This notice has appeared on the city's website.
A notice on the front page of Plainfield's website seems to confirm rumors that a second layoff plan proposal from the Robinson-Briggs administration will be discussed by the City Council in executive session Monday evening.
That discussion would precede the regular business session at 8:00 PM in the Courthouse/Council Chambers.
Back in mid-February, the mayor provoked some last-minute budget drama the night of the Council's budget vote by proposing a two-week delay so she could get concessions (see my post here).
At the time, Robinson-Briggs claimed adoption of the budget would introduce 'chaos' and 'a slowdown' in government operation, and asked the Council to 'rescind the layoff plan' or 'rescind its [budget] vote for two weeks' and give her a chance to 'go back to the drawing board with the unions,' saying she would 'meet with them every single day for two weeks' to get a compromise that would avoid layoffs.
Word in the street for days has been that Her Honor's attempts to get union concessions failed once again because of a single union's holding out, ostensibly because of the unsettled situation regarding employee pension and benefits issues in Trenton.
The net result is that all of the other unions' willingness to consider pay freezes, furloughs and contract modification comes to naught in the face of the holdout union's opposition. (The other unions had agreed to an 'all or none' approach in an effort to get the one outlyer to honor one of trade unionism's core principles: union solidarity.)
While details of the plan are not yet public, the Council will have an opportunity -- as it did in November -- to examine, question, challenge and amend any proposal by the Robinson-Briggs administration.
If the matter comes to public discussion, as it should, given the timetable involved and the late position in the annual fiscal calendar (with only three and a half months left), it's an open question of whether the Council will buy the Mayor's reasoning or plan.
Another reason to come out on Monday evening.
City Council Business Meeting
Monday - March 8
8:00 PM
City Council Chambers/Courthouse
Watchung Avenue and East 4th Street
Public may speak at beginning and end of meeting.
- Plainfield Today: "Mayor provokes last-minute budget drama"
-- Dan Damon [follow]
Posts
2 comments:
Thank goodness the council voted to pass the budget. We would have been in a bigger mess.
Just shows the management skills the mayor has. No skills, no idea how to run this city, no nothin'.
Break the union's back. If they strike fire them. If the city is in a financial crisis and the other unions agree to change terms don't let the one hold-out get away with it. Take a bold stand.
Post a Comment