Make money from your scrap gold -- for yourself and the Symphony

In times like these, many Plainfielders are thinking about ways to come up with a few (or maybe more than a few) extra bucks.

Now comes an opportunity to get some cash -- and help the cause of the Plainfield Symphony at the same time.

Bring in your scrap gold to Suburban Jewelers today, tomorrow and Saturday and they will buy it from you and make a donation out of the proceeds to the Plainfield Symphony. (You MUST mention the Symphony when bringing the items in.)

'Scrap gold', you ask? As did I.

Not being a jewelry buff, I was intrigued that folks would have 'scrap' gold, but when I asked
Suburban Jewelers' helpful owner Lisa Cohen, she promptly explained how gold items can become 'scrap'.

"Lots of earrings and cufflinks end up losing their mates," Lisa said, "and go to live in the back of a drawer or a jewelry box. Then there are chains and bracelets that may get broken or lose some links. And we shouldn't forget that some items go out-of-style or are gifts or hand-me-downs that the owner knows they will never use or wear."

Suburban Jewelers has bought such items from customers ever since it began business, and Lisa thought it would be a great opportunity to also benefit the Plainfield Symphony, of which she is a long-time champion.

How does it work?

Scoop up your loose items and bring them down to the store -- which will be open tonight and tomorrow until 7 PM just for this event.

Lisa will assess the purity of the gold in the items (see the slide show below), weigh them up, and calculate the value to you based on what gold is selling for on the open market that day.

One customer was surprised to find that the items she brought in netted her $450 in cash on the spot.

Not bad, huh?


The slide show above details the steps from bringing your items in to the store to determining the value to you -- and a contribution to the Plainfield Symphony.

Lisa's offer stands for the balance of the month of October, but YOU MUST MENTION THE PLAINFIELD SYMPHONY for the Symphony to benefit.

---

Suburban Jewelers
126 East Front Street

Phone: (908) 756-1774

Open this today and tomorrow, 10 AM - 7 PM
Saturday, 10 AM - 5 PM

http://www.suburbanjewelers.com/

Metered parking available on Front Street and in the City lot
behind the store, accessible off East Second Street.

---

-- Dan Damon

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Once more with the Robinson-Briggs bodyguards. Oy.

Two cops active in the Robinson-Briggs mayoral campaign
later became her bodyguards.

Trying to put a wrap on the story of Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs and her bodyguards -- getting and losing same -- is a little like scooping up quicksilver.

Even after the Courier editorialized the other day on the matter (see here), there are STILL UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, though some have been answered.

ANSWERED QUESTIONS

• The original decision to supply bodyguards, as Police Director Hellwig says in the Ledger (see here), was UNSUBSTANTIATED, as I reported on July 12, 2006 (see more here) --

PT spoke with Police Chief Ed Santiago at length about the matter of the death threat gossip last evening. The Chief assured PT that the division has very good -- even excellent -- intelligence about threats against public officials and that he can categorically say there are no credible death threats against the Mayor to his knowledge.

• Hellwig also made it clear that NO INDEPENDENT, OUTSIDE AUTHORITY made a threat assessement on which to base personnel deployment.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

• When were the bodyguards assigned to the Mayor? Before or after the rumors were reported in Plainfield Today?
  
  
• How were the two officers picked for the security detail chosen? Did Mayor Robinson-Briggs pick them? Why were no female officers ever assigned to guard the Mayor?
  
  
• Lastly, the cost to the public. While it is true that the two officers don't represent a 'new' expense to the City, no such argument can be made about the OVERTIME paid to them in the course of their assignment to the Mayor. Overtime is a true cost to the taxpaying public, more so if the justification is flimsy in any way. Overtime is always a concern in the budgeting process, and attempts to control it are mounted -- or talked about being mounted -- continually. Wouldn't it be nice for the public to know just how much overtime the two officers accrued in the course of their two-year-plus assignment?

One last point -- on the reassignment of the officers who had been the Mayor's bodyguards.

