AJ and Big Al hit the bull's-eye

Plainfield Municipal Clerk 'AJ' Jalloh and CFO Al Steinberg (known to all as 'Big Al') both hit the bull's-eye with Monday's City Council agenda.

AJ is to be congratulated for sending out not only the agenda for the meeting, but for the first time ever the actual backup documents for the public. You can see the complete agenda and backup documents (resolutions, ordinances and correspondence) here. If you want to follow the Council meetings, be sure to get on AJ's 'Clerk's Blast' email list.

This is a landmark for transparency in Plainfield government and AJ and the Mapp administration are to be congratulated! Sadly, this progress will come with some cost -- interested parties will no longer have to schlep over to the Plainfield Public Library on a Saturday morning to look through the backup materials. But we'll soldier on, somehow.

'Big Al' Steinberg is following through on the report he and auditor Bob Swisher of Supplee Clooney made to the Council concerning fiscal housecleaning following the audit of calendar year 2013.

Steinberg has a total of nine resolutions on the agenda, cleaning up a number of issues that have been noted in annual audits for years. For the first time, it seems that there is combined gumption enough between the CFO, the administration and the Council to actually address the issues.

I suspect, however, that the new procedure for handling cash payments will not be popular with the public, who now will have to include a trip to the Tax Collector's office, who will be the only folks to actually take cash. While this will no doubt stop the 'seepage' of loose cash mysteriously disappearing from various locales, it will be a definite inconvenience for the paying public, who will have to return a receipt to the original office showing they paid for the fee or service.

The agenda is quite long, and considering this is a combined agenda-fixing and business session for the Council, you might want to consider bringing a sleeping bag.

City Council meets Monday evening at 7:30 PM in the Council Chambers/Courthouse at Watchung Avenue and East 4th Street.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Benefit concert Saturday for Crescent Soup Kitchen

The Tim Keyes Concort in a benefit concert Saturday.

Members and volunteers from Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church serve over 200 homeless and hungry families and individuals a hot lunch every Tuesady -- in addition to handing out bag lunches daily.

A benefit concert Saturday evening by the Tim Keyes Consort will help to fund this much-needed and worthwhile ministry.

The group will present Keye's 'New England Tapestry', composed for chorus and small orchestra at 8 PM. A free will offering will be taken. The performance is open to the community and no tickets or reservations are needed. This musical offering is just another example of why Plainfield was recently recognized as one of America's 'caring communities'.

Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church, Watchung Avenue at East 7th Street. Parking in the church lot on First Place, on the street, or in Swain Galleries lot.

A reception in the Guild Hall follows the performance.


You can preview a section of the presentation in the YouTube video below.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Jerry Green on the way out as Union County Dem chair?

Has Jerry Green set up his own demise as County chair?

Are Jerry Green's days as chair of the Union County Democratic committee numbered?

That seems a likely outcome after Jerry Green's humiliating defeats in the Linden mayoral race and Plainfield's Ward 2/3 and Board of Ed races on Tuesday.

If there ever was hope on the part of Union County's backroom power elite that Jerry would manage to bring a sense of stability and less open revolt -- if not true peace -- among restive progressive Democrats, those prospects are now seen to be definitively smashed.

And pretty much by Jerry's own hand.

The first thing he did after Adrian Mapp was sworn in as Plainfield mayor was to go on the attack -- not only against Mapp, which could be expected, but against his former political boss Charlotte De Filippo. In Union County politics, one simply does not bite the hand that fed you. The attack on Charlotte gave the bigwigs pause.

The second knock on Jerry is that he isn't half the politician Charlotte was. Charlotte was tough as nails, and all about getting Charlotte's way. But she was far more nuanced than Jerry and had more than one tool in her toolbox -- she could wheedle and flatter as well as slash and stomp.

Jerry, on the other hand, has shown that he only understands one tool -- the hammer. And, as they say, to someone who only has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Pound, pound, pound.

Jerry completely misses the point of Machiavelli's advice to the prince: Your subjects must both love and fear you. Not one or the other, but both.

Then there is the matter of Jerry's insecurity.

Like Richard Nixon, there is no there there. Jerry Green has no interest in life other than political domination. He has no friends, no hobbies, no intellectual pursuits, no charitable activities, no uplifting concerns such as youth or education or jobs training -- or even affordable housing, for which he has legislative oversight.

