Council reorganizes, Mayor offers State of City Address

Councilor at-large Tracey Brown is sworn in by her mother.

Amelia Mapp holds Bible as husband Adrian is sworn in for another
term as Ward 3 Councilor.

 

Assemblyman Jerry Green swears in Councilor Bridget Rivers
as Council President for 2013.

Councilor Bill Reid is sworn in as Chair of the Committee of the Whole
by Judge Joan Robinson-Gross

Plainfield's city government reorganized Monday evening for the 2013 calendar year.

Council members Tracey Brown (At-large) and Adrian Mapp (Ward 3) were sworn into office.

The Council unanimously elected Councilor Bridget Rivers (Ward 4) as Council President and Councilor William Reid (Ward 1) as chair of the committee of the whole.

Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs was granted to floor to present the annual State of the City Address as stipulated in the city charter.

The department-by-department review of 2012 achievements will be posted online, the mayor said, in an effort to reduce paper use.

While Mayor Robinson-Briggs announced initiatives on a sweeping range of committees she was forming (a 'nonpartisan' women's committee, an African-Caribbean committee she hoped the Council would make into a Commission, and a grandparents' committee). I was particularly struck by her solicitude for the High School Leadership Task Force, about which she was particularly pleased 'as our young people sometimes don't get the positive notoriety they deserve' (Her Honor's words).

Those who enjoy Plainfield trivia will find plenty to fill their quivers, including potholes filled (597), marriage licenses issued (488), birth records sought (2,829), and drug arrests (562 -- many of which, she assured us, were out-of-towners).

The only fly in the ointment the whole evening came with the last resolution (R025-13) at the very end of the meeting.

The matter at hand was to adopt a temporary budget for the first three months of the calendar year. After questions from Councilor Storch about the Administration's amendment of the resolution (eliminating cost-of-living increases for non-contractual employees) and Councilor Reid (that the total amount was within the state's requirements -- it is), Reid barreled ahead without a vote being taken on the resolution.

After that glitch was finally straightened out -- the resolution passed unanimously on a voice vote -- Reid moved ahead to the end of the agenda.

With only one comment from the public (resident Nancy Piwowar on nuisances of out-of-town cabs picking up fares), the first meeting of 2013 was adjourned amidst great bonhomie.

Now the real work begins.

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-- Dan Damon [follow]

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