HOBOKEN TENANTS need to STORM THE RENT BOARD MEETINGS!  (Or at least go and observe and speak.)

THE NEXT MEETING of the Hoboken Rent Leveling and Stabilization Board is Wednesday evening, March 12th, at 6:30 PM.

From the Rent Board’s page on the city website:

“Hoboken Rent Leveling Board meetings are generally held on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month, at 6:30 pm in the Conference Room of City Hall (ground floor). . . . These hearings are open to all members of the public and testimonies will be given under oath and will limited to 5 minutes per person.”

YOU CAN WATCH past Rent Board meetings at the HFHA vimeo site, where we’ve posted videos of most of the meetings.

ALSO:  TWO SEATS ON THE BOARD ARE UP FOR RENEWAL.

(And this is a board that badly needs balance on the tenant side.)

>>  BECOME THE CHANGE YOU WANT  <<

Would you like to see a majority of Hoboken’s Rent Control Board members support rent control?   Do you have two evenings a month to spare  (about 2-4 hours a month)?

If so, please put in your application at city hall for a seat on the Rent board.  The application is right here; you can download it, fill it out, get it notarized and drop it off between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM, Monday through Friday at the Rent Board office.

Five board members have been re-appointed.  There are seven seats, and currently one person that has not been re-appointed is in holdover status.  (A very landlord friendly board member, we might add.)  This member will stay in holdover status unless two more board members are appointed.  It’s a precarious situation and we urge everyone to seriously consider putting in an application.

The Rent Board meetings typically are not long, often only 20 minutes, rarely more than an hour.

THE SIMPLE FACT is that if the only applicants for a seat on the board are landlord-friendly, that’s going to have a BIG (read HARMFUL) effect on how Hoboken’s Rent Control ordinance will be interpreted and administered for ALL tenants — you, me, and every tenant in town.

If you’re a Facebook HFHA friend (or just a friend) and tenant, and if you want to help insure that rent control has a future here, please CONSIDER being someone who will help tip the balance of the make-up of the rent board.

Once again, you can grab the application and download it here.

WHO’S GOING TO PRESERVE & MAINTAIN RENT CONTROL IN HOBOKEN IF THE TENANTS THEMSELVES DON’T?