Sen. Lesniak is suave, charming and interested in a wide range of activities beside politics. Nick Scutari and Joe Cryan are fun to hang out with and can be bon vivants. Even Linda Stender used to have great beer parties at Fanwood's fabled Sun Tavern.

And Jerry? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Now that Sen. Lesniak and Mayor Chris Bollwege have brought the Elizabeth Board of Ed to heel with their victory on Tuesday, and now that Joe Cryan will have plenty of free time on his hands as Sheriff of Union County, how secure can Jerry's hold on the Union County chairmanship be?

The powers-that-be in Union County are no doubt drawing the conclusion that while things could be better, they probably couldn't be worse.

Union County Dems will elect new committee members countywide at next June's primary election, following which a chair for the next two years will be chosen.

Time for Jerry Green to watch his own back.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Jerry Green gives himself 4 black eyes on Election Day

Jerry Green gives himself four black eyes.

 

Plainfield and Union County Democratic chair Assemblyman Jerry Green managed to give himself not one but four black eyes on Election Day 2014.

Rebecca Williams won re-election to the Wards 2/3 at-large seat despite several maneuvers by Green to undermine her -- a sneaky robocall the night before the election (which I wrote about here) and covert backing of a Republican candidate for the seat, Plainfield attorney Bill Michelson. (The buzz is Jerry promised Michelson a judgeship for running -- we'll see.) Not only did Williams swamp Michelson -- 3743 to 562 in unofficial numbers -- she bested Green's handpicked Ward 3 candidate Gloria Taylor in that wards polling. Black eye number one.

Jerry Green's 4-5-6 Board of Ed team performed miserably against the Children First Team of David Rutherford, Carletta Jeffers and Terrence Bellamy, with the Rutherford team beating out Green's crew by about a 3-2 margin. Only in Wards 4 and 1 was the Green team able to edge out Children First, and in Ward 1 it was by just a handful of votes. But Children First took Wards 2 and 3 with solid leads to bring home the bacon. Black eye number two.

In Linden, Jerry Green had made a sleazy attempt to undercut mayoral candidate (and sitting councilor) Derek Armstead by obscuring his name on Democratic campaign literature. Armstead's crime? The sitting Democrat had bested the Green machine's pick in the Primary. Despite becoming the official Democratic candidate in the general election (just like Rebecca Williams in Plainfield), Armstead was faced with Green's back-door techniques -- which failed. Black eye number three.

Lastly, Green had backed Linda Greenstein against Bonnie Watson Coleman for the Congressional seat of retiring Rush Holt. Green was embarrassed into backing Watson Coleman -- who has ties to Plainfield -- when Mayor Adrian Mapp beat him to the punch with his endorsement of Watson Coleman this past spring. Green has smouldered about the defeat ever since, and folks suspect he has set up Councilors Gloria Taylor, Bill Reid and Vera Greaves to oppose Mapp at every turn. Watson Coleman walked to victory on Tuesday. Black eye number four.

The question on everyone's mind is whether Jerry Green is just off his game or whether he is becoming a bit senile. Soon to be 76, he is the 'old man' of the Legislature. Is it showing?

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Jerry Green's last-minute sneak attack on Councilor Williams

A recent mailer from Jerry Green supporting Democratic
candidates says 'We've got their backs'. Hah!

Our old friend and Plainfield Democratic committee chair Assemblyman Jerry Green mounted a sneak attack on Councilor Rebecca Williams with a robocall on Monday by Green's Board of Ed team advising residents not to vote for Williams in today's General Election.

Williams, who won the Democratic primary by beating back Jerry Green's handpicked candidate in June, is in location 8-A in the Democratic column A for the at-large seat in Wards 2 and 3.

The attack comes just days after Jerry Green told Courier News reporter Sergio Bichao: 'As chairman of the party it's my job to support all Democrats in the party'. You can read more in Sergio's roundup election story here (scan down to the Union County section).

So, since when does 'all' mean 'some'? Or 'only the ones I like'?

As I see it, there are just two ways to understand Jerry's action.

Either he is a conniving, lying snake in the grass or he is entering his dotage.

I hesitate to suggest the third most powerful person in the Legislature could be a conniving liar.

So, it must be the other option.