Last week's media reports cite Mayor Robinson-Briggs and Police Director Hellwig as saying the officers in question are now 'on patrol'.

I hear that is NOT the case: one is said to be in the Administrative Bureau and the other in the Community Relations Bureau.

If they're not on the streets, shouldn't Mayor Robionson-Briggs come clean?

---

Media --

• 10/12/2008 - Editorial, CN: "There's a limit to mayoral safety plan"
• 10/08/2008 - Ledger: "Plainfield mayor loses two-cop security detail"

Plainfield Today --

• 10/08/2008: "Mayor loses bodyguards. Right move, wrong reason?"
• 07/07/2006: "Death threats on Mayor?"
• 07/12/2006: "Dan on griddle over 'death threats' post?"

-- Dan Damon

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Courier gets a (serious) makeover

Seemingly without warning, today's Courier reveals a serious -- make that a SERIOUS -- makeover of the dead-tree version.

You WILL want to run right out and get one.

First off, the first section has been completely reworked (a story explaining the changes is on the front page).

Local news stories dominate page A01, A03 and rest of the front section. Obituaries (they're local 'news') are also now in section 1. The Local section, which had been getting thinner and thinner, is gone.

State and national stories are pushed to the back of Section 1, facing the editorial page.

The rearrangement makes some sense and is probably based on market research. One really good touch is the reworking of the typography. It is now more consistent and more sensible, IMHO. (A pet peeve since the blend of the HNT and the Courier has been the choppy/sloppy typography.)

Lastly, what appears to be a new column-size format leaves considerable amounts of white space on the left- and right-margins. Are we going to see another reduction in the dimensions of the printed paper once they use up current rolls of newsprint stock? Stay tuned.

You owe it to yourself to run out and get a copy. Check it out and let them have your feedback, which I am sure they are anxious to get.

-- Dan Damon

Plainfield crime waves: Make dots. Connect.

Seems two forms of crime are jockeying to become 'Plainfield's latest crime wave'.

I reported about a month ago on my car being broken into for chump change (see here) and then a few days ago on a vacant house that had been looted of copper plumbing and other items (see here).

Then on Sunday, while mowing the lawn, my new next door neighbor, a recent transplant from Staten Island, stopped over to chat and told me that their minivan had been broken into last week and the GPS unit and some change taken. Same M.O.

While my neighbor's idea that the police should stake out the neighborhood may not be realistic, given manpower constraints, he is not unrealistic in expecting SOMETHING to be done.

Another neighbor a few houses down the street in the other direction is retiring and he and his wife had a going-away party for family and neighbors to which I was invited.

While chatting with the husband, who owns an electronic security business, I told him of my car breakin. Funny, he said, same M.O. as when his was broken into a year ago.

But with a difference. He has motion-activated silent alarms covering his yard and house and he not only was warned the breakin was happening, he ran outdoors and caught the perp while his wife called 911. (Do not do this at home, kiddies!)

What amazes me is that the police never got back to any of us that there have been similar incidents in the neighborhood and that they were checking to see if there was any connection. (Though I did get the actual police report on my break-in a timely fashion.)

Now, the Robinson-Briggs administration has made a great deal of its initiatives against crime (and Assemblyman Green recently touted how safe 'Mayor Briggs' has made Plainfield). The Police Division is supposed to be using Comstat-like techniques to record and quantify crimes by type, location, M.O., etc.

But I begin to wonder though what good it does to make dots if you don't seem to connect them.

---

• 9/16/2008: "Welcome to Plainfield's latest crime wave"
• 10/6/2008: "Plainfield's latest crime wave?"
  

-- Dan Damon

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Posting late: Household emergency

Posting late today because of a household emergency.

-- Dan

Is McCain whipping up a firestorm?

What's going on with John McCain's campaign is troubling.

Being booed at his own rallies for insisting that Obama is a decent person and not an Arab is not a good sign.

Frank Rich cites chapter and verse in his NYTimes column today (see here) for every wild outburst, including unprintable racial epithets.

