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Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs in a portrait from the city's website. |
As for the police 'promotions', Mayor Robinson-Briggs stands accused of having disregarded the Civil Service lists of those eligible for promotion in order to promote other officers more to her liking. That's naughtieness number one.
As it turns out, without Council approval of funding for the promotions, they are in limbo. With five votes needed to approve the funding, and only four in favor, this issue may fall into the lap of the new Mapp administration come January 1.
Mayor Robinson-Briggs' second naughtieness was to get caught out putting Recreation in a bind where the young people in its basketball program cannot use the school gyms on Saturday mornings because the City has no funds to pay for the increased user fees charged by the Board of Ed.
Why is there a shortfall of money? Because Mayor Robinson-Briggs raided the Recreation budget last summer to pay for an event she sponsored -- off budget -- at Hannah Atkins Playground (which pre-empted another one to be sponsored by Council President Bridget Rivers and Councilor Vera Greaves).
So, when the District increased the user fees, there was no money to pay for the increase. Thoughtful, isn't our Mayor?
I use the word naughtie (as Shakespeare would have said) in its older, richer sense --
Word History: The word naughty at one time was an all-purpose word similar to bad. During the 16th century one could use naughty to mean "unhealthy, unpleasant, bad (with respect to weather), vicious (of an animal), inferior, or bad in quality" (one could say "very naughtie figes" or "naughty corrupt water"). All of these senses have disappeared, however, and naughty is now used mainly in contexts involving mischief or indecency. This recalls its early days in Middle English (with the form noughti), when the word was restricted to the senses "evil, hostile, ineffectual, and needy." Middle English noughti, first recorded in the last quarter of the 14th century, was derived from nought, which primarily meant "nothing" but was also used as a noun meaning "evil" and as an adjective meaning such things as "immoral, weak, useless." Thus naughty, in a sense, has risen from nothing, but its fortunes used to be better than they are at present.The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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6 comments:
Why would any council member want to fund the police budget after the Mayor did something naughty? I thought they would be mad as heck that she would do this and not support her. Maybe we need to take a better look before we vote in the next election and not vote for a council member who would vote to support a naughty Mayor who spends money we don't have.
Shame on the council members who voted to support our naughty Mayor who spends money we don't have. Why didn't the Mayor find money to fund the police budget and not lay off the 3 police Captains? Why now did she want to promote? I guess the old saying.. It is not what you know about Plainfield but who you know or sleep with is what gets you ahead in Plainfield !
Plainfield residents we need to call SHAME ON YOU NEWS REPORTER to come to Plainfield. Maybe then we can clean out City Hall! How many CFO'S Administrators, Directors, Upper Managemet, Friends of Gerry Green, has the Mayor recycled through City Hall ? How much money has she spent over budget to do political favors? I am tired of paying high taxes because of bad management and a naughty Mayor. The days till she is gone are not coming soon enough for me.
Would love to hear her defense. Or does she need one? I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in the beginning, but the benefits have run out. This is just messy.
If the tax payers in the city pay a large budget for the schools in the City of Plainfield why should we have to pay fees to use something we already fund. Someone should ask Wilma Flintstone I mean Campbell this question.
You guys are complaining about the former mayor. What until Mapp gets his turn. You better hope he does not bring anyone from Orange, his former employer. They will destroy your town. Greed, corruption and a total disregard for the law. Heed my warning.
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