Grassroots Groundswell

All the candidates for Mayor and Council were invited. Only three have responded to accept the invitation: Robert Gatto, Frank D’Amore and Barbara Habeeb.

By M. Emory Layne

Well, the voting is done. The school budget passed, and the two unopposed candidates for the School Board were elected. I imagine things are pretty upbeat over there at the Board of Ed.

One thing I noticed was the amount of energy that went into getting that budget passed. For instance, now with the balloting done, I won’t be getting any more recorded phone calls urging me to vote ‘yes;’ notice they didn’t urge me to vote, but suggested how I vote. Funny thing: that recorded phone system, if I’m not mistaken, was paid for with tax dollars. Electioneering on the taxpayers’ dime doesn’t sound altogether kosher to me.

But anyway, it can’t be denied that a lot of people were doing a lot of stuff to get the message out. Lots and lots of effort. Seeing as how such a concerted effort could be made when there was one issue that was seen as important, I was wondering if, just maybe, the same kind of motivation by those same people could now be maintained to address other issues that are important.

Only one difference - this time, the residents and taxpayers get to decide what’s important. But since there are a lot of highly-paid and elected people involved on your end, I’ll try to speak a language you’re more likely to understand.

Now that the budget is passed, you’re probably claiming to be running lean and mean, presenting the taxpayers with a value-added product. More bang for the buck for us, as it were.

Are you?

We’d love someday, for example, to be able to review the line-item expenditures in the school system and in the budgets. Believe it or not, we have the attention-stream to handle that.

What’s the vision statement for the future? We know that the future certainly looks pretty good for Dr. Marilyn Birnbaum and Robert Rich, what with their high salaries and pensions.

What’s the plan, Stan?

Will you be re-engineering your approaches, to shift the paradigm away from throwing money at problems, an approach that is almost etched in stone?

Because the word in the blogosphere is that the bottom-line is what matters. To the people who foot the bill, all the energies of your team dynamic ought to be focused on a collaborative effort in key results areas. At the end of the day, the shareholders (us) hope you’ll ramp up efforts to address key action items. No one’s asking you to think out of the box; the game plan we’re hoping for addresses the low-hanging fruit.

Things like students attending our schools who live in other communities, or who aren’t legal residents of our community.

Human capital assets are great, but when it comes to a customer-centric approach, we think it’s time to start playing hardball.

You’re being paid by the community … or have been elected by the community … to go the extra mile, if necessary, to give us confidence in the core competency of your leadership quotient.

We find there’s been an ongoing lack of synergy between you and the town’s Recreation Program. We fund that, too, and it’s on our radar.

There seem to be too many instances of cross-purpose friction when, instead, it’s likely time for a quality-driven gap analysis so that the end-user experience has an upside for everyone involved, not just this team or that coach. We taxpayers always felt we should be able to leverage our investment in school property, not be told we can’t have access. It might be time to touch base with all involved, and embrace a cooperative, can-do approach.

As thought-leaders, your legacy will be determined by how well you exploit the assets at hand to achieve both a result-driven and user-friendly enterprise.

By approving budgets and electing individuals, we empower you to work for us toward visualizing customer-satisfaction approaches and then facilitating them. Boil the ocean, if necessary, but show us a proactive approach.

For those of you who don’t speak “buzz,” here’s a Cliff’s Notes review.

We don’t only want to hear from you when you need our votes to get a budget passed and to get elected. You work for us. If you took the job, you accepted the taxpayer as your boss, and if you ran for a position, you accepted us as your constituency.

Isn’t it about time we hear from you other than at voting time?

We want to know where the money goes; we’re just as interested in no-dollar-wasted as in no-child-left-behind. We want to know exactly what you’re doing on a regular basis to address illegal students, violence, drugs and security. If you can’t find it, we’ll tell you where it is - but then, we expect you to act.

We don’t want to hear about any more breath-holding contests between a coach or athletic director and a recreation program over field use.

There wouldn’t BE any fields if we didn’t pay for them to be there and pay for their maintenance. No tax dollar is more important than another, and neither is one kid or one grade level. If getting the parties involved together and having them hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” doesn’t work, then rattle some cages.

Get it done.

