Bird Droppings

“Bird Droppings” is a new occasional feature, which will be collections of small bits of information plopped by various aviary sources around the Borough.

OF PROPERTY MAINTENANCE AND PUPPET SHOWS

Got the new Borough of North Plainfield & Board of Education Newsletter. The second of its kind, the newsletter contains primarily fluff pieces about Borough departments, plus fluff pieces about the schools, plus copious PR for Borough-sponsored social activities, which are, as I’ve mentioned, the main organizing strength possessed by the current Borough leadership.

Anyway, I scanned down the Table of Contents on the cover:

Rescue Squad, page 2 (seeking new volunteers).

Recreation, page 2 (introduction to the new Director Chris Tarver, hired in a controversial backroom compromise deal to keep long-time local Rec volunteers out of the position and who, word is, likes to spend money and time on computers and paperwork, but is not so competent at things like game scheduling, event coordination and the social networking aspects of keeping volunteer coaches informed and supported in their work with the kids…

Tootling along, we find:

“Property Maintenance – page 3.”

What’s this? Is Janice Allen or Jim Rodino going to say something intelligible and responsive about the property maintenance concerns (code violations and overcrowding) that have so many local residents up in arms?

Well, no.

Turns out that the article is about puppet shows on recycling that the Property Maintenance Committee puts on at local elementary schools, because they’re an advisory committee with no authority to supervise, discipline or fire DPW employees who fail to do their jobs. But puppet shows? Yes! They are qualified and authorized to conduct puppet shows.

MIKE CASTRO AND A STEP-ONE TEACHING POSITION

Mike Castro is the substitute teacher at the high school who’s all but bankrupted himself tutoring ESL kids for free. Although several members of the School Board support him (so far intangibly, as he struggles on working full-time, but earning only the $13,000 per year substitute teacher’s income), they have apparently been told that Mike can’t be hired as a Step One salaried full-time teacher with a living wage, because he has a “certificate of eligibility” for high school teaching in Social Studies and Spanish, (plus a master’s degree in education and several years of teaching experience) but not a regular New Jersey teaching license.

However, the District hires a handful of such “certificate of eligibility” teachers every year, including last year, on a case by case basis, whenever the Board and Administration decide that the teacher has the qualifications and the district has the need. Perhaps as more Board members become aware of the bureaucratic shell-game being played, they’ll step up and go to bat for Mike.

SCHOOL BOARD v. RECREATION COMMISSION

Long-time local observers have noted that the School Board, which controls access to all the playing fields throughout the Borough, and the Recreation Commission, which needs to use those fields for recreational programs, often experience a lot of friction when trying to work together (that’s a big understatement, and perusal of Rec Commission minutes over the past few years reportedly bears this out).

But it’s more than a little strange given the familial overlap among some members of each local committee. Tom Allen was elected to the School Board and appointed to the Rec. Commission, and currently sits on both.

Sandra Dodd was reelected to the School Board last year, and her husband, Ray Dodd, is chairman of the Rec. Commission, which is a Commission entirely appointed by the Mayor with no Council approval of appointments required by law or sought in practice.

It’s another example of the closed circuit of local politics, and the practical deadlock which that groupthink engenders. You’d think that simultaneous appointments, and spousal appointments, would provide for rapid and easy tranfer of information and facilitate conflict resolution between the two groups. But it apparently doesn’t.

FIRE SAFETY AND ILLEGAL HOUSING

I recently learned that there was a house fire in a Willow Avenue home a few months ago, and when the Fire Department came to put out the first floor fire, they discovered that an entire family (presumably mother, father and several children) had been living in the basement of the home, in an illegal apartment with, among numerous other code violations, no windows for light and fresh air. Apparently no one was injured in the fire, thank goodness; I’ll try to find time to go to the Fire Department and get a copy of the incident report.

Neighbors had apparently been somewhat aware of the over-occupancy, since there were more than the usual number of cars and people going in and out. Interestingly, since the fire, the home has been a lot quieter – fewer people, fewer cars.

The neighbors probably reported their concerns, and probably nothing was done to investigate the code violations, fine the property owner, and relocate the family to safer, more appropriate housing using the part of the local code that requires the property owner to pay the relocating tenants six times the monthly rent they were paying for the illegal apartment. See Borough Code, Chapter 11-11.2

I think North Plainfield could articulate and carry out a very reasonable, moderate policy on illegal housing, simply by acknowledging and embracing our obviously multi-cultural community, while also saying “Enough already!”

As Americans, we do have a fairly decent tradition of welcoming immigrants. Granted, large waves from particular regions have in the past, and are currently, creating tensions, mostly (I think) because absorption by the host country and assimilation by the immigrant population both take time, and a huge rapid wave swamps both groups’ capacities for negotiating the transition smoothly.

That’s what’s happening in a microcosm in North Plainfield: we’re overpopulated. Not by immigrants as immigrants, but by people as people. So it’s entirely reasonable and possible for Janice Allen, or, if she continues to fail, for her successor, to monitor and control population density by enforcing housing codes that bar overcrowding by any property owner of any ethnicity. Policies and practices saying we have enough, and probably too many, people living here are not xenophobic assertions that certain types of people should leave.

They’re just a realistic admission that we have our work cut out for us already, to come together as a community and provide the necessary services to all of the residents we can handle, and that other, less-densely populated communities are better places for further population growth.  

DOUBLE-DIPPING AT THE STATE TILL

An alert reader followed up on 2007 A Great Year for Double Dippers, published in the Courier-News. Quote: “with higher salaries come higher pensions payments upon retirement.”

The reader followed the links at the article looking for North Plainfield employees, and learned that the Borough’s Chief Financial Officer Patrick DiBlasio has five New Jersey positions – North Plainfield pays him $36,912 and his income from his five state jobs combined is $203,031.

Joseph Alcino, the Borough’s Construction Official, also has five jobs. He gets $19,689 from the Borough, and his income from his five state jobs combined is $174,912.

Catherine Park, the Borough’s Tax Collector, has four state jobs. North Plainfield pays her $17,469 and her income from her four state jobs combined is $112,116.

TIMEWARPS

Many people in the Borough are concerned about crime, not only what’s happening, but how quickly residents find out about what’s happening to better protect themselves. The Borough offers security survey services and support for starting block watch associations, through the Community Oriented Policing program, as covered in the Borough newsletter cover story, which refers readers to call Detective Kuga at 908-769-2971 for more information; those sound like good programs.

I didn’t realize how peculiar the reporting system twixt police department and local media actually is until I was perusing the Police Blotter section of the April 2, 2008 Courier-News, which included crime reports from January 29, January 30, and January 31, eight weeks earlier. Hardly timely information.

TYPOS

By the way, the Borough newsletter does include information about the low-income housing rehabilitation program run by Friends of the Carpenter. But the phone number is listed wrong. The correct number, which rings at Watchung Avenue Presbyterian Church, is (908) 755-2781.