Mayor's double coup includes Armory deal

Long-term lease of the Armory comes as a second coup
after Mayor assumes control of city's day-to-day operations.

While Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs' decision to take over the day-to-operations of the City left many Plainfielders agog, it was not -- as some mistakenly thought -- an early April Fool's Day joke.

The decision was noted by Courier News reporter Mark Spivey (see story here), as well as bloggers Bernice Paglia (see here) and Olddoc (see here).

In her new, more activist role, the Mayor has made a major coup in her first day as Acting City Administrator, at once overcoming the setback she received Tuesday evening, when the Board of Education approved a lease of the vacant Lincoln School property to the Barack Obama Green Charter High School, which Mayor Robinson-Briggs had hopes would take over the Armory.

Instead, the Mayor has found a long-term tenant for the Armory property, and is prepared to close a deal that will bring jobs and substantial revenues to the City for the long term.

In a press release issued today (see here), Mayor Robinson-Briggs says --

It is my pleasure to announce to the residents and taxpayers of Plainfield that my administration has found a long-term tenant for the vacant state-owned Armory property on East 7th Street.

I have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a Chinese firm, Long Bow Village Ginkgo and Durian Products Peoples Cooperative, by which the firm is committing to a twenty-year lease of the Armory property as a distribution center for its high-end organic Chinese gourmet foods.

Consummating the deal will require a long-term lease of the property by the State to the City for $1 per year, which Assemblyman Jerry Green is facilitating on behalf of my administration.

Long Bow Village will execute a lease agreement with the City for a rent to begin at $800,000 per year, to be reviewed and adjusted upwards at five-year intervals. Although this will not put the property on the City's tax rolls directly, the rent will compare favorably with tax receipts that would be received if Long Bow Village were actually to own the property.

The firm will hold an option to purchase the property from the State, with the City to share in the proceeds in the event of such a sale. In that event, the property will be assessed and put on the tax rolls.

Long Bow Village has promised to employ Plainfield residents both in the staffing of the distribution center into which the Armory will be converted, as well as its sales and delivery staff in the New York metropolitan area. Our estimate is that this will bring approximately 250 full-time jobs to Plainfield.

In addition, I am truly excited to announce that Long Bow Village will be opening a gourmet tea and dumpling shop on the premises,which will add to the many choices already offered to visitors to our South Avenue 'restaurant row'.

The tea and dumpling shop, which will go under the name 'The Stolen Dumpling', will include both a dining area and a takeout counter for Long Bow Village's selection of gourmet Durian goodies, including Durian paste and ice cream, and its line of Ginkgo jams and preserves, both of which I am sure will become big sellers with Plainfield's discriminating palates.

Long Bow Village is also pursuing a license to distribute its Ginkgo brandy, a pungent drink that resembles the famous Slivovitz plum brandy popular in the Balkans.

My administration will be drawing up the resolutions necessary to finalize the transaction and hope to be able to present them to the Council for adoption on Monday evening.

Long Bow Village, made famous in William Hinton's book Fanshen, a documentary of the agricultural revolution in a Chinese village following World War II, has had its ups and downs over the years.

It never prospered as well under the Maoist regime as it has under China's current state-dominated capitalism, and has begun to seek outlets in foreign markets in Europe, the United States and South America for its popular gourmet food lines, based on the popular Asian delicacies, Durian and Ginkgo fruits.

The retail shop evidently takes its name from a famous incident in Fanshen, where the mystery of a stolen dumpling practically paralyzes the transformation of the backward village into a modern agricultural community.

Gourmet foods based on the Ginkgo (top) and Durian (above)
form the basis of the Chinese firm's success.

---

• Courier:  "Plainfield mayor appoints herself acting city administrator"
• Plaintalker II:  "Mayor takes over day-to-day operations"
• Doc's Potpourri:  "Time Out"
  
• City of Plainfield:  "Press release: Memorandum of Understanding regarding the Plainfield Armory"

-- Dan Damon [follow]

View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.