Finally, let’s not start going off on state and federal tangents when we’re talking about North Plainfield and North Plainfield’s schools and North Plainfield’s kids and North Plainfield’s administrators.

If you’re a tool of the NEA or the NJEA, we just might have to form the NPEA along with the NPCCR.

You’re pretty good with buzzwords and acronyms - figure it out.

HELP SAVE MUHLENBERG

I was able to attend the “Save Muhlenberg Hospital” Rally last night. It was held at Plainfield High School football field. Very inspirational indeed. The mayor of Piscataway spoke, Dr. Brian Fertig spoke, as well as acting president of the Plainfield Chamber of Commerce, Jim Uffer.

Also speaking was Assemblyman Jerry Green. Special guest speaker was Shaun O’Hara of the Superbowl winning NY Giants football team. There was music and chanting and a true sense of unity.

Channel 9 News was there. This is the kind of publicity we need to continue to get if we want to save Muhlenberg Hospital. We have to continue to get the word out there throughout the state. We need more celebrity endorsements. It would be great to get Nationwide coverage.

I e-mailed Oprah Winfrey in the hopes that she may find this a worthy cause. I am going to send her another letter written by hand and include newspaper clippings about the rallies and about the hospital in general. Maybe if she has the opportunity to read my letter, we may get some help!

There will be another rally held at Plainfield High School auditorium next Tuesday, May 6 at 6:00 PM. I urge everyone to attend. You will have an opportunity to get up and speak if you wish.

ANYTHING we do to get the word out can help. I ask all of you in cyberland to write letters, send e-mails, and make calls to our elected officials. Spread the word! Remember 6 degrees of separation? Maybe SOMEONE knows SOMEONE, who knows SOMEONE who has the money to save the life of a hospital that has saved so many lives in the 133 years it has served Plainfield and its surrounding communities.

Draft Letters and Addresses:

Save Muhlenberg Letters

Save Muhlenberg - More Addresses

Letter from Barbara Habeeb to Diane Ross at the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, and Ms. Ross’ response letter.

Dear Ms. Ross:

My name is Barbara Habeeb. I am a concerned citizen who is a member of a civic group called North Plainfield Citizens for Community Rights (NPCCR)

Recently, Robert McNerney & Associates of Glen Rock, NJ purchased a large parcel of land in North Plainfield. This parcel, known as “The Villa Maria” property is 17 acres and the ONLY OPEN SPACE North Plainfield has left. Mr. McNerney is planning on building 225 condos on this property.

This is incomprehensible considering the fact that North Plainfield is one of the most densely populated towns, if not THE most populated town in Somerset County. We don’t need more people. We don’t have ROOM for more people.

The citizens of North Plainfield are very upset about this. The property in question has 200 year old trees, a brook, rolling slopes and a building that dates back to the late 1800’s. We want to preserve that green open space and the historic value that goes with it.

I see that Mr. McNerney is listed ( as #105 ) on your March 2007 list of approved appraisers. What exactly does this mean? I was under the impression that the NJDEP is an organization that is supposed to help PRESERVE open space.

Yet, this very man is going to DESTROY IT by building on it. What, if anything can you tell me about this? Is there something that can be done to save this property? Drastic measures need to be taken. We do not want to lose this land. Can you help or direct me to someone who can?

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Barbara Habeeb
PS: I understand about 3 years back property taxes are owed to North Plainfield. Can North Plainfield put a lien on this property?

Ms. Ross’s response letter:

Dear Ms. Habeeb:

I appreciate your concern and that of the North Plainfield Citizens for Community Rights in trying to preserve this property.  Unfortunately, Mr. Robert McNerney being an approved appraiser for the Green Acre Program merely indicates that he can be engaged by counties, municipalities and non-profit organizations to perform appraisal work on properties they are interested in acquiring with Green Acres Funding.  

His purchasing and developing this property in North Plainfield is irrelevant to his placement on the list to perform appraisals.

While Green Acres would also like to see this property preserved in its natural state, the State Land Acquisition Program purchases land only from willing sellers who must first offer their property for sale to the State.  Even if this property were offered for sale, it is probably too small and isolated from
other State lands to qualify for a direct purchase by the State.  

However, the municipality, county or a non-profit land preservation group might be interested in preserving this site.  You may wish to contact one of those entities to inquire as to their interest.

As far as a tax lien on the property, I would contact the North Plainfield Tax Assessor or Tax Collector and he/she can give you information regarding the tax situation.

I appreciate your concern in preserving this property and wish you and NPCCR success in achieving your preservation goals.

Diane Ross

By M. Emory Layne

I try to report without emotion - let the facts speak for themselves. But I have to say, this bit of reportage has me a little cheesed off.

My point goes at the beginning this time, not the end. Some people out there may be looking at November’s elections from the standpoint of a “clean slate.” Janice Allen is not seeking reelection as mayor, so they might be thinking of the candidates as independent thinkers.

I’d like to remind everyone that there’s an old saying, which I slightly modify, that goes “a person is known by the company they keep.”

Applied more succinctly to North Plainfield politics, “crooks of a feather flock together.”

Perhaps Janice Allen isn’t running for mayor; but people who willingly ran on the same ticket as her, people who supported her every move, ARE running. And, to date, they’ve said nothing that would even remotely imply anything but their fullest support for her.

At a recent Borough Council meeting, we heard Mayor Janice Allen ‘explain’ why the first - and botched - meeting with Appraisal Systems, Inc. appeared to be a last-minute, improper-use-of-labor attempt to shortsheet the NPCCR meeting. Let’s revisit her own words:

“And I will bring up the fact that we are doing this newsletter because we really have difficulty getting information into the Courier-News. It seems that every now and then they come through but we can’t count on them. And I would like to explain that is why we had people take notices around about the reval. We had two meetings prior to that for the reval. We had okay attendance at one, not such good attendance at the other. And it was brought to us by the NPCCR that, you know, not enough information was out there. So I did call the Courier-News and, ah, we did fax stuff over to them and nothing got in the paper.”

Set the wayback machine to 2006. On October 31, a week before elections, the Courier-News named its choices for candidates vying for positions in North Plainfield. Exactly one day before that, an article appeared in the Courier-News headlined “In 2004, North Plainfield Candidate was Suspended from Police Force.”

How coincidental - exactly one day before endorsements.

The article discussed a situation involving GOP candidate Frank D’Amore from over 2½ years before. More coincidences: if the Courier-News had dug up this story on its own, why did it wait so long to run with it? Why did it wait until right before endorsements?

I’ll make a couple of educated guesses about these amazing coincidences.

First, that story originated in Borough Hall.

Am I wrong? I’d enjoy hearing proof to the contrary, because it certainly seems that SOMEONE there managed to alert the Courier-News to this timely (for the democrat candidates) story. And amazingly, the very same newspaper that Janice Allen blames for being unresponsive certainly responded to this tip. A nice-sized article was written … again, right before the election.

Janice, did you know about it?

You can try for ‘plausible deniability’ all you’d like - you were quoted in the article! You said “These charges are very serious and it concerns me that someone who was supposed to be upholding the law, but didn’t, is now running for election.” It’s right there: “Allen said.” Did they misquote you? Did they make it up? There don’t appear to be any lawsuits initiated by Bernstein & Co. about it, so I have to assume that you were accurately quoted.

I have to say, at the risk of damaging credibility, I am royally steamed by this.

Allen, you had no problem whatsoever getting an article into the Courier-News exactly at the time it would best serve your interests. An article that would be important to the taxpayers, to the residents, about a revaluation meeting? ‘Well, we tried, but they didn’t come through, they let us down, waah, waah, waah.’

They came through just fine when your buddies needed every little bit of tabloid sensationalism to win an election. And I don’t have the time to go into your haughty, holier-than-thou commentary on the D’Amore issue; ‘someone who was supposed to be upholding the law?’

Doesn’t that apply to your hand-picked zoning officer (who doesn’t seem terribly interested in doing it) or, for that matter, to YOU as the top dog in the system? I literally laughed out loud when I read that … best joke I’d heard in weeks.

Another educated guess: you instructed that D’Amore leak to go out, but made sure the trail didn’t lead back to you. Am I wrong? Speak up. It’s obvious that there was an intentional attempt to undermine an opposition candidate at the precise time it would do the most damage. Yet a couple of years later, durn it all, you just can’t get that uncooperative Courier-News to help! And you tried sending a fax and everything!

I don’t like to be lied to.

If there’s anything remotely as bad as a liar, it’s the person or people who help facilitate the lies. The enablers. The people who cover up for them.

I want everyone to take a long, hard look at the candidates running in November, and if you call yourself objective thinkers, consider how many of them have ever butted heads with Janice Allen over her lies.

If any of them have ever had the guts to say “That’s not true” in public. If any of them have ever had the iron to oppose her.

They’ve shared political tickets and political agendas, and haven’t made a peep to date. They’ve got the means and they’ve got the motive; why do we hear nothing but lies or silence?

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT…NOT

So, the response to my request for the Economic Development Committee report, referenced by EDC Chair Florence Mannion at the EDC’s April 10 meeting, which purportedly contained information about all the substantive achievements of the EDC during the previous seven months (October 2007 through April 2008), was this August 31, 2007 document:

EDIP Report

It’s a letter from Borough Administrator Dave Hollod to Somerset County Planning Board Chair Robert Bzik, outlining how the Borough had spent or was intending to spend Somerset County Economic Development Incentive Grant money. Mostly it deals with the wooden signs installed last fall, although it references a “draft study and plan” supposed to be finished by Borough Planner Marta Lefsky, by close of calendar 2007, four months ago.

Although I and several other people, including EDC member Larry LaRonde, have requested copies of that draft study and plan, no such document exists, or if it does exist, no one in Borough Hall will admit it exists and provide a copy. I wasn’t at last night’s Council meeting. Do any readers know if Ms. Lefsky was reappointed to continue collecting payments for doing no measurable work? Update: Readers write: yes, she was reappointed.

No evidence has yet been produced to show that the EDC members have accomplished anything on the Borough’s behalf, nor that a single EDC member has any substantive plans for, or vision of, the Borough’s economic future.

CITIZEN BUDGET AUDIT

On a related issue - municipal finance - a big shout-out of thanks to Borough Administrator Dave Hollod, who will be making financial documents used to draft the 2008 Municipal Budget available to a small citizens audit committee starting tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. The table being provided to the team, in the temporary finance office upstairs at Borough Hall, is only large enough for two people. However, I’ll be bringing my scanner and laptop to scan documents for posting for others to review.

BOROUGH HALL CONSTRUCTION UPDATE

By the by, while I was at Borough Hall getting the EDIP report, I overheard one of the staffers in the Finance/Tax office tell a resident (who was there to pay his taxes and asked how long the tax office would be upstairs) that: “We should be up here until the winter, I would imagine.”

So there’s the estimated completion date for Borough Hall renovations, which were contractually supposed to be done by April 6, 2007.

Note carefully - that construction update did not come from a named Borough official at a Borough Council meeting, despite numerous resident requests during Council meetings for such an update. Nor was it included in the construction update photo collage on Page 7 of the recent Borough newsletter, or explained here on the blog in a post written and sent in by a current Borough official (lines are still open and operators are standing by…)

Readers interested in tracking down the reasons for the delays further are urged to contact - not Borough Hall, but Rafano & Wood, P.C., of South River NJ, the law firm that filed a Superior Court of New Jersey - Law Division, Somerset County lawsuit in January 2008 titled “J & J Mechanical Contractors, LLC, v. Dauti Construction Co., Inc., Borough of North Plainfield and Great American Insurance.”

If you find anything out, please send a note here to update readers on what you’ve learned.

By M. Emory Layne

The GOP candidate for mayor, Robert Gatto, hasn’t held office in North Plainfield. That should not be seen as a liability - everyone had to hold their first position at some time.

But he has run for office in North Plainfield before … and lost.

Unless Mr. Gatto decides to try an approach noticeably different than past GOP efforts, it’s not too much of a stretch predicting the same result: a campaign that would die a quiet death.

First, a little background on previous tries.

In 2004, Gatto ran for Council on the Frosoni, Carley, Lewis and Gatto ticket; they lost to Allen, Hitchcock, Righetti and Stabile.

