintendent Charles T. Epps Jr. on his expensive trip to England that has become a lightning rod for critics of spending in the state's Abbott districts.

Adele Macula, who heads up the district's curriculum and instruction, and her husband Joe Macula, a vice president with United Water in Jersey City, wined and dined with Epps at two of London's finest restaurants during the 2004 trip.

They went across the pond, at the district's expense, to attend a five-day education conference at prestigious Oxford University.

But Epps and his companions arrived in London four days before the conference began, according to receipts and other documents obtained by The Jersey Journal through state Republicans and interviews with conference organizers, and they spent hundreds of dollars eating $80 entrees and $25 soups and staying at a $481-a-night hotel before trekking the 50 miles to Oxford.

Once at the conference, Epps and the Maculas apparently turned down the campus lodging - included in the cost of attendance - and instead stayed at the nearly $300-a-night Old Parsonage Hotel.

A school board member who has seen receipts submitted by Adele Macula says that she did not charge taxpayers for her husband's meals, though he did stay with his wife in the hotels.

Epps, on the other hand, was apparently reimbursed by taxpayers for Joe Macula's expensive meals when he picked up the tab, despite the fact that the United Water veep was not a district employee.

"The taxpayers did not pay for me," said Joe Macula when reached at his work yesterday. "I did not hand in those receipts."

He would not comment any further on the trip yesterday.

Epps also refused to comment about the trip, but officials said a statement from him is expected today.

Taxpayers eventually reimbursed Epps $5,179 for the wining and dining expenses, which does not include air fare and the "all-inclusive" $8,195 tuition paid by the district. Though it's unclear how much Macula submitted as expenses, it was in the thousands of dollars, according to a school board member.

The revelation about who joined Epps on the trip has caused at least one local political leader to demand that Epps speak publicly about the trip.

"It raises even more questions and now he has to respond so that public trust in government can begin to be restored," said Assemblyman Lou Manzo, D-Jersey City.

Manzo, who ran on the same ticket with Epps, was the first of the county's political leaders to criticize Epps. He was later joined by Assemblyman and Union City Mayor Brian Stack and Assemblyman and West New York Mayor Albio Sires, who also said Epps should give the taxpayers their money back.

Yesterday, state Sen. and Bayonne Mayor Joseph V. Doria Jr. joined the others in calling for Epps to return the money.

The State Department of Education "recommended" Monday that the district seek reimbursement for the money.

State Sen. Bernard Kenny, who heads the county's Democratic organization and is reportedly working behind the scenes to defuse the politically charged issue, offered "no comment" on the issue, as did state Sen. and North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco.

Another hit by 'salt-and-pepper'

Wednesday, May 24, 2006
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The "salt-and-pepper" bank robber has struck again.

The Bank of America branch at 186 Newark Ave. in Downtown Jersey City was robbed yesterday, two days after a man with the same description robbed the North Fork Bank across the street.

Investigators believe it was the same man because of the similar appearance - a middle-aged white man with a mustache, salt-and-pepper hair and eyeglasses - as well as the use of a similarly worded note: "This is a robbery. Please put $10,000 in a bag." In both robberies, the robber passed the teller the note along with the bag.

He pulled yesterday's robbery about 11 a.m., Police Sgt. Edgar Martinez said. The nervous teller filled the bag with cash but used small bills, so the total amount was less than $2,000, Martinez said.

In Saturday's robbery, the thief escaped a pursuing bank guard by throwing bills over his shoulder as he ran. The guard stopped to pick up the money, about $1,425, but the robber got away with $4,217.

The man didn't use a weapon or claim to have one in either robbery, police said.

A man fitting a similar description robbed a Weehawken bank on May 12, also without showing a weapon, but investigators have not made any connection between the two crimes.

Because of a rash of bank heists over the past few months, the Jersey City Police Department and the FBI are planning a workshop for June 15 at St. Peter's College in Jersey City to teach bank employees how to react during a robbery and in the critical minutes after one, Martinez said.