In an OpEd piece in today's Ledger (not online as far as I can tell), Charles Taylor cites the 'appeal to psychotic rage in which the McCain-Palin campaign is indulging'.

Anyone who remembers Jim Crowism and lynching has reason to worry.

Anyone who remembers the Holocaust has reason to worry.

Are McCain's strategists sending a desperate message: 'Vote for us, the white candidates'?

I hope not, but I'm still worried.

-- Dan Damon

Plainfield had 5 vehicular fatalities in 2007 -- and you didn't know?

A 'good news' story in Saturday's Courier on the increase in cash receipts to the city owing to more traffic tickets being written has a little surprise tucked away near the end of the story --

Moreover, Hellwig said, the move contributed to lowered motor vehicle accident statistics he believes are directly related to the shift. The department has recorded just one vehicular fatality and 1,356 accidents to date in 2008, he said, while figures at the same date last year sat at five and 1,508, respectively. [Emphasis added.]

Do YOU recall five traffic fatalities last year? Nor do I.

Read the full story here.

Be careful, though. The big numbers being tossed around are for COURT REVENUES -- only part of the money collected goes to the City.

Unmentioned in all of this is that the City is probably just getting back up to the figures from the McWilliams administration, after suffering a disastrous collapse in receipts from the Municipal Court in the first two years of the Robinson-Briggs administration.

Is Mayor Robinson-Briggs patting herself on the back for what by rights she's just supposed to do?

---

• Courier: "Increased traffic citations rings up revenue for Plainfield"

-- Dan Damon

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Union County going green with 'smart pissoirs'

A waterless 'smart pissoir'.

Union County is seriously going green -- at least in its public restrooms.

The facilities near the tennis courts in Cedar Brook Park have been equipped with 'smart pissoirs' -- waterless urinals.

Urinals are an ancient device and have not really changed much in concept since Roman times, as witness the image below of the public urinals at Ostia, ancient Rome's seaport.

Ancient Roman urinals at Ostia.

Technical improvements until now had focused on controlling water use by measuring through valve mechanisms and, most recently, motion activated sensors.

That was until the serious water crunch in the Western states got folks thinking of even more serious water-conserving measures.

Completely waterless urinals save a tremendous amount of water. Read about how they work here.

How it works.

How much water is saved?

Here are some examples (think of the money saved in water bills):

• A restaurant saved 120,000 gallons of water in a year
  
• The Rose Bowl saved 130,000 gallons for its one-day event
• A school district reduced water usage by 20%

-- for more, see here and here.

In southern California, the Water District has a program they call 'Pee Green' under which the District pays for the equipment and installation for any business wanting to retrofit its urinals.

Union County should be commended for this move.

Now, what about the other half?

As an old Chinese saying goes, 'women hold up half the sky'.

---

-- Dan Damon

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Jerry's 'misappropriation' gives Dan an idea

Mel Brooks' riff on Hitchcock's 'Vertigo'.

I am probably not the first to note that Plainfield Assemblyman Jerry Green's writing style can be vertigo-inducing (actually Mel Brooks' riff in 'High Anxiety' on Alfred Hitchcock's classic 'Vertigo' comes to mind), and up until now have been content to let the other bloggers comment.

But Assemblyman Green's post of Wednesday (yes, the one where Mayor Robinson-Briggs has her name repeatedly truncated -- not corrected as of Friday AM) is giving Dan an idea.

After extolling the 'Briggs' administration and excoriating the late mayor Al McWilliams, Jerry writes --

... [t]hus, it is very odd that when this current administration goes out of its way to ENSURE that our money, tax-paying dollars, are NOT misappropriated, we have a group of people who try to sling mud upon her. It is very sad that they decide to avidly take part in this sort of behavior against the mayor, because Mayor Briggs in fact, represents ALL of us Plainfield!

This sort of behavior is exactly why I am in support of legislation on the state level to avoid and deter purposeless spending, spending that hurts and deprives our community of its resources. [Emphasis added -- DD.]

