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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Slur-filled flyer circulated at City Hall marks opening of political season


In a repeat that has happened every year since Sharon Robinson-Briggs was elected mayor, Plainfield's spring political season was kicked off with an anonymous, slur-filled and homophobic flyer attacking City Council members Annie McWilliams, Adrian Mapp, Rebecca Williams and Cory Storch and circulated throughout City Hall. This year's issue is headed 'The Scarlet Letter', instead of the usual 'Plainfield Gazette'.

The Courier's Mark Spivey reported on the matter online today (see here). Bernice and Maria have also mentioned it.

Mayor Robinson-Briggs, as usual, protests that she knows nothing of the flyer, and that she doubts a city employee is responsible for it.

I have an original and as far as I'm concerned it looks like it was produced on one of the city's three color-enabled copiers -- Recreation is the most likely candidate as the other two are in high-traffic offices with responsible adults in charge.

If Mayor Robinson-Briggs had a policy of strict accountability for the use of the copiers -- password protection, logs of copying runs, copies of documents on file -- it would be easy to sniff out whether an employee (or someone with an employee's access information) made the offending copies and on what machine.

I don't think Mayor Robinson-Briggs is really interested in getting to the bottom of this, since the shiver of excitement it generates is well-suited to a certain element to which she caters.

Pitching the flyer to Union County Prosecutor Ted Romankow may seem like the right thing to do, but my guess is that his office is busy and it will go basically nowhere, except for perhaps a nice sound bite.

The lesson here is quite clear: Don't expect Mayor Robinson-Briggs to put her foot down to stop wasteful and abusive use of taxpayer resources if the net effect is to titillate her supporters or advance her political agenda.

There would have to be a change at the top to clean up this kind of mess.




-- Dan Damon [follow]

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9 comments:

Rob said...

The Mayor is a Thug. She knows who did it. Whoever did it knows she will NEVER let that information see the light of day.

The "investigation" will go no where because Adrian, Rebecca, Annie and Cory will let is disappear.

Just like every issue before it.
The Mayor knows on anything, all she has to do is wait them out. She wins every round with the City Council because she is a street thug fighting people who refuse to engage her.

True American Patriot said...

If this happens every year why wasn't anyone on the lookout?

Bob said...

If this hate letter is indeed a hate crime, can the state or Feds really bypass this. No one trusts that this was not done for or by Shady Sharon. The people voted Rebecca in and don't care about her sexual preferences, or the mayor's for that. I think we need to get to the bottom of this. Why does the mayor think she is widely known as Shady Sharonda. There is a basis in fact.

Anonymous said...

If they mayor was any kind of leader, she would not only say that she did not know who did it, but would condem the act.

Anonymous said...

Rob @7:38am is absolutely correct!!!!

Anonymous said...

check out printer id

http://www.eff.org/wp/investigating-machine-identification-code-technology-color-laser-printers

Marvin Selwicky said...

I wouldn't pay the letter's author any mind. Without a signature the author is nothing more than a coward!

Anonymous said...

Many copiers that were made in the last five to seven years contain hard drives that record the information that has been copied. These files are stored unencrypted until the hard drive becomes full and old files are overwritten.

No doubt that this information can be retrieved if somebody really wanted to. If you knew the make and models of the copiers, I'm sure you can Google the information and if the copier is listed as one of those being on a "Security Risk Alert".

At least that could determine what copier was used if a city copier was involved.

So city employess - be forwarned, yourr computers, copiers, fax machines, etc. are not a good tool for your own personal use. However, feel free to use your phones as much as you want unless someone is snooping around the phone equipment recording your conversations.

Anonymous said...

What a bunch of idiots we have here in plainfield. once again, the mayor and her cronies are focused on this petty anty bs and not the real issues that are tearing this town apart. instead of focusing on education, crime, jobs, taxes, etc. they are espousing bigotry, racism and ignorance. unfortunately, there are plenty of citizens who will once again fall for the old okeydoke and support these people blindly without a second thought. for the hardworking, taxpaying, law abiding citizens it is hard to be positive when you live in a place so full of hatred from our so called leaders. Let's hope the state steps in and takes over this town. they certainly could not do a worse job than what we already have now.