An agreement with the PMUA

Late yesterday, we gained final agreement with PMUA on a variety of small but still significant steps. These came about as a result of a series of discussions aimed at responding to resident unrest and discontent.

The items we had on were largely from citizens and of course, the oracle of all knowledge on PMUA: dumpPMUA.com.

Earlier this year I had promised action on the PMUA issue after the elections. This way, no one could say it was politically motivated. Assemblyman Green, Mayor Robinson-Briggs, PMUA Exec Director Eric Watson and PMUA Commissioner Harold Mitchell were all involved in putting this deal together.

I particularly want to thank Mr. Green for bringing all parties to the table and setting the right tone for these meetings. That tone was key to this breakthrough.

Now, why did we try and work with the PMUA? The way I see it, I think we have two choices - either we grow PMUA or we shrink PMUA. After all, PMUA is our collective asset.

If we can grow the PMUA, we can spread the fixed overhead costs over a larger base of customers. This helps in the stabilization of rates. And when I say grow, I mean the PMUA should compete for the bulk-waste business of Scotch Plains and Fanwood. Personally I would them to become the RMUA - as in Regional Municipal Authority.

This was one of the original objectives of the PMUA. The overhead/fixed costs of PMUA were never meant to be borne solely by Plainfield residents.

The past two weeks I have been down the rocky history of PMUA and the love/hate relationship the city leadership have had with the PMUA.

All of that is now in the past and we cannot undo that. What we can do is look forward and do the right things from here on.

To move forward we need to start working together.

To that effect, here is the agreement we have come to with the PMUA:
1. Travel - limited to only the mandatory required to keep licensing or operational permits. The number will be cut to the bare minimum.
2. Transparency: PMUA will start to populate its website with resolutions on the Friday before a meeting. Also they start to upload other relevant info that residents may need.
3. Consolidation of operations: They actually want to do this but bad communications with the city led them to where they are. They will re-visit but then they will need support from the city.
4. Restructure sewer rates: they will study means to not charge sewer rates for non-sewer water usage (lawns cars etc)
5. Fines: The cart-is-too-full fine will be eliminated. The rollback cart time will be extended from 8:00pm to 6:00am the following morning, and there will be two warnings before a ticket is issued. This will allow those who work late, or those why work a late shift to come home and take their cart back.
6. Customer care/responsiveness: they will increase their customer care levels at all levels. How will we know? I will know when customers stop calling me about the PMUA (on customer care).
7. Streamline operations: PMUA will look at a variety of measures to streamline operations, reduce costs and increase overall efficiencies.
8. PMUA will look at how we can get some/all of the PMUA bill to the city so that the city can include it in the property taxes. This way the bill can be deducted from the fed income taxes.

These are just the starting points - not the end. As more issues are raised, they will be added to this list. As items are completed, they will be removed from this list.

I am proud to say that the whole Council got behind this plan. They understood that we needed to do something and they stepped up and supported this plan. Of course they will need to see progress.

Next week I am sitting down with PMUA to do a complete and deep dive on "shared services" I will be asking my colleagues on the Council to help me on many such tasks going forward. I do not understand “shared services” charge on the PMUA bill, or why the City pays PMUA $1.2M annually.

What I find out, I will share with all.

Finally we will monitor progress against this agreement. If we are making progress then we will continue and even expand. If not, then we will review our plans altogether.

Going forward residents can certainly continue to raise issues with the PMUA, but the Council is another avenue. If you want, we will take your issues to the PMUA and do our best to get them resolved. We cannot guarantee a specific outcome, but we can be your advocates with the PMUA.

I welcome your comments.

Obama in NJ

If you think the Governer's race is going to be close you are right. The choice is clear - go with the Republicans or stay with the Democratic Governer who is doing his best with a very bad situation.

Obama thinks this governer should be given a second chance. So much so that he is appearing in a rally with Governer Corzine and you are invited.

The Rally with President Obama will be held on July 16th in New Brunswick. You can be part of that rally but you must reserve your ticket immediately.

Click here to reserve your free tickets

Connolly: Shape up or ship out!

Yesterday when I opened the Courier News I was shocked to read about the sewer in one one the Connolly Properties on East 2nd Street. That morning, I went into inspections and asked for Mr. Turk. Something had to be done about this.

Mr. Turk was on vacation, but I was informed that our Health officer was dispatched to the site. Good.

Earlier you may have read that Connolly has not fixed an elevator in a multi-rise building for four months! Four months? How and what excuse could possibly give them such an excuse? To make matters even worse, when they are taken to Court, the judge allows them to postpone the hearing for a whole month! Mayor Robinson-Briggs was being being kind when she said she was "disappointed" with the judge's decision to postpone the hearing. Like the Mayor, I too will be at the July 17th hearing.