Who could argue with ensuring that 'our money, tax-paying dollars, are not misappropriated' or that we should 'avoid and deter purposeless spending'?

Which makes me think that I should rummage through my OPRA files and dig out the matter of Mayor Robinson-Briggs' first city administrator, Carlton McGee, and the spending of taxpayer monies without a contract or City Council knowledge or approval.

Concidentally, this past Monday's Bergen Record ran a story noting that U.S. Attorney Chris Christie is looking into Paramus mayor James Tedesco's transfer of monies without the Borough Council's approval or knowledge (See the original here, and an archived copy here).

Subpoenas have been issued.

It's supposed to be sunny and pleasant this weekend.

Enjoy yourself -- maybe even check out the great yard sale Bev, Nellie and Carol are having Saturday from 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM, 1077 Plainfield Avenue.

Meanwhile, I'll check out the McGee matter and report back after the weekend.

And thank you, Jerry, for the inspiration!

---

-- Dan Damon

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Plainfield Obama volunteers seek others for fun PA weekend

Not to make it sound like a 'personals' ad, but Plainfield Obama supporters Carol Anderson-Lewis and Carol Ann Brokaw (also AKA diehards) are going back to Pennsylvania for another go-round in helping canvass for the Obama campaign.

Obama supporters who understand that Pennsylvania is definitely now in play as the Obama campaign surges ahead in the national and state polls may well want to consider lending a hand.

The two Carols spent Wednesday at Obama's Bethlehem, PA, headquarters (a 45-minute drive from here), making phone calls to mostly senior citizens on behalf of the campaign.

Carol Ann reports it was 'a positive experience...with a well-organized and well-staffed office and a dedicated group of volunteers of all ages'.

Afterwards, they did a walking tour of Bethlehem's historic Main Street and found quite a few interesting shops, including some jewelry shops. (What!? No Bakelite bangles?)

The two are passing along the word that help is needed this weekend -- a few hours will be a great help. Just follow this link to get more details from the Obama Pennsylvania campaign.

NOTE: Bethlehem, the home of Lehigh University and Moravian College was originally settled by Moravians and hosts a world-famous annual Christmas celebration -- but you don't have to wait 'til then to check out its historic downtown -- see more info at --

| Visitor Pages | Christmas City | Links | Government |

---

-- Dan Damon

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Stender's unexpected [negative] economic impact

Visit Linda Stender's campgaign website HERE.

Linda Stender's campaign is having an unexpected economic impact on Fanwood, one that is not winning her any friends.

First, let me say that I have known Linda for years, since she was Mayor of Fanwood and I was an agent at Burgdorff Realtors, in the same office she is now using for her headquarters.

Not only have I known her, I have supported her in her electoral career -- and would vote for her today if Plainfield were still in her Congressional District.

But I am also a customer of the barber who shares the parking lot with Linda's campaign volunteers. And therein lies the rub, and the unexpected negative impact of her campaign on Fanwood's economy.

Arriving for my haircut appointment Tuesday afternoon, I was startled to find the barber's customer slots completely filled, by cars with out-of-state license plates.

I swooped around the block and got a space in the municipal lot that abuts Linda's HQ and my barber. Not much of a big deal.

However, while getting my haircut, I mentioned the matter to Ron, my barber, who volunteered that his business had fallen off since the Stender headquarters had opened and that many of his drop-in customers kept on driving when they saw there were no parking spaces in the customer slots, assuming he was full up.

He was, instead, waiting with scissors poised in mid-air so to speak, and an empty barber's chair.

When my haircut was finished, I took a walk over to the Stender headquarters, where I soon found a young man who was 'in charge'.

I told him of the plight of the barber (and no doubt other merchants that rely on this lot for customer parking: a bagel shop, a deli, and a pet groomer), and suggested it might be excellent community relations for the campaign to have volunteers leave at least SOME rooom for the folks who keep the Fanwood retail economy humming.

I was assured my concern would be addressed, though it did not escape my attention that the young man was eager for me to be on my way so he could get back to important work.

