Is this the right layoff plan for this city?

Shrinking the workforce is never an easy dicision. In any organization. We are dealing with people. People who have families, children. They have mortages, car payments. They have hopes and dreams and a layoff could dash these dreams.

The need to cut staff is not something anyone wants to do but something that is forced upon us in these dire economic times. The other side is that people are loosing homes because taxes are breaking the backs of residents.

Knowing that we are the middle of many years of very difficult budgeting, the Council last year asked the administration to speak to the unions for givebacks - furloughs, benefit givebacks etc.

The answer was a flat no. No givebacks we were told. In these difficult times, my feeling is that everyone has to share in the pain. We simply cannot afford to give and give.

So with the above in mind, the Council is now being asked to adopt the layoff plan presented by the administration. The administration has taken several vacant positions and eliminated them and after all that, there are still employees about to be laid off.

On the surface all this may seem to be a well thought out plan - eliminate positions that are vacant and only after that implement layoffs.

I would say it is not and let me explain.

Update: 10:16am Corporation Counsel asked me to take this section down for now.

But my issue with the layoff plan is bigger then a single department. The issue is that we have not curbed our appetite to be everything for everyone. Today, we are offering far too many services that the city has no business being in the business of being. These services should be off-loaded to non-profits and this should have been done years ago. Three years ago I insisted that we could not afford to offer drug treatment to non-Plainfield residents (think Dudley house) and today, we are still tinkering around with it, consuming valuable management bandwidth, $30,000 of tax payers money, and countless hours of Public Works employees.

Again, I am not saying society should not provide these services, but when the city cannot get simple things like CFO appointments right, budget data that has too many errors, Council questions that go unanswered and so on, the responsibility of the administration is first to the residents of Plainfield first. Society's needs should be met only after fulfilling one's primary objectives first.

But, that is not the case with us.

Just as George Bush never met a spending plan he did not like (until his first veto - insurance for toddlers), it seems this city has not met a social program it does not like. Sure, the county, the state and the feds may pay most of the salaries. But Accounting 101 taken while most of us were still pimple-faced, tells us that the true cost of any employee is at least 150% of the salary. Again, the state or the feds pick up the salary.

So who picks up the other 50%? Yes......just look in the mirror.

Just what are these "soft" costs? Health insurance, pensions, management oversight, program insurance, computers, lights, the heating and cooling, the office space, water, sewer, janitorial and so on.

Why is this relevant? Because in extreme times as we are facing, before we start to lay off 50% of our planning department - a department that has struggled to keep up as it is, and before we lay off (or eliminate) Fire and Police services, we must first understand what is the mission of a municipality. I would say that our core services are Police, Fire, Public Works, Recreation and Planning.

So before we cut any services, we must first excuse ourselves from all non-core services.

Unfortunately, moving the social services we provide to the non-profit takes planning, foresight, contracts, and a lot of work. It means you have to work with the funding source, you have to find the right organization to take over, you have employees that have to get transferred, you have contracts to untangle, office space to figure out ..... and the list goes on.

On the other hand, eliminating city employees takes a Council resolution.

Finally we have to find ways to substantially reduce the brass in all of our ranks. You can see that this layoff priority list does not sit well with me. We are being asked to OK it.

I have asked the administration for a list of all of our peripheral services and what actions are we taking to drop/lower our costs on these services. Before we layoff or eliminate any positions from our core services, we need to know what is going on to continue to offer our social services yet find a new home for them - a home that takes the cost off tax-crushed residents.

These are not easy decisions we are faced with. We did not ask citizens to volunteer their time to the Citizen's Budget Advisory Committee because we thought the budget decisions were going to be easy. We formed the committee because we knew what a difficult and unenviable task lay before us.

I welcome your comments.

A Process that Works! Wow!

Those of you who have dealt with Joe Da Rold know what a professional and thorough person he is. Whatever he does, he seems to do with little effort and yet there is a thoroughness to what he does.

Such was the case with my last experience with Joe. About two months ago, I talked to Joe about housing the City Council meeting documents at the library for residents to be able to look at . These documents are our monthly meeting packets, which includes resolutions and ordinances. basically everything we will be acting upon.