Today I read with horror that they were spilling this raw sewage into the streets of Plainfield. This is crazy and an outrage!

I called the administration and asked for what actions the City had taken against these latest actions. Pumping raw sewage into the storm drains is illegal, and I suspect someone should be subject to arrest and a hefty fine! No one would dare pump raw sewage out into the streets in any other town. Somehow they think they can get away with all this in Plainfield. I don't think so.

The Mayor and Mr Green have already had several meetings on this matter not only with the State but also with residents.

Connolly can operate his business - that is OK. But he has to do it with respect for the city, the community and most of all his customers: The residents of his properties.

I have always had a low opinion of the BBB - national as they are. Amazingly the BBB rates Connolly properties an "A". Go figure!

To Connolly the strong message should be clear: Shape up or ship out! It is now time for strong enforcement from the City and state.

I welcome your comments.

2:30PM Update: I had a few minutes and went out to see the property myself. Had they cleaned up the street? The basement?

A neighbor sitting on her porch who lives in a duplex next to the Connolly property described to me the stench yesterday that was reeking from the property. She could not sit outside she told me.

I checked the street and walked the length of where the fetid water would have run down the side of the street. It appears all has been cleaned up and no foul smells were present.

The workers around there said all the water from the basement has now been taken out, and one of them told me that it was a "mistake" and that the employee who dumped the raw sewage into the street should not have done so and has now been "fired". Hmmmm...

The smell of bleach was in the air, and the neighbor told me that yesterday, the cops were out here as were several other City officials.

I had to run home and get some work done. I checked with Marc, and expect a full update tomorrow morning on all enforcement and fines levied against Connolly. This is unacceptable and Plainfield deserves better.

An old lady changes hands

Two years ago I first saw the inside of this gracious old home - the home is commonly known as the Catherine Webster home. It was an enchanting experience for me - as it probably would be for most.

It had been used as a ladies home for some time, but for the past many years (as long as I can remember) it has been vacant, slowly decaying from the many small building envelope exposures.

Today I am glad to say that the home has been sold to a private party - partners, who intend to restore it into a single family home - kind of like what someone else you may know did the same about 9 years ago to another Plainfield mansion.

This home has 10+ bedrooms and 8 bathrooms, an oval office and a multi-car garage in the back, which has a full upper level. If needed that could easily be converted into some type of living space.

The selling price of this Plainfield gem was a mere $329,000 - a song when you compare this to two-bedroom townhouses in Hillsborough and what they are going for. This old lady has the misfortune of being surrounded by low income, multi-family and apartment homes - not quite Sleepy Hollow Lane.

I know personally that the couple/partners who purchased it did an extensive amount of research into it. They seem to know what they are getting into. The improvements required include stabilizing the slate roof and patching all the holes. Then they need updated plumbing and a new furnace/boiler (actually they may be best off with several furnaces or boilers.... IMHO).

One of the most unusual appliance in this house was a rusty old clothes dryer - but not one that you are thinking of - this one was as big as a walk-in closet and there were rails that pulled out - you hung your clothes on there, pushed back the rails, and closed the door. Then you turned on the heat to dry off the clothes.

I hope that gets saved - if for no other reason then for appliance history. I Googled this appliance and could and could not find anything on it.

Finally I want to thank Lois Mattson of Sleepy Hollow Realtors for staying with this. Lois was the listing agent on this, and was on the receiving end of many upset calls. Since this home is in the Second ward, I too received many calls on this from neighbors and neighborhood activists. They wanted quick and hard inspections enforcement. They had good reason - the green house across the street was allowed to deteriorate - little by little. They did not want a repeat of that situation.

Lois worked hard to get this to closing - even though she was the listing agent. A bad housing market, in the middle of a financial collapse, for a totally uninhabitable, made the financing, and thus the closing on this highly questionable.
Skepticism was rampant. But Lois stayed on this, constantly in touch with the mortgage brokers, the Inspections department and every time I called her for an update, she would tell me exactly where in the process the mortgage was. She dug in and saw this to fruition.

Lois deserves our collective thanks on this.

In the end, the market sorted itself out and the home has gone to brand new homeowners. If you are driving by and see them, wave! Better still stop and welcome them to Plainfield. They have done us all a favor.

A home as been saved from decay or potentially more social services to out-of-towners. Now, this home will return to tax rolls and will help stabilize the neighborhood.

A gracious lady whose dignity has been restored.

I welcome your comments.

Democratic City Committee Tonight

All are welcome to the biennial reorganization meeting of the local Democratic party. There are no secret handshakes, and no secret rituals.

There will be no animal sacrifices and no robes with moons and stars on them. The meeting will not be held in the forest, and will not be held at midnight. So, you are welcome and encouraged to attend. Three years ago, I put up the by-laws on my web-site. For those interested, see the document here.



The meeting will start at 7:00pm at the YWCA - 233 east Front Street in Plainfield.

The biennial re-organization meeting has several functions:
1. Elect a chairperson (the one who makes all the decisions). Currently this is Assemblyman Jerry Green. between 2003 and 2005 it was Mayor Al Mcwilliams.
2. Elect various positions to the leadership of the Democratic City Committee including ward captains.

This is the party of Kennedy. Of Clinton. Of Carter. And yes, the party of Obama.

Again, all are welcome.

The Effect of Independents on Plainfield's Mayoral Race

When this past Mayoral primary began, many were surprised to see the number of candidates who had filed. Don't get me wrong - none of them were surprises, as rumor mills were hot with information on each potential candidate.

Once it was official, it was clear from day one that the race was between Mapp and Robinson-Briggs (think organization and think fund raising ability).

The discussions then were hot on who the other candidates would take away from.

I heard from each side saying that they were the ones who were going to loose. Of those who filed, Cox seemed to me the only one who would break 500 votes - based upon his BOE voting results which had been as high as over 1,000.

Clearly the New Dems saw these entrants as a grave threat, and they challenged several Mayoral petitions. When these challenges were all rejected by Plainfield City Clerk Laddie Wyatt, the New Dems took to the county courts to have three Mayoral candidates removed from the ballot.

The judgment came swiftly and all were allowed to stay on the ballot (short one who never showed up for the court hearing).

A day after election day, I heard a lot of grumbling, saying that Cox and or Brokaw took votes away (from both sides). A lot of people said that Cox and Brokaw were put up by the opposition and the loss in particular was due to the presence of Cox and Brokaw.

I did not see it that way, but thought I would check out the complaint in detail. Here is how I defined the problem:

If someone did not like the Green-Briggs team, they would look for alternatives. Now if only Mapp were in the picture, then Mapp would receive all the disgruntled anti-Sharon votes. However because of the presence of additional candidates these anti-Sharon votes would be diluted between all those vying. Possibly and theoretically true - but as Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) said in the movie Jerry Maguire: "Show me the money!"

So I put the theory to the test. My assumption is that those who do not want to vote for Sharon/Jerry will vote for Smiley and then choose a mayoral candidate of their choice.

Cox, Brokaw, Turner and Ferraro all together received 560 votes. Stay with me here!

So if one applies my theory of Smiley and then a mayoral choice, the difference between Smiley and Mapp should be about 560. These are all the people who would have voted for Mapp but because of the presence of alternative candidates the anti-vote got diluted and went astray to other candidates.

So that do the actual vote results show?


Plain Field Primary Election Comparisons

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

No such correlation!

The difference between Mapp and Smiley was not 560, but in fact only 43! Only 43 votes separated Mapp and Smiley indicating very strong correlation between Smiley on top and Mapp for Mayor.

The same is also true for the Regular Dems also. The difference between Green and Robinson-Briggs was only 85.

So I personally did not see Cox/Brokaw/Turner/Ferraro take away enough from either candidate to make ANY difference in the race.

To net it out, I would not blame the Mapp loss on Cox/Brokaw/Turner/Ferraro.

I welcome your comments.

Congratulations Mayor Robinson-Briggs and and Rivers

A year ago I wrote and congratulated Annie McWilliams and Adrian Mapp on their victories. Last year was the year of Obama and his change was sweeping the Democratic party.

Today I write to congratulate Mayor Robinson-Briggs on her victory. This year, the voters did not want too much change and they gave Sharon Robinson-Briggs for another four years.

I commend Mr Mapp and the New Dems on an energized, spirited campaign. They left no stone unturned and they ran a campaign run on textbook campaign principles.

Unfortunately textbook were not enough for the people of Plainfield. The passion and relatively low key campaign on Mayor Briggs was sweet enough for Plainfield residents. They braved rains and unpredictable weather to come out and cast their vote for the victor.

The margin of victory was similar to 2005 - in 2005 it was 325 votes, and according to unofficial results the margin of votes yesterday was 314.

The message is clear from the voters: Mayor Sharon Briggs - we like you and we want to continue to do what you are doing.

Well - almost.

Ms Vera Graves that ever smiling face, lost by a slim margin of 5 votes to Ms Rivers who also ran a vigorous and energized campaign. I congratulate Mr. Rivers on her victory - which I know she worked very hard for and I look forward to working with her next year.

I expect Ms Graves may challenge the results, as did Harold Gibson when him and I faced off in 2005, and I won by about 11 votes.

Assuming there are no surprises between now and the official results, we now must start to look forward and start to think about the future.

Today I announce my support for Mayor Briggs for the 2009 Mayoral general election in November against her Republican counterpart.

At the Democratic Committee Meeting in March (or was it April) I promised to support and work with the winner of this race and I hoped that all of Plainfield's political leadership would do so also.

