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During his campaign stop in Plainfield, Christie visited with a number of local business owners, including author J.M. Benjamin. |
Plainfield school officials have been on tenterhooks for months about state funding for school construction projects in Plainfield.
On Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie finally released the list of schools getting funding this year and Plainfield was not among them (see here).
In its coverage, PolitickerNJ notes that the new procedures, adopted after a lengthy review of the Schools Development Authority ordered by Christie, are supposed to be 'politics free' (see story here).
This being New Jersey, you can file that in the 'tooth fairy' folder.
What does appear to be happening is that all the proposed projects are being evaluated by the same criteria, which is a good thing. Also, that it appears the SDA will have available a variety of 'templates' for schools.
That is also a good thing, I think. Under the Corzine administration, a lot of money went down the drain for politically-connected contracts to individually design and construct schools.
While the new regimen does not mean there will be no politically-motivated contract awards (this is New Jersey, after all), the excesses which previously brought the agency to its knees seem to be addressed in the new plan.
As for why Plainfield didn't get tapped for this round, one has to wonder if it isn't because of the famously embarrassing public scene Assemblyman Jerry Green made when Christie campaigned in Plainfield in July, 2009 (see my post at the time here).
Christie is known to have a long memory and eventually settles scores, as the Ledger's Tom Moran has recently noted in his columns.
But of course the Christie administration will deny it, plausibly.
Puts me in mind of the quip J. P. Morgan once made: 'A man always has two reasons for the things he does; a good one...and the real one'.
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During the campaign stop, Christie worked the crowd at Bill's Luncheonette and chatted with Lisa Cohen of Suburban Jewelers. |
- PolNJ: "Christie announces 'politics free' school construction"
- NJ Newsroom: "Christie releases aid after shaking up SDA"
- PolNJ: "Diegnan (D-South Plainfield) blasts Christie school plans"
- Plainfield Today, 7/15/2009: "Mr. Christie goes to Plainfield"
-- Dan Damon [follow]
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5 comments:
Once again, I have to say, vote Jerry out this year and let's get someone who is professional and will work for us, not himself.
Always blame Jerry for anything you can think of. Ever stop to think that Plainfield went for Corzine and Christie doesn't like towns that did that?
Hmmmmmmmmm...lets see anonymous at 6:07PM...Why did the mindless masses of ignorant party line voters go for Corzine???? Because Jerry Green was pounding on his bully pulpit about the evils of someone who was fiscally responsible and willing to make the difficult choices to bring the fiscal ship of NJ back into line with reality and promoting the Corzine vision of tax, spend, borrow and tax some more ( because hell, taxes in NJ were way too low according to Corzine's administration treasurer David Rousseau ).
Jerry, the self professed 3rd most powerful member of the State Assembly has proven once again that there must be 79 people tied for "most powerful" 1st and 2nd place because Jerry is DEAD LAST for effectiveness.
IF...and I repeat IF JERRY GREEN were a smart legislator he would have been able to ignore party politics years ago and done what was right by the city of Plainfield. Instead, he played the part he was assigned and actually believed it meant something.
Plainfield got what it asked for when it pulled the "VOTE DEMOCRAT" as I predicted prior to the election and I am betting there is more coming down the line. Who in their right mind would try to help a group of people who can't and/or won't even attempt to help themselves. With the amount of money the state DUMPS into Plainfield already why aren't the school taxes half or even lower than half of South Plainfield or other surrounding towns instead of on par or higher??? No one ever wanted to even ask that question. PATRONAGE...WASTE...CORRUPTION...all which go hand in hand with blind party allegiance.
A new era has hopefully come to NJ State Government, as long as the Republicans are stupid enough to do what the national Republicans did under George Bush and Plainfield can either dump the dead weight which has dragged them down to this point and hope to rise with the tide or sink hopelessly like a stone to the bottom of the harbor.
Even Cory Booker has been smart enough to tone down his political mouth and embrace reforms and seen the benefit of being SMART when it comes to the needs of his city over the hunger of power hungry party players.
Myomy, Rob, you're really getting carried away!
But wouldn’t Christie be consider doing a Green a ‘favor’ by allocating funds to one of the towns in his district? North Plainfield is in Green’s district.
It probably has more to do with North Plainfield’s overcrowding issue in their schools. We all know a majority of parents throughout the past 15 years or so have moved from Plainfield to North Plainfield to put their kids in school there.
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