A couple good reads over coffee this morning

Agustin C. Torres takes a very in-depth look at the implosion of the Hudson County Democratic Party over Mayors Fulop, Stack, Bhalla, and Roque all gunning to replace current county chair Tom DeGise with new blood and DeGise telling them to bring a flashlight and pack a lunch. Good stuff.

Also on your reading list, Earl Morgan makes the fair observation that maybe next year Ward F will hear what Mayor Fulop did and not just what he's still planning to do. Plus, Mr. Earl Morgan used the word surfeit. You can feel those bonus word scores piling up.

A little something for the facts and stats crowd

Caitlin Mota at the Jersey Journal has collected and ranked the compensation packages of all the mayors of Hudson County. Pay ranges anywhere from $2500 a year to one mayor making $116K.

If you wanna see who makes what you gotta click.

West New York Mayor Felix Roque has been indicted

If everyone will stop doing their happy dance that this asshat really looks to be in deep shit this time even he can't get out of Johnny will relay what happened. State authorities say that Roque was a bad bad man:

From 2007 to 2012, Roque, 59, a Democrat who runs the Pain Relief Center in the town, agreed to refer patients needing MRI and CT scans to the centers in exchange for cash and campaign contributions, the state Attorney General's Office said.

The owner of Diagnostic Imaging Affiliates, Rehan Zuberi, 46, of Boonton, allegedly delivered the cash to Roque on a monthly basis and made several payments to him at the mayor's office in the town hall. Roque was just re-elected as mayor in May.

You kinda had the feeling that's the only way this alleged crook was gonna go, yes? Law enforcement were going to have to root him out like a bad tooth. We feel good for the people of West New York tonight.

West New York Mayor Dr. Felix Roque arrested by the FBI

Normally when you see a local politician's name in the paper and the FBI not far behind it means dirty money has been changing hands. Not in this case, no, this sounds far more intriguing.

Dr. Roque and his son Joseph were arrested for hacking into a website that was helping coordinate a recall election against him. the website "Recallroque.com" was only up and running for five days before the servers puked. Well, now we know why:

In February, Joseph Roque was able to access the e-mail account of one of the recall organizers and used that to hack into Go Daddy, the internet service provider that was hosting the website RecallRoque.com. Prosecutors say he then cancelled the account without authorization, taking it down.

The actions of Dr. Felix Roque in threatening recall supporters are almost as bad as the hacking allegedly done by his no-count son. Listen to some of THESE "threats" issued by Roque to recall supporters:

...he had the connections to take down the recall website by “highly placed government officials and that everyone would pay for getting involved against Mayor Roque.”

“A friend of mine. he works in the—I can’t tell you — three letters — CIA. You know. That's how I get information. So what I’m doing is not very kosher.” 

But wait, there's MORE from Dr. Felix Roque's dreamworld where he alone is king:

*After learning that another individual contributed more damaging information to the RecallRoque.com website, the mayor e-mailed him and threatened to refer him to the IRS for a tax audit.

*Later in the month, Roque sent a text message to his son asking him to look at the Facebook page of another individual tied to the opposition against him to “let me know what we can do.

We'll give anyone their day in court (and Dr. Felix Roque is about to have a few of them it would seem) but this is just heinous. Does Dr. Roque think winning a recall election makes him some kind of tin horn dictator? Does he think he's simply allowed to behave like this?

The website is still down as of this morning.