In 2006, Gatto again ran for Council, this time with D’Amore, Jones and Lewis. While they lost to Forbes, Giordano, Singleterry and D. Soto, the vote in that election was not a runaway. The average number of votes for a Democrat candidate was 2,043 while the GOP candidates received an average of 1,857 votes. In a nutshell, swaying 94 voters would have resulted in victory.

Interestingly, though, Gatto received a fairly strong endorsement from the Courier-News. The newspaper opined that GOP candidates Gatto and Margaret Mary Jones, along with Democrat candidates Singleterry and Forbes, showed “the best mix of smarts and philosophy.”

Current Democrat mayoral candidate Giordano was not one of those named.

The Courier-News had provided more detail about Gatto in a previous article. “Gatto could emerge as a strong GOP presence, even in a minority role,” they wrote at the time. “A New Jersey native who had lived in Los Angeles for years (his wife is an actress), Gatto’s a vocal advocate for stronger zoning enforcement to curb apartment overcrowding. He is also a critic of recent large increases in some borough administrative salaries.”

Interestingly, this is what they had to say about his current opponent, Michael Giordano: “Giordano was elected to a one-year unexpired term last year,” they said, “and has served as a good Democratic soldier on the Borough Council to date.”

In a past dispatch, I listed some things that I would like to hear from a mayoral candidate for a change - things that would be different from the run-of-the-mill statements made at the last minute or in namby-pamby ‘meet the candidates’ speeches. Naturally, since I’m not running, I have no right to make demands. But I do think I have enough experience with past elections to make strong suggestions.

Doing things the old-fashioned North Plainfield GOP way has resulted in a record of one win in the past 15 years. I’m not going to factor in repeated wins in years past by Margaret Mary Jones while all the other GOP candidates on the ticket lost. That never made any sense to me, as Mrs. Jones was neither a “good soldier” on the Council for the opposing party nor a strong voice for a position opposite the status quo. Aside from her wins and the recent Flynn victory, the GOP’s track record has been foul-smelling.

I’m not going to waste time rehashing GOP flubs and blunders in past elections, though there were many. And there’s not enough space here to address highly questionable approaches taken by the eventual victors in previous run-ups.

The simple fact is that ANY town can become very stagnant and very predictable if the same group with the same principles and the same desires hold power for too long. That isn’t going to change unless someone comes along who’s willing to be different.

There’s quite a while between now and when we cast our ballots; why wait until the last minute to say anything? Now’s the time that people should be getting to know if there’s truly something different here. The issues that are on residents’ minds can’t be any clearer - open this blog. And the approaches that are needed aren’t mysterious; they’re straight-forward.

Will Mr. Gatto … or anyone … address them?

I wonder how a candidate would be perceived if he came out and said something like:

“I will make sure that the people I hire are the best people for the job. I will examine the people who are currently doing work for the taxpayer - and if they’re not performing adequately, I will pursue replacing them. And if there’s some backroom deal that was made that makes getting rid of them difficult, I will bring it to the public’s attention immediately.”

Let’s see … a handful of people on the payroll versus thousands of people footing the bill; who has a stronger voice?

Suppose a candidate said that he’d reexamine each and every appointment to positions that affect policies and spending in town. Suppose he said that no one was ‘safe,’ that even the smallest infraction, abuse of authority or laxity in performance would be call for dismissal? Let’s see … thousands of voters go through that every day of their work lives; why would they feel it unfair for the people they pay to be subject to the same examination?

Imagine a candidate running for mayor of North Plainfield who said he or she planned to spend four years rooting out the favors, the friendship arrangements, and the lack of oversight? That being mayor meant more to them than maintaining a buddy system throughout Borough Hall? That if someone was goofing off and stealing taxpayer dollars through non-performance of any job, from zoning officer to floor sweeper, they’d answer to the taxpayers? That ALL deals and agreements would be aired out in public?

A wise man once said that if you do the same thing incorrectly over and over, you simply become and expert at doing it incorrectly.

I think that was me who said that.

I ask you bluntly - what are you afraid of?

Saying the wrong thing?

Look what saying nothing has accomplished in the past.

Taking a stand?

Addressing the primary issues in town?

Everyone smiles, shakes hands, and posts signs with their name on them.

And in the end, one wins and the other loses.

I dare say it’s worth the ‘risk’ to try something different this time.

By M. Emory Layne

Because “inept,” we have plenty of.

