Grassroots Groundswell

Reading the 1974 Master Plan is fascinating for several reasons, primarily because it’s such a clear sign that the problems we face now are not new at all. They are, to some extent, problems dictated by factors totally outside the control of the Borough’s current residents, such as topography, geography, climate, proximity to New York City and the global financial structure built around theories of perpetual growth that can’t possibly work long-term in the real world of finite time and raw materials.

Eventually, I’ll get around to posting the subsequent revisions to the 1974 Master Plan and the new 2002 Master Plan.

But in the meantime, the other striking aspect of it all is the dilemma of funding municipal operations with property taxes, because it’s a formula that basically requires communities to devour themselves ecologically to survive fiscally: a classic Catch-22.

In other words, the endless quest for new ratables to keep up with inflationary pressures means that running out of buildable land spells the imminent end of the community’s financial solvency: damned if we do build, damned if we don’t.

It’s totally understandable why our own local officials seem so intent on selling out the last remaining land and trees we have left for the prospect of new ratables, however marginal: it buys a little time before municipal bankruptcy, but it’s not a long-term solution at all.

What sucks even more is that this is a situation confronting not just North Plainfield, not just New Jersey, not just America, but the whole world. A global economy and a global financial system structured around perpetual resource extraction and growth is, essentially, a dead-end plan on a planet with finite land and resources, especially one inhabited by creatures with finite life-spans.

Dead-end, that is, unless the humans who have inherited those old financial systems at the local, state, national and international levels can find workable ways to convert the perpetual growth model to a perpetually recycling model.

Doing that will require some profoundly outside-the-box thinking.

Sent in by Mike Castro, who has been seeking community support from the School Board and other community groups and individuals to fund and expand his ongoing ESL tutoring program at the high school to other schools and school districts. (So far, he’s bought virtually all the reading materials out-of-pocket and donated hundreds of hours of tutoring services.)

Mike Castro’s ESL Proposal

ESL Reading and Peer Tutoring Proposal, by Michael P. Castro

The Idea: I would like to share an idea to increase fluency, and general academic achievement, among students learning English as a second language. By using existing resources, a school could implement this program at little or no additional cost.

Current Problem: Despite the best efforts that are made in the classroom, ESL students - especially those who arrive in the United States when they are already teenagers - too often fail to develop full, literate fluency in the short time available before they finish high school. Limitations in vocabulary, in conversational skills, and in reading and writing skills can put them at a significant disadvantage in pursuing further education and in fulfilling their potential in life. ESL students may arrive in the United States with significant gaps in their overall educational preparation, relative to the demands of their new curriculum.

In response to these challenges, I would like to offer a solution that involves creating a library of selected reading material and using students as peer tutors to assist with English, reading and other subjects. (In time, community volunteers might also be used as tutors.)

Step 1 of the Solution - Gathering Reading Material: Reading material includes vocabulary books, short stories, novels and nonfiction works. The hope is that this collection can help provide a foundation for learning English, while it also introduces students to some enjoyable and worthwhile literature, and, ideally, helps to foster a lifelong interest in reading.

To this end, I have created a library and have read about 200 young adult novels, collections of short stories, and other books, in search of material that students might find interesting. To help with general tutoring, texts and other books that students may be using in their classes are also kept on hand.

Step 2 - Training the Peer Tutors: We ask for student volunteers, especially those who are bilingual or fluent in other languages, and then we practice tutoring sessions using role playing.

Step 3 - Implementing the Tutoring: The heart of the system is for the ESL student to work with a peer tutor initially and then progress to reading English-language material independently. The model includes the tutor reading a short excerpt to the ESL student, and the ESL student reading the same material back to the tutor. The tutor and the ESL student discuss pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and talk about the story. They also review homework assignments, and may read newspaper articles, look at maps, and converse (in English, whenever possible) about a range of topics. The tutor also encourages summer reading and helps the ESL students obtain public library cards. Ideally, the tutor may provide help and encouragement, both in learning a new language and in adjusting to life in a new country.

Trial Runs and Results: In November of 2005, we launched the program with students at North Plainfield High School. We typically meet in the high school library after school or during students’ free periods. To date, our tutors have been primarily individuals who are themselves from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, but who have been in the U.S. long enough that they also have a strong native command of English.

 Tutoring has helped in the following ways:

• Because books were made available to students, they started requesting books or recommendations for books.
• Students who had failed the New Jersey high school graduation test (High School Proficiency Assessment) subsequently passed after months of doing independent reading.
• A high-school freshman, who  had come every day after school to work either with me, another teacher, or a peer tutor, made the honor roll at the end of the freshman year.
• After tutoring, class participation increased significantly.
• A tutored student knew the meaning of many words that classmates did not know, which the teacher reported as “amazing.”
• Students often express the desire to be able to read whole sections on their own.
• While they do not routinely ask questions in class, students do ask questions in a one-on-one setting, which ultimately carries over into the classroom.
• Students are guided by school staff to obtain help with academic and personal concerns.
• Teachers routinely thank me and the peer tutors for being a source of encouragement to the ESL students.
• The peer tutors gain the opportunity to provide a valuable service, and to explore their own interests and aptitudes.

This program strengthens language and reading skills, increases students’ motivation to learn and increases students’ confidence that they can succeed in learning English and in their other studies, as well.

Why Am I Doing This ?: This program resulted from the combination of my personal history and my experience working with ESL students.

I was adopted from Cuba as a baby by American parents, grew up in a nurturing, middle-class environment, and had the same educational opportunities as a native-born American child.

Despite their best intentions, immigrant parents often have little or no knowledge of English, which in turn can put their children at a disadvantage, educationally. Individualized attention from English-speaking or bilingual tutors provides these children with needed help that may not be available at home, and that is not easily provided in the regular classroom setting.

About Michael Castro: I have taught in the North Plainfield Public Schools for four years. I have worked on a sustained basis with ESL students and have personally tutored students on more than 900 occasions, to date. I grew up in North Plainfield, studied Spanish and other languages, and have worked professionally as a translator.

Mike Castro’s program was also covered in the Spring 2007 North Plainfield High School Alumni Association Newsletter. If you’d like to support the tutoring program directly, checks may be made out to, and sent to: “North Plainfield High School Alumni Association” at 145 Cedar St., North Plainfield, NJ, 07060, with a note in the memo line that the donation is for the “Mike Castro ESL Project.” Another way to support the program is to write a letter about it to the NP School Board c/o Board President, Linda Bond-Nelson, 33 Mountain Ave.

A reader wrote in to express concern that the immigration status of North Plainfield residents is outside the purview of NPCCR, as a local-issues, community group, and that NPCCR should focus on promoting local enforcement of housing and school laws, not on federal immigration laws.

But these local issues are inextricable from the national and global issues - they can’t be pulled apart, even if we wanted to. Immigration is sort of the elephant in the North Plainfield room, so to speak. 

A huge proportion of our local population is foreign-born, and many do not speak English, which has a big impact on all our efforts to deal with local problems, including illegal housing and school overcrowding. For one thing, it’s difficult to build community coalitions across the language barrier.  

However, local enforcement of federal immigration laws plays a powerful role too. Federal legislation designed to mandate that local law enforcement officials check and report on the immigration status of people is summarized in this report.

This timeline shows changes in the relationship between local, state and federal law enforcement agencies on the immigration issue, since about 1996.

One of the main problems identified by local law enforcement officials is that, when the immigrant population, documented or undocumented, has reason to fear local police will be enforcing, not only local laws, but also federal immigration laws, the immigrants also become scared to report crimes to the police, and that chilling effect undermines public safety for everyone.