Residents who attend our meetings are in the dark - they either have to go the clerk's office on Friday or Monday or they have to rely on others to tell them what the Council was discussing.

I never thought that was right and after I came on the Council, I started scanning these documents and putting them up on my website. You can see them here.

But many are not comfortable with computers and the Internet. And many prefer the analog experience of papers and touching a document. I thought it would be a good idea to have the library have a copy of what was sent to the Council. This way residents could go on a Saturday and see what we were about to discuss.

I talked to Joe, he agreed right away to the concept. We worked out a process and that was that - a very simple straight discussion. Never heard from Joe after that.

Last week I went into the Clerk's office to ensure they were going to send a copy to the library. Sure enough, they had a set for the library as we had agreed to do.

A couple of days ago, I then went to the library to see what happened to the documents. I went to the reference section, and ask the attendant for the Council meeting documents.

What would you know? Skeptical that I am, I half expected a blank face when I mentioned the council "packet". But to Joe's credit, she knew exactly what I was talking about and went straight to the box that contained our meeting documents and opened it up for me.

I opened the box and sure enough, there was a manila folder with the meeting date and all the relevant files were in there. There for any resident to go and take a look - before or even after the fact.

So the next time you are in the library, please stop by the reference desk and ask to the the Council meeting documents. Take a look at what we are discussing and give us your feedback.

And if you see Joe, smiling and going about his business, please thank him. He does so much and in so many ways.

I welcome your comments.

And then…there were speed humps

Those of you who have driven down Kensington Avenue the last couple of days might have noticed something different. Yes the road is now fully paved and that is a good thing, but that is not what I am talking about.

Last year, we planned something Plainfield residents have been asking for as long as I have been on the Council - installing traffic calming devices.

Councilman Storch and I have been at countless block association meeting where we are often asked what can be done to slow down traffic. Storch has often brought to the discussion what other towns have done and wondered aloud why we are not doing something similar.

The same need for speed control has been on my mind. Last year I insisted that we have greater traffic enforcement, and a greater focus on quality of life overall in Plainfield. Many of you have seen the implementation of a traffic bureau and the handing out tickets of those speeding on our streets. We need to get our speeding traffic under control.

The second part of that planning is what today you will see if you drive on Kensington Avenue today - speed humps.

Living on the comer of Kensington and Watchung for the past few years I have seen countless accidents, and at least 5 fatalities. Those who live on Kensington can tell you that Kensington is a major throughway for those who cross from 7th to Park Avenue. Along Kensington, they speed up and to see people driving 50MPH is not uncommon.

Until now.

Now that these speed humps are in place, traffic will have to slow down, and we will have to learn from this. What does it do to the traffic? What does it do to the amount of accidents on Kensington Avenue? How about emergency vehicles? How do they manage around these?

Our learning's from this will lead us to better understand these passive traffic calming measures.

Many thanks to the Mayor for allowing these to be installed. Yes it is a risk, yes we have not done it before, and yes it was a bit more expensive. But leaders lead. Even one life saved, one accident averted, will be worth all the expense and effort.

Assuming we get the feedback and the results we expect, look for more of these around the city.

I welcome your feedback.

4-day work week in Plainfield?

4/10 anyone? An interesting article on unexpected benefits in Utah. Could this help plainfield save any money? Could this work for the State of NJ?


States find unexpected benefits of 4-day work week


By PAUL FOYAssociated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY – Closing Utah state offices on Fridays has delivered an unexpected bonus: a big saving on overtime pay.

New calculations show Utah saved $4.1 million in the first year of a government experiment with a four-day workweek.State employees were eager to leave after the longer workday, and weren't inclined to work an extra hour or two.

"They're getting what they need to get done in 10 hours and going home," said Angie Welling, spokeswoman for Gov. Gary Herbert."The state envisioned some energy savings, but that overtime number was not anticipated," she said Wednesday.Utah was the first state in the country to shut down most of its services on Fridays. Other states took notice.

