Tree trouble?

A number of years ago, this tree on private property fell
toward the street and was only kept from landing on passing
traffic by the utility wires. Liability? Who do you think?

If you are like half of Plainfielders, you live in a single family home.

And the likelihood is your property is shaded by trees -- perhaps quite a few of them.

Trees are valuable for cleansing the air -- my back-of-the-envelope calculation is that there are probably half a million or more trees shading, cooling and refreshing Plainfield.

Like most of us, you probably enjoy them for their shade, hate them for their falling leaves in the autumn, and don't give them much thought the rest of the time.

Well, maybe you should.

Trees along your boundary line with your meighbor may overhang their property and a diseased or rotten tree that falls on your neighbor's property can be a liability for you insurance-wise.

Likewise trees that are not properly attended to and need to be removed can hit you in the wallet to the tune of $1,000 or more.

So, maybe you would like to take a little time to learn more about your trees --

• how and when to care for them
• how to maintain them
• when and how to prune them
• and more

Plainfield residents have an opportunity this coming Monday (July 23) to attend a TreeKeepers workshop on trees presented by the NJ Tree Foundation.

This event is FREE for Plainfield residents and will take place in the Anne Louise Davis Meeting Room of the Plainfield Public Library between 6:00 and 8:00 PM.

If you plan to attend, please be courteous and RSVP to (609) 439-1755, leaving your name, email address and the fact that you are from Plainfield. (Residents of other communities may attend for a $25 fee.)

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Union County Dems host funder for Millennial candidates -- including Plainfield's Ashley Davis

Plainfield's own Ashley Davis, candidate for the Ward 1
Council seat will benefit from a fundraiser
next Thursday by the Union County Dems.

Union County Democratic chair Nick Scutari gets it. Millennials represent a new generation of public service and leadership in the Democratic Party. (Are you reading this Nancy Pelosi? Are you reading this Diane Feinstein?)

In a fundraiser set for next Thursday (July 26) in Berkeley Heights, the UCDC is giving the nod to seven Millennial candidates who are running for local office in communities across the county.

Among the honorees is Plainfield's own Ashley Davis who has the Democratic line on the November ballot for the Firt Ward council seat.

Davis, who was the choice of a majority of the members of the Plainfield Democratic City Committee at the candidate selection meeting, bested incumbent Diane Toliver in the June primary election.

Though running without any financial support from either the local Democratic committee or any candidate campaign committee (the terms which Chairman Mapp set for the primary candidates when they were chosen -- see my posts here and here), Davis was able to put together a team that successfully raised enough money for her to run a full-fledged primary campaign.

Tickets to the UCDC fundraiser are $20 per person and can be reserved by emailing the UCDC at info@unioncountydems.com. Checks should be made payable to the UCDC. Proceeds will be split evenly among the seven candidates. (Please be considerate and reserve ahead so the hosts can plan the food and beverages. Thank you!)

The other candidates being honored are --

• Stephen Yellin, for Berkeley Heights Council
• Sarah Todisco, for Garwood Mayor
• Brandon Bernier, for Roselle Council
• Joseph Signorello, for Roselle Park Mayor
• Alex Keiser, for Springfield Townsip Committee
• Greg Vartan, for Summit Council

The event is being held at the home ofthe Starling family, 107 Chaucer Drive, Berkeley Heights.

See map for directions here.

I hope as many as possible will take this opportunity to show support for our own Ashley Davis and this emerging generation of public servants.

That's Thursday, July 26, from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Plainfield prepares to celebrate its 150th birthday

Plainfield's city seal acknowledges its
incorporation in 1869 -- 150 years ago in 2019.

Under Mayor Adrian O. Mapp, Plainfield is beginning to make preparations to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its incorporation as a city in 1869.

Shep Brown, soon to become Director of the to-be-created Department of Social Services (yay Shep!) has been tasked with putting together a committee of community representatives to make plans for the 150th years' celebrations.

I am pleased to have been asked to serve on the committee.

Since I will be unable to attend the committee's first meeting, I thought to outline some of my hopes for a celebration of Plainfield's sesquicentennial.

ENGAGE THE COMMUNITY FULLY

I would hope that a celebration of our sesquicentennial would engage the whole community --

• Businesses
• The Professions
• The Religious Communities
• Educational Community
• Non-profit, Community and Cultural Organizations

PORTRAY PLAINFIELD WARTS AND ALL

Too many celebrations like this become sugary and sentimentalized. I would hope that a sesquicentennial celebration of the Queen City would honestly portray the community history "warts and all" including the following dimensions --

• Race
• Class
• Gender
• Immigration Status
• Religious affiliation

-- examining how far we have come and how different (better?) we are on these fronts today.

LOOK FORWARD

Lastly, I would hope that some of the aspirations and insights of the Plainfield Vision 2025 project could be taken into account by way of pointing toward a future Plainfield's promise.

While chartering Plainfield as a city was a positive move, given the temper of the times in the "Gilded Age," we did not get from there to here along a straight line.

Change did not necessarily come easily and I hope we are able to give a (relatively) full account of how we got from the founding of a city which privileged a few and excluded many to the much more inclusive community we live in and love today.

Mazel tov!

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Yet another 4-way stop coming ... plus one from my wish list

The latest in the steady march of the 4-way
stops will take effect next Friday.

Yet another 4-way stop is set to take effect next Friday,July 20.

This one will be at the intersection of Rock and Myrtle Avenues. I actually have some sympathy for this one as I have had to wait many times to get across Rock Avenue because the piggy drivers on Rock won't let anyone across.

It is however guaranteed to royally piss off all those South Plainfield and Piscataway commuters who use Rock Avenue as a shortcut from Route 22. But hey, they don't vote in Plainfield.

Rock Avenue is a bit unusual because only a very few blocks are in Plainfield (from the Green Brook to 4th Street) while the rest is in Pisctaway and North Plainfield/Green Brook.

Several of the others recently set up are less persuasive to me (West 8th and Field Avenue for instance, where I never saw either speeding or accidents).

But I do have an intersection on my wish list -- North and Leland Avenues.

This is another when where the Leland Avenue traffic often will not let anyone on North Avenue cross to the other side.

Is a 4-way stop here in our future?

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Blink Fitness gets ready to open

The new Blink Fitness will be at 235-55 East Front Street,
upstairs over the Dollar General store.

 
 With the opening of a membership sales office at 208 East Front Street, the new Blink Fitness center is getting ready to open.

Housed on the second floor of the old McCrory's building (the Dollar Generl store is on the first floor), the company has spend months gutting the upper floor space, installing new wiring, lighting and HVAC.

They also concluded a deal for the rental of 90 parking spaces in the public lot adjacent to the Supremo parking lot (see my post on that matter here).

Blink (see their website here) is a rapidly growing chain of affordable fitness centers, whose tag line is "Every Body Happy." Their focus is to make people feel good about the exercise experience, regardless of the shape they are in when they join.

I also learned recently that the New York real estate company that owns both the Macy's (Supremo) and McCrory's (Dollar Store / Blink) buildings is also milling and paving not only THEIR lot but the city's public parking lot, too.

This will make TWO full-time gyms downtown. The other, on Park Avenue, is a 24-hour facility that has been open for several years now and seems quite successful in a low-keyed way. They use a parking lot across the street, which is full all the time.

A healthier Plainfield for all!

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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New 4-way stop effective Friday the 13th

New 4-way stop takes effect Friday the 13th.

The march of the 4-way STOP signs continues.

As of Friday July 13, another 4-way stop intersection will be added to the growing roster of new 4-way stops throughout the city of Plainfield.

The newest addition its the intersection of Randolph Road and Kenyon Avenue, previously a stop only on Kenyon.

Be aware and drive carefully.

NOTE: While I waited at the relatively new 4-way stop at Arlington and 9th the other afternoon, a motorcycle came down the street westbound from Park Avenue and blew right through the stop sign without so much as a glance in either direction. SMH.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Donald Van Blake's memorial service Saturday

Buffalo Soldier Donald Van Blake with another WWII
veteran, Al Pittis. Memorial Day, 2016.

Plainfielders will have an opportunity Saturday to pay their final respects to their own Buffalo Soldier Donald Van Blake.

The memorial service for the man many knew as "Uncle Donald" and who passed away at age 96 in early June is being organized by Leanna Walcott. Van Blake served in the US Army's famed 10th Cavalry (the Buffalo Soldiers) during WWII.

Donald Van Blake was known to generations as a shop teacher at Hubbard School and a civil rights and community activist.

He was among the organizers of busloads of Plainfielders who attended the game changing 1963 March on Washington led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

But most of all, he was known and beloved as a tireless advocate for tennis among Plainfielders. The school district's Donald Van  Blake Tennis Courts at the Hub Stine complex were named in his honor.

Freeholder Rebecca Williams posted a moving tribute to "Unce  Donald" on her blog after his passing (see here).

The service will be at Shiloh Baptist Church on Saturday (July 14) from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

Shiloh Baptist Church is at 515 West 4th Street (at Liberty Street). Parking is available on the 5th Street side of the church.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Novus Ordo Seclorum: A new blog in the Plainfield heavens

The founding of the United States is commemorated
in the seal on every one dollar bill. The Latin can be
translated as "A new order for the ages." Perfectly
apt for a new blog appearing in the Plainfield heavens.

 
 Wake up, Plainfield!

There is a new blog in the heavens.

Well, if not in the heavens, at least in the Plainfield blogosphere.

It's been a long time since we have twenty one (can you believe it?) bloggers scribbling on a more or less regular basis.

The new blog is PLAINFIELD VISION (see here) and it is the brainchild of Plainfielder Sean McKenna.

Many will know Sean as a active member of the Netherwood Neighbors, a hard-working Ward 2 Democrat, a member of the Planning Board, and an habitué of South Avenue's The Coffee Box. He also served on the executive committee for last year's Plainfield Vision 2025 project.

Sean plans to focus on -- what else? -- Plainfield and hopes to publish on a regular basis once a week.

I hope you will mosey on over and check out the blog. You can log your encouragement using the comments link at the top of the page and welcome Sean to the party.

As of tonight (July 10) Sean's blog will appear on the CLIPS blog daily.

It is a pleasure and an honor to add another voice to the Plainfield conversation.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Plainfield City Charter changes: The road not taken

Robert Frost wrote a famous poem on the road not taken,
musing on what might have been if the other path had been chosen.

The discussion around the changes to Plainfield's special city charter shed some light on the process and at the same time highlighted a difficulty Mayor Mapp has set himself as the leader of the local Democratic organization.

Mary Burgwinkle, chair of the Charter Study Commission elected by the voters to examine the charter and make recommendations has written of her concerns with the changes made to the original recommendations (see here).

Mayor Mapp took the opportunity Monday to make a presentation on the proposed changes to the administration's organization chart, at the same time explaining some of the reasoning that went into them.

Corporation Counsel Dave Minchello cite the fact that this is the first time that the charter has been amended since it was adopted in 1968 -- 51 years ago.

In his remarks, Mayor Mapp suggested that the amendments to the petition submitted by the Council were made with an eye to future flexibility -- keeping in mind that there is little likelihood of going back to the Legislature for another fifty years.

The mayor's remarks seemed to take into account objections raised by Ms. Burgwinkle in the media and set out his justifications for the course of action taken.

Here is a list of the issues discussed by Mayor Mapp and residents who came to the mike during public comments --

CHANGES TO THE COUNCIL'S PETITION

In he remarks, Mayor Mapp said "the administration decided to add" the changes that were finally adopted (up to five new departments, and ten confidential aides to department heads). Now it's a fair question (though no one has asked it publicly) why the changes weren't made by calling a special (or emergency) session of City Council to amend the petition it had submitted.

It is true that the Legislature has the prerogative of amending legislation coming before it (which the charter change was), but no one has said that the amendments were made by the Legislature.

The net result is that the Mapp administration looks less than open and transparent.

And this is a shame because the changes are -- to my mind -- beneficial and no more subject to abuse than any other provision that leaves things up to individual judgment.

CONFIDENTIAL AIDES

The question of Confidential Aides seems jerry-rigged.

As Mayor Mapp explained it, the decades-old custom of having confidential aides was recently ruled impermissible by the Civil Service Commission.

Putting them directly into the charter was intended as an end run around the Civil Service Commission.

Then, according to Mayor Mapp, a new HR Director reframed the question to the Civil Service Commission and got a ruling that the city COULD have confidential aides.

Too late. The changes are written into the revised charter.

Folks are right to keep a sharp eye on this provision. While confidential aides may serve a justifiable and useful purpose, we certainly have experience with abuse of the system -- the Robinson-Briggs administration comes immediately to mind.

"REVENUE NEUTRAL"

I can swear I heard the Mayor use the phrase "revenue neutral" in describing the proposed organization chart, saying that six of the seven proposed department heads were already in place. He may have misspoken but it opened the doors for critics.
Of course the term does not accurately portray the situation, since it is expenses, not revenue, that are at issue.

