Some final words on the charter change fuss

Council takes up charter changes Monday evening.

Plainfield City Council will take up a large ordinance (123 pages) numbered 2018-22 to reorganize city government to conform to the revised city charter which was signed into law by Gov. Murphy on August 10.

The manner in which the charter was finally amended has become an item of some interest among residents and I thought to take one last opportunity to review what all the fuss has been about.


After reading the July Courier story on the changes to the city charter (see here) and Sean McKenna's response on his blog (see here) -- CORRECTION: the correct post by Sean is HERE -- it seems a good opportunity to clear up some misconceptions and sharpen the points to be made.

Let me start off by saying that I do not object to the two changes that have created all the fuss (the number of departments and the provision for ten confidential aides).

BACKGROUND


Already when I moved to Plainfield in 1983 there were grumblings about the inadequacy of the departmental limitations.
Even though the charter was less than 15 years old, the purview of city government had expanded greatly with Richard Nixon's bureaucratization of LBJ's Great Society programs (the ancestor of Plainfield Action Services) and his development of the block grant system of distributing Federal aid.
Hampered by Plainfield's charter, the response was to combine financial and social services in one monster department, making no one really happy.
Though there had been talk of charter revision over the years, concrete steps were not taken until Mayor Mapp's first administration put up a ballot measure.
So a Charter Study Commission was duly approved and its members elected by the voters.
This group worked long and hard and in public view.
They studied other charters. They looked at the options under the Faulkner Act. They interviewed elected officials and others with experience or expertise on the subject.
Finally, they issued their recommendations to the City Council and were discharged. From that point on they had no formal responsibility for the fate of their "baby".
The Council's role in the process was to formalize the report as a petition to the New Jersey Legislature.
The ball was then in Assemblyman Jerry Green's court to act as "godfather" and shepherd the proposed charter changes through the legislative process.
And there things sat. And sat. And sat.

It was not uncharacteristic of Jerry to use this tactic to extract concessions on some point of local interest.
And so things stood until Jerry passed away in April of this year.

ON A FAST TRACK



Suddenly things began to move very fast.

Mary Burgwinkle, who had chaired the study commission, tracked the progress of the bills (separate Senate and Assembly versions) and noticed that changes had been made from the petition the Council had approved.

She quickly put together an OpEd on the situation which appeared in the Courier a s well as on Olddoc's blog and generated considerable discussion.

Only at this point does it appear that Mayor Mapp decided to explain the situation.

Which he did at the July 9th combined Council session.

At that Council meeting he asserted that the Administration had made the changes, with a rather vague and convoluted explanation as to why the matter of confidential aides needed to be addressed.

Mayor Mapp repeated these statements in the Courier story with a slightly different explanation of the confidential aides (as Sean notes).

THE NUBS OF THE MATTER



So there are three questions looking for answers:

• By what authority did Mayor Mapp have the changes made?
  
  
• Why was the decision made to change the number of departments originally recommended?
  
  
• Why was the confidential aides matter inserted at all?

WHO CAN MAKE CHANGES?

As I understand the statutes (and I am not a lawyer), only the Council could make changes to its petition on the local end.

But Mayor Mapp never mentioned the Council in either his July 9th presentation or in the Courier article.

It is his prerogative to have called a special or even an emergency (if he could justify it) meeting of the Council to ratify the changes, but he does not say he even thought of it.

Of course it is perfectly within the prerogatives of the Legislature to amend any legislation before it (it is done all the time) but Mayor Mapp has never suggested that is how things went down -- quite the opposite.

If anyone had the money and the moxie to pursue the matter, they could try to compel an answer to the question. My guess is no one will step up to the challenge.

On the other hand Mayor Mapp could more fully explain himself on this point.

WHY THE NEW NUMBER OF DEPARTMENTS?



On this question there is more to the story than the public is aware of.