I'll be dropping by the Stender headquarters today to see if the situation is improved.

And I'll report back, one way or the other.

UPDATE: I drove by about 2:30 PM Wednesday, and in the customer spaces for the other businesses there were the following cars: 1 with D.C. plates, 1 with N.C. plates, one with N.Y. plates, and two with current Rutgers student decals, all with Obama bumper or window stickers.

UPDATE 2: Checking the parking lot out about 2 PM Thursday, I noted the customer slots were actually available for customers. Though one of the other retailers, who opens earlier than the barber shop, told me that the lot was parked full before he opened up. Count that as progress.

-- Dan Damon

Plainfield Mayor loses bodyguards: Right move, wrong reason?

Inexplicably, the Mayor's bodyguards
were drawn from her campaign supporters.

Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs has had her bodyguards reassigned to patrol duties in the wake of a recent wave of shootings that left one man dead and three wounded, according to a report by Alexi Friedman in today's Star-Ledger.

That the security detail would be better deployed on the streets cannot be argued.

However, questions about the way Robinson-Briggs got them in the first place remain unanswered, questions which today's story only underscores.

Previously, Plainfield Today has asked for evidence that the determination of a threat sufficient to require the expenditures of public monies on a bodyguard detail was done by AN APPROPRIATE, INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY such as the State Police or the Union County Prosecutor.

How a threat assessment is gauged.

I always suspected no such independent assessment was ever requested or performed, and Police Director Martin Hellwig confirms this suspicion in today's story (see here) --

The initial threat that spurred the security detail was never substantiated, according to Hellwig. It was relayed in the blog "Plainfield Today," kept by Dan Damon, who said he heard rumors going around about threats to the mayor's life. After a police investigation, the threat was determined to be unsubstantiated. [Note: The investigation was actually conducted by the police and Prosecutor's office, the latter interviewing me at length. -- Dan]

Later, an alleged threat against the mayor was made in a conversation that took place in the Plainfield Library, and was overheard by an employee. There was no official police investigation into that incident, however.

-- UNSUBSTANTIATED? NO INVESTIGATION? -- hardly a reassurance of the independent judgment that should be used when spending such large sums of the taxpayers' money.

Suspicions arose immediately that the detail was a make-work for officers who campaigned for Robinson-Briggs (see the image at top, from Robinson-Briggs' 2005 campaign literature).

The question of how the officers were selected -- and why no female officer was ever assigned to the detail -- were raised but never addressed by Robinson-Briggs or Hellwig, who was then serving as the Director of Public Safety.

Unmentioned in all of this is any discussion of the total number of sworn officers currently in the Police Division.

The Robinson-Briggs administration, which squeaked into office by a 300-vote margin in the face of a write-in campaign for former mayor Al McWilliams by claiming it would significantly increase the size of the Police Division, has in fact done no such thing.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for 2007, posted on the NJ State Police website (see here), show fewer sworn officers in 2007 than in the last year of the McWilliams administration.

And with two now assigned to the Union County Prosecutor's Homicide Squad, there are even fewer to patrol the streets.

One wonders what ever happened to the promise to expand the Police Division.

---

• Plainfield Today --
• "Is the Mayor's security detail necessary?"
• "Is the Mayor's bodyguard properly authorized?"
  
• "Why no female security for Mayor Robinson-Briggs?"
• Uniform Crime Reports: "NJ State Police: UCR, 1999 - 2007"
  
• Threat Assessement --
• Google Books: "Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment"
• U.S. Secret Service: "National Threat Assessment Center"
  

-- Dan Damon

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Foreclosure sky falling, Plainfield Assemblyman rides to rescue

One of Plainfield's many already-foreclosed properties.

My interest was piqued a week ago when Plainfield's Assemblyman Jerry Green posted a notice on his blog (see here) that he intended to conduct a hearing on New Jersey's mortgage and foreclosure crisis on Monday, October 6. Green chairs the Assembly's Housing and Local Government Committee.

