Work on South Avenue gets under way, June 2000.
Plainfield City Administrator Marc Dashield's presentation Monday updating the South Avenue road project contained a seriously misleading bit of history.
First though, if you haven't rattled your teeth driving down South Avenue recently, you should know that the Plainwood Square Merchants Association has been lobbying the city for some time to attend to the seriously deteriorating roadway between Woodland Avenue and Terrill Road.
Though the stretch in front of the greengrocer's was done using city equipment, the entire roadway needs to be rebuilt and resurfaced, a project beyond the capabilities of the DPW crews.
Dashield said (somehow these things never seem to be in writing) that he had researched the previous work done on South Avenue -- around 2002, he thought -- and had sought a legal opinion on suing the contractor for shoddy work, but that it didn't look like the city had a strong case.
Seems minor enough, but given the Robinson-Briggs' administration's propensity for blaming its problems on previous administrations (especially that of Al McWilliams), setting out the CORRECT history is called for.
The reason a lawsuit is unwise is that there was no shoddy work; the work was done exactly as specified.
Plainfield was about to lose a $600,000 grant for improvements to South Avenue when Al McWilliams took office in January 1998. The project, long advocated by the South Avenue merchants with Dairy Queen's Donna Albanese as the main point person, had been funded with an NJDOT grant and then the administration of mayor Mark Fury dropped the ball.
McWilliams, responding to the merchants' concerns, made the project an A-1 priority and put Pat Ballard Fox, his deputy city administrator for economic development to work on it immediately.
Mayor Al McWilliams and Plainwood Square merchants celebrate
the installation of gateway signage at Plainwood Square in 1999.
Originally conceived as roadway and storm sewer improvements, McWilliams and Ballard Fox reconceived it as a BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT PROJECT, with the roadway being the major component. Viewed through this lens, the goal became not only to improve the roadway and drainage, but to slow down the traffic that simply SPED THROUGH Plainfield on the way to someplace else and turn South Avenue into A SHOPPING DESTINATION.
Doing this involved getting the state to agree to a reduced speed limit (25 MPH) and to 'traffic-calming' measures that have been gaining ground in New Jersey cities for years. These mainly involved shortening the distance pedestrians have to navigate to get across busy traffic by putting 'bumpouts' in parts of the roadway reserved for parking.
The bumpouts have the effect of slowing traffic down, thus making it safer for pedestrians to step out and cross the street.
Additionally, as part of the Urban Enterprise Zone, the streetscape was improved with more appropriate street lights, banners and curbs and sidewalks.
The engineers determined that South Avenue was eventually going to need reconstruction; however, there simply was no money (or will on the part of the Council**) to fund a complete reconstruction at that time.
This left as the only option the milling and paving of the roadway. At the time, everyone knew that this was only a temporary resolution, and that eventually the roadway would have to be reconstructed.
But most people soon forgot about that as things appeared spanking new and the repaving gave the impression everything was hunky-dory.
Fast forward ten years (the work began in 2000), and we have the current situation, with the South Avenue merchants again having to take the lead as the current administration simply failed to review the history of the project (which had been supplied in Ballard Fox's transition memorandum of December, 2005) and finds itself in a reactive rather than proactive mode.
Which brings us to last evening's presentation.
Besides correcting the history of the situation, I have a question.
Since South Avenue is a state highway (Route 28), why isn't the city -- working through Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield) -- trying to get the state to fund all or most of the work?
Not long ago, NJDOT released a list of projects being funded with President Obama's stimulus money, but South Avenue, Plainfield's only state road, was not on the list.
Is that because the city didn't apply, because the Robinson-Briggs administration forgot that South Avenue is a state highway, or because the Assemblyman doesn't have the clout Plainfield needs?
**Councilors for the years 1999 and 2000 were Malcolm R. Dunn, Bob Ferraro, Adrian Mapp, Harold Mitchell, Joe Montgomery, Joe Scott Sr. and Liz Urquhart. A majority was unsympathetic or even hostile to the South Avenue project.
Posts
6 comments:
Hopefully, the Republicans of the city of Plainfield will see an opportunity here and galvanize. Can Plainfield really be worse off with a Republican mayor?
Great points! However, according to jerry...he is the third most powerful politician in New Jersey, (behind only the Governor and the Speaker of the Assembly). Perhaps the real issue...in addition to his own inflated sense of ability...is that he is not smart enough to think of ideas such as these. Call me a hater...but if you think you can get silk from a sows ear...you will likely end up with pork rinds.
6:40...you could be right...unfortunately, there just aren't enough numbers to have any real affect. The real question for everyone is: Is your situation...your city...your county better off since jerry was first elected to office? If the answer is no...then why do you keep putting him back in office?
Is it because he offers hope of something better in the future? I don’t know about you...but when jerry has the audacity to blame George W. Bush for the closing of Muhlenberg Hospital…and wants us to believe somehow that he is working on some secret plan to have it reopened...it becomes very clear that jerry has no plan.
The only plan jerry has ever had is to keep making empty promises (hello New Dems) empty threats and the continuation of his divisive politics. Wake up…it’s no longer about us versus them. It’s now about us versus us. We can either follow through with what was started by Obama (who btw jerry only supported after he had won the primary) or we can continue the same old same old...which is getting us nowhere.
Dan, Now that the mayor has a second term she and her hired people should stop blaming previous administrations for everything. It is not constructive. If her staff weren't so top heavy there would be money to do some of these things. Many of us weren't here for the prior administration and don't care who they want to blame, we just want it fixed. What happened to "the buck stops here?"
From what I understand, Green has been in office as a freeholder and then an assemblyman for a total of about 25 or so years. If he is as powerful as he says he is, WHY DOES THE CITY LOOK THE WAY IT DOES!!??? WHY DOESN'T OUR CITY LOOK LIKE OTHER TOWNS IN HIS DISTRICT!!???
Sorry for screaming but it drives me crazy. I didn't vote for this mayor but my neighbors and I are fed up. Why is she avoiding us, the people?
All of the Mayor's top $$ people live out of town, and fortunately they do not have to drive South Ave to get home. {or hearing the shootings}
I think Jerry is in fact the 3rd most powerful politician in NJ and soon we will have a brand spanking new business district both downtown and in Netherwood that will rival all the tony towns around us. Our new hospital will open and they will run an extension from the new Trans Hudson tunnel all the way out here to central NJ into Plainfield and the streets will be paved with gold. We will see that Jerry's SUPER SECRET FOR HIS EYES ONLY Plan came to fruition and all of us negative people who simply don't agree with him and kiss his butt ( move over Mayor we're coming in to see what's so great down there ! )were wrong this whole time...AND THEN JERRY WOKE UP. OR!! Maybe, since Jerry is SOOOOOOOOO IMPORTANT and influential, when the Democratic Party switches out Governor Corzine at the last minute like they did with Sen. Torch and Grandpa L. they will put Jerry into the Governors seat and all will be well for us?? Ya think??
Post a Comment