Hawaii tried a limited four-day week last fall, when a similar program was under way in Washington state. Lawmakers in at least two other states — West Virginia and Virginia — have also looked into adopting a four-day workweek.

Former Gov. Jon Huntsman made the switch for Utah in August 2008, largely to cut energy costs. Utah, however, achieved only a sixth of the $3 million it expected to trim on energy costs. The state couldn't shut down as many state buildings as it planned on Fridays, officials said, and it didn't save much by closing the smaller buildings.

Also, the state assumed gasoline for state fleet car use and building utility costs would soar, and it would save as much.Both expenditures actually fell over the past year, however. Utah has some of the lowest utility rates in the country.The energy saving came out to $502,000 for the year.

The state also saved $200,000 on janitorial services. With reduced overtime expenses, the total saving was $4.8 million.The figures were released Wednesday by Herbert's strategic planner, Mike Hansen.The new governor — Huntsman left to become the U.S. ambassador to China — is undecided on whether to stick with the program, Welling said.

"He's still reviewing the results. He feels like we have good data on the amount of cost savings, employee satisfaction and the energy reduction. What he things is missing is input from the public," she said.

To that end, Herbert will commission a poll of public sentiment — citizens lost a day of government service with the switch.State workers are largely happy.

Another survey found 85 percent of the workers like working four longer days better than five shorter ones.Working mothers like Carolyn Dennis — she has two young sons — found a way to adjust.

"It's actually a lot easier than the five-hour day, because I have all day Friday to clean and run errands and still have the whole weekend to spend with my kids," said Dennis, customer service manager for the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing.

"I actually found it's freed up my time. We never did anything in the evening anyway, but having that extra day has made it easier to be a working mom." Dennis leaves the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan at 5:45 a.m. with her youngest, a 2-year-old, in tow. she drops him at a day care center near work in downtown Salt Lake City.

Her husband, a business owner, drops the couple's 7-year-old son, a first-grader, at school. Dennis works from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., skipping lunch hour and leaving a half-hour earlier than normal. That allows her to cut down a long day for her youngest.

"I started out getting him dressed while he was still asleep, but now he's getting up early for breakfast. Ryan is still on a malleable infant schedule. He's happy and smiling when I drop him off, so it makes my day go better," she said. All things considered, Dennis would never switch back.

"I do love the 4/10 and told my boss if they take it away, I'll probably cry," she said.

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act has passed both chambers of Congress, and is on its way to the President for his signature. It has taken over ten years for this major piece of legislation to pass both houses of Congress. Here are some quick facts on the legislation:

• It expands current federal hate crimes laws to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
• It would remove the current requirement under federal hate crimes law that a victim had to be engaging in a federally-protected activity (such as voting) in order for the claim to be investigated and prosecuted.
• It would give federal law enforcement greater authority to engage in investigations of hate crimes, even where local law enforcement does not have the resources to do so.
• It would expand data tracking on hate crimes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

While this legislation was driven primarily for the victims of it's namesake, it was also supported in the South Asian community. Many South Asians were victims of crimes of hate crimes in the emotionally charged atmosphere after 9-11.

Although many of those incidents were essentially criminal in nature, they could not be prosecuted or even investigated due to limitations in current federal hate crimes law. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act will create additional resources and avenues for victims of hate crimes to seek justice.

I bring this legislation to your attention as it shows how hate can cover so much of the demographics of America. It is easy to turn one's eye and say "that is not me". The normally very conservative south Asian comminity came to support this only after many of it's own community had fallen victim to hate crimes.

In NJ, I am glad to report that both of our senators and our congressman voted for this. But in all fairness, not all from NJ voted for this.

Halloween 2009 Community Meeting

For the second year the director of Public Safety will be hosting a community meeting focused on Halloween Safety. All residents but especially community leaders and activist are strongly encouraged to attend.

If you know someone who should attend, please call/email them and ask them to attend.

This is your opportunity to hear the safety plan for this year and give direct input to the decision makers. This is your opportunity to share with the administration what residents in your neighborhood are asking for. This is your opportunity to let the Police know what have been your past experiences, what has worked and what has not worked.

