Dispatches from M.Emory Layne – Odds and Ends

[Editor's Note: Emory sent this piece in early Sept. He's a prolific contributor (more than 110 posts, most more than 1,000 words) and this one, plus a couple others, got delayed in the "Drafts" folder pending editing.] 

By Emory Layne

Regarding Illegal Housing and Illegal Students

From the Green Brook-North Plainfield Journal, October 23, 1996, with qualifying identifiers:

“According to Ms. Glicklich, (Peggy Glicklich, wife of Democrat Dan Glicklich, who would be elected to North Plainfield Borough Council) the Department of Health, Housing and Property is remiss in its duties by supplying a statistical rather than a detailed monthly report and by not seeking out illegal housing situations actively enough.

Under the current arrangement, department workers investigate situations reported by police, the fire department and the Board of Education. While performing the appropriate investigation, borough employees are to look for indications of illegal housing.

As a result, most investigations stem from complaints, which is what Ms. Glicklich sees as a problem. Because signs of illegal housing, such as multiple cable hookups or an excessive number of cars, are obvious, she believes it would be a simple matter to ferret out such places.

“I known the Mayor (Republican Mike Haggerty) is always saying they’re aggressively pursuing this, but I can’t get any information to show they’re actively pursuing it,” she said.”

From the Green Brook-North Plainfield Journal, October 30, 1996, with qualifying identifiers:

“Addressing the decrease of property values in North Plainfield, Democratic mayoral candidate Janice Allen was quick to blame “bad press” and illegal housing.

“We have to go after these (illegal housing) violations very strongly,” she said. “They’re not being corrected right now.”

Following the debate, Democratic Council candidate Bob Hitchcock said the lack of progress on the issue stemmed from some officials’ failure to do their jobs and enforce the housing laws.

“We pussy-foot around too much,” he said.”

From the Green Brook-North Plainfield Journal, September 30, 1992, with qualifying identifiers:

“The (North Plainfield School) district is cracking down on students illegally attending borough schools and will have conducted more than 100 checks this year to ensure pupils are legal residents of North Plainfield.

The school district’s residency checks sometimes disclose students are living in illegal multi-family dwellings. Of 55 checks made to date this school year, the district has found two cases of zoning code violations of multi-family residences.

“We can’t do anything about the zoning violations,” said Schools Superintendent Dwight Pfennig. “But it is up to us to report it (to the borough).”

During the 1991-1992 school year, the district conducted 96 checks and “removed 13 students from the rolls,” the superintendent said. The district will conduct an additional 50 checks this year, he added.

At a joint meeting of the Board of Education, the Planning Board, the Board of Adjustment and the Borough Council Thursday, Sept. 24, Mr. Pfennig said the district has been “more pro-active in residency checks than ever before. The problems we are seeing go beyond students simply not living in town,” he said. “We have people in town in violation of the zoning codes.”

For the past 12 years, the administration HAS managed to:

• Elect a Democrat mayor (Janice Allen)
• Achieve a long-term Democrat majority on Borough Council;
• Bmploy borough administrators of their own choosing (John Katilas, David Hollod);
• Fire the previous zoning officer and hire one of their own choosing (James Rodino);
• Hire a police chief of their own choosing (William Parenti);
• Hire a fire chief of their own choosing (William Eaton);
• Employ any number of civil servants willing to act on the mayor’s and council’s direction at any time;
• Employ a School Superintendent who could not even remotely be considered an “enemy” of the administration (Marilyn Birnbaum);

Yet FAR MORE was done about illegal housing and illegal students in the schools prior to the 1996 Allen team takeover. When you have the opportunity to completely revamp the structure and staff of any organization, and a situation that you went on record as believing to be “important” and detrimental gets worse, you have failed miserably.

We need an explanation.

Or better yet, let’s figure it out ourselves.

• The sitting mayor and at least one sitting Councilperson, have gone clearly on record as saying illegal housing (and students) are detrimental to North Plainfield and that such situations must be “gone after” without “pussy-footing around.”
• The lack of enforcement has been clearly documented in town.
• In years before this administration took power, enforcement was attempted – in the case of illegal students, some were identified and removed from the system.
• The police department is obligated to report observed situations of illegal housing.
• The fire department is obligated to report observed situations of illegal housing.
• The Board of Education is obligated to report situations involving illegal students.
• The paid employees of these organizations have either gone on record or implied that they have not found any violations.
• Council candidate Frank D’Amore regularly finds violations as an unpaid volunteer, which remain unenforced.
• For some unknown reason, the administration has clearly opted not to act on this issue, not even coming close to maintaining previous efforts, let alone expanding them.
• Anyone who is obligated to participate in this process and who draws pay from the borough is, apparently, not meeting the requirements of their positions.

What would YOU do?

Regarding Enforcement

In 2004, a group of men from Plainfield who referred to themselves as the ‘Bajan Bad Boys’ engaged in a series of random, violent beatings of Hispanics in Plainfield and North Plainfield. The attackers were black. Over 30 attacks were documented; one victim died and another was paralyzed.

The thugs who perpetrated these crimes were so cavalier about their actions that they even gave it a name: ‘Wreck a Rican.’

The situation grew so bad that a special task force was created, and members of the Guardian Angels began patrolling the streets of Plainfield. Yet officials took a most curious stance when addressing these clearly biased attacks.

Police Chief Edward Santiago of Plainfield and Police Chief William Parenti of North Plainfield went on record as saying that there was “no solid indication the attacks and robberies were racially motivated.”
Mayor Janice Allen refused to consider these attacks as “hate crimes.”

We can be deceived, at times, by the details of situations that appear to be one thing, but may not necessarily be what they appear. The “Jena 6″ situation in Louisiana was a prime example of this; when all the facts came out, it wasn’t what it looked like at first.

But this example from right here in North Plainfield, from the fairly recent past, couldn’t have been any more cut-and-dried, could it?

The attackers named their activities, not the media. The attackers were all one race, the victims all a different one. Yet with all that clarity, we saw two police chiefs and a mayor back off referring to it as what it was.

I cannot comprehend why.

Politics? When did politics supersede citizens getting their heads bashed in?

We all know what a hate crime is. We have specific laws about them. Those laws DO NOT allow for personal interpretation. Yet no one got terribly upset at the time. The classic hypothetical argument, of course, would be “What if the attackers were all white?” But we don’t have to resort to hypothesis. The attackers were all black, the victims were all Hispanic, and the attackers used a racial slur in their alliterative and oh-so-clever designation.

And our police chief and mayor stuck their heads in the sand and hoped it would all go away.

Now, consider all the debate raging about lack of enforcement in other areas. Then, factor in this prime opportunity to call something exactly what it was, to help ensure that the perpetrators would be properly punished. And then ask yourself, is there a connection?

I don’t believe in “an eye for an eye.”

But I do believe that people are supposed to do what they’re paid to do or elected to do.