Warming Bells: Brown suddenly revises her PMUA history

Feeling heat from the voters, candidate Brown revises her PMUA history.

 

Faced with continuing questions about her role as a PMUA commissioner, at-large candidate Rev. Tracey Brown has suddenly revised her PMUA history, which should be a warning signal to voters in tomorrow's Democratic Primary Election.

For months, Brown has refused to discuss her role in some of the more scandalous episodes in recent PMUA history --

• The granting of a four-year contract to former execs Watson and Ervin that formed the basis of a $1M cash settlement;
  
  
• Failing to speak out against the illegal derailing of the arbitration process by Commissioners Dunn and Sanders, and setting up the conditions of the $1 million cash settlement;
  
  
• Enabling the passage of the settlement by failing to take part in the vote -- whether or not she was able to be physically present -- which ratified the $1 million cash settlement; and
  
  
• Actually proposing that PMUA workers should be forced to take unpaid furloughs in order to generate cash for the settlement to Watson and Ervin.

When she appeared before the City Council this spring, Brown refused point-blank to answer a direct question by Councilor Williams on where she stood on the question of the $1 million cash payout.

At the NAACP candidates forum, she said she would not answer questions and at the FOSH forum, repeated the insistence that she wouldn't answer because of 'a conflict of interest'.

Now she says she was in favor of arbitrating the dispute. Well, duh! It WAS in arbitration when Commissioners Dunn, Sanders and Toliver engineered the $1 million handout and ended the arbitration proceedings.

What Brown still hasn't spoken to is why she didn't participate in these important votes by phone, whether or not she was in the hospital or out of the country.

The $1 million cash payout was approved by a vote of 3-2, with Commissioners Mitchell and Brokaw voting NO and Commissisoners Dunn, Sanders and Toliver voting YES. If Rev. Brown had participated, Commissioner Sanders, as an alternate, could not have voted -- and the outcome would have depended on Rev. Brown's vote. Why didn't she participate -- even if by phone -- is a fair question, as hers would have been the deciding vote in a 2-2 standoff.

Brown now suddenly says she was opposed to the $1 million cash settlement, bu there is no indication anywhere that she ever expressed such an opinion or objected to the award.

The only thing for which there IS evidence is her statements at the February 9 Commissioners' 'committee meeting' where she advocates that the cash for the settlement be raised by giving workers unpaid furloughs --

"Several scenarios on how to pay for the former executive’s settlement of $182,000 per year ... Commissioner Brown is in favor of the furlough of two days or so by current employees of the Authority ... Commissioner Dunn expressed the desire to pay the former executives their first installment regardless by this coming Tuesday...Commissioner[s] Dunn and Sanders expressed that we need to find the money from somewhere." (The complete PMUA minutes are online here.)"

As Councilor Cory Storch said regarding reabsorbing the PMUA workers into the city workforce, the most dangerous enemy the workers have is the PMUA commissioners -- and Brown has offered proof of the truth of Storch's remark.

In her desperation, Brown has not only reinvented her PMUA history, she has made unfounded allegations against candidate Roni Taylor of personal attacks on Brown and her church -- which Taylor flatly denies (see here).

I am convinced that the Rev. Brown would be a disastrous choice for the people of Plainfield for two reasons --

• First, she gives no evidence of deep awareness of the issues facing the City and, by extension, the City Council; and
  
  
• Second, she is clearly a shill for Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, with the purpose of giving Robinson-Briggs a bullet-proof majority on the Council.

Voters have to ask themselves: Do we really want to give Mayor Robinson-Briggs a free rein to continue to run Plainfield into the ground?

I'll be voting for Roni Taylor, Row 7B.

And diligent, thoughtful and responsible leadership.

Roni Taylor with Dr. Inez Durham at recent Library event.

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• PMUA:  "Minutes, 2/9/2012 'Committee Meeting'" -- Furlough discussion on last page.
  
• Roni Taylor For Council:  "Courier ambushes me with unfounded allegation by Brown"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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