(2017 Dem Primary) Brown opens Headquarters. Why does that address ring a bell?

Brown's campaign headquarters suggests Malcolm Dunn
is a backer.

Mayoral candidate Tracey Brown has announced the opening of her headquarters this Saturday. The address is 320 Park Avenue -- which will probably ring a lot of bells for Plainfield politics watchers.

The 1920s-era red brick building includes office in the front and a still indoor parking ramp in the back.

Signs in the window indicate the building houses the Plainfield Chamber of Commerce, the SID office, SCORE (a  nonprofit aiding businesses) and a Small Business Development outpost.

The building has for decades been under the control (one way or another) of former Councilor Malcolm Dunn. May we guess that Mr. Dunn is supporting Tracey Brown in the upcoming primary?

Those with really long memories will recall that the building became an embarrassment to Dunn, who was sitting on the Council at the time, when a review of tax records during the term of Mayor Al McWilliams revealed that Dunn owed more than $40,000 in back taxes and prior city administrations had done nothing to collect on them. After that news flash, the taxes were paid up.

Resident Alan Goldstein put Dunn's son Jeffrey through the ringer over a jobs program that was questioned about its record and evidently exorbitant rents for programs housed on site that were funded from grants.

We should not forget that Dunn, as a newly appointed PMUA commissioner, engineered the wrecking of severance negotiations for former PMUA Executive Director Eric Watson and his deputy David Ervin. As a result, the PMUA board settled with Watson and Ervin in 2011 for $1.2 million (see my post here).

At the time, Tracey Brown sat as a commissioner of the PMUA. Though she carefully avoided participating in the milion-dollar-giveaway, Brown did suggest that the way to clean up the resulting fiscal mess for the agency was to furlough its workers to pay for the cost of the settlement (see the last page of February 9, 2012 PMUA minutes here).

After all this, Brown revised her PMUA history (see my post on that here).

So now we have Mr. Dunn aiding Brown's campaign through renting her office space. If indeed there is a rental agreement and Brown actually pays anything. Dunn could give it as an in-kind gift if it meets the ELEC rules, but Brown would have to declare the gift or show rent paid on her ELEC reports. Which I'm sure we won't see until after the vote is over -- if then.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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