My promise is good.

Today I call on all to come together and support Sharon Robinson-Briggs not only during the election cycle, but also through her term. Support and rubber stamp are two different things and one must learn to differentiate the two.

The Mayor deserves our support and she has mine.

I welcome your comments.

Police Reform and Accountability - One Year Later

It has been a year since Martin Hellwig took full over the Police Department as Police Director and I have been thinking about how the year has turned out. When this action came up for a vote, it quickly became controversial and political. We had several Police Chiefs in our chambers, looking to defend their Police Chief turf - that was very clear.

Very soon it became a political football game and a full campaign to stop the reorganization was underway on the blogs and I personally received a few phone calls to stop it, calling it vendetta based and personal. I did not see it that way.

I saw a need for reform.

I saw a need for greater accountability, greater efficiency, more traffic enforcement and greater quality-of-life enforcement. Nevertheless, I thought long and hard about it - anytime a citizen calls me, they have gone out of their way and I take that very seriously.

In the end, all that pressure took it's toll and the motion passed by the slimmest of margins - 4-3.

Why do I bring this to your attention? It is the duty of every elected official to reflect on their decisions. Look back and see if the decisions you made were the right ones. Make every decision purposely - not re-actively or automatically. Every decision must be made with whatever hindsight you can imagine and all the foresight you can apply.

Through out the year, I have been watching very carefully to how our reorganization is going and how the new structure is playing out. We needed to get as many Police Officers off the benches and onto the streets as possible.

Unfortunately this change has been challenged in court all the way, and a good amount of energy and money has been spent on defending such actions. The courts have supported this change and Plainfield is moving forward with much needed change.

Alas, reform does not come easy to Plainfield.

What have been some of the direct results from this: I talked about the Traffic Unit in a previous post. At my insistence, we now have a Community relations Officer - similar to a Quality of Life Officer - his role is to interface with the community and resolve quality of life issues and to be a liaison between the Police and the community.

Last fall when there was a crime spree on Kenyon Avenue, Martin was brought into a room full of concerned citizens and I was also invited. You may remember that a dog was even kidnapped and a ransom note issued. The owner was told to come to the park at 7:00pm but never went - the dog was eventually recovered two days later walking alone in the park.

Martin took up that responsibility to heart and through a concentrated effort of targeted Police action, the Kenyon Avenue crime spree was brought to an end but some petty and quality-of-life crimes continue.

In the year since the reorganization, much needed changes and more accountability has been established. As part of this ongoing review, I had Martin Hellwig come before the Council to report his first 100-day accomplishments.

A firm hand, clear guidance and direct accountability has meant higher standards for our Police force. Unfortunately not everyone has been able to make the transition and some were let go. Overall, I think most want to do the best job they can and given an opportunity they are rising to the challenge.

Today I feel proud of our men in uniform, and the work getting done by our Police force. In case you missed it, you should see my piece about the traffic unit. Yes, we are actually enforcing cars speeding through our streets.

For those of you who are cynical of this report I will say that I understand if you are and I will tell you that we are far from perfect. A lot more work needs to be done. But understand we have to change and we have to try new approaches. When we take a new direction, we have to monitor closely to see if the new approach is working. If not, we stop and go back to the old ways.

What could we do better? Based on a State of NJ study done in 2003, I believe we are still top heavy and I for one would like to see some greater numbers on the streets. As retirements come up, I will be looking at these types of additional changes.

Additionally I want to see greater community policing, greater access to crime information (on-line?), faster response times for lesser quality-of-life crimes like barking dogs and loud music playing, and I want to make sure our uniformed officers have the best tools to do their jobs.

Overall, I want criminals to feel that Plainfield is a tough town on ANY criminal activity. I want them to move their unsavory activities to another town altogether.

Finally, below are some statistics on various crimes going back four years - these I got from Martin Hellwig that show some progress on the part of the Police department, the officers and they also reflect the partnership that we have enjoyed with the Union County Prosecutor's office.

Part 1 crimes, Jan 1 - May 11th - 2005 - 2009

Property Crimes - YTD 2005 - 2009

Homicides

Shots fired

Crime and Speeding Statistics

In this post I am posting the statistics I included in my previous post, only this time without the verbiage so that these numbers can stand on their own.

First of all - Statistics of the traffic unit (which was formed in June of 2008) and these statistics are from June 08 through April 09:
Total Motor Vehicle Violations: 2,312

Speeding Violation: 1,006 (the previous traffic unit of part-time of two had issued a grand total of 65 from April 07 to May 08)

Number of automobile fatalities in Plainfield:
2007: 7
2008: 4
Since July 5 2008: Zero

Below are some crime graphs I received from Martin Hellwig, and I though it would be a good idea for the public to see them also. You can click on them to make them larger and they show the large, long term trends of crime in Plainfield.