Quote from the timeline page:

In April 2002, word leaked to the press that the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel had reversed its long-standing opinion on the authority of local police in civil immigration matters.  The leak of such a dramatic policy shift by the DOJ unleashed an avalanche of opposition from state and local police departments in all corners of the United States. While they had generally been silent or even cooperative in the interview campaign and absconder initiative, the prospect of having to enforce civil immigration laws brought state and local police, elected officials, and other public safety experts out of the woodwork. Such a sweeping mandate would over-tax scarce local resources, leave localities vulnerable to lawsuits, virtually guarantee racial profiling, and most importantly harm public safety. When immigrant residents avoid contact with local law enforcement for fear of immigration-consequences, crimes go unreported, potential witnesses vanish, and criminals are allowed to run free. Dozens of police departments, associations, and elected official blasted this policy shift in news articles for much of April and May, causing the Justice Department to scale back its request of local police.

I don’t know exactly where the federal legislation stands at this point, but there’s a lot of confusion about the issue. Likewise, I don’t know where Chief Parenti and the NP Police Department stand on these issues, and would welcome a guest article on the subject for posting here.

Clearly, NPCCR and the local police aren’t responsible for utterly resolving such enormous and complex problems that are federal issues requiring federal policy-making.

However, we do have to live locally with the results of the current confusion at the federal level, and I think both the local police and NPCCR - if we choose to as a group - can play a positive role in establishing healthy relationships between the American-born and immigrant residents of the Borough. I even think that establishing such healthy relationships will be extremely helpful to resolving the more-obviously local problems of overcrowded, illegal housing and illegal school attendance. 

But that means talking about immigration and how it affects us locally and what we could and should do to deal with those effects.

So, that’s why I brought it up - to see how NPCCR members think and feel about the issues and provide my own perspective on the national and international context in which we are being forced to deal with immigration’s local implications, whether we choose to ignore those implications, discuss them openly, honestly and thoroughly, or make our way through somewhere in between those two extremes.

Update: Larry (comments below) is not the particular reader to whom I was responding in this post - I was responding to views presented by another reader who wrote me a private e-mail, because he is another thoughtful and articulate participant in these discussions and his views probably represent more readers than just himself.

I have no criticism of Larry’s work as a citizen to make the Borough better - he is doing and saying what he believes must be said and done, in the way he believes he should, and I say and do what I think I need to say and do,  as do all the other people who live and work here in North Plainfield.

I thank Larry, and all other readers and posters, for their thoughtful comments bringing their unique perspectives to bear in these important public discussions. We need many, many more comments and perspectives in this mix, not fewer.

Been surfing the web for information about how to gauge economic health of a local business district, and turned up this site fromthe University of Wisconsin’s Center for Community Economic Development program. It’s written about Wisconsin, but the principles seem applicable to us, particularly the Socio-Economic Impact Analysis process and its retail analysis worksheet.

Sample questions to pose to local business owners:

What issues are currently facing local retailers?How is the trade area and its consumers changing?

Another resource we might look into:

The Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

I think the state’s perspective on these issues is the Office of Smart Growth in the Department of Community Affairs. But that program represents the interests of the state government, not the interests of particular communities and neighborhoods. Another, related state agency is the Economic Development Authority, but here again, the officials there represent the state government, not the residents of North Plainfield, and the needs of those two groups - government officials and North Plainfield residents, don’t necessarily overlap all that much.

The key is to have local people figure out the local community vision and then use the state agencies for technical tools and financial resources to implement that vision, rather than have the state’s development priorities and funding procedures dictate what local people can and can’t create in their own communities.

Immigration is a hot issue here in North Plainfield.

For me, the most complex aspect of stronger local enforcement of immigration laws is the fact that, if all the Spanish-speaking immigrants (documented and undocumented) were to either be forced to leave town, or leave on their own initiative in the face of increasing hostility from the American-born population - then most of the Somerset Street economy would collapse, and we’d all be left with empty storefronts again.

That’s not to argue that lawbreaking is okay - although my background in social justice does give me a hearty appreciation for the power of both individual and collective civil disobedience to challenge and overturn unjust, inhumane laws.

