Grassroots Groundswell

Closed now. What will happen next? Borough Hall Annex? Youth Center? School for Adult English as a Second Language? Library? Affordable senior housing? Medical or professional offices? Charter school? Razed for single-family home construction?

Photos taken along Somerset Street on Saturday - natural foods store (above), children’s consignment shop, florist (below).

Following is a summary of topics addressed at the June 9 Council meetings. 20 - 25 Borough residents attended the meeting.

RED CROSS RENTAL OF VERMEULE

Frank D’Amore asked about the status of this issue, and Mayor Janice Allen said the Red Cross withdrew their application and she’s heard nothing further about it.

GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION

Dr. Harry Allen testified about ongoing remediation efforts, as covered in this previous post.

MORE BUS STOPS IN THE BOROUGH

Council President Skip Stabile reported that the NJ Department of Transportation has reached out to Borough officials to begin discussions about establishing more bus stops throughout the Borough. Most Council members seemed inclined to cooperate with the DOT, noting that as gas prices rise, more people will become more interested in public transit, and improved services would benefit Borough residents. Councilman Hitchcock noted he doesn’t want bus shelters that have advertising on them.

On a related issue, Borough Administrator David Hollod announced that the Architectural Design Review Board met last week to discuss, among other things, the style of bus shelter they’d like to install at Mountain Avenue at Graybar Drive (near Route 22), where there’s currently a rough bench for bus riders and a trash can emptied by a nearby homeowner. The design review board selected the “Trenton style” bus shelter, dark green frame with a peaked roof. If Mr. Hollod mentioned when the shelter would be installed, I didn’t hear it.

SATELLITE DISH REGULATION

Council President Skip Stabile said many residents have complained about the cluttered, unattractive appearance of multiple satellite dishes on residential roofs. Stabile said in the past, technology required one dish per television, but newer systems can hook all the household televisions to one dish, so he’d like to see the Council adopt an ordinance limiting homes to one dish per home, with fines levied for too many satellite dishes. Councilman Bob Hitchcock said he’d like to see the Historic District treated separately in any such ordinance. Stabile also observed that multiple satellite dishes might be a sign of overcrowding/illegal apartments within the house. During public comments, Mark Williams noted that older systems may still require more than one dish per household, and that many satellite companies don’t want the old dishes back when residents move out, which may lead to an accumulation of dishes with rental turnover.

PROPERTY MAINTENANCE STUDY COMMITTEE

Council members generally supported this idea, covered in more detail in this previous post, and later unanimously adopted the resolution as part of the consent agenda.

MASSAGE PARLOR ORDINANCE

Covered previously here, resolution adopted unanimously at the June 9 Council meeting.

PODS ORDINANCE

Covered previously here, resolution adopted unanimously at the June 9 Council meeting.

SICK LEAVE ORDINANCE

I don’t know anything about this issue, but I think the Council adopted the measure unanimously.

CONSENT AGENDA

The Consent Agenda included accepting one of the new bids for construction at the North Plainfield Memorial Library, a project repeatedly delayed due to the Borough officials’ incompetence in infrastructure maintenance, protection of public health, and bidding procedures, covered previously here. The winning bid for the work was $224,558. I don’t know where the money will come from; the project was originally allocated $135,000 in the 2007 Capital Budget. Tracking down all the bid documents for the library repairs over the last four or five years would be a good use of time for interested readers, as would an investigation into how many of the items in the 2007 capital budget were actually purchased, from whom, and for how much, and how many were not purchased and will be carried over (or not) into this year’s capital budget.

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLIC COMMENTS

Frank D’Amore asked for a progress report on an incident last year in which money went missing from the building office, asking if the money has been recovered, if any policies or procedures have been revised, and if anyone has been disciplined. Borough Attorney Eric Bernstein replied that the matter is still an ongoing personnel and law enforcement matter.

Frank also asked about the potholes at Sycamore and Rockview, and was informed by Borough Administrator David Hollod that resurfacing that stretch of road is part of the Borough Engineer’s application for state aid.

Mr. Hollod also said he met with the Somerset County Economic Development Incentive Program committee regarding the Borough’s recent application for $85,000 to further fund facade improvements along Somerset Street. The Borough’s application was ranked second out of seventh, and the County awarded the Borough $70,000, subject to Freeholder approval.

[Editor's Note: Disclosure - Josh is my husband.]

So I emailed the Circuit City customer service contact page last week and asked about the status (existence) of the proposed store in North Plainfield.  The one that is supposed to be in the K-Mart plaza on Rt. 22.

They responded by sending me to their website which has a listing of new and planned stores

North Plainfield isn’t on the list.  Maybe it’s an old list, although I tend to think they update it regularly since it’s related to employee recruitment.

It’s more likely the case that since the economy has slowed down, they’ve changed their minds about coming to North Plainfield.  Maybe something else happened.  It would be nice if the Economic Development Committee could give the Borough an update on the situation.  On the Borough website perhaps.

I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that the Circuit City expected in the former Staples building in the K-Mart Plaza on Route 22 has been boarded up. The members of the Economic Development Committee (more…)

Somerset County Bar Foundation’s Third Annual “Meet the Chefs” a Special Tasting Fundraiser, Featuring Downtown Somerville’s Finest Restaurants, will be held Tuesday, June 3, 2008 from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm.