Sources on the Charter Study Commission tell me that Mayor Mapp was asked directly at the time of preparing the final report if he had a preference for more departments and his reply was "No".

So now Mayor Mapp should explain more fully why he evidently changed his mind.

I will not go into a discussion of whether the changes will be "budget neutral" as the mayor asserts.

The administration will have an opportunity to explain this at the August combined meeting.

Al I can say is I wonder how two division heads will take to becoming department heads without getting a boost in their salaries.

DOES THE CONFIDENTIAL AIDES PROVISION BELONG IN THE CHARTER?

Lastly there is the matter of the confidential aides and whether they properly belong in the charter.

My opinion is that they do not and the Civil Service Commission ruling in the city's may make Mayor Mapp's argument moot.

I do not agree with Sean that a patronage appointment automatically means the person is incompetent and a drag on the body politic.

The mayor is right to assert that there is a long tradition of them, both in Plainfield and elsewhere throughout New Jersey and nationally.

One might look through the tube the other way and conclude that ten is the maximum the charter will allow and no administration will ever be able to exceed that number.

Unless they want to go back to the Legislature for another charter change.

Plainfield City Council will meet for its August combined session on August 13, at which time the Administration will bring forth the enabling ordinance need to effect the changes.

Plainfield City Council meets in the Courthouse / Council Chambers at Watchung Avenue and East 4th Street. Parking available on the street or in the lot across from Police headquarters.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Governor Murphy signs Plainfield charter changes

Plainfield was settled in 1685 and chartered as
a city in 1869.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed Plainfield's special charter revision into law on Friday, August 10th, upon returning from his 11-day vacation.

The bill, sponsored by Sen Nick Scutari, Assemblywoman Linda Carter and Assemblyman James Kennedy (as S2763 and A4220), was previously passed by both houses unanimously.

Mayor Mapp had taken up the matter of the charter changes at the July council meeting, highlighting the most important changes: raising the number of new departments to 5, and the number of confidential aides to 10 (2 per department).

He expected to introduce a package of measures at the August meeting to implement the changes,and the August agenda contains an ordinance revising the departments and setting salary schedules.

Among the changes Mayor Mapp outlined are the following --

• Splitting Administration and Finance into two departments (Ron West would keep Administration and Finance and Shep Brown would head a new Department of Social Services).
  
  
• Public Affairs and Safety would also be split in two. Carl Riley, currently both Police Director and Public Safety Director, would keep the Police Department as Police Director. Mayor Mapp is proposing to reorganize the Fire Department by eliminating the Fire Chief and replacing the position with a Fire Director (yet to be determined).
  
  
• The current Department of Public Works and Urban Development would also be split in two, with Oren Dabney keeping Public Works, and planning and economic development to be moved to a new Department of Economic Development. The new Department would be headed by Valarie Taylor.
  
  
• There would be a totally new Department of Communications, headed by the Mayor's chief of staff Jazz Clayton-Hunt and including Information Technology and Media.

Although the charter changes became law upon the governor's signing the bill, the changes will have to be adopted by the Council in August and September.

Ordinances introduced on first reading in August would have to wait for a second reading and final passage in September.

With a 3-week period until ordinances can take effect, it looks like early October until the ducks can be lined up.

Plainfield City Council's combined August meeting is set for Monday August 13 at 7:00 PM at the Council Chambers / Courthouse at Watchung Avenue and East 4th Street.

Parking available in the street or in the lot across from Police Headquarters.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Dan joins tech weenie Olddoc

Here's a particularly helpful Windows 10 error message.
Thank you, Microsoft.

Well, I finally gave in and joined Olddoc in getting a new computer -- another HP laptop in my case.

You may have noted over the past few months I occasionally had problems posting and they were due to my seven-year old laptop just not having the umph to cope with today's web pages.

Everything was slow as mud and I often had to wait for Javascripts that were busy and ground the machine to a halt.