The bank robber is believed to have been caught on tape, but investigators were still reviewing the security camera video, Martinez said. He said the FBI would take the lead on the investigation.

Six customers and seven employees - but no guards - were in the bank during yesterday's robbery, Martinez added.

One of those customers was Carlos Nolasco, who said he watched it unfold in front of him - because Nolasco wanted to wait for a bilingual teller, he allowed the robber to go ahead of him in line.



"I see this man had a paper, but I didn't think about it because a lot of people bring documents to a bank," Nolasco said. "Now I'm a little nervous."



A senior citizen who was doing her banking yesterday at the time of the robbery complimented the thief on his technique.



"I was in there and didn't see anything," said the senior citizen, who didn't want to be identified. "If he was a robber he was well trained."

Jersey City 'mobster' convicted

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

By JOHN P. MARTIN

NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

A former Jersey City deli owner whom prosecutors described as a made member or powerful associate of the Genovese crime family was convicted yesterday of racketeering and loansharking.

A federal jury in Newark deliberated for more than two days before finding Michael Crincoli guilty of racketeering and multiple counts of extortion. He was acquitted on a single extortion count and also of transporting in aid of extortion.

"It shows a thorough analysis of the evidence and is another blow by the government against organized crime," Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Faye Schwartz said of the verdict.

Crincoli, 46, was among 16 suspected mobsters charged after a roundup last summer, but the only one to decline a plea bargain.

Prosecutors said he handled at least tens of thousands of dollars in loans for the mob, charging weekly interest rates of 2 percent or 3 percent. Four borrowers, including three diner owners who had amassed gambling debts, testified for the government.

The indictments and subsequent trial also forced the courtroom debut of a longtime FBI informant, Peter "Petey Cap" Caporino.

Caporino, 69, who owned a social club in Hoboken, said he spent more than 40 years in the mob and more than 15 feeding information to the FBI.

His attorney, Michael Ferrante, was disappointed but not surprised.

"There was a mountain of evidence here," Ferrante said, pointing to Caporino's recordings of Crincoli. "Jurors have a tendency to make people responsible for their own words."

U.S. District Judge William Martini scheduled sentencing for Aug. 24 and ordered the defendant to remain under house arrest. Crincoli faces between six and seven years in prison, Schwartz said.

Healy: 3 ordinances would help the city curb gun violence

Wednesday, May 24, 2006
By EARL MORGAN
JERSEY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City is taking aim at guns with a range of proposed ordinances announced Monday night by Mayor Jerramiah Healy.

The three ordinances would: restrict the sale or purchase or more than one handgun within a 180-day period; prohibit the sale of inexpensive short-barreled pistols known as "Saturday night specials" or "junk guns"; and require the owner of a gun that's stolen to report the theft within 48 hours.

Violations of the ordinances could result in fines of up to $500 or face a 90-day jail sentence, the maximum punishment the city can mete out under state law.

Healy unveiled his gun initiative during a press conference Monday night at City Hall attended by Bill Ryan, executive director of Ceasefire NJ, and Police Chief Robert Troy, Police Director Sam Jefferson, Hudson County Prosecutor Ed DeFazio and several City Council members.

The proposed ordinances are on the agenda for discussion at tonight's City Council meeting.

The mayor said the proposed anti-gun legislation is a component of his overall strategy of fighting crime in the city.

"We have added almost 200 cops to the Police Department, and we now have a business curfew. Our Police Department also has a gang task force to address the growing problem of street gangs," Healy said.

Healy cited a statistic that illegal handguns were involved in 987 crimes in Jersey City last year, and noted that many of the weapons were either stolen or purchased in other states.

"While we have strict gun laws in New Jersey, a person can go to Virginia or Georgia or Pennsylvania, buy enough handguns to load up the trunk of his car, then come back here and sell the guns on the streets of Paterson, Newark, Jersey City or New York," he said.

The mayor said he realizes that the measures he's proposing would have a limited effect on the city's gun problem.

"We know what is needed here is a federal solution," the mayor said, "but we know we have to do our part."