In any event, you can show your support for truth, justice and the American way by voting today for Rebecca Williams on row 8-A.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Handy takealong guide for tomorrow's voting

Plainfield Councilor Rebecca Williams has put together a handy takealong guide for voting on Tuesday for Wards 2 and 3 voters. Just click on the image above, print it out and fold for your pocket or purse to help you in the booth. Ward 1 and 4 voters will not find Rebecca on their ballots.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Improvements planned for Seventh Street intersections

'Vehicle image detection'?

Plainfield's West 7th Street corridor is slated for $785,000 in improvements at three intersections through a grant announced by the Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders at its meeting this past Thursday.

The grant, from the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, is for improvements at the intersections of West 7th with Central, Plainfield and Grant Avenues.

Included will be new 12" LED traffic signals, poles and mast arms; controllers and cabinets with battery back-up power, as well as mounted street name signs, vehicle image detection, LED pedestrian countdown signals and push button crossing controls. The end result will appear much like the upgraded intersection of Park Avenue and Seventh Street, done in recent years.

The Central Avenue intersection may also expect to get ADA-compliant handicapped corner cuts with rubberized detectable warning mats and storm water grate upgrades. The mats are already in place at Plainfield and Grant Avenues.

Vehicle image detection? Sounds like a fancy way of saying red light cams, to me.

Get ready!

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Tasty Cheese comes to the Strand

New eatery on East Front Street.

 

Plainfield's newest eatery is coming. Caught this sign-maker's truck Friday mounting an illuminated sign on the front of the former Strand Theater on East Front Street, now to become home to an eatery to be known as Tasty Cheese.

So at least the commercial kitchen installed there a couple of years ago but never (to my knowledge) used will get  workout. But what about the old arcade and pinball machines?

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Prof. Cornel West appears on behalf of Children First team tonight

Tonight at Spain Inn.

 

Plainfield voters are reminded that Princeton University professor Cornel West will join the Children First Team of Board of Ed candidates in an event this evening from 7:00 - 9:00 PM at Spain Inn.

Children First Team Board of Ed candidates are David Rutherford, Carletta Jeffers, and Terrence Bellamy.

Tickets at the door tonight are $65/person and $125/person for the VIP reception, which begins at 6:30 PM.

For more information, call Wilma Campbell at (908) 727-0264.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Trunk or Treat Halloween event for kids on Friday

Kids' Halloween event is Friday evening.

Plainfield youngsters ages 12 and under are invited to take part in the city's first-ever 'Trunk or Treat' event Friday from 6:00 to 8:00 PM in the City Hall Parking Lot.

Communities across the country are finding this a safe and fun way for youngsters to enjoy the Halloween festivities with other kids of their age in a safe environment and without the dangers of crossing dark streets at night.

Here's the deal: Load up your trunk with the candies, fruits and other goodies you would distribute to kids trick-and-treating and bring the kids and the car over to the City Hall parking lot.

There, the cars will be arranged so kids can go from one to another with their treat bags.

All are invited to come in costume (no scary costumes or weapons) and to decorate their vehicles for the event, too.

The Recreation Division is sponsoring the event, along with the business community and other local organizations.

There will be awards for Best Dressed Car, Best Family Costume and Best Costume Overall.

Judging will take place at 7:00 PM. The event is free and open to Plainfield residents. For more information, contact the Division of Recreation at (908) 753-3097.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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LWV candidate forum tonight at Emerson School

Plainfield's chapter of the League of Women Voters will host its candidate forum this evening at Emerson School, starting at 6:30 PM.

Since the nonpartisan school board elections have been moved to the November general election date, the forum will feature two segments -- one part for the Board of Ed candidates, and a second for the contested local Council races.

All candidates for both Council and Board of Ed were invited to submit biographical profiles and answers to questions posed by the LWV in advance. For those who chose to respond (not all did), the material has been posted on the Plainfield League's website (see here).

Though they will not be debated, the public questions on the November ballot (including one for funding open space acquisition and management in Plainfield) are also on the website (see here).

Emerson School is at East Second Street and Emerson Avenue. Parking available in the school lot or on the street. Please be considerate of residents' driveways.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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One-seat Ride to NYC: Special meeting tonight in Cranford

A special public meeting to discuss the ONE-SEAT RIDE is set for Monday.

Plainfield commuters who use the NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line to travel back and forth to New York City each day will be interested in Monday's special evening meeting of the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition.

