The HBOE Survey, the HHA Meeting, and Questions of Transparency
This past Wednesday, August 13th, an in-person meeting was held at the Connors School gym specifically for parents affiliated with the Hoboken Housing Authority (HHA). The goal? To increase participation in a Hoboken Board of Education (HBOE) survey that was circulated last year—but received too few responses to be useful.On the surface, this might look like a good-faith attempt to re-engage the community. But when you take a closer look at how it was organized and why it’s happening now, it raises important questions about transparency, intent, and process.
For starters, the meeting was reportedly coordinated using a personal email address—not an official one from the district or the HHA. That’s problematic. Anytime public engagement is being solicited—especially on school property and about matters that may influence policy or funding—official communication channels should be used. It protects both the organizers and the public by keeping records accessible and above board.
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Which leads to the next question: Who’s funding this? Was food or drink provided, and if so, who paid for it? If taxpayer funds or public facilities are being used, residents deserve transparency.The broader context here matters. This survey—widely viewed as flawed in both design and execution—appears to be part of a continued effort to build a case for a large-scale, expensive school construction project. Let’s not forget that the last version of this plan came with a $330 million price tag, which voters overwhelmingly rejected. It’s hard not to see these meetings as a way to manufacture support rather than genuinely gather it.
Is it even typical to hold in-person meetings like this to retroactively salvage a survey? And if this meeting was about informing parents or presenting survey results, why wasn’t it open to the broader Hoboken community? This is a public matter with city-wide implications—not a private issue affecting just one group.
Good intentions don’t absolve bad process. If this survey is going to be used to justify any kind of policy or capital project, then the community deserves a clear, transparent, and accountable process—not selective outreach or closed-door meetings.
Hoboken has been down this road before, and the stakes are too high for the same mistakes to be repeated.
It’s time for the district to engage in real dialogue—with everyone.