Quote:

I don't know how many more ways to phrase this:

You are deliberately connecting to something that is not yours without permission to do so. Permission is not implied just because it's open - to say that would mean you could get up and walk into your neighbors house if their door was unlocked (though, around here, I'd tend not to do that...)

If your neighbors cable splitter had an open port outside and you hooked into it, are you just "sharing" your neigbhors cable? I mean, hell, they left the port open, either deliberately or accidentally, right? If everyone "shared" open connections, how in the hell would there be any paid connections left in the end? It just doesn't scale.


I provided links above where these cases have gone far beyond the first motion to dismiss. Before spouting stuff like that off, how about checking out the details. Even people who make it their hobby to find and map out open wireless networks consider it unethical to actually connect to them.

In the case of open WiFi..
You're not only potentially stealing service from your neighbor, you're potentially stealing service from their ISP. As an example, Comcast expressly forbids this arrangement in their terms of service. Just because it *may* be free doesn't give you the right to just take it. This applies in real life and it applies for wireless signals.



On another topic, for those clammoring for this but also FIOS, go ahead and put in citywide free WiFi. See if Verizon comes calling anytime in the next 10 years to put FIOS in. This will stop FIOS dead in it's tracks for JC. Go and search on the other articles regarding cities putting in muni broadband and see how the incumbent telcos have dealt with it. Lafayette, LA and BellSouth are great examples.

Why free WiFi? Why aren't we giving away the laptops for free, too? Why not free phone service and cable TV while we're at it? Both of those resources if used properly can be great tools for underprivledged people. A free massage weekly would do them well in all that job-finding stress.

Ask some of the people in highrise buildings in Philadelphia how their free WiFi is doing. It's non existant as signals dont' travel well through concrete and steel. The idea that the areas around JC, such as the projects, would be served well is a joke. The projects in JC, for example, would have to be custom fitted for wireless inside the building. This is not as simple as just throwing some equipment at the top of a few light posts and will become a long term maintenance nightmare.


And Steve, I'm glad that your other initiatives are going well - but that doesn't give you an excuse to take your eyes off the ball and remember what's still important. Last I checked, I had 3 wheels stolen off a car near VVP on Saturday night and it was left on milk crates. No one "noticed" it happening even though it was directly under a street lamp and on a major road. That same night, two other vehicles had their windows smashed out (that I saw). When the officer showed up on Sunday to take the report for my vehicle(30 minutes later), his radio and the radio of the other officer that showed up didn't work and he had to call dispatch from his cell phone. If you ask me, that's a bigger "wireless" problem.

Congrats! Today's Jersey has this letter --
http://www.nj.com/opinion/jjournal/le ... 48461816208390.xml&coll=3

The paper also has more revelations about Epps' waste of Abbott monies.

Shame, shame, shame.

You're absolutely right - I missed the meeting. I was doing my work and Steve was doing his. What can I do to catch up?

There's a lot of bogeyman and straw man argumentation going on here, especially with regards to legal consequences of using an open WiFi. It's not surprising that it comes flavored with the "let them eat cake" attitude that underclass is not able to appreciate it.

To claim that using an open connection would subject the user to criminal charges probably wouldn't get past the first motion to dismiss. The simple fact is, many are deliberately left open by generous citizens or by neighborhood organizations who see the public good in that sharing.

Rarely - very rarely - is there any welcoming screen to identify the deliberately open from the accidental. In that common circumstance, proving intent to steal service would be difficult for the simple reason that the intention may not exist - and the presumption of the law - at least for as long as we have our fragile and endangered Constitution - is that one is innocent until proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt.

Yes, your friend and mine, the phone or cable company, that outstanding public citizen who has no problem exploiting public property as a monopoly, has tried and failed to stop community-wide projects. But I'm not aware of any attempt by them to criminalize, or even civilly prosecute, someone with a laptop sitting on a bench or in a car outside an apartment house.