The meeting has been called specifically to deal with the surprise news from NJT that it will not be rolling out the extension of the one-seat ride as previously outlined.

The use of combination diesel-electric engines on the line has been a goal of the Coalition for years in its bid to ease the daily commute and shorten the ride.

A trial of the one-seat ride on off-peak hours that began last spring has been hailed enthusiastically by commuters from towns along the Raritan Valley Line -- including Plainfield's two stations, downtown and Netherwood.

The meeting is set for 6:00- 8:00 PM October 27 in the Cranford Community Center, 220 Walnut Avenue, Cranford (see map here). For more information, check out the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition website (here) or its Facebook page (here).

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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El Centro celebrates 30 years of service

El Centro celebrates 30 years of service.

 

Friends and supporters of El Centro Hispanoamericano, known to all as El Centro, gathered at Spain Inn on Friday evening to celebrate the nonprofit's thirty years of service to residents in the Central Jersey area.

Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp and his wife Amelia were among the guests and the mayor delivered a proclamation honoring the organization's achievements in helping immigrants.

El Centro was begun as an outreach to those fleeing civil war, violence and human rights abuses in Central America during the 1980s.

El Centro continues to provide services and assistance to immigrants and their families. In the most recent year, nearly 1,800 turned to the agency for assistance in legal and immigration matters -- including 30 cases seeking asylum.

I am printing below remarks by Ivan Flores, longtime Plainfield and El Centro activist, as delivered in English and Spanish at the celebration --

During the late 70”s and early 80”s the headlines in America were not much about the Middle East but about how the Soviet Union was trying to extend their hold in the Americas by supporting the guerrilla movement in Central America, right where many called America’s backyard. With that argument the US supported barbaric right wing governments that were killing their own citizens. Mostly in Guatemala and El Salvador.

Al final de los anos 70 y al principio de los 80, las principales noticias no eran mucho acerca del medio oriente. Los noticieros reportaban como la Union Sovietica trataba de extender sus garras en el continente Americano al ayudar a los movimientos guerrilleros en Centroamerica, el lugar que muchos llaman el patio trasero de Estados Unidos.

 Civilians caught in the middle of the fighting, people accused of sympathizing with the guerrilla movement, and peasants made the bulk of the thousands of death during the 1980”s. Among the worst cases was when they killed Bishop Oscar Romero while saying mass, the death of four American nuns in their way back from Nicaragua, and the killing of the six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter inside the Central American University where they lived and work.

Civiles atrapados en el fuego cruzado, personas acusadas de simpatizar con la guerrilla, y campesinos fueron la mayoria de las muertes que costo miles de vidas en los anos 80. Entre los peores casos se encuentra el asesinato de Monsenor Oscar Romero mientras daba misa, la muerte de cuatro monjas estadounidenses cuando regresaban de Nicaragua, y la muerte de los seis curas Jesuitas, su sirvienta y la hija de ella en la Universidad Centroamericana donde vivian y trabajaban.

All this violence made parents being terrified about their kids being killed or disappeared, and all of the sudden you noticed all these mostly young people fleeing El Salvador and Guatemala by the thousands escaping a war in their own home, a war where the victims were seen simply as collateral damage of the conflict. That made thousands to flee to many countries, but mainly to the United States a stable country well known for its freedom, and also a country where many of us had relatives already living there.

Toda esta violencia sembro terror en los padres de familia quienes temian que sus hijos o hijas fueran ser asesinados o desaparecidos. De repente uno se da cuenta que miles de personas, la mayoría jóvenes están huyendo esa guerra que se esta dando en sus propias comunidades. Una guerra donde las victimas eran vistas simplemente como daño colateral normal del conflicto.
Most of us arrived to the United States by crossing the southern border, those who could, would come to the States by plane on a visa permit. We just needed to get out. Once we got here, we found ourselves in a foreign place where we did not understand the language, a place with a very different climate, and it was also the country that was helping the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala kill their own citizens.

La mayoria de nosotros llegamos a los Estados Unidos cruzando la frontera Sur, aquellos que podian, lo hacian por avion con visa. De cualquier manera, teníamos que salir del país. Una vez llegamos aquí, nos encontramos en una tierra extraña donde no entendíamos el idioma, un lugar con clima diferente, y también era el país que estaba ayudando a los gobiernos de El Salvador y Guatemala a matar sus propios ciudadanos.