As regular readers will know, I have been keeping an eye on the foreclosure issue for eons (since a Plainfield Realtor^® remarked in 2005 they were closing on a no-downpayment, no-doc, no-income verficition loan -- later to become famous as 'liar loans'), and am quite worried that the financial meltdown will further impair Plainfield's fragile housing market and drive up the number of impending foreclosures even further. (Enter 'foreclosure' in the search box for details.)

Now that the sky is TRULY FALLING, what are our Assemblyman and the Legislature doing?

Turns out, according to reports in today's papers (see links at end), the bill sponsored by Assemblyman Green and majority leader Bonnie Watson Coleman was the most contentious item yesterday, though it has been reported out of committee and will soon come to a vote on the floor.

The absolutely most amazing thing is that this bill (A2517) was proposed SEVEN MONTHS AGO, March 13th to be exact, and was only flushed out of committee by the whole financial world collapsing in a heap at the feet of our esteemed elected leaders.

Maybe we should put 'leaders' in quotation marks.

The protestations by the mortgage bankers ring empty to me -- the bill is not talking about FUTURE lending, it is talking about mortgages ALREADY MADE, and proposing to charge the banks a $2,000 fee for each it moves to foreclose on. If they're not going to make loans, it won't be because of this bill.

The bill does seem to suffer, however, from having cross-purposes that might cancel each other out.

On the one hand, legislators say they want the fees channeled into a revolving fund for housing nonprofits to counsel homeowners who are in trouble with their mortgages, make emergency loans, and hopefully help them avoid that final solution. Laudable.

On the other hand, if banks elect NOT to foreclose (and fork over the $2,000 fee), and the homeowners increasingly view themselves as 'under water' in a no-win situation, the legislation could have the unintended consequence of INCREASING the already mounting tide of vacant and abandoned housing as owners simply 'drop the keys in the mailbox' and leave.

And I'm not even going near the question which drives the majority of homeowners, those who never got in over their heads, crazy: 'Why should we bail out the unqualified, the foolish, the greedy and the speculators?'

Question for you: If the crisis the Legislators want to address is so important today, why wasn't it so important last March 13th?

At a rate of about a thousand foreclosures a week, that means 25,000 or more homeowners went under while waiting for our speedy Assemblyman and his legislative sidekicks.

---

• The Bill --
• A-2517: "The New Jersey Homeownership Preservation Act"
  
• Ledger: "In Trenton, 10 meetings, 1focus: Jersey's recovery during downturn"
  
• Gannett: "Lawmakers push business tax changes, mortgage rescue fund"
• AP: "NJ Assembly advances emergency foreclosure aid"
• Foreclosures: "NJ on course for 50,000 home foreclosures this year"
  

-- Dan Damon

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Plainfield's latest crime wave?

Metal thieves target copper pipes such as these.

While there are unconfirmed rumors of several home intrusions above and beyond the two that have received recent media attention, I wonder whether there is another and somewhat different crime wave poised to hit Plainfield.

I learned over the weekend that metal thieves had broken into a vacant property that is on the market and ripped out all the copper plumbing. In addition, solid brass door hardware throughout the house was taken, as well as a metal sink and an ornate ceiling fixture.

Metal thieves differ from junkies breaking in for money or a small item to fence for a few bucks.

They bring tools and work methodically, and they often have contacts to fence the goods -- either in the scrap metal business or among small contractors.

With the increasing number of vacant and boarded properties in Plainfield, many of them foreclosures, Plainfield could be poised for a tidal wave of such thefts.

Online resources map foreclosed properties.

Homeowners and realtors need to be alert.

If the city knew how many of the growing number of vacant and boarded homes were foreclosures, it might be able to take some defensive action.

But then, the Robinson-Briggs administration would have to have an inventory, right?

And how likely is that?

-- Dan Damon

Sign of the times: $5, please.

A vehicle gets spritzed on West 8th Street.

Aside from the occasional spritzing of vehicles by water escaping from the yellow hoses snaking through Plainfield's streets as part of the NJ American Water company's water mains project, the most annoying factor is the unpredictability of navigating downtown during the work.