When we walk out of that room, I want to make sure that those who attended are largly comfortable with the safety plan. We need consensus on the following:

• The overall Policing plan for both nights
• When to call the Police
• The communication plan
• Community elements of this partnership
• End of trick-or-treating time (last year this was at 8:00pm)

The meeting is scheduled for 7:00pm at the Police Station today, Wednesday October 21st. All are invited and encouraged to attend.

Chris Christie: A train wreck of a campaign?

Even staunch Republican supporters are seething at how Christie blew a 15-point lead and now in some polls he is actually starting to lag behind Corzine.


The roots to this lie in the "packaging" of the Christie campaign: say little, offer no real solutions, tell them you will figure it out when you are in office and instead focus on trashing your opponent.


Well it has not worked out. Check out Paul Mulshine - a conservative columnist with the Star Ledger - he straight out called Christie a liar. But don't believe me - read it for your self right here.


Why was Mulshine so seething? Christie's budget balancing plan (for today): A complete reversal on his earlier promises to cut taxes. Now his plan waddles along by borrowing from the state pensions plan. Now there is how you bring real change to NJ. Way to go Christie!


Tom Moran also of the Star Ledger but not a conservative, was more diplomatic, but equally puzzled that the Republican party would put up a candidate so very confused about how budgets work. You can read Tom Moran here.



Moran notes that the Christie campaign has done an about turn and has because they could not for the life of them get a plan together - they have adopted the Corzine tax plan. Part of that includes accepting $2B in stimulus money from Obama.

Anyone would say what is wrong with that? Well, Christie had earlier promised NOT to take any stimulus monies and he has vowed never to take one-shot deals. Well...not that Christie is doing it...well that is OK. In other words...another reversal of what he had originally boasted on the campaign trail. No more bravado now. Gone are the candies he was earlier handing out.

Normally politicians wait until they are in office before reversing what they promised on the campaign trail. Christie is busy doing the reversal in the middle of his campaign!

Is that dumb or dumber? Whatever it is, it has to make you wonder. And if you really think about it - it has to scare you.

Corzine endorsements this weekend

You may have have the two major endorsements for Corzine: Yesterday, it was the New York Times. The day before it was the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Here are some highlights of the New York Times powerful and insightful endorsement:

"It is far easier to come up with campaign themes than slog through the real-world quagmire of New Jersey politics, as Mr. Corzine has done....He inherited corruption that is legendary and a budget that his predecessors, Democratic and Republican, had milked nearly dry. "

"Governor Corzine took some difficult steps....He shut down the state government when lawmakers refused to back his extra-lean budget. "

"He has managed to increase the contributions to the underfunded pension plan. And he has begun the hard task of reforming state government by limiting some perks for state workers....Jon Corzine, who is slightly ahead among likely voters, is a decent man with a laudable set of goals for his state."

They forgot that he, not any recent Republican Governor brought an end to double-dipping elected jobs (he could not end those who are currently in). But it is a major-major step in the right direction.

But the Philadelphia Inquirer did not forget that feat.

"The Best" - Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Corzine has taken some of the sternest steps in memory to push school and municipal consolidation, while capping property levies..."

"The governor has also pushed for the nation’s strongest campaign-finance laws.""Some of Corzine’s imperfect victories are nevertheless remarkable for a New Jersey governor — and hard to imagine under the state’s usual government by insiders."

"The dual-officeholding ban he championed...will put an end to a backward practice that was thoroughly entrenched."

To Christie's credit, he did pick up the endorsement of our own Courier News.

Now with just weeks to go, the campaign swings into high gear. Obama and Bill Clinton will be in NJ stumping for Corzine. Tickets will be hard to get but not impossible.

With the recent free-fall Christie is enduring in the polls, one has to wonder: Will Christie ever put out a real budget plan? Though some now wonder - which one?

Christie has gone back on some of what he said he would do. Maybe it is better he says nothing more and hope we are OK with no plan.

Finally have you seen the punishing commentaries conservative Star Ledger commentator has for Christie? You should! I will put one up on my blog. It is a must read if you have not already made up your mind. Will the real Christie please stand up!