Couple that with the increasing complexity of web pages -- you DO realize that Google and the news sources you read are tracking your EVERY KEYSTROKE don't you? -- and the only way forward was to spring for a new machine.

For under $300, I got an HP laptop that is probably four times as powerful as my old machine -- and at half what I paid for it.

That's the good news.

When I tried moving my Norton anti-virus license over to the new laptop, things went swimmingly until Norton informed me that an existing anti-virus (McAfee) needed to be removed.

I clicked "OK" to start the removal process and then the machine appeared to freeze.

After monkeying around and fixing that, HP's automatic assistant took over the screen and wouldn't let me do anything until I had performed the updates they listed.

One of these included installing an updated BIOS, which then promptly closed all open programs and rebooted after installing the BIOS --thus trashing the Norton anti-virus install.

Yikes!

Oh yes, and then it turns out HP is no longer supporting the driver for my (admittedly antiquated, but it works just fine) Laserjet printer, so there is that to resolve.

Then Windows 10 politely notified me that tonight's update would be extra long and would I like to schedule it for overnight.

Of course I would.

Hopefully, things will sort themselves out tomorrow and I can complete the jump to the new, speedier machine.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Is MLK about to get his due in Plainfield at last?

There is no signage at MLK Plaza in front of the YWCA
indicating it honors the slain civil rights leader.

By contrast, signage honoring the late Mayor Rick Taylor
on Court Place went up right away after it was designated.

Is Dr. King about to get his due in Plainfield at last?

Sixty-one years after King's assassination and 35 years after Plainfield named a public space in honor of the civil rights leader, MLK Plaza still sits without any public indication of its existence.

But that may be about to change.

I have always known that the brick-paved square in front of the YWCA and including a short stretch of Church Street was named in honor of Dr. King.

When I worked on the YWCA's capital fundraising campaign, we made special note of the Plaza's existence.

But there seems never to have been a sign.

Community activist Norman Deen Muhammad emailed me a few days ago wondering why no sign has ever been erected.

In my reply, I noted this was strange since the City had promptly erected a sign on Court Place when the Council designated that street "Richard Taylor Way".

Muhammad sent along a PDF of a Courier news story from August 22, 1983, concerning the dedication of the plaza.

The naming of the project -- which, according to the story, was already being planned but with another name -- was an initiative of the late councilwoman Helen Miller and was supported by then-City Administrator Jerome Harris.

I forwarded his email to several council members whose emails I have on my phone.

Just after midnight that night, Council President McRae emailed me saying, "this is in the process of being addressed by the administration."

Hopefully, that means you can expect to see some signage on this corner soon.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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National Night Out is Tuesday at City Hall Plaza

This is Plainfield's 32nd year of participation.

Tuesday night Plainfield residents will celebrate National Night Out (NNO).

The main celebration is at City Hall Plaza from 6:30 PM to dusk. Netherwood Neighbors will be having their annual get together at Leland Avenue Park at the same time.

This is the 35th anniversary of the national event, and marks the 32nd year of Plainfield's participation which began as an initiative of then-First Ward councilor Liz Urquhart.

Over the years it has grown from its modest beginnings to one of the city's best-attended and most-anticipated events.

For youngsters, NNO ranks up there with the ever-popular visit with Santa in December.

NNO celebrates the community's anti-crime and public safety efforts, with demonstrations by the police and fire divisions and the Plainfield Rescue Squad.

The Fire Division's hot dog tent is always mobbed throughout the evening.

There will be a Kid's Zone, information tables by community organizations, and a program honoring community service by individuals and organizations.

Plus live music, book bag handouts and giveaways for everyone.

A night not to be missed.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Someone is royally pissed with David

Bathsheba, after whom David lusted when seeing
her bathe naked, thus getting his ass in a sling.

Coming back from a doctor's appointment (what else?), I noticed a new sign in front of Pilgrim Covenant Church (next to St. Stephen's Lutheran Church) on Park Avenue in South Plainfield.