As for that "child pornography" bogeyman, distributing it by any means is illegal all by itself. To say that open WiFi should be repressed because it may be used to distribute illegal material is the same as saying that owning a printing press or fax machine or scanner or computer or pencil should be regsitered, licensed and controlled because of the potential for abuse.

That's the pretense used right now in China to control the Internet. It's the pretense of every despot in history to suppress liberty.

As for the "go buy your own" elitist arrogance, we subsidize public transportation, not to serve some lazy underclass that refuses to buy its own train or bus, but because it serves many economic and social needs that are essential to a wealthy and stable society. Paving streets and building highways is not to make life easier for those too stupid to build their own but for the common good. Public education is not a bone to rioting masses but the engine of national political and economic power. Open access to the Internet is just one more basic social service.

I have lived in a certain country where 5% of the population own more than 95% of the real estate but paid no income or property tax. As a result, there were few, if any, public services. Police were paid $40 a month - and all they could extort from their fellow poor. Trained firemen were virtually non-existent and the small amount of fire equipment that existed bore the names of cities in other countries that donated their used equipment. Public libraries did not exist. Hospitals were where one went to die, while the rich got on a plane to the USA. Public schools, when they existed at all, were pathetic.

And that country, while sitting atop huge natural resources such as gold, gems and astoundingly fertile land, is "third world" due entirely to the selfishness and arrogance of its wealthy. The arguments used there to maintain the privileges of the wealthy were the same ones used here against cheaper or even free public access to open wireless Internet.

Marie Antoinette would agree.

Quote:

At the last Harsimus Cove Association meeting your name was read as one who volunteered for the Garbage committee to deal with this issue, yet you were not there, but Steve was as he is for most meetings trying to help.

Hmmm....

I've seen the performer who plays Antony in "Sweeny Todd" walking around Jersey City.

I've seen Shandie, too. Eva from top model lives in Jersey. I've seen her several times.

I hated publis transportation to JFK until the New Airtran. Love the new Air Tran takes 20 minutes off the trip at least!!!!!

Walk to Grove 5 - 10 minutes
Path ride 7 minutes
A express 35 minutes
Airtran 5- 10 minutes.
Connecting/waiting time say 20 minutes at most

Time will be 55 to 1:15

I had a real heavy bag once but most of the trip is flat (apart from the stairs at Grove) is you stay underground at the WTC Path and take the elevators. 2 heavy bags may be tricky.

Quote:

I'm sorry, but I don't get your point. It seems to me the only alternative to failing against overwelming odds with his initiatives is join the machine and play the time honored, pork barrel, budget busting game of "approve my proposal and I'll approve yours". Loyal opposition is a tough role, and too many politicians roll over and play the game to get their piece of the pie to take home and impress the people who say what you did about "what have you actually done?" If my representative does nothing but vote no for things that pass anyway, but I agree with him, he's done his job.

I'm glad that Steve keeps fighting for us.....

Fighting doesn't mean crap, winning does. The streets are still filthy, crime continues to increase, taxes went up, developers continue to get abatements and the fate of the embankment remains in limbo.

When you run for office you tell people what you are going to do, when you are in office you show people what you've done.

Quote:

When the better good starts paying money, then you will see a change. :)

I'm glad that Steve keeps fighting for us. I wonder when the others are going to figure out that they should act for the better good.


Gina

I don't know the outcome of the school budget but this article speaks to the idea of being a State Assemblyman while also being the Superintendent of Schools.

I know you get to make more money by moonlighting but this is clearly a conflict of interest -- even if he works 20 hours a day.

---------------

Parents blast Epps for not joining suit

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

By KEN THORBOURNE

JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A group of Jersey City parents are accusing freshman state Assemblyman and Superintendent of Schools Charles T. Epps Jr. of playing politics with next year's school budget.

he parents - allied with the nonprofit Statewide Education Organizing Committee - believe Epps isn't doing his job as superintendent by not joining in a lawsuit to challenge Gov. Jon Corzine's proposal not to increase state aid to its poorest districts. The parents claim he's trying to score political points with the governor.