 We felt somewhat isolated. We were in need of knowing what was going on in the countries we left and where we still had our families. We also felt the need to tell people in the US what really was happening in Central America to counter what the US government was feeding the US media. Some of us started going to New York City to a place called Casa El Salvador to get updates on the war, but after going to a forum on El Salvador , we met a Maryknoll priest who helped us get in touch with some residents of the Plainfield area who were receptive to what was going on in Central America.

Nos sentiamos un poco aislados. Necesitabamos saber que estaba pasando en nuestros países que habíamos dejado atrás y donde aun vivian nuestras familias. Tambien necesitábamos decirle a las personas aquí en los Estados Unidos lo que realmente estaba pasando en Centroamerica para contrarestar la propanda del gobierno Estaounidense. Algunos de nosotros empezamos a ir a un lugar llamado Casa El Salvador en la ciudad de Nueva York para enterarnos sobre la guerra, y después de ir a un fórum sobre El Salvador, un sacerdote Maryknoll nos ayudo a comunicarnos con algunos residentes del area de Plainfield quienes entendían la realidad de lo que estaba pasando  en Centroamerica.
 
  This same group of local residents was concerned about the war  impact here at home, in the Plainfield area, with more war refugees coming from Central America. Most of the members of the group were leaders of local churches who were already familiar with the real causes of the war in Central America, and decided to get together and form a more formal entity to educate the American people and take a stand against the US support for those military dictatorships. That is how the Plainfield Area Committee on El Salvador and Central America in born in the early 1983.

Este mismo grupo de personas del area local estaban preocupados del impacto de la guerra aquí mismo, en el area de Plainfield, ya que mas refugiados llegaban de Centroamerica. La mayoría de los miembros del grupo eran lideres de iglesias locales y ya estaban familiarizados con las causas reales del conflicto en Centroamerica, decidieron unirsey formar una entidad mas seria para asi poder educar al pueblo Estadounidense y poder también abogar en contra de la ayuda Estadounidense a las dictaduras militares de la zona. Asi nace el Comité del Area de Plainfield sobre El Salvador y Centroamerica a los principios de 1983.
 
At the beginning the committee focused on educating the American people about the US military aid to the region , how this military aid was impacting  human rights in Central America, and how that in turn was making many of us flee that hell and come to the US.. Educating was done by sponsoring movie forums, home video showings of material about the war, having speakers going to high schools and churches, picketing members of Congress offices, participating in marches against the US military aid to El Salvador and Central America, writing letters to elected officials etc.  As the war continued, more refugees kept coming in to this area. They  were in need of clothing, food, jobs, housing, medical care, etc  The committee decided that opening a Center for Refugees was the best way to meet the needs of the newcomers, and El Centro de Refugiados Centroamericanos opened its doors, in Plainfiield, on November of 1984 within the grounds of Grant Avenue Community Center.

Al principio el comite se enfoco en educar al pueblo  sobre la ayuda militar estadounidense en la región, como esta ayuda estaba impactando los derechos humanos en Centroamerica, y como esa situación estaba obligándo a muchos de nosotros escapar ese infierno y llegar a los Estados Unidos. La educación se daba patrocinando fórums con películas, demostrando videos sobre la guerra en las casas, enviando representantes a hablar sobre la guerra a escuelas e iglesias, organizando demostraciones frente a las oficinas de miembros del congreso, participando en manifestaciones en contra de la ayuda militar a El Salvador y Centroamerica, escribiendo cartas a los miembros del gobierno elegidos por voto, etc. Mientras la guerra continuaba, mas refugiados venían al area de Plainfield. Ellos necesitaban ropa, trabajo,housing, cuidado medico,etc. El comité  decide que el abrir un centro de refugiados es la mejor manera de lidear con los refugiados, y asi El Centro de Refugiados Centroameicanos abre sus puertas en Noviembre de 1984 dentro del edificio del Centro Comunitario de Grant Avenue

Most of the refugees settled in the city of Plainfield as it already had a small group of Spanish speaking residents, some of us had friends or relatives in the city, but Plainfield  also offered easy access to public transportation, it is close to cities with a large manufacturing industry, and its residents welcome us. After all these years, many of those refugees and their extended families still call Plainfield home. Plainfield is a city where it does not matter your where you are from, what the color of your skin is, or what your sexual orientation is, you will always feel welcomed.