I called my sister, who belongs to the Evangelical Covenant Church (more about them here, and here), to ask if the denomination had adopted a new logo as the sign seemed somehow changed.

"No," she said, "I'm certainly not aware of any change."

"Maybe they just decided to get a new sign," says I.

Then she added that her congregation was searching for a new minister (theirs had accepted a call in California) and that she was "staying on through the search" but then planning to leave the denomination.

I was stunned.

You should understand she has been active in this congregation in Connecticut since her kids were little. She has held just about every position of responsibility for lay people there.
What on earth was this about?

"It's about the direction the denomination seems to be taking on human sexuality," she said, "and they don't seem to be coming down on the right side."

The flash point is whether ministers may perform, and congregations host, same-sex weddings.

Not only that, she added that she didn't like the way the denomination was proceeding with a top-down approach out of character with the denomination's tradition of tolerance for a variety of opinions on church practice.

(The Evangelical Covenant Church grew out of the intense spiritual awakening among some Swedish immigrants in the late 19th century and has a long tradition of agreement in essentials and tolerance in inessentials.)

We talked about the matter for some time.

There is a network of members who want to see the denomination be totally inclusive of LGBTQ people and she is in touch with them, but she seemed to me to have firmly made up her mind to quit.

That is a principled stand I said, but what do you do then?

No other congregation you ever find will be just like this one you love so much and have served so well.

And no place you go will be totally without tensions over this issue.

My own Episcopal Church just went through a stressful debate at last month's triennial General Convention over this exact issue and -- typical of the denomination -- worked out a compromise which allows priests to conduct same-sex marriages and bishops who object not to have to approve of the practice. Guaranteed to make no one perfectly happy.

The United Methodists are set to take up the matter at a special General Conference in February in St. Louis, with this as the only matter on the agenda.

There is some fear that the denomination may see defections depending on the outcome.

With all this in mind, I have been given a reading assignment for Sunday's liturgy at Grace Episcopal Church.

The lesson is from II Samuel(11:26 - 12:13a) and details the Lord's being royally pissed with David over maneuvering to get Uriah the Hittite killed in battle in order to have his wife, Bathsheba (who was already pregnant with her and David's child).

I pointed out to my sister that the Lord seemed far more vexed with David over the Bathsheba business than with David's famous -- and perhaps homoerotic -- "friendship" with Jonathan about which there is no mention of divine condemnation.

Perhaps the Lord knows something mere mortals do not?

Grace Episcopal Church is at East 7th Street and Cleveland Avenue. Worship on Sundays is at 10:30 AM. Visitors are always most welcome.

Parking available in the street or in the public parking lot across from the front of the church. You will also enjoy the weekly playing of our 46-bell carillon, one of only four in the state of New Jersey.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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New cards are in the mail

New(right) and old Medicare cards. Note the new numbering
system (I have changed it, but the format is what is on your
new card). The old card was your Social plus an "A".

Someone who works in the Somerville Social Security office told me a number of months ago that new Medicare cards were soon to be issued with a new numbering system.

Well, mine arrived in the mail a couple of days ago.

As you can see from the image above, it is no longer linked to your Social Security number but is a new -- and longer -- mix of numbers and letters. (It used to be your Social Security number with the addition of an "A" at the end.)

It was explained to me that Social Security numbers have become so ubiquitous as identity markers as to provide no real security for Medicare recipients.

The new card has a different look -- besides the new numbering system.

The postcard included advises the recipient to 'securely destroy' the old card, replace it with the new and advise all your doctors and other services of the change the next time you visit.

Though there is talk of change, Social Security cards are not being changed at this time and will continue to be issued in the XXX-XX-XXXX format.

With luck, those of you who are not old enough to concern yourselves with this matter will have a single-payer plan by the time you reach 62.

