Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs went to great lengths in her 'State of the City' address last Thursday to brag about crime reduction in Plainfield during her tenure -- citing a decline in homicides from the high of 15 in 2005.
That high number had been a key theme in Robinson-Briggs' mayoral campaign that year against incumbent Al McWilliams.
But Robinson-Briggs failed to share her shocking secret with the audience at the annual reorganization meeting -- Plainfield homicides increased by 25% in 2008 as compared to 2007.
Here are the details --
| 2008 Homicides | 2007 Homicides |
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| ITEM | GRADE | COMMENT |
| State of City Address: Homicides | F | Failed to compare 2008 to 2007. |
Posts
8 comments:
Are there any other crime measures on which her administration can be judged?
I admire your goal of avoiding attacking Mayor Robinson-Briggs personally and instead judging her on your opinions regarding her record. However, this post is incredibly misleading. There was only one more murder in 2008 than 2007.
An increase from four murders to five murders is indeed a 25% increase. But one thing you failed to mention is that the only reason the PERCENTAGE increase is so large is because the TOTAL AMOUNT of homicides is so small.
According to Ms. Paglia's Plaintalker, there were 15 homicides in 2005. If that is accurate, even five homicides for 2008 would be about a 33% decline from the homicide totals for 2005 under the leadership of the McWilliams Administration and the New Democrats.
I believe the amazing work of the Plainfield Police Department, Public Safety Director Martin Hellwig, and Mayor Robinson-Briggs in targeting crime in Plainfield is responsible for this drop in homicides.
Your headline should be "Sharon's Shocking Secret: Plainfield Murder Rate Down 33% From 2005 McWilliams Administration High.
For this misleading post I give YOU an "F". I expect better spin from a former public relations man. I also wonder if you have the decency to even print this response to your post. I wholeheartedly applaud your efforts to inform the Queen City's citizens so that they can make their own judgements about their elected officials. However, I believe that if you want to discuss "Sharon's" record for the benefit of Plainfield then you should compare it to her predecessor "Al's" record. I think this is especially true when the Mayor's likely opponent in the race for the democratic nomination this year helped former Mayor McWilliams run the City for eight years.
I guess we'll see whether you want a dialogue for everyone's benefit or a monologue for your own. Either way, you'll be hearing from me again.
-Publius
What about the bank robbery that they kept under raps
Dan,
Stop being part of the problem. You should give credit where credit is due. You are correct that murders are up 25% from last year but let us be honest the increase in homicides from 2007 to 2008 is one. The decline from 2006to 2008 is extremely significant at 8. 2008 and 2007 combined is less than 2006. Sharon can correctly boast about reducing crime.
If you are attempting to be fair you will post my comments.
Thank you,
I don't think that an increase of 1 homicide over the previous year is shocking.
Dear Publius and 6:55 PM --
If the Mayor didn't mention any comparison between '08 and '07, but only referred to the high mark of '05, my question is this: Was she spinning the issue?
As far as my '25% increase' shocker, of course it was 'spin' -- meant to get attention and, judging by the comments, it did.
Is my spin worse than the Mayor's? Better? How does one decide?
Meanwhile, 9:33 AM is absolutely correct -- the Mayor never told us about the bank robbery of 2008. Of which more later.
While I agree 25% is high, I too can see the point of the headline as being MEANT capture attention. No matter who is in office, I rarely give credit to them for "reducing" crime..they may have pushed the cart along, but the police are the ones doing the work. Judging by the record of the Mayor on any true, meaningful involvement in anything other than what Jerry Green allows her to have - other than ANY PHOTO OP possible - I really don't see how she has anything to do with crime in any shape or fashion...other than of course her absolute CRIMINALLY LAUGHABLE administration. If she wanted to impress anyone in this city, she would have called Jerry to the carpet for him LETTING SOLARIS close the hospital so easily. She didn't, so it's obvious who she is concerned about - not us or the city ..just dear Jerry...
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