I’m really trying to learn all I can about the people running for election or reelection in November here in North Plainfield. And once I do, having a big mouth, I plan on telling everyone I know what I learn - because, by gosh by golly, I ain’t planning on taking the Toonerville Trolley to Allen-Town again.

When I first started out in the corporate world, as the guy who dug the hole they put the totem pole in, I remember how people would cluster together and complain long and hard about management. “Wow,” I thought, in my polyester-jacketed naiveté, “these people really have a negative attitude!”

As years went by, and I had occasion to interact more closely for and with those members of management, I said: “Wow! Those people sure knew what the hell they’d been talking about!”

Catholic doctrine says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

That has to be amended when it comes to running things like commissions and committees, boards and boroughs: “Him that’s been there and done that gets a tandem full of rocks.” Having been involved with any number of ‘volunteer’ organizations, large and small, from the gofer to the shot caller, I have a fair amount of experience I can bring to bear on pinging these people right between the eyes with pebbles.

Volunteers.

That’s what the people who get the titled positions in town refer to themselves as, ad nauseum.

You’re not.

The volunteers are the people who do the dirty work. Simple way to tell who’s who: in any situation, the volunteers are the ones dragging the cables and speakers setting up the P.A. system; the big shots are the ones talking.

The volunteers in North Plainfield are the classroom mothers and fathers. The coaches for youth sports who only see a trophy on someone else’s shelf. The people picking up the equipment after an event, folding the tables, stacking the chairs. The folks helping out because it’s the right thing to do.

THEY’RE the ones who are giving their time without hope of (or concern for) recognition, power and compensation.

The people who are running things here are not.

The names are all there, on websites, on signs, in publications, with fancy titles after them. And in the fairest way I can put it, some of them are actually hard-working, honest, and committed to whatever it is they do.

Some of them.

And here I was thinking they all were supposed to be. I better go burn that polyester blazer in my closet, because it’s still giving off doofus vibes.

A few simple questions, because it’s getting very confusing.

First, why, in this town, does it invariably seem that the person with the absolute lowest level of people skills ends up in the position that calls for interaction with people?

As much as I hate being schmoozed, I’ll take it in a second over dealing with people who seem to have a perpetual mad-on or who seem to need a script to manage a simple “Hello, how are you today?” exchange.

How is it that so many people have risen to positions of importance in North Plainfield who, when faced with a variety of options to address a problem, invariably opt for the one that pisses off the most people?

We’ll start slow, for your sake. When a situation arises that would best be addressed by pitching in and lending a hand, ordering someone else to do it or issuing a command and assuming everyone will salute only works at Parris Island.

Did it ever occur to anyone that if you’re going to lie, you ought to at least be good at it?

I’ve seen lying at its finest-tuned: I’ve played golf with lawyers. You guys suck. Keep it up - look me right in the eye, and assure me of something, when I’ve already talked with the people involved. Makes me feel supremely confident about where my tax dollars are going.

Finally, a question related to all these ‘volunteers’ running all these important groups. In every single group I’ve ever been involved in where the pay is satisfaction, people occasionally disagree. I mean, the people who are actually running things. Big issue or small, there are differences of opinion. And that’s a good thing. Because from those differences of opinion are hashed out new policies and procedures or fixes for ones that are broken.

In this town, if someone who’s a chairman or president or grand poobah were to actually question the decisions made (not that anyone apparently ever does), you’d think Oliver Twist stood up and asked for more gruel. It’s like that Pepsi commercial during the Super Bowl; all the heads are nodding in unison, and we, the people on the outside, are the guy snarling “Stop it!”

When was the last time there was an honest-to-God difference of opinion in this fraternity?

“Attention, folks, the sun came up in the west this morning, not the east … right?”

“Yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup ….”

The best way I can phrase this is that an alarming number of people running important things in North Plainfield have become inept at being inept. Somewhere, one of my old English teachers is rolling over in her grave, but I can’t think of another way to say it. There used to be some level of intellectual thrust-and-parry involved, a certain amount of intelligence. Now, it’s really little more than that stupid old cartoon that used to get passed around the cubicles: “Be reasonable - do it my way.”

All I can say is, hopefully, not for long, folks. Not for long.

