Your friendly Union County Improvement Authority is about to put the taxpayers of Plainfield and Union County on the hook for a $7M bond issue to underwrite the expansion by BUF (The Black United Fund) "or its affiliate or transferee" of a pre-school facility in the City of Plainfield.
What?! You didn't know BUF was planning a $7M expansion?
You and about 50,000 other people.
The Council hasn't discussed it.
But the Green/Robinson-Briggs administration knows about it.
According to the legal notice published in the Ledger on September 12, "...the City has expressed its support for the Project in a letter from the Mayor dated August 7, 2007."
Surprised? So am I.
Letters of support are a common request made of mayors, and often done as a matter of routine. In the course of Mayor McWilliams' two terms, I was usually assigned the task of drafting letters of support to accompany GRANT APPLICATIONS by local government and nonprofit agencies. My job was to refer to the subject matter of the grant and our experience with the agency applying and their capability to discharge the tasks the grant would fund.
Never -- repeat, NEVER -- in those two terms was I ever aware the Mayor was asked to write a letter in support of a BOND ISSUE. What kind of support could the Mayor offer?
Seems to me the most likely body to offer support of a BOND ISSUE by the UCIA would be the City Council. But they are in the dark about this proposal.
And another curious point is that the "assistance" of the UCIA in this matter has been asked by the TORAIN GROUP, whose client is BUF.
The who?
Doing a Google turns up exactly one item -- a PDF of the legal notice of the ordinance, published in the Westfield Leader on September 13, 2007.
I'll be putting an OPRA request in for the Mayor's support letter this morning.
-- Dan Damon
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