Dear Editor:

Because of Hoboken's current budget crisis, there are two competing ill-considered short term solutions presented by the Roberts Administration: Plan A -- selling the city garage to the Hudson County improvement Authority, and the much worse Plan B -- changing the current zoning on Observer Highway and Newark St. (this zoning change was printed with maps in last week's Hoboken Reporter) to change the garage site and the Neumann Leathers complex from the current industrial zoning to B-3, which allows up to 14 story towers with ground floor businesses. The current industrial zoning of Neumann is the only thing preventing a developers' bidding war for the site. If it is changed, the buildings and the community of artists, photographers, musicians, instrument makers, cabinet makers, architects and many other small business of all descriptions housed in them will be history, replaced by tall towers and dense housing in pretty short order, I reckon.

Hobokens' award winning Master Plan which calls for diversity, preservation of historic buildings and the businesses in them and specifically says "the Newman site requires further study..." will be trumped by the city's desperation to plug the eight million dollar hole in its, as yet, unpassed budget. Once again big development is seen as the solution to this short-term crisis. As pointed out in the Dennis Rees letter to the editor "Who Does Large Scale Development Serve?", also in last week's Reporter, this is not a real solution. Hoboken's chance to implement its master plan in this section of town, carefully done and full of citizens desire to plan a city we would all want to live in will be sacrificed, and we'll have to live with the permanent bad solution.

With the mayoral and council elections a mere 45 days away, and all the candidates unwilling to compromise, it looks like Plan B may be forced through. Plan A requires six votes, Plan B requires 5, which the mayor can get. This may be voted on at the city council's next meeting on wed April 6. This will be held at the Wallace School at 11th and Wllow Ave. because of the expected overflow crowd of laid-off city workers, all of the political factions, a large crowd of Neumann tenants and supporters, condo associations from the potentially rezoned area, and the Hoboken Art and Industry Preservation Project (HAIPP) members.

I appeal to all council members, and especially Mayor Roberts, to start negotiating with each other and avoid passing Plan B. If this awful solution is passed, if the Neumann tenants are abandoned, there will be enough blame to go around that you would all share in it. Finally, here is a suggestion that no one wants to hear: forget Plans A or B, raise taxes now before the election (they're going to be raised anyway) and pass the budget.

Tim Daly

Artist and Neumann Tenant since 1988.