GOP Council candidate Marie Kushnir and her husband have put their house up for sale, reportedly “testing the market.”

Ms. Kushnir has decided to drop out of the race effective after the June 3 primary, (because the deadline for ballot changes has passed.) The concern during this new upheaval is that the GOP will end up looking just like the incumbent Democrats, especially if Kushnir’s replacement on the ticket is someone from of the ineffectual “old school” GOP.

Kushnir has a lot to offer the ticket (and the Borough, if her house doesn’t sell and she gets elected in November) as a fresh face with fresh ideas, and as a tough and outspoken woman who knows and is known by a gazillion people around town.

Many GOP-ers hoping for a change of direction in the local party hierarchy would like to see someone like Kevin Fitzhenry fill Kushnir’s spot on the ticket, and based on what I’ve heard of his independent spirit, and what I’ve seen of his thoughtful competence as a volunteer T-ball coach when my son first began playing, I think he’d be a great pick and I hope he’ll step in to fill the vacancy.

TELEVISING COUNCIL MEETINGS and OTHER LOCAL PROGRAMMING

Sister blogger Maria Pellum over at Crescent-Times in Plainfield, has been writing about the pros and cons of televised Council meetings. Cable public access in the digital age is a very interesting aspect of the citizen empowerment/media democracy movement in America, and one that directly relates to North Plainfield, because Channel 74 is officially our municipal cable-access channel as well.

It’s the station that North Plainfield cable subscribers should be able to watch (some can, some can’t) and use for creating and airing local programming. Although I didn’t find out until Friday, when I read Maria’s post, there was a meeting Thursday night seeking public input about the quality of local cable programming. More great information is posted at Dan Damon’s blog.

Maria wrote some questions on the subject and Rebecca Williams, the former PCTV-74 station manager fired by Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, sent in some very interesting answers.

The most pertinent is the fact that if North Plainfielders create video content on local people and issues, the station managers at Plainfield TV74 would be legally obligated to air those programs. Here’s what Rebecca Williams wrote:

…the city has an obligation to air a tape brought to the station by a citizen. They cannot refuse to air a program, nor can they censor or in any way alter a tape. The laws governing public access are quite different from those of broadcast television. The city cannot “bleep” out language or imagery that might be objectionable, either.

There are guidelines for station use in the files at the station. When I was fired from the station by Sharon Robinson-Briggs, there was no competent and knowledgeable person hired to replace me and watch out for the public interest. Even those who have disagreed with my political positions (and affiliations) in the past have told me that they were glad that I kept political agendas out of the station’s programming.

Unfortunately, the mayor was so eager to get rid of me (and others on her “enemies list,” apparently) that she did not think about the good of the station and the public interest it represents. I have heard that the mayor put her husband on the cable board, so you tell me what message that is sending about the public interest…I do know that the station belongs to the residents of Plainfield and that the equipment that was purchased belongs to the residents of Plainfield. I have not ever heard any one at the station or on the cable advisory board ever say anything about the public being brought into the process.

I would like to know whether anyone out there has submitted a tape to the station to be aired. Maybe Maria can put out a call on the blog about this. Again, the station cannot refuse to air programs submitted by citizens.

Since Jim Rodino referred repeatedly to DPW guys “having to be taken off the streets” to accomplish certain things, some readers have been wondering…

Those DPW guys take a lot of long breaks during work hours down at the Dunkin Donuts in Green Brook, just across the North Plainfield border. (Note: Reader photos of the DPW trucks in the Dunkin Donuts lot would most welcome).

Funny, though, we have a Dunkin Donuts right in North Plainfield (on Westbound Route 22 near Astro Rents), and you never see them patronizing that Borough establishment. Could it be because they’d be readily visible if they went to that one? Could it be because in Green Brook, no one from North Plainfield has any authority? Or are the Dunkin Donuts in Green Brook that much better than the ones in North Plainfield?