We can only hope.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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4-way stop at Randolph Road and Plainfield Avenue disappears

The STOP sign at Sheridan Avenue (Randolph Road) and
Plainfield Avenue Thursday morning. You can clearly
see the Plainfield Avenue STOP sign is gone.

Thanks to intrepid reader JP for alerting me to the disappearance of the 4-way STOP signs on Plainfield Avenue at Randolph Road (and Sheridan Avenue).

As I was out taking a picture to verify the Plainfield Avenue signs were gone, a resident stopped at the corner, rolled down her window and told me they had disappeared Wednesday afternoon. (She was in favor of having the 4-way, by the way.)

The stenciled "STOP" on the roadway approaching the former 4-way stop has also been hastily (and not quite totally) obliterated.

The mystery may be owing to the fact that Plainfield Avenue -- though it is not visibly marked as such -- is County Road 603 and starts at the intersection with Route 28 (West 4th Street) and runs south into Middlesex County. You can see a list of all Union County county roads here.

It seems likely that the Plainfield Police Division does not have jurisdiction over the road and that a STOP on Plainfield Avenue would have to be approved by Union County.

This question also came up in relation to the Rock and Myrtle STOP signs. Rock Avenue IS a county road in Somerset County (north of the Green Brook), is NOT a county road in Plainfield (from the Green Brook to West 4th Street), and is a DECOMMISSIONED county road in Middlesex County (from West 4th Street to West 7th Street).

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Plainfield Zoning Board takes up daycare expansion at former Armory Tuesday

HOPES Head Start is constructing new quarters on
the former Armory site.

Plans call for the complete renovation of the old Armory
building, including accessibility requirements.

Satellite image from Google shows parking areas
on the site at East 7th Street and Leland Avenue.

Plainfield's Zoning Board of Adjustment is set to take up once again the proposed expansion of the HOPES Head Start program at the former Armory building at East 7th Street and Leland Avenue at its meeting Wednesday, August 1.

The matter was carried over from July when board members began to question parking and traffic concerns with the expansion.

HOPES is asking for the following expansions from its original proposal --

• Students: From 270 to 362
  
  
• Staff: From 76 to 95
  
  
• Classrooms: From 20 to 26

The plan calls for only 86 parking spaces and HOPES is not asking for an expansion of that number, telling the board that no more than 70 employees would be parking at any given time.

HOPES attorney Marsha Moore told the board at the July meeting that she would order the requested traffic study "the next morning."

The Plainfield Zoning Board of Adjustment meets at 7:00 PM Wednesday, August 1, in City Hall Library. The public is able to speak on any matter before action is taken.

City Hall is at Watchung Avenue and East 6th Street. Parking and entrance to the building are in the rear.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Free Concert In The Park at Milt Campbell Field Thursday

The annual free concert has become more popular
than ever since moving to Milt Campbell Field.

Our own Pat Fields will present the 2018 Music In The Park concert this Thursday (August 2) at Milt Campbell Field.

The event gets under way at 4:00 PM with a DJ.

The Plainfield Idol competition gets under way at 5:00 PM. The contest is open to Plainfield youngsters ages 8 to 18.

The concert starts at 6:00 PM and features the following lineup --

• Master of Ceremonies: CP Lacey ("The Executioner" - An Apollo Legend)
• Blue Magic ("Spell", "Sideshow", "Tear It Down")
• Soul Generation ("If I Had a Million Dollars")
• Winfree (Kevin Owens and Larry "Ice" Winfree of Ray, Goodman& Brown)
• Eban Brown (Former lead singer of "The Stylistics")
• King Barton ("Without You In My Life")
• Kimena Ibarra (Ecuadorian Sensation)
• Retta Young & Company ("Sending Out a SOS")

The free summer concert, which began a number of years ago at South Avenue's Plainwood Square Park has grown to a huge event since it was moved to Milt Campbell Field because of construction on South Avenue.

Be sure to bring your own chair.

And please be courteous when parking and see not to block the driveways of neighbors in the area.

