Einstein Challenges Bhalla to Debate on Eminent Domain Abuse

Hoboken – Joshua Sotomayor Einstein, Hoboken community advocate and NJ GOP State Committeeman, announced in an op-ed in Hudson County View published Sunday, that he is challenging Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla to a debate on property rights and the immoral seizure of NY Waterway’s dry dock in Hoboken. “Bhalla has used his perch as mayor not as a podium to lift everyone up to, but as a bully pulpit to yell down his nose at everyone from. His crusade for ever more power has led him to attack and demonize the ferry company so many people use to commute and now he wants to use eminent domain to steal their property and make life more difficult for commuters and taxpayers,” said Einstein. He continued, “the people of Hoboken deserve better than the rhetoric coming out of the mayor’s office, I offer Bhalla an opportunity to provide more than sound bites and debate with myself for the people of Hoboken.”

Hoboken’s mayor without a mandate, Ravi Bhalla, whom only a minority of Hoboken voters elected into office in 2017, has been leading the charge against the ferry company many Hoboken commuters depend on. Einstein added, “the immoral theft of private property by town and city governments, rampant in our great state, cannot go unchallenged.” He continued, “the wants of the few do not out way the inalienable individual rights of the many, including the right to one’s property.”

NY Waterway’s dry dock has been the target of the Bhalla administration since day one. The property, formerly known as the Union Dry Dock, was sold by its previous owner to NY Waterways in order to keep it a living memorial to Hoboken’s maritime past. Many Hoboken voters have expressed the desire to see the last vestige of the ship based and blue-collar town history remain unmolested by the mayoral administration. The mayor and his political surrogates, on the other hand, have declared that it is their “right” to take the property from its owner so that it can be turned into a park and promenade like the other 95% of the Hoboken’s waterfront.