It’s just to point out that there’s a cost-benefit analysis to be made, and a question as to how far enforcement can be pushed so as to solve the pressing problems of unsafe, overcrowded housing and overcrowded schools, without creating larger problems of uninhabited housing, abandoned neighborhoods, and a gutted local economy.

The other main thing that strikes me about immigration is that immigrants themselves didn’t create the cross-border economic forces that push them into America or the internal economic forces that pit them against the native-born population in competition for jobs, housing and education. They simply try to survive those pressures by making the best choices they can at any given moment in their lives, as people born and raised in America also do.

So, stemming the tide of immigrants coming into the U.S. from Central and Latin America requires us to look at, and respond to, the situations in those home countries, by changing the way America influences those foreign economies, to strengthen rather than undermine the economic, ecological and sociopolitical self-sufficiency of those countries. Partial, temporary, local solutions by themselves, and out of context, won’t really solve widespread, interrelated and long-term global problems.

An NPCCR member passed along the following notice about an informational video on “Immigration’s Impact.”

If there’s enough interest, we might get a copy and present it at a Town Meeting in the next few months.

FREE PUBLIC EDUCATION MATERIALS/VIDEOS ON IMMIGRATION’S IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT, ON HEALTH CARE AND ON LOW WAGE WORKERS!

Copies of PBS’ To The Contrary Special Reports On the impact of immigration made possible by the generous support of The Colcom Foundation (Washington,D.C.)

The PBS program, To The Contrary (the only woman-owned news analysis program on national television) is pleased to offer, free of charge, DVD copies of its three-part series on immigration’s impact on various aspects of US life: on the environment, on America’s health care system and on low wage workers.

This fact-based coverage examines how the record influx of new residents is affecting natural resources, wages for low-income workers and an already-stressed health care system. Numbers USA President Roy Beck appeared in all three segments. Other Numbers USA staff appeared on panel discussions following the documentary-style field pieces.

This educational product is distributed free of charge to those looking to learn more about the true impact of immigration, as it is rarely covered elsewhere by US media.

For example, coverage of immigration’s impact on the health care system included the fact that two-thirds of Florida’s hospitals are running deficits, largely due to health care they must offer for free to immigrant workers and their families.

To the Contrary’s coverage of immigration’s impact of the environment explained that immigrants to the US, who mainly come from poor countries with small environmental footprints, become high-end consumers who leave large environmental footprints.

In the piece on low income workers, To the Contrary explained that since 80% of immigrants to the United States do not have high school degrees, they are driving up competition for low-wage jobs and driving down wages for low-income Americans.

To The Contrary’s special coverage aired nationally on PBS. We will include printed materials from NumbersUSA.

Please submit your requests via e-mail to: tothecontrary@hotmail.com.

Please be sure to include the name of your organization, how many copies you would like to receive, and a brief explanation of who will see video. We are happy to consider requests for multiple copies of the video for re-distribution to educational groups, students, conferences or interested individuals.

To The Contrary with Bonnie Erbe is in its sixteenth season and can be seen on 240 PBS stations nationwide. For more information, visit the To The Contrary website at www.pbs.org/ttc

Agenda conferences and regular meetings of the Council of the Borough of North Plainfield for the year 2008 shall be held at the North Plainfield Community Center, 614 Greenbrook Road, North Plainfield until such time, to be announced, the meetings can resume in the Council Chambers of the Municipal Building, 263 Somerset Street, North Plainfield, New Jersey.

Agenda conferences shall begin at 7:30 p.m. immediately followed by regular meetings. Said meetings shall be held on the following dates:

January 7, 22 (Tue.)
February 11, 25
March 10, 24
April 14, 28
May 12, 27 (Tue.)
June 9, 23
July 14, 28
August 11
September 8, 22
October 14 (Tue.), 27
November 10, 24
December 8, 22

For Town Meeting 5: Tuesday, January 8, at 7 p.m. at Vermeule Community Center.