"I think it should be more about the children than about politics," said Annie Hicklen, grandmother of two Snyder High School students. "We feel he should be able to fight for the schools."

To Keisha Harris, a School 17 parent, Epps is failing both as an assemblyman and a superintendent.

"He (Epps) said he wanted to go to be in Trenton and Jersey City to help us," Harris said. "Now is the time to use what you got."

The parents made their comments at an event in Newark, where they were supporting parents there fighting for a new school. Twenty-two of the state's 31 so-called Abbott school districts have joined with the Newark-based Education Law Center to sue the state over the lack of an aid increase.

Epps rejected the argument that not joining in the suit amounted to an abdication of his responsibilities as superintendent.

The state has called for a $7.5 million cut in aid to Jersey City, but Epps has submitted a budget calling for roughly $25 million more than the $430.4 million in state aid the district received last year.

"And I think it will be approved," Epps said. "I'm waiting for a response. I don't know why everyone has jumped so fast."

Assemblyman Craig Stanley, D-Irvington, chairman of the Assembly's education committee, was also on hand for the Newark event and called Epps's actions "curious."

"It's something I just don't understand," Stanley said, adding: "I think it's very important to keep one's elected position separate from the position to which you're entrusted."

Epps said he had no idea what Stanley meant and declined to respond to his comments.

Why does Epps have to go? Poor judgment. Poor job performance. Poor ethics. He might "bust his hump" but, really, so do some Latin Kings who sell dope on Palisade. Hard work at the wrong thing is no prescription for winning applause. Epps quite simply has to go. His existence is an insult to every NJ taxpayer and an affont to the intelligence of Jersey City's residents.

Thanks from me too, Nuada. Here's my message

Quote:
I CC'ed both the Star Ledger and Jersey Journal reporters for good measure.

whats the big deal - the guys busts his hump for every cent.

Thanks for the info, Nuada. I sent the following email to Hyndman:

Dear Mr. Hyndman,

This is in response to the May 10th article in the Star Ledger entitled "Superintendents take heat on 'obscene' compensation" which can be accessed on http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.s ... 47243075187060.xml&coll=1.

I am a Jersey City resident, as well as a McNair Academic High School (Jersey City) and Rutgers University alumnus. While I am a very proud product of the public school system of both the city of Jersey City and the state of New Jersey, I find appalling the financial abuses of Dr. Charles Epps, which were in violation of state policies and were ultimately incurred at the expense of taxpayers and students in needy districts such as mine.

I urge you to conduct further investigation into Dr. Epps' operational and fiscal spending, and take corrective action as necessary.

Thank you.

hyndman@rci.rutgers.edu

That's the email of the president of the state Board of Education, Arnold Hyndman. (He also is dean of Livingston College at Rutgers.)

Write him about Epps.

I sent him an email urging that Epps be fired. Today.

Officials like Hyndman have to hear the extent of the outrage.

EXCLUSIVE: Nigel, my friend in London, has sent me a picture of the "limousine" hired by Dr. Epps. Actually, I'm not that impressed, but check it out yourself.

sounds like a good argument for people to pay a little extra for high speed internet.

also, must agree that there should be some competition for broadband, cable and phone service in JC. Does anyone know why there isn't?

I for one really appreciate Steve's work on our behalf. Steve has kept open the lines of communication that usually close the day after elections. He could have easily buddied up with the machine and spend his time slamming beers at any one of a number wateringholes from here to Jounal Square. He could easily pass the buck and tell you why his office is not responsible for the problem your having and give you the telephone number of someone who supposedly is.
He's a young guy who could be doing a milion other things besides working hard against a group of people who are schooled in the art of bulls**t and graft. For anyone who's been around this place for more than a few years, we know that's something different.

Quote:

What I thought was interesting is that this is the first column Morgan has written since right after Glenn Cunningham died that seems to be on the side of the angels. I don't know that Morgan is a friend of the machine, but it seems as if he spends a lot of inchestrashing the people who try to stand up to the machine.