Failure to take care of 'the vision thing' kicked the Administration of Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs in the butt at Wednesday night's Council meeting.
Not having a plan to support the business community -- which after all pays a significant share of the taxes and employs thousands of Plainfielders -- was sure to catch up to the Mayor sooner or later.
Turns out to be sooner.
The issue: Redevelopment.
The victims: Business owners who see their life's work and investment threatened without any advance warning.
The culprit: The Administration's obsession with developer-driven 'transit-oriented' projects which call only for residential and retail and ignore completely the needs of the light industrial and services sector.
One speaker was incredulous that the Administration would contemplate -- as a policy -- increasing the already overwhelming share (apx 82%) of the tax receipts covered by homeowners EVEN MORE.
City Administrator Marc Dashield tried gamely to front for the Mayor -- who was absent -- by saying that she was preparing a policy statement on the proposed Netherwood area study and would make it available.
Why wasn't a policy like that suggested already worked out? Why wasn't it available at the meeting?
How is the Administration going to convey it to anyone? The Administration's public relations personnel do not send press releases to the media. These issues are not discussed in materials mailed out to residents. The website is still broken -- since October! The cable channel functions basically as the Mayor's personal MySpace site.
So how will the business owners and the public at large be told of the Mayor's policy?
Council members appeared taken aback by the intensity of the business owners' concerns. Some Councilors showed they misunderstand the issue at hand by pointing to the RETAIL component of transit-oriented development. These were not retailers.
One offered the cold comfort of ATT-speak: "Change is always unsettling" (an eerie echo of former Administrator Carlton McGee's comment when business owner Larry Thul protested the East 3rd and Richmond Street redevelopment area).
At the beginning of comments on the resolution proposing a study, Councilor Storch asked that the Council place a moratorium on "sending studies to the Planning Board after tonight."
That is certainly a good idea, and would give the Robinson-Briggs Administration time to try and get its act together. If it wants to. If it can.
NOTES ABOUT THE MEETING
Nancy Piwowar pointed out that the TITLES by which resolutions are summed up and identified in the agenda are non-informative at the least and misleading at the worst. Example:
R 195-07. Resolution authorizing approval of transfers between the FY2007 appropriations of the General Fund of the City of Plainfield - $208,000.00 - ComptrollerThis was posted as a CONSENT item, meaning there would be no discussion on it. Councilor Storch exercised his prerogative in having it removed from the consent agenda. He then asked the Administration what the transfer was for. That was the point at which the public learned that it was to cover salaries for public information personnel whose layoffs are taking place after the date originally planned on by the Administration. Left unexplained was where the money was coming from. Is there some other area now being shortchanged by $208,000? Or is there a 'slush fund' somewhere?
Problems also arose because of people who are not accustomed to speaking at Council meetings: some failed to give their name and address before beginning, many addressed their questions to the Administration instead of the Council president, some attempted to engage in back-and-forth, and one experienced speaker abused not only the time limit, but the entire process by making an omnibus speech, which would have been appropriate at another point in the meeting, but not where it was made. Would it help to explain the rules at the beginning of the comments section -- and to enforce them?
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2 comments:
The mayor and several of the current councilors have shown themselves to be, at best, incompetent and, at worst, willfully obtuse. I am concerned about the councilors who were unable to distinguish between retail and other development. I also do not understand why the council continues to put up with the mayor's nonsense. She cares not a whit about this town--only about doing what Jerry Green tells her to do. In two years, she will be gone, replaced, we hope, with a mayor who believes in professionalism, honesty, and concern for our community, like the late Al McWilliams. However, unless the current council puts a moratorium on EVERY REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT until an INDEPENDENT needs study is done on each one, we will be stuck with these pay-to-play here today, gone tomorrow developers. What have the administration and the council said about using these developers who have been fined tens of thousands of dollars for inappropriately donating (some would use the word bribing) to certain political campaigns. This whole thing stinks. The only voices I have heard are Storch's and Davis's. What has Burney said? What has Carter said? What has Gibson said? What has Simmons said? What has City Council President Van Blake said? What, if anything, will he say in support of Plainfield as a freeholder if he remains silent now?
The mayor and several of the current councilors have shown themselves to be, at best, incompetent and, at worst, willfully obtuse. I am concerned about the councilors who were unable to distinguish between retail and other development. I also do not understand why the council continues to put up with the mayor's nonsense. She cares not a whit about this town--only about doing what Jerry Green tells her to do. In two years, she will be gone, replaced, we hope, with a mayor who believes in professionalism, honesty, and concern for our community, like the late Al McWilliams. However, unless the current council puts a moratorium on EVERY REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT until an INDEPENDENT needs study is done on each one, we will be stuck with these pay-to-play here today, gone tomorrow developers. What have the administration and the council said about using these developers who have been fined tens of thousands of dollars for inappropriately donating (some would use the word bribing) to certain political campaigns. This whole thing stinks. The only voices I have heard are Storch's and Davis's. What has Burney said? What has Carter said? What has Gibson said? What has Simmons said? What has City Council President Van Blake said? What, if anything, will he say in support of Plainfield as a freeholder if he remains silent now?
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