Relief, I am told by one cop frequently working traffic closing for the project, is almost in sight. The work is expected to be completed by the end of November.

But don't expect to know just what streets will be closed just when and where -- it's a 'moveable feast'.

The improvement project has not been without its moments of humor, though.

A particularly powerful jet of water from a rupture on 4th Street near Park Avenue was so strong that motorists came to a stop and rolled up windows before plunging onward.

Which led a mischievous worker at the new Portuguese/Brazilian BBQ at that spot to stand under the restaurant's marquee with hand outstretched as drivers crawled by, thoroughly soaked, saying 'That'll be $5, please. And thank you!'

-- Dan Damon

New Dems Fall Get-together this morning

New Democrats at a 2003 meeting (click on image to enlarge).

The New Democrats for Plainfield political club meets this morning -- 10 AM to Noon -- at the du Cret School of Art, 1038 Central Avenue.

Besides electing new leadership, the group will review activities for the local and Obama campaigns and discuss the 2009 elections, which will feature races for Mayor, Ward 4 Council seat, the entire Democratic City Committee and Assembly seats.

All are welcome. Continental breakfast will be served. Park in the rear lot.

Pop quiz: How many can you identify in the 2003 photo above whose political careers began courtesy of New Democrats for Plainfield?

-- Dan Damon

Home intrusion throws spotlight on Plainfield's illegal apartments -- again.

A tenant in the 200-block of East 9th Street fought off three intruders Wednesday night, according to reports in today's Courier (see here) and Ledger (see here).

But the thing that literally leapt off the page was the following (from the Courier version) --

Police responded to a 911 call for a fight in a basement apartment on the 200 block of East Ninth Street shortly before 10:30 p.m. Wednesday evening. The incident began when three men entered an unlocked common side door and knocked on the victim's basement door...[emphasis added]

I have ranted about illegal apartments before, but mostly in the context of revelations brought out by fires that leave the affected tenants homeless.

But here we have a case of home invasion (the second in as many months).

Early in its term, the Robinson-Briggs administration bowed to pressure from real estate investors and multi-family owners and abandoned the city's anti-overcrowding 'Safe Homes' initiative.

As I noted in January 2007 --

Under Mayor McWilliams, Plainfield adopted [a] 'Safe Homes' initiative aimed at inspecting rental units throughout the city and attempting to root out overcrowding -- conditions which pose a threat to the health and safety of tenants, although VERY HEALTHY to the landlord's bottom line...

Inspection professionals refer to purposeful overcrowding as 'stacking', and if you read between the lines of the sales prices and neighborhoods in the Friday real estate section, you can begin to get an idea of what might be going on to make the presumptive mortgage payments. Stacking can generate MANY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS PER WEEK TO LANDLORDS where running unchecked.

Though, of course, we're not likely to ever know -- as the Administration abandoned the Safe Homes initiative early in 2006, under pressure from real estate investors and the owners of multi-family properties subject to the scrutiny contemplated by the ordinance.

The net effect, in my opinion, has been an increase -- how dramatic cannot be measured -- in illegal basement apartments and illegal boarding house arrangements.

Part of why we will not know is that the Robinson-Briggs administration is simply not interested in combating overcrowding.

Coincidentally, today's Courier also carries a story of Woodbridge fining the owner of a tiny Oak Tree Road Cape Cod $10,000 for housing 11 immigrants in filthy, unsafe and illegal conditions (see story here).

I had noted before that Woodbridge Mayor 'Mac' McCormac had drawn on the ordinances of several other towns to shape Woodbridge's and had also armed the town's inspectors with computers for quick access to property and inspections records -- as well as setting up a hotline for anonymous tips (see here).

And Mayor Robinson-Briggs?

In 2006, she took away the laptops the Inspections Division used in the field, and disbanded the 'Safe Homes' staff.

Anonymous tip hotline? Dream on.

Thank you, Mayor.