At the public comments, critics Mary Burgwinkle, Jeanette Criscione and Greg Haworth pressed on the matter, asking if those who are currently not department heads but will become so will be getting raises. (The answer has to be: of course they will.)

Then there is the question of replacing a division head who moves up to be a department head. So, right off the bat there will be a fiscal impact -- though it won't necessarily be huge and scary.

PROCESS

For those wearing their cereal box X-ray glasses, it is abundantly clear that Mayor Mapp is not making any progress at healing the tear in the Democratic party fabric that resulted from the fracas over the election of the Union County Dem chair this past spring.

I don't think it needed to go this way.

The Mayor could have handled this current issue differently.

Granted, the Charter Study Commission was dissolved once it had made its recommendations to the City Council. So technically they have no "standing" in the current discussion.

But I can see the possibility of taking the commission members into one's confidence and enlisting them in the process of "selling" the proposed changes to the larger public.

But that road was not taken, and the open breach in the Plainfield Democratic organization continues.

When and how it will ever be healed remains to be seen.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Plainfield City Council takes up road repairs, charter revisions, redevelopment Monday

Back in the day (this was Kenyon Avenue in 2007)
the city did curbs and aprons as well as mill and pave.
You can see from the 2007 list (here) that we are getting
many more roads done by skipping the curbs and aprons.

Plainfield City Council meets in a combined agenda/business meeting Monday (July 9) aat 7:00 PM.

While the agenda is not terribly long, there are three important items --

CHARTER REVISION DISCUSSION

Council President McRae has put a discussion item on the agenda concerning restructuring city government per proposed charter changes.

A charter study commission was elected by the voters several years ago and submitted its recommendations to City Council in 2014. The Council adopted them and submitted them as a petition to the Legislture that same year.

And there things sat until recently.

Since Assemblyman Jerry Green's passing things have begun to move forward.

Charter Study chairperson Mary Burgwinkle has been following the bill's progress and noted that some changes to the recommendations were mysteriously made somewhere along the line. She wrote about the matter in an OpEd in the Courier titled "Plainfield charter bill veers from recommendations" which you can read here.

Bottom line is the changed bill allows for UP TO five new departments and a total of TEN CONFIDENTIAL AIDES. (Confidential aides are most often patronage appointments; they are outside the civil service system and those employees are not union members -- though they benefit from contract provisions.)

ROAD IMPROVEMENTS

There is a Bond Ordinance (Bond 1264) calling for $4,158,000 for road improvements.

Here is a list (alphabetized by moi) of the proposed streets --

• Arlington Avenue
• Bergen Street
• Brentwood Terrace
• Charlotte Road
• Glenwood Avenue
• Halsey Street
• Hazelwood Terrace
• Hollywood Avenue
• Lake Street
• Laramie Road
• Lee Place
• Maltby Avenue
• Manson Place
• Martine Avenue
• Mayfair Avenue
• McDowell Street
• Morris Street
• Oakland Avenue
• Oakwood Road
• Prescott Place
• Rahway Road
• Reeve Terrace
• Sherman Avenue
• Spooner Avenue
• Spring Street
• Sumner Avenue
• West 3rd Street
• West 5th Street
• West 9th Street

Some of the work is already done or currently under way.

The one surprise to me is the inclusion of Spring Street. This is a very short unpaved dead end street off Lake Street with only one house on it (which I nearly sold to a Ledger reporter many years ago; she bought on Lake Street instead).

Portions of the bond issue will also be used for painting and floor repairs to the Senior Center ($108,000), facade and step repairs for the Plainfield Public Library ($200,000) and rehab and repairs at the Drake House ($20,000).

REDEVELOPMENT

The Council is directing the Planning Board to re-examine the TODD (Transit Oriented Development) plan for the downtown block bounded by West Front/Central Avenue/West 2nd/Madison Avenue and present their recommendation to the Council.

This probably signifies a developer is in the wings and ready to make a move. This block has been lusted after by various developers for many years.

City Council's combined session begins at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers / Courthouse at Watchung Avenue and East 4th Street. Parking on the street or in the lot across from Police Headquarters.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Park your preconceptions at the door

The Art Loft at East 2nd and Gavett Place.
The doors are as wide as the windows
and that's where the trouble begins.

