Dottie G. on importance of tonight's budget hearing

In an email late last evening to her Plainfield readers, activist Dottie Gutenkauf urged concerned residents and taxpayers to come out to this evening's City Council budget hearing and voice their support for full funding of the DPWUD's Planning Division.

I am reprinting the email below --

The U.S. Bill of Rights took effect on the 15th day of December in 1791. ... Many of us will exercise our rights to freedom of speech and assembly in the City Hall Library beginning at 7:30 pm on Monday, December 17, when the City Council has scheduled a special meeting which will include its public hearing on the administration's proposed budget.

The most pressing problem in the budget proposal lies in the Department of Public Works and Urban Development, where the director, Jennifer Wenson Maier, wants to lay off the part-time Principal Planner, a Plainfield resident and a certified Landscape Architect with experience and expertise in many other areas relating to planning, historic preservation, and urban development. This would be a serious blow to Plainfield, and I hope you will join me in urging the City Council to amend the proposed budget to restore that position and to provide additional professional staff for the Planning Division as well.

Ms. Wenson Maier told the Council at a recent budget meeting that she wanted many of the functions now being performed by the staffer she wants to get rid of to be done by Remington & Vernick, the South Jersey engineering firm, and that there would be no extra cost to the City--a claim I found totally absurd. She also stated that the rest of that staffer's functions would be distributed among other City employees. More recently, City administrator Mark Dashield stated both privately and publicly that none of those functions would be outsourced, with the possible exception of matters involving landscape architecture--that instead, they would be "redistributed," presumably within the PW&UD Department. Although I would very much like to take this option seriously, in my opinion it is simply not realistic. None of the divisions within PW&UD are overstaffed, and piling additional responsibilities on people with an already demanding workload will simply make matters more difficult and create unnecessary and unproductive delays.

Effective city planning requires not only competence and professionalism, but also knowledge of and dedication to the community being served. The current Planning Division staff exemplifies all of those necessary characteristics, and its workload is continuing to increase--especially now, as more areas are being considered for redevelopment. Reducing staff at the same time that the demand for services is increasing is a formula for disaster. The Planning Division's need for adequate staffing has been recognized by our Planning Board and by the Historic Preservation Commission, both of which recently went on record unanimously opposing the proposed layoff.

I agree with them completely: cutting the Planning Division staff would be absolutely the wrong decision, and it's a proposal the Council should unanimously reject for the good of our City.

I urge you to attend the Council meeting on Monday in the City Hall Library and join me in making our voices heard. I hope to see you there.

Dottie joins myself, Bernice and Maria in underscoring the importance of this meeting and of the city keeping an independent, responsive and cost-efficient planning capacity.

See you tonight at the City Hall Library, 7: 30 PM!

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-- Dan Damon

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