---

• Courier: "Trio sought after home invaded in Plainfield"
  
• Ledger: "Resident fights off three intruders in home"
  
• 1/08/2007: "Illegal basement apartment fire at 127-29 Johnston Ave. leaves 13 homeless"
• 1/29/2007: "Plainfield: Overcrowding? What overcrowding?" -- Fire at 1003 Park Ave. leaves over 30 homeless.
• 8/10/2007: "Illegal apartments: What Woodbridge and Plainfield can learn from each other"
  

-- Dan Damon

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Wonk's night out: StateStreetNJ and newspaper crisis

A new public policy organization, the Council on State Public Affairs, kicked off Wednesday evening with a symposium at Rutgers-New Brunswick on the crisis in New Jersey's newspaper industry.

More coming...

OPRA symposium tonight

If you have an interest in knowing what goes on in government and how to get your hands on public records, you will want to make it to a free symposium Wednesday at Rutgers. Titled (OPRA) Finding Out: How to Exercise Your Right to Obtain Public Records, it will help you understand NJ's public records law and make it work for you. Speakers: Guy Baehr, Rutgers professor and former Ledger reporter; Tina Renna, chairperson, Union County Watchdog Association; and John Paff, citizen-activist. At the Rutgers Student Center, Room 410. College Avenue Campus, New Brunswick. The symposium is free and open to the public and Rutgers students.

The market meltdown hits Plainfield

Talk in Congress has been of protecting the interests of Main Street while dealing with the bailout of Wall Street.

Well, Plainfield has two things to tell those in Congress: 1) here, we call it 'Front Street' not 'Main Street', and 2) you're too late.

Though work continues -- apparently at a snail's pace -- on Dornoch's Monarch at Plainfield senior center/condo project, there has been an ominous silence on the sales front.

Dornoch's Monarch at Plainfield. Named after who?

Some time ago, the Council approved the use of a vacant city-owned lot across the street as a sales center for the project, but no sales trailer has appeared to date.

Meanwhile, the Heartstone proposal by Clay Bonny for 12 market-rate condos on West Front Street between the Horizons unit and McDonald's has fallen completely off the radar.

Rumors that the developers have met their demise appear to be premature.

Dornoch plods along in Plainfield, and in Rahway actually got under way (finally) with steel work on its 36-unit Savoy condo project in late July (see here). Bowing to changes in the market, Clay Bonny just won approval from Rahway's planning board to rejigger his 80-unit Station Place condo project into a 116-unit RENTAL project instead (more here).

There are whispers that Omnipointe, whose plans to build a large residential/retail complex on the G.O. Keller site at South and Leland Avenues, have been the subject of much speculation, is rethinking its proposal. Seems that research suggests there is currently no market for its favored mix of doctors' offices, health-allied businesses and condos at this location. (Anyone witnessing the fight over closing Muhlenberg might have guessed as much.) Did I mention that their attorneys are Wiener Lesniak?

The market meltdown is making it difficult for everyone in the development daisy-chain:

• Construction loans for developers are harder to come by;
  
  
• Banks are skittish about mortgages where property values -- even on new construction -- are in decline;
  
  
• Buyers are nervous about investing in a down market as to whether their purchase would soon be 'under water'.

Small wonder then, that developers throughout central New Jersey are turning to local governments to approve conversions from condo to rental projects.

The possibility must be considered that both Dornoch and Bonny would approach Plainfield with such a request. This would be a bitter pill indeed for the administration of Assemblyman Jerry Green and Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, who have staked the success of her term on successful residential/retail development.

The mayor's 'Pocket Park' -- The political equivalent of planting ivy?

And it helps to explain why Robinson-Briggs, with an eye toward her putative run for a second term but without consulting the Council or getting a (necessary) resolution of approval, unilaterally declared the vacant spot on which Bonny proposed his Heartstone condo project into a vest-pocket park. (For a previous story on the park, see 'Plainfield's latest park not it's greatest'.)

Whether or not John Lennon actually said it, it is certainly true that 'life is what happens while you're planning something else'.

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-- Dan Damon

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