It's hard parking your preconceptions at the door

As were most Plainfielders, I was fascinated with the (loooong) construction of the Arts Loft building at the corner of Eat 2nd and Gavett Place.

That is, after I got over the shock from demolishing the Romind Jeep dealership that it replaced.

The Romond building had "good bones" and was a perfect candidate for repurposing, or so I thought.

Then I softened somewhat after seeing the renderings of the Miami-style building that was to go up in its stead.

But one thing mystified me.

How could construction officials possibly have allowed those narrow doors.

The first time I entered it (for the public meeting on the pedestrian mall proposal), I asked Planning Director Bill Nierstedt how such a thing could have happened.

He braced his back against the door jamb and measured the width with his feet.

Copacetic was his verdict.

Once inside I realized at once what the issue was.

It was designed as a loft space not as a conventional storefront.

What seemed like narrow doors were made to appear so by the extra height of the windows accommodating the space's 12-foot height.

Lesson learned: Check your preconceptions at the door.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Is LimeBike taking off?

A LimeBike parked in a very unusual spot on July 4.

I have been eagerly watching to see if/when LimeBike would take off.

There have been about half a dozen outside the westbound downtown train station for several weeks, but they didn't seem to be much used.

Then one day I saw a Latino guy riding one down East Front Street near the senior center.

Made a mental note.

Few days later, three bikes were parked in frnt of the Dollar General store at Front and Madison. (That number has now increased to about a half dozen, with more near the McDonald's across the street.)

Interesting.

You will recall that the whole system is driven by a phone app and GPS.

The GPS allows LimeBike to know where bikes aree being picked up and dropped of.

On Sunday, as I was driving to church, there was a Latino guy at 6th and Park with a LimeBike and a small group of men to whom he was obviously explaining the program.

Then on Monday I spotted a gaggle of LimeBikes parked in a public parking lot.

On Tuesday, three were spotted parked under the shade of a tree at Westervelt and Brook Avenue in NORTH Plainfield!

So the LimeBike people are paying close attention to the ridership patterns.

It certainly makes economic sense for the Latinos using the bikes.

$1.00 an hour and drop off where you like must certainly beat calling a cab and being in for $5.00 as soon as you step inside.

My suspicion is this will catch on and definitely have some impact on Plainfield's taxi companies.

The real kicker, though, was showing up at the DaVita dialysis center at Park and Randolph for my July 4th session and finding a LimeBike parked outside the entrance.

Now I know from chatting with them that the nurses and techs all live at some distance and drive to work.

So that leads wonder if one of my fellow dialysis patients has found an economical way to get back and forth to treatments.

More power to him or her!

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Why is this July 4 different from all others?

Some of my favorite images from July 4th celebrations past
which capture the best hopes we have for our country.
This hope is needed now more than ever. We cannot allow
Donald Trump to define what patriotism is and who is a patriot.

As we approach this year's 4th of July celebration, I am put in mind of the question posed at the Passover Seder: How is this night different from all other nights?

It is meant to instruct young people in the central commemoration of the Jewish faith, the deliverance from slavery in Egypt.

It seems to me that in these current very difficult times, it would be well to consider this July 4th as different from any other.

Of course we will have our annual parade (this year is the 95th), stepping off at 10:00 AM and proceeding down East Front Street to Park Avenue. I am very fond of this parade -- one of the few left in New Jersey, and a hallmark Plainfield celebration.

Then of course we will have the outdoor concert at Cedar Brook Park (from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM), and the concluding fireworks display at the concert's end.

It is especially important for us to keep in mind the patriotic significance of July 4 this year, as our institutions and the rule of law so unique to America are under assault by Donald Trump and his minions.

We need to remind ourselves that we love America, despite its warts and imperfections, despite its shortcomings and flaws.

It is the country we love for the freedom and opportunities we have under its flag.

It is not perfect but it is the only country we have and we should stand by its best aspirations in its time of need.

While we are enjoying our 4th of July celebrations here in Plainfield, we should also remember that there are those for whom this is a bitter holiday indeed -- the terrified children and anxious parents who have been separated unjustly by the malicious policies of the Trump administration.

We cannot afford to let Donald Trump's narrow, spiteful and cruel vision define patriotism and who is a patriot.

July 4th is our opportunity to show him what real patriotism is about, that America is a welcoming place and that every person should be treated with dignity and respect.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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