Milt Campbell Field is a city-owned recreational complex on East 3rd Street near Terrill Road.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Chinese water torture of 4-way STOP signs continues

The next one up is in the First Ward.

The Plainfield Police Division has announced yet another new 4-way STOP sign intersection, this one at Leland Avenue and George Street, set to take effect Friday, August3.

Maybe the public would be less annoyed if the complete list of planned 4-way stops were published all at once, with the schedule of effective dates.

The Division could continue the release of news updates a few days before each one is to become effective, but at least the public would know there is an end in sight.

On another front, why doesn't Plainfield adopt a "Don't Block The Box" ordinance like many other cities have?

There are numerous intersections where piggy drivers line up behind cars and leave themselves blocking the intersection when the light changes. West Front and Central, West 5th and Park, and East Front and Watchung come immediately to mind.

A fine of $250 for blocking an intersection would help improve traffic flow immensely.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Services for Gordon Fuller

Gordon Fuller, longtime Planning Board
member, has passed away.

Gordon Fuller, longtime Plainfield resident and active in community affairs passed away Tuesday, July 24, at University Hospital in Newark.

Gordon was a familiar figure to many for his thirty-plus years of service on the Planning Board.

Many will also know his wife Barbara for her many years of service in Union County's Office of Arts and Culture, as well as her longtime involvement with the Historical Society of Plainfield and the Drake House.

Visitation will be Sunday, July 29, from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM at Memorial Funeral Home in Fanwood.

A funeral mass will be celebrated Monday, July 30, at 10:00 AM at the Church of St.Bartholomew The Apostle, 2032 Westfield Avenue, Scotch Plains.

Interment will follow at Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains.

Barbara and the family invite friends to a lunch following at the Fuller home.

You may read the obituary and sign the guestbook on the funeral home's website here.

In lieu of flowers, the family is suggesting contributions be made to the duCret School of Art, 1030 Central Avenue, Plainfield, NJ 07060. Gordon served on the school's Board of Trustees.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Perfectly painless parallel parking

My grandmother Effie Mae with her surviving children,
Christmas 1946. Front row (l to r) Blanche, Grandmother Damon,
Marjorie and Irene. Rear (l to r) Lloyd (my dad), Deward,
Howard and Norris.

I can't tell you how many times I have seen people struggling with parallel parking downtown, especially on the block of East Front between Park and Watchung avenues.

Oftentimes they end up backing in at an awkward angle and obstructing the flow of traffic in one or even both directions while making their attempt.

Sad, because it's really not that difficult to do it perfectly.

Let me share with you how my Aunt Irene taught me to parallel park perfectly in one easy lesson.

Aunt Irene (I never dreamed of calling her anything else) was an older sister of my father and lived in a tiny brick house about a half mile from us that had been a stagecoach stop in the 19th century to change horses on the route between Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

Irene's husband, Uncle Ben, was a very quiet man who worked at the local sawmill.

Aunt Irene was sociable and independent-minded (she had come of age in the 1920s and learned to drive on her father's Model A).

She earned her own money by wallpapering various rooms for people, transporting all her papers and tools (except for a stepladder, which the client was expected to provide) in her sedan.

She had been a Ford girl all her life and rather disdained my father's Dodge sedan.

But she was quite frank about her Ford's shortcomings. She had a manual choke (winters in the Buffalo area are quite frigid) installed on her 1955 Fairlane so it would start in zero degree weather and jokingly referred to "Ford" as an acronym for Fix. Or. Repair. Daily.

The year was 1956 and I was preparing for my NY drivers license test.

In those days there were no driving schools or driver ed classes; you learned with a family member or perhaps an older sibling or cousin who already had a license.

Aunt Irene had agreed that I could take the test with her Fairlane.

My father, whom you might have expected to pitch in, had left the family a few years before and was essentially unavailable.

So Aunt Irene and I practiced on country roads until I was quite comfortable.