La mayoria de los refugiados se quedaron en Plainfield ya que habia un grupo pequeno de residents que hablaba espanol, algunos de nosotros teniamos amigos o familiares en Plainfield, pero tambien nos quedamos aqui porque en la ciudad había transporte publico, Plainfield esta cerca de otras ciudades donde habían muchas fabricas, y los habitantes de Plainfield nos recibieron bien. Despues de todos estos anos, muchos de estos refugiados y sus familias aun viven en Plainfield. La ciudad de Plainfield es un lugar donde no importa de que país es uno, o el color de la piel uno o la orientación sexual de la persona, uno siempre se siente bienvenido.

Congratulations to El Centro and best wishes for the next thirty years!

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Volunteers will build new playground at Queen City Academy Saturday

The nonprofit KaBOOM! will lead volunteers in building a playground Saturday. You can help.

 

Parents, friends and community supporters of Plainfield's Queen City Academy charter school will rally Saturday in an all-day volunteer effort that will result in a brand-new playground for the school's 400 students.

The project gets under way at 8:30 AM at the school's location at West 7th Street and Grant Avenue and concludes at 2:30 PM with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The project is part of 'Basketball in the Boroughs and Beyond', a Knicks community outreach program sponsored by Chase Bank that works to deliver playgrounds with balanced and active recreation on a safe and accessible site to at-risk students.

Volunteers registered with the nonprofit KaBOOM! program will be supervised in constructing the playground which will be ready to go by the time of the ribbon-cutting. You can help by volunteering -- just go to the KaBOOM! website (here) to register.

Queen City Academy is Plainfield's oldest charter school, established in 1999 through the efforts of my late friend, Deputy Commissioner of DYFS and Plainfield resident, Paula DiVenuto and others. It is housed in the former Temple Sholom complex and serves students in Kindergarten through 8th Grade. For more information visit the QCA website (here) or call (908) 753-4700.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Special meeting on one-seat ride to NYC Monday

A special public meeting to discuss the ONE-SEAT RIDE is set for Monday.

Plainfield commuters who use the NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line to travel back and forth to New York City each day will be interested in Monday's special evening meeting of the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition.

The meeting has been called specifically to deal with the surprise news from NJT that it will not be rolling out the extension of the one-seat ride as previously outlined.

The use of combination diesel-electric engines on the line has been a goal of the Coalition for years in its bid to ease the daily commute and shorten the ride.

A trial of the one-seat ride on off-peak hours that began last spring has been hailed enthusiastically by commuters from towns along the Raritan Valley Line -- including Plainfield's two stations, downtown and Netherwood.

The meeting is set for 6:00- 8:00 PM October 27 in the Cranford Community Center, 220 Walnut Avenue, Cranford (see map here). For more information, check out the Raritan Valley Rail Coalition website (here) or its Facebook page (here).

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Plainfield Assemblyman Jerry Green absconds

Hand-lettered sign on door of old office advises Jerry has moved.

Has Plainfield Assemblyman and Democratic Party chairperson Jerry Green absconded?

A reader asked me at an event this past Saturday if the Assemblyman had moved his office from the Watchung Avenue location where he has been for dogs' years.

I was stumped, but a visit cleared things up. He has indeed absconded (to leave quickly and secretly).

So, is the move a secret? Here's the address on Jerry's blog.

According to a handwritten sign posted on his former office's front door, Jerry has indeed absconded -- to the County Office Building at West Front and Park Avenue.

Jerry has a ground floor suite (number 102) in the signature building -- which has been unable to keep its ground floor spaces filled since it opened nearly a decade ago. (I am told prospective tenants consider the rents very high -- but then, that's not a problem to agencies using taxpayer dollars to pay them.)

The only real questions for me are whether Jerry is getting a space inside the parking deck -- which is supposed to be available for resident use, but for which access is still denied -- and where visitors are supposed to park.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Plainfield Recreation's fall/winter activities announced

Fall/Winter 2014 Recreation Activities for
Young People, Adults and Families are planned.

 

The Plainfield Division of Parks & Recreation's Fall/Winter 2014 schedule of activities has been released. The lineup includes more adult and family-related activities than ever.

You can view and/or print out the complete schedule here.