Tentative Agenda:

1) Property Maintenance Codes, overview, so people know what they can file complaints about (Entire Borough Code is posted here.)

2) Brainstorming and Work Plan for Economic Development Study

3) Brainstorming and Work Plan for Environmental Resource Inventory

4) Discuss and Decision re: Initiative Petition for Shade Tree Ordinance (postponed)

5) Review of FY 06 Audit

6) Review of recall process. Decision last meeting was to hold off until spring pending gathering and compilation of more factual data to support a possible recall campaign. This will be a discussion of exactly how recall works and what types of information would provide factual support for a campaign, if compiled and disseminated to the public.

7) Presentation and Discussion of Farragut Place curbing issue (possible, if we get reps from Farragut Place to come and present).

Information from the Center for Constitutional Rights about the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act,” which recently passed the House and is now in Senate committee. Here’s a link to a Democracy Now interview on the topic. Here’s the text of the bill and contact information for the Senate.

Two main things disturb me as a community organizer and democracy activist.

One is the realization that, throughout the last few years of executive/White House destruction of the rule of law and usurpation of the rights of citizens, Democrats in Congress have been utterly and completely complicit, while attempting to portray themselves as prepared to defend the People “if only” they could get elected in greater numbers. I had my doubts about this all along, but the new bill, plus the revelations last week about Pelosi and Harman’s complicity in U.S. officials torturing people, put the nail in the coffin.

Lawmakers from both parties have had the ability to stand up for the rule of law and the inalienable rights of free people in a democracy all along, and they haven’t. They still have opportunities every day to do the same, and they don’t.

The other key problem is the lack of clear definitions in the bill, and the likelihood that it may well be the beginning stages of government efforts to criminalize all dissent, including the kind of dissent we are engaging in here in North Plainfield, in efforts to hold our local government accountable and increase the level of responsiveness to citizen concerns.

Many analysts have compared the violent radicalization act to the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joe McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

What should free citizens in a democracy do when the government illegitimately attempts to wield the laws and the Constitution against citizens who are legitimately attempting to protect themselves and the Constitutional rule of law from being weakened or destroyed by the government itself?

As James Madison put it, quoted in this essay by Ray McGovern:

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations…. The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”

One of the readers at McGovern’s essay posted the following quote, from a November 10, 2001 Moscow Times piece by Chris Floyd, quoted also in another essay, by Gary Alan Scott:

Fascism in America won’t come with jackboots, book burnings, mass rallies, and fevered harangues, nor will it come with black helicopters or tanks on the street. It won’t come like a storm—but as a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: Everything is the same, but everything has changed.

Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality will have taken its place. All the old forms will still be there: legislatures, elections, campaigns—plenty of bread and circuses. But “consent of the governed” will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small and privileged group who rule for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons.

To be sure, there will be factional conflicts among the elite, and a degree of debate will be permitted; but no one outside the privileged circle will be allowed to influence state policy.

Dissidents will be marginalized—usually by “the people” themselves. Deprived of historical knowledge by a thoroughly impoverished educational system designed to produce complacent consumers, left ignorant of current events by a corporate media devoted solely to profit, many will internalize the force-fed values of the ruling elite, and act accordingly. There will be little need for overt methods of control.

The rulers will act in secret, for reasons of “national security,” and the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, state murder of “enemies” selected by the leader, undeclared wars, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new “security structures” targeted at the populace. In time, this will be seen as “normal,” as the chill of autumn feels normal when summer is gone. It will all seem normal.

Job Descriptions

130-page searchable pdf file of Borough employees’ job descriptions, received via OPRA.

Thanks to Michele Ixim for forwarding this link to Courier-News article about Somerset County historic preservation projects that have received grants this year.

Something to think about while we try to put together Villa Maria, St. Joe’s and Somerset Street preservation plans together over the next few years…