MORE ABOUT REAL ESTATE APPRAISALS

FLORENCE WARD ON ILLEGAL HOUSING

Letter found in the Council correspondence files, referencing Star-Ledger article on the same topic:

Florence Ward Letter

Star-Ledger: Franklin Township Looks to Toughen Penalties on Illegal Housing. Franklin Township is where former NP Council President Dan Glicklich moved to in his retirement; he now serves as a Councilman there. His daughter, Ruth Glicklich deBang, is the Democratic Club secretary and was nominated to fill Daniel Soto’s vacant Council seat last summer (that’s the seat to which Santiago Soto was appointed in late summer 2007, and then Jenny Flynn was elected in November 2007.)

TRENDS IN RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE

Housing Forecast

That’s a chart showing what the overbuilt real estate market is expected to do over the next few years - stabilization not expected until 2010, uptick not expected until 2011.

Relevant to the Villa Maria debates, these projections were put together by the Otteau Group. NPCCR actually reached out to Jeffrey Otteau last year for help building a case against further residential overdevelopment in North Plainfield, but Mr. Otteau was unable to assist because he had a prior professional relationship with Mr. McNerney.

REC DIRECTOR STRIKING OUT

School athletics and Recreation athletics are butting heads again this spring, with school coaches playing passive-aggressive games like refusing to vacate shared fields when Rec coaches and teams are scheduled to play on them. And new Rec Director Chris Tarver (hand-picked by former Rec Commissioner, current Councilman and Mayoral Candidate Mike Giordano to shut-out local coaches interested in the Rec Director job) is on his third revision of the 3rd/4th grade boys baseball schedule, trying (again) to correct problems pointed out by some coaches well before the season began.

Here are the agendas for Monday’s Council meetings, which will start at 7:30 p.m. at Vermeule Community Center. (I can’t be there, so send in your observations for posting if you go).

Agenda Meeting 4-28.08

Regular Meeting 4-28.08

On the agenda meeting to-do list, there’s an interesting note about changing the name of the Property Maintenance Committee. Maybe they’re changing it to “Puppet Show Committee.”

And the long-awaited and profoundly-needed Shade Tree Commission ordinance will finally put in an appearance.

During the regular meeting, among other things, it looks like do-nothing Borough Planner Marta Lefsky will be re-hired for another lucrative Borough professional services contract, and Robert Morrison of Holudik & Morrison municipal auditors will be hired for the ninth or tenth consecutive year to audit the Borough’s books, despite the general practice of changing auditors every three years to make sure long-term conflict of interest relationships aren’t developing or influencing audit reports.

All of the professional services contracts listed in the consent agenda should be scrutinized very carefully; to my knowledge, the current “Pay-to-Play” laws don’t (or didn’t until this year) cover campaign contributions from professional contractors like attorneys, accountants, engineers and planners, only from non-professional contractors.

Even if professionals are now covered, the current Administration’s record of hiring, and rehiring, and rehiring incompetent people, and never collecting penalties owed for shoddy work, is getting to be a pretty extensive record, and, with the exception of Jenny Flynn, Council members never seem to say squat about it.

If anyone can build a giant rubber stamp by Monday night, it might be fun to thump it down on a giant piece of paper every time the Council takes a meaningless vote in utter abdication of its check and balance oversight role.

CITIZEN AUDIT COMMITTEE

By the by, at the last Council meeting on April 14, I asked the Council and Borough Attorney Eric Bernstein if there are any legal impediments to a citizens’ audit committee taking a look at the Borough books, in detail, to find spending cuts and revenue increases. Mr. Bernstein said there are no such legal impediments, and instructed me to put my request in writing to Mr. Hollod. I wrote and hand-delivered that letter to Tina Totten on April 18.

Hollod Letter 4-18.08

Mr. Hollod has not yet found time to e-mail a response to schedule a time for a citizen audit committee to begin reviewing the Borough’s books. If you are interested in joining that committee, drop me a line and I’ll add you to the list and make sure that WHEN we get access to those financial records, you’ll be notified so you can come help us sift through them.

To his credit, Councilman Douglas Singleterry commented later in that same April 14 meeting that if citizens do find areas where the Borough could save money on the spending side or raise additional money on the revenue side, he’d like to hear those proposals with a view to implementing them as the Council continues its budgetary work throughout the year.

Mr. Singleterry could go further, using his relatively greater clout as a Councilman (designated by the voting residents to provide budgetary oversight on our behalf) to gain quicker citizen access to the financial data we need to conduct our citizens’ audit.