Through an arrangement with the Plainfield Public Schools, several swim programs are being offered at the PHS pool, including classes for ages 6 - 17, adult lap swims, water aerobics and parent/child swim classes.

Basketball is offered in a series of five age-graded groupings in various elementary and middle school gyms, as well as a wrestling program for ages 5 - 14.

Zumba classes will be offered from December through May at two locations: Cedarbrook and Evergreen Schools.

Free Yoga classes offered at the Plainfield Public Library are scheduled to run through the end of November.

Dance (ages 5 -14) and an Intergenerational Community Choir (grades 3 and up) round out the programs. Each of these will end with a public performance -- the choir will sing at the Community Tree Lighting on Friday, December 5.

Special events in the fall/winter season include a Halloween Trunk or Treat event at the City Hall Parking Lot on October 31, and a Kwanzaa Celebration on December 27.

You can see from the lineup that Roni Taylor, the Division's new director, is expanding offerings to include more adult and family activities and at locations throughout the community,

For more information with times, locations and fees, print out the complete schedule (here) or call the Recreation Division at (908) 753-3097.

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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Blast from the past: Victorian Accents

An envelope, addressed to a business we shut down in 1986, arrived yesterday.

You can't imagine my surprise yesterday when I found the envelope pictured above among the bills and circulars in the mailbox.

It's an order envelope addressed to Victorian Accents, which is the reason we moved to Plainfield from Brooklyn back in the early 1980s.

Victorian Accents was a mail-order business we had started and operated out of our small apartment in Brooklyn Heights. It sold books and technical materials for folks interested in restoring and/or renovating vintage homes -- Victorian, but also other homes that were built before World War II.

The timing had been just right. Clem Labine had turned his mimeographed restoration tips newssheet into the glossy and upscale Old House Journal.

San Francisco's 'Painted Ladies' -- outrageously colored Victorians in the Haigh-Ashbury and Castro neighborhoods -- were everywhere in posters, TV shows and movies, and in a book of photos by Mike Larsen and Elizabeth Posada.

Young Bruce Bradbury had persuaded his father to invest in his hand-screened wallpaper venture and Bradbury & Bradbury wallpapers was born in Benicia, California.

Using my experience in the bookselling business, we launched Victorian Accents as a mail order catalog. Our first ad was a tiny classified in the back of Smithsonian magazine, which turned out to be an excellent conduit to interested customers.

By the early 1980s we were faced with needing to find a space for the business as it had completely taken over our apartment.

A friend from Plainfield invited us to a house tour in the Van Wyck Brooks District and the rest is history.

A realtor lurking on the edges of the tour (no, it was not John DeMarco) latched on to us and showed us around. The Cones, who eventually became our next door neighbors, invited is to relax on their back porch with gin and tonics after looking at the wreck next door (which we eventually bought).

Plainfield seemed a perfect match -- a town with a lot of history, a lot of charm and friendly people.

We moved in and tackled restoring the house and growing the business at the same time.

By Christmas 1985, we were mailing half a million catalogs at a time, four times a year. The business was generating about $1 million in sales and had three employees (Evelyn, Tina and Patty) plus me.

There was no internet, no Amazon, no Borders bookstores. Barnes & Noble was still selling used textbooks and academic press remainders. We had a corner of sorts on this little niche market.

Then the bottom fell out.

Our 1985 Christmas season catalog had been printed and labelled at the bindery in Brooklyn and delivered to the USPS regional center in Deer Park, Long Island to be dropped into the mail stream.

But the orders never came. Weeks passed and no orders. Frantic calls were made and everyone in the chain showed they had done their part.

Finally, after Christmas, word came from the bindery that the USPS folks had found our catalog in a parked trailer in the back of the huge lot.

It was too late, we had lost the season and could not recover. We learned customers have no recourse against the postal system in a situation such as ours.

We shut the business down, laid off the employees and I went to work selling real estate. Gradually, Victorian Accents receded into the past.

But every once in a while, as yesterday, one of those order envelopes will arrive. It is now twenty-eight years since we closed the business and a customer had kept a catalog all that time!

The nice lady from Ansted, West Virginia is asking for an updated catalog.

I shall write her a note thanking her for her interest but suggesting that her best bet is to check Amazon.com or Google whatever she is looking for.

How the times have changed!

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  -- Dan Damon [follow]

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