However, she knew that one of the tasks I would have to complete successfully was parallel parking.

So one day shortly before the fateful day, we drove into the village of Fredonia which actually had some parallel parking marked off with painted lines.

"Ok," she said, "watch this."

"The trick is to pull up as close as possible and perfectly parallel to the car you are going to park behind."

"Line your car up even with the front of that car."

I looked out my window. We were close indeed. It seemed the door handles of the two cars were only a couple of inches apart.

"Then put it in reverse. You can look over your shoulder for the test, but I usually don't bother (she was a bit ballsy too)."

"Back up slowly until your front wheels are even with the other car's rear wheels and then give the steering wheel a hard crank to the right as you continue to ease backward."

"You will begin to slide into the parking space."

"As you clear the other car's rear bumper cut the wheel hard to the left and watch through the rear view mirror not to bump the car behind you."

"You will ease in behind the car in front of you and should be perfectly parallel to the curb."

"That's all there is to it, and you should be just six inches from the curb, which is what the test requires."

"Ok, now you try it."

We switched seats and I drove around the block returning to the same space.

Then she talked me through each maneuver.

Though I was very nervous I did get in the space, but Aunt Irene was not satisfied.

"We'll do it a couple more times until you're really comfortable."

On the third try, I felt like a pro and aced it to her satisfaction.

A few days later, we drove into town once more -- this time to take the REAL test, which I passed with flying colors, thanks to Aunt Irene.

The only additional thing I would suggest for today's driver is to put your blinkers on when starting the maneuver as a matter of courtesy so that other folks can have some idea of what you're up to.

Maybe some day I'll tell you about Aunt Irene's made-from-scratch lemon meringue pies, which were to die for.

---

 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Dan gets a digital warning

Detail from electronic ticket I got today.
Are you aware the chemicals used to treat the paper
(and supermarket receipts) are suspected carcinogens?

I was going to the Stop & Shop in Watchung Square Mall Wednesday afternoon to replenish the house supply of Polar adult beverages.

As usual, I drove down Mountain Avenue in North Plainfield parallel to Route 22 and then turned left at North Drive to get on the highway at the red light so as to avoid the merge hassle at the Watchung Avenue intersection.

Suddenly, I was aware of red and blue lights flashing in my rear view mirror. I pulled over, thinking the officer wanted to pass, but he did not pass me. He stopped directly behind me.

What on earth?!

I was sure I hadn't done anything. I certainly wasn't speeding and the light at North Drive was green the whole while I turned.

So what was it?

Fortunately, I had my registration, insurance card and license out by the time the officer got to my open passenger window.

"Papers please," he said.

I handed them over.

"If everything is clean, I'll be right back," says he.

And he meant it.

Within ten seconds he was back with my papers and a ticket printed out on the computer in his prowl car.

"Wow, that was fast," I said.

"All I had to do was put in your plate number."

"Your brake light is out," he said. "I'm giving you a warning; you better get it fixed right away or you'll get a summons if I see it again."

With that he handed me my papers and the ticket.

Then he did a most unusual thing, he stuck out his hand and shook mine.

And then he walked away.

An image of the ticket is above (click on it to enlarge). It shows my name, address and drivers license number, the make, model and year of the vehicle and the insurance information, as well as the offense, and the officer's name and badge number. (But there is one error: my RAV4 is royal blue, not black as the ticket indicates.)

All of this information is now available to the authorities digitally from databases maintained by the state. It is really simple and probably cuts down on many errors made in writing tickets out by hand.

If any of the personal information had not checked out, it would have  become a serious matter. Thankfully all was OK.

Nevertheless it is a bit creepy.

P.S. Got the lamp fixed immediately at my garage at 2nd and Church. (They are excellent and I recommend Binder to anyone looking for good -- and honest -- mechanics.)

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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Yet another 4-way stop takes effect this Friday

Yet another 4-way stop coming Friday.

