Team Bhalla Council Slate Pledges to Adhere to Hoboken Pay-to-Play Laws and Calls on all Candidates to do the Same

The Team Bhalla Council Slate today pledged to adhere to Hoboken’s pay-to-play reform and related campaign finance laws in the upcoming November election and called on all Council candidates to do the same.

The Team Bhalla  Council Slate, comprised of Migdalia Pagan-Milano, Nora Martinez DeBenedetto, Lisa Sprengle, Phil Cohen and Cristin Cricco-Powell, said,  “We pledge to adhere to Hoboken pay-to-play reform and related local campaign finance laws in order to protect the integrity of our elections, our redevelopment agreements, and our city contracting process. We call on all Council candidates to join us.”

The Team Bhalla Council Slate noted that Councilmembers Mike DeFusco, Tiffanie Fisher, Jen Giattino and Ruben Ramos, all of whom are candidates in the November Council election, have repeatedly refused to reaffirm their support and willingness to adhere to the Hoboken pay-to-play reform and related local campaign finance laws.  The Slate also noted that any possible enforcement difficulties with certain components of the regulations is no excuse for not adhering to the laws, since candidates can voluntarily agree to do so.

The resolution reaffirming the pay-to-play reform laws and related campaign finance regulations, introduced by Councilmembers Doyle and Jabbour, was tabled by a 5 to 4 vote at the last regularly scheduled Council meeting with DeFusco, Fisher, Giattino and Ramos all voting to table-the second time they have all done so.

Team Bhalla Council Slate Bios

Ward 1: Migdalia Pagan-Milano works for the City’s newly resurrected Constituent Affairs department, where on a daily basis she works to assist residents with problems, such as noise pollution from the rail-yard, unaffordable rents and unsafe living conditions in the senior buildings.  She recently assisted residents of Marineview in the refurbishing of their apartments in the wake of two recent fires.

Migdalia previously worked at the City’s Cultural Affairs Department where she helped organize city events such as the Arts and Music Festival and interacted regularly with business owners.  She was one of the organizers of the first ever Hoboken Pride Week, collaborating with Hudson Pride Center and working to include all LGBTQ residents.  Migdalia, a lifelong resident of Hoboken, resides in the First Ward with her wife, Lisa.

Ward 2: Nora Martínez DeBenedetto is a teacher at Kaplan Cooperative Preschool and the coordinator of the popular Art in the Park program for the City of Hoboken, which is now greatly expanded and running at capacity each summer with almost six hundred children enrolled.

Nora has served as a volunteer organizer of the Hoboken Uptown Farmers Market for ten years, where she was one of the founding members. In this capacity, she worked to bring Jersey Fresh produce to a neighborhood that was in need of more health food options and community events. A graduate of Syracuse University, Nora later received her Master’s Degree from New Jersey City University. She is a lifelong resident of Hoboken and the Second Ward, where she lives with her husband and young son.

Ward 4:  Lisa Sprengle is an attorney, accountant and a mom. She is a business professional and a CPA, with a JD from Chicago Kent. Lisa currently works as the Controller for a large New York based company, actively involved in all aspects of the business large and small, including legal, finance, accounting, human resources and even store construction.

Ward 5: Phil Cohen has been an engaged volunteer in Hoboken’s civic life for nearly two decades. Phil is a member of the Citizens Advisory Group for the transformative $230 million Rebuild by Design project, working on the plan to implement protections for our City from rising tides and strengthening storms like Superstorm Sandy.  He is a member of the Hoboken Library’s Space Search Committee working on identifying an uptown branch location to better serve our community.  Phil is a 5^th Ward Democratic Committeeperson who has been elected to serve the 5^th Ward for more than a decade.   Last year, he was elected by the Committee’s members to serve as Chair of the Hoboken Democratic Party.

A graduate of Rutgers Law School, Phil is a practicing attorney in the New York office of an international law firm where he is a shareholder in the firm’s litigation practice.  Phil and his wife Rebecca are proud to have raised their daughters, Madeline 23, and Anna 19, here in Hoboken.

Ward 6: In Cristin Cricco Powell’s 20 years as an executive producer and director of TV shows and documentaries, she’s worked with everyone from coal miners in West Virginia to civil rights icon Harry Belafonte. Leading teams and directing different (and sometimes difficult) personalities has honed her management skills, while running high stakes projects with fixed schedules and tight budgets has given her the ability to think outside the box for smart solutions to sudden problems.

Cristin is an active supporter of the Hoboken Public Education Foundation and has a soon-to-be 4th grader and kindergartener at Brandt. She is a firm believer that everyone in Hoboken is her neighbor. Cristin’s family has been in Hoboken since 1897. Her great-grandparents Robert and Raffaela Cricco helped build St. Ann’s Church, and her grandfather, Carl, Sr. and father, Carl, Jr. were much-loved surgeons in town.