$20.00 Advanced Ticket Sales / $25.00 June 3rd

Advanced sale tickets may be picked up outside of Verve Restaurant at 5:30 pm on June 3rd. Tickets may be purchased on the day of the event at participating restaurants

For more information, contact the Somerset County Bar Foundation at 908-685-2323.

[North Plainfield could do something like this with our Somerset Street restaurant district...]

Article by Michael Deak, reposted here from mycentraljersey.com 

Interesting parallel to the Elena Rincon lawsuit, which also can be traced back to incompetent job performance by James Rodino. (The Rincon lawsuit may have been settled - awaiting public comments from Borough officials on any of these legal matters).

By the by, the Borough Code doesn’t bar billiard establishments - it just requires them to be licensed for a small fee. Check out the Borough Code, Chapter 4, Section 5.1.

MICHAEL DEAK
STAFF WRITER

A Somerset Street landlord is suing the borough for more than $20 million, claiming officials engaged in a pattern of harassment that prevented him from opening a cafe with pool tables.

Martin Greenblatt, of 75 Somerset St., who is representing himself in the suit filed in state Superior Court, Somerville, said he is suing the borough because “the town is trying to be cute.”

He said the object of the suit is to tell borough officials “to stop harassing me or it’s going to cost them.”

In his lawsuit, Greenblatt, manager of Jay Jewelers on Somerset Street, said he notified borough officials late last year that he wanted to convert a warehouse in back of the jewelry store on Somerset Street near Craig Place to a cafe with pool tables.

But Greenblatt claims in the suit that zoning officer James Rodino told him that billiard halls are not permitted in North Plainfield.

Greenblatt then applied to the borough’s zoning board of adjustment for a use variance and a public hearing was scheduled for March 5. But at the meeting, Brian Schwartz, the board’s attorney, said Greenblatt had made a mistake in the legal notice of the meeting published in the Courier News.

That meant the hearing was postponed until Greenblatt could readvertise the meeting and notify neighboring property owners. Greenblatt seeks $500,000 for having to schedule a hearing and then having it canceled.

On Feb. 4, the lawsuit states, a violent wind storm dislodged some bricks from the top of the warehouse building, causing the bricks to fall onto the street. Greenblatt called borough emergency workers, who then secured the scene on Somerset Street.

On Feb. 10, Greenblatt received a summons from Rodino about the loose bricks, the suit states. The summons required Greenblatt to appear in municipal court on March 27.

Greenblatt, in the suit, said the building was repaired by Feb. 21 and the summons was dismissed in court on March 27.

Nevertheless, Greenblatt is asking for $10 million in damages because the issuance of the summons caused him “consternation, concern and sleepless nights,” the suit indicates.

In addition, Greenblatt argues in the suit that Rodino issued the summons because he had already shown “”considerable resistance” to the pool hall proposal.

The hearing on the use variance was rescheduled for April 16. As part of the process of reviewing the application, the board’s engineer, David Testa of the PMK Group in Cranford, said the building’s parking lot should be paved, a recommendation that Greenblatt claims in the lawsuit violates state and federal laws because it would increase runoff into the nearby Green Brook. For that, Greenblatt seeks another $10 million in damages, the lawsuit contends.

On April 9, a week before the board was scheduled to hear the case again, borough officials told Greenblatt the hearing would again have to be canceled because the address of where the hearing would be held was wrong on the legal notice. Greenblatt said he wants $1 million for “harassment.”

Mayor Janice Allen did not return a phone call for comment.

Michael Deak can be reached mdeak@mycentraljersey.com.

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.

Article link here.

THROUGHOUT APRIL, VIP Honda in North Plainfield will provide free courtesy inspections of all Honda automobiles, regardless of where they were purchased, to celebrate Customer Appreciation Month, announced the dealership’s owner, Bill Vince.

These 40-point courtesy inspections will be done by appointment for all Honda owners and are aimed at improving fuel-economy, reducing emissions and checking the most important components of the vehicle…

To my knowledge, this is the most recent comprehensive look at the Borough as far as zoning, economic and community development planning, done in 1996, and not much has changed since. The report still has a lot of relevant data, maps and detailed plans for improvements.

[There was a new Master Plan adopted in 2002, posted here, although my impression is that it was a slap-dash job mostly designed to clear roadblocks for the Villa Maria condo development. The other, earlier comprehensive Master Plan was the 1974 version, posted here.

By law, North Plainfield must review and update the Master Plan every six years: that’s this year, to produce a 2008 document. It’s a very important process through which resident priorities (for things like open space and historic preservation and an attractive, vibrant downtown community core) can be set down as parameters for future Borough decisions. That link above goes to an excellent overview of the power of a good, citizen-crafted Master Plan in avoiding bad municipal development decisions - well worth a quick read.

Of particular note right now, in the 1996 Re-Examination, is the sign ordinance in Part 7 - the Economic Development Committee is currently working on a sign ordinance that will probably come before the Borough Council during an upcoming meeting. It’ll be interesting to see how the two sign ordinances compare, 1996 and 2008.

1996 Master Plan - Part 1

1996 Master Plan - Part 2

1996 Master Plan - Part 3

1996 Master Plan - Part 4

1996 Master Plan - Part 5

1996 Master Plan - Part 6

1996 Master Plan - Part 7