Yet another 4-way stop takes effect this Friday, this one at Plainfield Avenue and Randolph Road.

While the 4-way stop at West 9th and Arlington seemed quite appropriate given that there was a fatal accident at that corner, many of the others in recent months just seem annoying and seem to lack the same justification.

One other thing that I have noticed is the seeming disparity in how these are being apportioned: Most of the new 4-way stop appear to be in the 3rd  and 4th Wards,  with a few in the 2nd Ward.

So why has the 1st Ward escaped attention on this front. Surely there must be stretches of Front, Second or Third Streets that could benefit from 4-way stops.

Fair is fair, no?

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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David's dream house is nixed

Since ancient times, Cedars of Lebanon
have been treasured for luxury projects.

Another thing I love about worship in the Episcopal tradition is that we follow what is called the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL).

This is a three-year set of prescribed readings -- Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament epistles (or Revelation) and Gospels -- for each Sunday of the liturgical year (which begins with the season of Advent in November).

In this way, worshipers are exposed to hearing much of the Bible as the writers intended.

The three years are organized primarily around the Gospels: Matthew (Year A), Mark (Year B -- the current year), and Luke (Year C). The Gospel of John gets its due at certain seasons during every year (Advent, Lent, Passiontide, Easter) and in Year B when Mark -- the shortest Gospel -- runs out of steam.

This is radically different from the tradition (Methodist) in which I grew up and which had no such thing. Instead, readings were left to the discretion of the preacher.

This often resulted in preachers who got stuck in one-note-Johnny mode and just preached on the same theme no matter what lesson they chose. On the other hand, there were those who dragged the congregation into the weeds with them in 33-part sermons on an exhaustive (and exhausting) topic.

Episcopalians (and Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians and many Methodists) are now spared all that.

And for all this the universal church can be thankful for the Second Vatican Council, which led to the revision of the Roman lectionary on which the RCL is based. You can read more about the RCL here, and also check out the RCL website here, which gives access to the complete series of readings plus other useful tools.

Another gift of the Second Vatican Council is the restoration of the ancient office of lector to lay readers. Lectors read the Old Testament and New Testament lessons and also lead the Prayers of the Faithful.

Early Christians carried forward the Jewish tradition of reading from the scriptures and then the letters of Paul and others during services and lectors developed very early on (there is a reference from 155 CE) and were a sign of honor in the congregation.

After the fall of Rome, as literacy declined, the office of lector became restricted to those who could passably read from the Latin scriptures (St. Jerome's Vulgate translation was used right up to modern times). Eventually the office eroded away altogether except in certain rare occasions.

The Protestant Reformation evidently was ignorant of the ancient tradition and carried forward the late medieval practice of having the presiding minister read all the lessons.

(One respite from all this in my Evangelical United Brethren youth was the responsive readings included in the back of the denominational hymnal -- actually a very faint recollection of the responsive readings of the Psalms by monks and nuns reciting their daily offices -- and continued today in the Episcopal and Roman churches.)

I am honored to be one such lector at Grace Church and tomorrow I have a reading from the Old Testament book of II Samuel (7:1-14).

In this reading, King David -- who is now installed in a magnificent palace of cedar (remember the Cedars of Lebanon?) -- decides that God's tent dwelling is a bit on the shabby side and he is going to replace it.

While many public officials become obsessed with their perks and prerogatives -- and David certainly was among them -- he did take time to reflect on the Lord of Hosts who had made all his successes possible.

However, God trashed David's dream.

If you want to know how and why, you can join us at Grace Church at 10:30 AM and hear the answer. Or you can check it online at the RCL website here.

Grace Episcopal Church is at East 7th Street and Cleveland Avenue. Worship on Sundays is at 10:30 AM. Parking available in the street or in the public parking lot across from the front of the church. You will also enjoy the weekly playing of our 46-bell carillon, one of only four in the state of New Jersey.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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