Plainfielders should make no mistake about it: the Robinson-Briggs administration is out to gut the Planning Division.
Though the Council has indicated it intends to fund the Division as it stands, City Administrator Mark Dashield insisted -- as Bernice reported in the Plaintalker yesterday (see more here) -- that the administration still wants to cut staff and outsource planning responsibilities.
Citizens have a last chance to speak out against this dangerous idea at Monday evening's City Council budget hearing by voicing support for the Council's funding proposal. (The meeting is 7:30 PM, in the City Hall Library.)
The attempt by the Administration is a further extension of the warfare it has waged unabatedly since DPWUD Director Jenny Wenson Maier took up her position in January 2006.
What is at stake is having an independent, professional staff whose only interest is serving the PLANNING NEEDS AND INTERESTS of the community, its taxpayers and residents.
Planning Board member (and former city councilor) Donna Vose has written persuasively (see here) of the inability of even the best-intentioned outsourced planning consultant to understand and be responsive to the CULTURE OF THE COMMUNITY. And the danger that such ill-considered planning advice would set future agendas in stone.
I wrote in early November of two other concerns: the COSTS associated with outsourcing, and the potential for CONFLICTS OF INTEREST (read more here).
In considering costs, reflect on this: George Stevenson, the Remington & Vernick engineer foisted on the Planning Board as its 'consultant', drives up from south Jersey twice monthly for the board's meetings. On one of those trips, he stays overnight at a hotel -- courtesy of you the taxpayer -- so that he can be here for a morning top-level staff meeting.
You didn't know? And why is HE involved in top-level staff meetings? After all, he's just a consultant, right?
Which leads to my second point, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST.
How can the community be best served if it cannot guarantee that conflicts of interest are avoided?
Case in point: last week's Planning Board meeting.
Mr. Stevenson, the consultant, was to take the Planning Board over the reduced 'Netherwood' redevelopment plan and point out -- for the record -- all the reasons that the area qualified as 'in need of redevelopment'.
Mr. Stevenson has stubbed his toe in this department before. Repeatedly.
(This is the same consultant who prepared Paulsboro's waterfront redevelopment plan, which was overturned by the New Jersey Supreme Court with some pretty sharp language -- see more here and here.)
Evidently not wishing to leave anything to chance, the Union County Improvement Authority (UCIA) sent along one of its attorneys, Ed Boccher, to manage the presentation.
Mr. Boccher is much more skilled at this -- even doing a bit of 'warm and fuzzy' by dragging the late urban planning guru Jane Jacobs into the conversation. (I am not sure she would have appreciated it if she knew what the proposal was all about.)
Mr. Boccher is an agent for the UCIA, with which the city has an interlocal services agreement for redevelopment.
Since the agency and the city are in a contractual relationship and the UCIA is involved in other matters and with other principals whose interests may not coincide with those of the city of Plainfield, a potential for conflict of interest results.
Now, THERE IS A PLACE FOR OUTSOURCING -- under the CONTROL of the Planning Division. When the Planning Division, in its considered, professional opinion, feels that an outside professional hired under the direction and supervision of the Planning Division could assist the Division in executing its responsibilities faithfully, it should be free to do so. Or not, as it sees fit.
This attempt by the Administration to reduce the Planning Division's staff is just another try by the camel to get its nose under the tent.
It is the Council, the Administration has been reminded, that sets the budget. And councilors are particularly sensitive to public input as it is the public who elects them (Councilors Gibson and Davis are up for election next year).
You can help by coming out Monday evening and voicing support for the Council's intent to leave the Division fully funded.
- Donna Vose: "First drafts control agendas" -- Guest column in the Plaintalker.
- Plaintalker: "Council Frames Budget Cuts"
- Plainfield Today: "Outsourcing Planning: This Way Be Dragons"
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