City Council will take up the matter of the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority at a special working session this evening at 8 PM in the Council Chambers/Municipal Court, Watchung Avenue at East 4th Street.
While no action will be taken, it will provide an opportunity for the public to hear a dialogue between elected officials and the PMUA's leadership team around issues that have arisen with regard to the agency.
The PMUA has arguably the most sensitive mission with regard to the public health of Plainfielders -- management of solid waste disposition and the sanitary sewer system (the storm sewers are not part of the PMUA mandate).
A retroactive rate increase in January turns out in hindsight to have been a serious misstep on the Authority's part, giving rise to DumpPMUA (see the website here), a grassroots movement questioning the agency's methods, fees and customer service.
A suit against the Authority by Philip Charles raises serious issues about the agency; you can read more about the lawsuit here, as well as reviews of the dramatic growth in its budget and number of employees and other matters.
Councilor Adrian Mapp made the PMUA a focus of his mayoral campaign this past spring, arguing that there is a great deal of fat in the administrative overhead of the agency which could be eliminated -- to the advantage of Plainfield taxpayers -- by reintegrating the PMUA into the city (read Mapp's proposal here, on protecting front line workers here and a review after the election here).
Assemblyman Jerry Green, writing on his blog (see here), asked the State Comptroller to 'examine the entire operation of the PMUA', saying --
...It is important because of the high rate of dissatisfaction with this agency. By asking the State Comptroller for a thorough deduction of the PMUA, this asks a neutral entity to deduce its operation, allowing us to make decisions on facts...Agreeing with Assemblyman Green that a review would be helpful, I suggested there are some things he could do to show that his stand was not just election-season grandstanding -- you may want to review them (here) and see where things stand as of this date.
Stung by the criticisms and the intense public scrutiny, the PMUA made nice after the election, promising to address some of the concerns around fees and customer service (see my post here, with links to media coverage).
Where will tonight's discussion take us? Will we get an update on the State Comptroller's review? Will there be a discussion of reintegrating the agency into the City? How much input will the public be allowed to have, and at what point in the meeting?
You'll have to be there to find out.
City Council
Working Session on the PMUA
Tonight | 8 PM
City Council Chambers/Courthouse
Watchung Avenue at East 4th Street
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment