Plainfield Stuff

Mayor's press release on Armory deal

2011-04-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hmmm...

It's April 1st, and you came here looking for what?...

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. :: 2011 EVENTS

2011-01-11T07:40:00.000-08:00

SATURDAY · January 15 · Doors open at 12:30 PM
Omega Psi Phi: 'The Dream: It's Up To Me'
The 'Omega Talent Hunt', showcasing the area's most talented student performers in Dance, Instrumental and Spoken Word/Drama.
At: Hubbard Middle School, 661 West 8th Street
Sponsor: Omicron Chi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi
Info: (201) 741-1415

SATURDAY · January 15 · 7 PM
New Dems: 3rd Annual MLK Potluck Dinner and Food Drive
Donations of canned goods or non-perishable food items will benefit Plainfield's StarFish feeding program.
At the home of Councilor Adrian and Amelia Mapp, 535 West 8th Street
Sponsor: New Democrats for Plainfield
No RSVP necessary. Invite your friends to this popular event.

SATURDAY · January 15 · 7 PM
POP: Celebrating the Life and Work of Martin Luther King Jr.
The annual program this year featuring Larry Hamm as guest speaker
At the Society of Friends Meetinghouse, 225 Watchung Avenue.
Sponsor: People's Organization for Progress, Plainfield Chapter
Info: Steven Hatcher, (908) 731-1518

MONDAY · January 17 · 8:30 AM
Frontiers MLK Annual Memorial Breakfast.
Guest speaker: Dr. Joy DeGruy, author of 'Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome'
At Plainfield High School Cafeteria, 950 Park Avenue (use Kenyon Avenue lot and entrance)
Tickets: $16/person, $12/Students/Seniors
Sponsor: Plainfield Area Chaper of Frontiers International
Info and reservations: (908) 756-4663 or (908) 822-2202

MONDAY · January 17 · 4 PM
City-Wide Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Celebration
Keynote speaker the Rev. Samuel 'Billy' Kyles, pastor of Monumental Baptist Church, Memphis, Tennessee, and the last person to see Dr. King alive
Freedom Youth Choir will sing songs of the Civil Rights movement
At Shiloh Baptist Church, 515 West Fourth Street.
Sponsor: Shiloh Baptist Church, Rev Dr. Gerald Lamont Thomas, Pastor
Info:(908) 754-3353 or visit the website at www.shilohplainfield.org/.

Hispanics - AG Peter Harvey's Plainfield Meeting - 2005

2010-08-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

AG meets to discuss attacks on Latinos

Plainfield crimes spur talks with activists, police and community leaders

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

BY JULIA M. SCOTT

Star-Ledger Staff

Plainfield needs to make "systematic changes" to prevent crimes targeting Latinos, according to state Attorney General Peter Harvey, who met with community leaders for two hours last night behind closed doors.

"I don't just want to be in response mode," he said to reporters following the meeting.

Of the attacks that targeted Latinos in Plainfield and North Plainfield in spring 2004 and summer 2005, only one of the beatings has involved charges of bias intimidation.

To make sure those patterns don't emerge again, Harvey proposed giving immigrants identification cards so they can open a bank account and deposit their wages instead of carrying around cash.

"They have cash in their pockets and some people know it," he said, adding that many of the crimes happen after someone leaves a bar.

To make the community safer, Plainfield needs to hire more Spanish-speaking police officers, increase police patrols, educate the community about safety and hold more meetings between law enforcement and residents. Harvey also suggested posting signs in Spanish in bars alerting patrons to past attacks and linking car services with bar owners to encourage patrons to get a ride home.

Harvey scheduled last night's meeting shortly after activist Carmen Salavarrita renewed claims of bias attacks against Latinos last month. Harvey said that it is "fairly rare" for a community to come together and show concerns about bias crimes, even though he meets frequently with local law enforcement and residents.

Almost 30 people, including Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow, Plainfield Police Chief Edward Santiago and Safety Director Jiles Ship, attended the meeting at St. Mary's School on West Sixth Street.

Salavarrita believes some of the attacks on Latinos have been bias crimes, even though officials have said otherwise.

"A lot of people want to keep it quiet but that's not going to solve anything," she said. Salavarrita, who lives in Piscataway, said victims come to her for help because she has close ties to the community as a board member of Plainfield's El Centro Hispanoamericano and as a trustee of the Plainfield Health Center. She blames "a group of black people" for the attacks.

Another Latino activist, however, says the entire community is actually working together.

"The message we are sending is our community will not be divided," said Flor Gonzalez of the Latin American Coalition.

Gonzalez was not the only one to downplay Salavarrita's allegations.
"Crime statistics reflect that victimization is not solely a Hispanic issue," Santiago said. The police chief agreed the city needs to hire more Spanish-speaking officers in addition to the 14 currently on staff.

"We are getting more and more investigations that require interviews with Spanish speakers," he said after the meeting.

Santiago suggested starting a citizens' education program at the police academy to increase awareness of safety issues.

Councilman Ray Blanco similarly dismissed the claim that there is tension between the African- American and Latino community.

"They're not killing us on the streets," he said to a resident who had come to give Harvey a personal letter. "You know this and I know this."

Julia M. Scott covers Plainfield. She may be reached at jscott@star ledger.com or (908) 302-1505.

© 2005 The Star Ledger © 2005 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

Maps: Plainfield: Ward 4 Districts

2010-06-16T07:59:00.001-07:00

Click to enlarge or print.

Maps: Plainfield: Ward 3 Districts

2010-06-16T07:57:00.001-07:00

Click to enlarge or print.

Maps: Plainfield: Ward 2 Districts

2010-06-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge or print.

Maps: Plainfield: Ward 1 Districts

2010-06-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

Click to enlarge or print.

Plainfield 2010 Primary Election Results (Council)

2010-06-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

Plainfield 2010 Primary Election Results (Council)

District-by-district results for City Council seats.

Wards 2/3 at-large was a contested race between three Democrats --

Rashid Burney (Regular Democratic Organization [Incumbent])
Don Davis (Hold On To Plainfield)
Rebecca Williams (New Democrats for Plainfield)

Republican Jim Pivnichny ran unopposed.

In Ward 1, Democrat Bill Reid and Republican Sean Alfred were unopposed.

WARD/DIST	BURNEY	DAVIS	WILLIAMS	PIVNICHNY
WARD 2
District 01	22	3	22	0
District 02	14	5	56	5
District 03	20	10	47	5
District 04	24	4	24	2
District 05	13	1	66	9
District 06	38	2	77	23
District 07	35	7	26	2
District 08	30	4	40	12
District 09	18	3	59	17
District 10	30	3	49	12
District 11	33	11	26	8
TOTAL - WARD 2	277	53	492	95

WARD 3
District 01	15	3	25	7
District 02	13	14	28	2
District 03	20	19	40	5
District 04	22	23	40	2
District 05	42	18	35	3
District 06	35	15	41	6
District 07	26	9	38	2
District 08	25	6	20	2
District 09	49	18	35	1
District 10	24	19	10	2
TOTAL - WARD 3	271	144	312	32
TOTAL - WARDS 2/3	548	197	804	127

WARD 1	REID			ALFRED
District 01	49			1
District 02	25			1
District 03	37			2
District 04	20			6
District 05	22			2
District 06	24			0
District 07	35			1
District 08	34			0
TOTAL - WARD 1	246			13

Total voter turnout was 2,286 citywide.

In Wards 2/3, 1,549 Democratic votes were cast. With a total of 7,384 registered Democrats,
this is a turnout of 21%.

(As for unaffiliated voters declaring themselves at the polling place, my experience in one of the busier districts at Evergreen School was ONE person declaring Democratic voter affiliation on Primary day.)

Gangs | Bystanders caught in middle of Plainfield gang feud | NJ Newsroom

2010-05-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

Bystanders caught in middle of Plainfield gang feud

Wednesday, 19 May 2010 14:25

BY ALICIA CRUZ
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

A man and two women suffered injuries in the West End neighborhood of Plainfield in what police are calling a gang related feud between rival gangs that has been seething for months.

The 45-year-old male victim in the shooting that occurred around 8:40 p.m. Sunday, drove himself to the former Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center after sustaining a gunshot wound to his upper left arm. He told police he was driving his 2002 Volkswagen Jetta near the 400 block of Liberty Street near the Liberty Village housing complex when someone shot at his vehicle, shattering the rear window and hitting him in the arm. Investigators say the victim, who told them a group of "young boys" fired the shot, was otherwise uncooperative.

That shooting incident remains under investigation, but no suspects have been arrested at this time. Police said there might be a connection between the Liberty Street shooting and a second shooting that occurred during the wee hours of Monday morning less than a quarter-mile away at the Elmwood Gardens.

The first officer who responded to that shooting was already in the area and heard the gunfire. Upon arriving at West Second and New streets in the Elmwood Gardens housing complex around 2 a.m., the officer found a 21-year-old Dunellen female suffering from a gunshot wound to the upper left arm.

The second victim, a 30-year-old woman, was found several minutes later a half-block away suffering from a gunshot wound to the right buttock. Before being transported to the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Brunswick, both victims told investigators they did not see the shooter or shooters.

An immediate search of the area turned up no leads, but several witnesses told police the shots came from a Black 2003 Mercedes-Benz bearing Virginia plates that was seen in the area driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Police later found the suspect vehicle approximately 1.5 miles from the scene of the shootings near the corner of West Fifth Street and Stanley Place fully engulfed in flames.

Emergency crews extinguished the fire, which was believed to be the result of arson. A search of the vehicle by the Union County Sheriff's Identification Unit and Arson Task Force found several live rounds of ammunition near the car's passenger door. The vehicle was later towed to police headquarters.

Investigators say the shooters intended targets appear to have been two males who were at the scene but both remain unidentified at this time. Police say despite increased police presence, trepidation between the Libside and West Third Street gang sets appears to be escalating.

"They don't seem to care," said city Public Safety Director Martin Hellwig. "We've been trying to keep the peace down there, because there's certainly been some things brewing."

According to Hellwig, the feud has been simmering since the beginning of the new year. The violence between the two gangs appears to be escalating at the expense of innocent bystanders, which has forced police to develop an aggressive operational strategy to address the issue.

The three West End housing complexes, Elmwood Gardens, Liberty Village and the nearby West End Gardens, are all managed by the Housing Authority of Plainfield, and have become the nucleus of gang activity for years, but officials said residents, understandably reluctant to speak for fear of retaliation from gangs, hamper efforts.

Anyone with information on either of these shootings is asked to call Plainfield Police Detectives Edwin Maldonado or Nash Brown at 908-753-3415 or Detective Eugene Goldston at 908-753-3531. All calls will remain confidential.

Article #12310

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/state/bystanders-caught-in-middle-of-plainfield-gang-feud

---------------------
NOTE: Story was taken down during the day. Below is text of email I sent to NJ Newsroom folks on 5/21/2010 -- Dan
---------------------

Good morning,

NJ Newsroom ran a story yesterday AM on recent gang activity in Plainfield.

I aggregate links to news stories of interest to Plainfield readers on my blog CLIPS, and posted a link to the story in my usual fashion.

As I scanned the item preparatory to putting up a link, it seemed very similar to my recollection of the Courier News item "Three injured in Plainfield shootings as gang feud escalates" of 5/17/2010, and I put a link to their story alongside the one to yours. (The story was actually broken on my local news blog, Plainfield Today, early Monday AM as part of a roundup of police news -- "3 shot over weekend, pedestrian struck, plus unremarked bias incident")

I was told by someone yesterday afternoon that your story had been taken down, and that Plainfield police director Martin Hellwig had confirmed that no one from NJ Newsroom had contacted him about the story, though there was a direct quote in your piece.

As a news junkie (and retired public information officer for the City of Plainfield), I have had the highest regard for NJ Newsroom since its inception and admire both the news stories and the wide variety of opinions expressed on issues of concern to New Jerseyans.

This experience, however, has left me feeling uneasy. In print media, there might be a correction or a small notice about what had gone awry. Scanning your site, I don't find somewhere that a reader could turn for clarifications or corrections or admissions that a mistake or ethical lapse had been made.

I hope you will consider a little 'corner' for such, so that your deservedly good reputation will remain of the highest order.

Sincerely,
Dan Damon

--
Dan Damon
dandamon@comcast.net
908.448.7688

PLAINFIELD TODAY
The needler in the haystack
http://ptoday.blogspot.com/

C L I P S
Where Plainfield turns for news
http://pclips.blogspot.com/

Our lives begin to end when we are silent about things that matter.
--- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Freeholder seat: Carter to replace Van Blake as candidate

2010-03-10T05:18:00.000-08:00

FREEHOLDERS: Van Blake loses endorsement, Carter as replacement

POLITICKERNJ (Five items: Oldest to newest) plus PLAINFIELD TODAY and JERRY GREEN'S PAGE

Dems dump Van Blake in Union County

By Max Pizarro | March 8th, 2010 - 1:08pm

Union County Democratic Committee Chair Charlotte DeFilippo and Assemblyman Jerry Green Green (D-Plainfield) this morning told Freeholder Rayland Van Blake of Plainfield that he wouldn't be getting the party line to run for a second term.

"As far as I can tell, they're looking to basically flip years in the upcoming election as far as the freeholder seat is concerned, between Linden and Plainfield, and I get bumped out because of that," said Van Blake, a former Plainfield City councilman and television actor who won off the line in 2007 as a member of the New Democrats.

"The assemblyman and the county chairman told me flat out that's what it was," Van Blake added.

There's a mayor's race in Linden this year, and Democrats want a freeholder candidate to help create line strength on the ballot in their bid to upend independent Mayor Richard Gerbounka.

Council President Robert Bunk, the Democratic Party candidate for mayor, has trouble on the ground in Linden owing to the anti-organization mayoral candidacy of Councilman Derek Armstead.

Moreover, the county's lone freeholder from Linden, Nance Ward, moved to Westfield.

Van Blake says the party's dumping him to run a Linden-based freeholder candidate.

"It would appear that way," he say, when asked if he believes the reasoning is to stregthen Bunk's bid against Gerbounka.

But that wasn't part of the meeting the freeholder had today.

"They told me I didn't have the support locally so they weren't going to take the chance," Van Blake said. "I know I didn't have the support of the mayor but I do have the support of the people. The New Democrats are still supportng me."

On his way in to a meeting with Green, Van Blake would not immediately comment on his next move until after he speaks with the veteran assemblyman

http://www.politickernj.com/max/37502/dems-dump-van-blake-union-county

DeFilippo: Van Blake 'disappointed' as freeholder

By Max Pizarro | March 8th, 2010 - 4:39pm

Union County Democratic County Chair Charlotte DeFilippo says Freeholder Rayland Van Blake is a nice guy.

"I like him, he's charming, but he has a tremendous amount of commitments," she said of the Plainfield freeholder she relieved of the party line this morning.

"There's a place for any good Democrat in the party," DeFilippo added. "He's just disappointed. You have to decide, or people will decide for you. People didn't see him at a lot of things - your involvement in county events has to be higher than the average person's - and people are disappointed. Do I like him? Absolutely. I just think he has to focus on one thing."

Van Blake's allies believe they have a Plainfield version of Cory Booker in the making in the television actor with a financial background, a former footfall standout in Plainfield.

But star power potential wasn't enough for DeFilippo, who said Van Blake simply didn't dig substantially enough into the freeholder job during his single term in office.

The county chair denied she intends to fill the seat with a candidate from Linden.

"I fully expect there will be a candidacy out of Plainfield," she said. "There will be somebody else who's high energy. It will be somebody from Plainfield.

"Would I take a Lindenite if no one was available?" DeFilippo added. "Absolutely."

The party will have a candidates' screening on Wednesday night.

http://www.politickernj.com/max/37518/defilippo-van-blake-disappointed-freeholder
[link]

Scutari: new freeholder candidate will be from
Plainfield or Linden - probably Plainfield

By Max Pizarro | March 9th, 2010 - 9:19am

State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden) didn't protest the Democratic County Committee's decision to deny the party line to Union County Freeholder Rayland Van Blake.

"He's a nice guy, but we're going to respect the committee process," Scutari told PolitickerNJ.com.

Union County Democratic Committee Chair Charlotte DeFilippo said yesterday that Plainfield would be her first town of choice in seeking a Van Blake replacement, but didn't rule out Linden, which lacks a freeholder and is the scene this year of a mayoral contest.

"Both of those (Plainfield and Linden) have been considered, and one of those towns will certainly be represented - probably from Plainfield, in the near future," Scutari said.

http://www.politickernj.com/max/37524/scutari-new-freeholder-candidate-wil-be-plainfield-or-linden-probably-plainfield
[link]

Green backs Carter for freeholder seat in Union

By Max Pizarro | March 9th, 2010 - 12:07pm

Although he won't support Union County Freeholder Rayland Van Blake, Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield) says his city will have a freeholder candidate on the Democratic Party line this year.

"I am calling on all of the county chairs and asking them to support (Plainfield Councilwoman) Linda Carter," Green told PolitickerNJ.com.

Like Van Blake, Carter comes out of the political fold of the Plainfield New Democrats.

Chair of the Democratic Party in Plainfield, Green said Van Blake - a budding television actor and freshman freeholder trying to juggle government and the demands of his entertainment career - had no support for re-election among local Dems: not among the establishment ranks, and not among the New Democrats.

A rare point of agreement between two feuding camps, and useful considering Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DeFilippo's warning to Green that if the warring factions in Plainfield couldn't present a candidate they could agree on, she would turn to Linden - where she could use a freeholder candidate to build ballot strength for her mayoral candidate.

"When was the last time Adrian Mapp and I agreed on something?" said Green, referring to his political antagonist, who last year ran against Green's ally, Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson Briggs, and lost.

Mapp is himself a former freeholder and organization Democrat who lost Green's support and the party line in 2007 and subsequently became leader of the New Democrats.

"As the chairman, I wanted to give the county respect in terms of their concerns," added the assemblyman. "I reached out to Adrian Mapp (chair of the New Democrats) and the mayor and all the key players so they all understood what was going on. No disrespect to Rayland but a lot of people were complaining about him not spending enough time on the freeholder board. What we did was come up with is an alternate plan."

Green said he told Van Blake that if other chairs backed him, he would support him, but no one wanted to give the freeholder another shot.

"We all agreed that if there was going to be a problem with Rayland, we would present Lynda Carter, and so right now, I am calling all the county chairs on her behalf," said Green. "The New Democrats are not happy with Rayland's attendance record, and now we have a quality candidate."

The screening committee is scheduled for tomorrow evening.

Green looked at the positive.

"This is the first time we've all come together," he said. "They feel Rayland's a nice guy, but agree that you can't just show up on Thursday and expect that to be the extent of the job. I didn't just make the decision on my own. Lynda Carter is a New Democrat. Everybody understands I work very hard at what I do. If someone wants me to stick his neck out for a losing cause then I wish him luck."

The 31-year old Van Blake went to Green's office yesterday and complained, but the veteran, 71-year old Green said he stood his ground.

"You have to work at this business," Green said. "You can't just expect things are going to be handed to you on a platter. Look, I was 40 years old when I was kicked off the line because I didn't take my freeholder job seriously. I came back and I've never lost an election since. Rayland's been given the opportunity to figure this out ten years earlier than I did. If he wants to blame me, fine - but I know better than anyone, it's a valuable lesson."

http://www.politickernj.com/max/37534/green-backs-carter-freeholder-seat-union
[link]

Armstead picks up petitions to run for mayor of Linden

By Max Pizarro | March 9th, 2010 - 1:43pm

Linden 4th Ward Councilman Derek Armstead on Friday obtained petitions to run for mayor but hasn't yet declared his intentions officially in what at this point amounts to a piece of anti-establishment kabuki aimed at riling the local Democratic Party organization.

Armstead said if he runs he wouldn't be a spoiler in a primary against establishment Democratic Council President Robert Bunk.

"I would beat Bunk if I ran against him," boasted Armstead, who won re-election off the line in 2008. "How do you sell yourself as a vehicle of change when you have been council president for ten years?"

Armstead, a county employee in the IT department, has been on the council for 17 years.

This would be his first run for mayor.

If Bunk had talked to him about succeeding him as council president, "We would be having a totally different discussion right now," admitted Armstead, the lone black on the governing body. "But the Democratic Party of Linden has not been very good at all to my community."

Armstead said Bunk has already fixed his sights on 8th Ward Councilwoman Michelle Yamakaitas as his successor, the council's only woman.

"Discussions with me would have had to happen a long time ago," the councilman said. "In the next couple of months they couldn't make any gestures that would reverse the trend. Right now, people are asking me to run because they really think I have a chance to win, and we're giving it a lot of consideration."

If Armstead gets in the race, he would be fighting Bunk in June for a general election shot in November at Mayor Richard Gerbounka, an independent.

"Gerbounka's an independent, I'm a Democrat and Gov. Christie's a Republican," said Armstead. "It doesn't matter what political party you belong to, people are losing their homes. My belief is people like Bob Bunk are obstructionist and have tried to sabotage Gerbounka in what amounts to a betrayal of the public.

"If Robert Bunk becomes the nominee, I am a Democrat, I've always been a Democrat... that's the way I'll leave it. Sometimes primaries get nasty, and I don't think he's a very strong candidate."

As an off-the-line Democratic candidate in 2008, Armstead won with 63.06% of the vote.

He remembers Freeholder Rayland Van Blake campaigning against him that year. Now the party is dumping the Plainfield-based Van Blake, in part, Armstead believes, because Democrats want to run a freeholder candidate in Linden.

"They used him to try to get rid of me and now they're saying it's my fault that they're getting rid of him," Armstead said. "You can't make this stuff up."

For the record, Union County Democratic Chair Charlotte DeFilippo said she would turn to Linden only if Plainfield couldn't unify behind a Van Blake replacement, and today Assemblyman Jerry Green, chairman of the local Democratic Party, said the city's Democrats have come together around the candidacy of At-Large Councilwoman Linda Carter, a New Democrat.

http://vip.politickernj.com/max/37541/armstead-picks-petitions-run-mayor-linden
[link]

PLAINFIELD TODAY

Friday, 3/5/2010: "County Dems dumping Van Blake from Freeholder slot?"
Monday, 3/8/2010: "Van Blake dumped. Will Green put up with loss of Black Freeholder seat?"
Monday, 3/8/2010: "Freeholder seat: Robinson-Briggs or Carter?"

JERRY GREEN'S PAGE

Monday, 3/8/2010: "Straightening out this Freeholder fiasco"

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time. Links posted here are from the original online publication of these pieces.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

MLK Events - 2010 (Printable Calendar)

2010-01-05T05:20:00.000-08:00

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. :: 2010 EVENTS
TUESDAY · January 12 · 7:00 PM Diabetes: Causes, Effects and Treatment At: Mohawk Lodge, 1357 West Third Street Sponsor: *Mohawk Lodge #307 & NAACP* Contact: George Gore (908) 822-9771	WEDNESDAY · January 13 · 6:30 PM Family Movie Night At: City Hall Library, 515 Watchung Avenue Sponsor: *City of Plainfield* Contact: Barbara James (908) 753-3310
FRIDAY · January 15 · 11:00 AM Senior Center MLK Program At: Plainfield Senior Center, 400 East Front Street Sponsor: *Plainfield Senior Center* Contact: Sharron Brown (908) 753-3506	SATURDAY · January 16 · 11:00 AM P.O.P. Rally At: Steps of City Hall, 515 Watchung Avenue Sponsor: *People's Organization for Progress* Contact: Steven Hatcher (908) 731-1518
SATURDAY · January 16 · 1:00 PM Young Gifted & Talented An afternoon of inspiration and fun for youth. At: Hubbard Middle School, 661 West 8th Street Sponsor: *Omega Psi Phi Fraternity* Contact: Clinton Hall (201) 741-1415	SATURDAY · January 16 · 7:00 PM New Dems Potluck & Food Drive Celebrate Dr. King's commitment to end hunger. Bring a dish to share and canned food items. At: Councilor & Mrs. Adrian Mapp, 535 West 8th St. Sponsor: *New Democrats for Plainfield* Contact: Rebecca Williams (908) 447-6268
SUNDAY · January 17 · 5:00 PM MLK Day of Celebration At: Calvary Baptist Church, 324 Monroe Avenue Sponsor: *Concerned Urban Clergy* Contact: (908) 482-3532	MONDAY · January 18 · 8:00 AM NAACP Memorial March From: PNC Bank (2nd & Park) to PHS Sponsor: *Plainfield Branch, NAACP* Contact: George Gore (908) 822-9771
MONDAY · January 18 · 8:30 AM Frontiers MLK Memorial Breakfast Speaker: Michellene Davis, Esq., Chief Policy Counsel to Gov. Corzine and State Treasurer. At: PHS Cafeteria \| $16 / $12 Seniors and students. Reservations & Info: 756-4663 or 822-2202 Sponsor: *Frontiers International*	MONDAY · January 18 · 3:00 PM & 4:00 PM 3:00: Where Do We Go From Here? Conversation Facilitator: Dr. Gerald Lamont Thomas 4:00: MLK Commemorative Service Speaker: Rev. Dr. Vernon Walton At: Shiloh Baptist Church, 515 West 4th Street Sponsor: *Shiloh Baptist Church* Contact: Geri Agurs (908) 754-3353 x120

2009 General - Union County Results

2009-11-04T18:59:00.000-08:00

Star-Ledger, Wednesday, 11/04/2009

Union County election results

By New Jersey Local News Service

November 04, 2009, 12:07AM

Union County elections
Here are the unofficial results of local elections held Tuesday in Union County. Check marks indicate winners, and stars (*) denote incumbents. Vote totals are not included in uncontested races.

UNION COUNTY FREEHOLDERS

THREE 3-YEAR TERMS
√Deborah P. Scanlon (D)* 57,359
√Alexander Mirabella (D)* 57,193
√Mohamed S. Jalloh (D) 53,866
Nicole D. Cole (R) 49,097
Anthony Sytko (R) 47,842
Hope A. Thompson (I) 3,958
Karen Gielen (I) 3,389

UNION COUNTY SURROGATE

ONE 5-YEAR TERM
√James S. LaCorte (D)* 58,239
Arthur P. Zapolski (R) 46,891

BERKELEY HEIGHTS

TWO 3-YEAR COUNCIL TERMS
√Craig S. Pastore (R) 2,708
√Kevin J. Hall (R) 2,667
Alexandra Chirinos (I) 1,404
Thomas A. Battaglia (D)* 997
Murray Robbins (D) 899

CLARK

No municipal elections this year

CRANFORD

ONE 3-YEAR COMMITTEE TERM
√David W. Robinson (R)* 4,421
Kevin Illing (D) 3,448

ELIZABETH

No municipal elections this year

FANWOOD

TWO 3-YEAR COUNCIL TERMS
√Mike L. Szuch (R) 1,338
√Robert Manduca (R) 1,330
Donna M. Dolce (D)* 1,252
David R. Valian (D)* 1,201

GARWOOD

TWO 3-YEAR COUNCIL TERMS
√Timothy O. Hak (R) 658
√Keith Sluka (D)* 651
Kathleen M. Villaggio (D)* 640

James Matheson (R) 636

HILLSIDE

No municipal elections in November

KENILWORTH

TWO 3-YEAR COUNCIL TERMS
√Fred M. Pugliese (R)* 1,276
√Salvatore Candarella (R)* 1,268
Darrin McMahon (D) 743
Ronald Knecht (D) 726

LINDEN

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 1 COUNCIL TERM
√Christopher Kolibas (D)*
No Republicans filed

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 9 COUNCIL TERM
√Robert Frazier (I)* 736
Bryan Tomko (D) 576
No Republicans filed

MOUNTAINSIDE

TWO 3-YEAR COUNCIL TERMS
√William R. Lane (R)*
√Robert W. Messler (R)*
No Democrats filed

NEW PROVIDENCE

TWO 3-YEAR COUNCIL TERMS
√James Cucco (R)*
√J. Brooke Hern (R)*
No Democrats filed

PLAINFIELD

ONE 4-YEAR MAYORAL TERM
√Sharon Robinson-Briggs (D)* 4,906
James V. Pivnichny (R) 2,103
Deborah Joyce Dowe (I) 391

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 4 COUNCIL TERM
√Bridget B. Rivers (D)
No Republicans filed

RAHWAY

No local elections this year

ROSELLE

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 2 COUNCIL TERM
√Sylvia Turnage (D)*
No Republicans filed

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 5 COUNCIL TERM
√Christine Dansereau (D)*
No Republicans filed

ROSELLE PARK

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 2 COUNCIL TERM
√Joseph Accardi (R) 539
Michael Peterson (D) 287

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 5 COUNCIL TERM
√Michael Yakubov (R)* 519
David Jacobs (D) 193

SCOTCH PLAINS

ONE 1-YEAR COUNCIL TERM
√Dominick Bratti (R)* 3,950
Theresa E. Mullen (D) 3,349

SPRINGFIELD

TWO 3-YEAR COMMITTEE TERMS
√Jerry Fernandez (R) 2,651
√Marc A. Krauss (R) 2,480
Richard Huber (D) 2,062
David Barnett (D) 2,004

PUBLIC QUESTION
Should Springfield spend up to $4.5 million to renovate and upgrade the municipal pool complex?
Yes 1,246
√No 2,083

SUMMIT

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 1 COUNCIL TERM
√Nuris Portuondo (R)
No Democrats filed

ONE 3-YEAR WARD 2 COUNCIL TERM
√Richard J. Madden (R) 1,805
Laura Graff Coburn (D) 1,520

ONE 2-YEAR AT-LARGE COUNCIL TERM
√Stephen P. Murphy (D) 3,473
J. Andrew Lark (R)* 2,878

PUBLIC QUESTION
Should the city of Summit increase the term of the Councilman-at-Large from two years to four years, effective Jan. 1, 2014?
Yes 1,812
√No 2,062

UNION

TWO 3-YEAR COMMITTEE TERMS
√Anthony L. Terrezza (D)* 6,098
√Manuel T. Figueiredo (D) 6,042
Paul M. Verzosa (R) 5,553
Charles T. Donnelly (R) 5,487

WESTFIELD

ONE 4-YEAR MAYORAL TERM
√Andrew K. Skibitsky (R)* 6,714
William L. Brennan (D) 3,927

ONE WARD 1 COUNCIL TERM
√Sam Della Fera Jr. (R) 1,605
Janice Siegel (D) 1,146

ONE WARD 2 COUNCIL TERM
√Vicki Kimmins (R)*
No Democrats filed

ONE WARD 3 COUNCIL TERM
√Dave Haas (D)* 1,357
Tom Delaney (R) 1,088

ONE WARD 4 COUNCIL TERM
√Keith Loughlin (R) 1,412
Thomas Bigosinski (D)* 1,270

WINFIELD

ONE 3-YEAR COMMITTEE TERM
√David P. Wright Sr. (D)* 285
Tracey Welch (R) 184

Union County election results | Local New Jersey News - - NJ.com (4 November 2009)
http://www.nj.com/news/local/index.ssf/2009/11/union_county_election_results.html

http://snipurl.com/t2aqp
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Fraud - Courier - Cop faces insurance fraud charges

2009-06-13T05:11:00.000-07:00

Published in the Courier News, Friday, June 12, 2009 (A-1)

Cop faces insurance fraud charges
20-year division veteran suspended

By MARK SPIVEY
STAFF WRITER

PLAINFIELD -- A 20-year veteran with the city's police division has been suspended without pay after being charged with insurance fraud, Public Safety Director Martin Hellwig said Thursday.

Officer David Thomas was charged with second-degree insurance fraud in connection with a homeowner's claim involving a computer, according to Hellwig.

A Union County Prosecutor's Office spokesman confirmed the charge Thursday but said no additional information was immediately available.

Thomas is entitled to a hearing within 30 days, said Hellwig, who added that the division plans to terminate him in the case of a conviction.

Calling Thomas a "good officer," Hellwig said the veteran cop worked in a "very critical area" of the division, helping compile Uniform Crime Reports, gather intelligence and issue daily reports.

The suspension may further strain the division's administrative ranks, Hellwig added, because of the recent retirement of two lieutenants and a captain.

Mark Spivey: 908-243-6607; mspivey@mycentraljersey.com.

This story did not appear online.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Jerry Green: Blog post on McWilliams family taken down

2009-05-29T05:02:00.000-07:00

Jerry Green's Page

This post was taken down by the Assemblyman sometime before 8 AM, Friday, May 29, 2009.

Why?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Give the late Al McWilliams the Respect He Deserves

I hope that with these remaining 8 days in the primary, we can discuss issues that are of concern to residents. Unfortunately, my opponents and the candidates running against the Mayor have yet to discuss what I and the public consider as solutions and moving ahead in the right directions.

I have not only developed a working relationship with Senator Bob Menendez, who I served with in the Legislature early in my career, but also with just about every Congressman that represents New Jersey. These sorts of relationships are very reassuring when I am able to reach out personally and get answers and solutions for my District.

That is why it is important that I make it very clear that I have the utmost respect for the late Al McWilliams and his family. Even when some people use his name for political reasons, I try very hard not to respond in a manner that would offend or slight the McWilliams name. If these people were true friends of the late mayor, they would make it their business to give the family the same respect and not misuse the McWilliams name. Any response from me to negative attacks from the opposition would be "spun" as an attack on the McWilliams family.

Politics can be a very tough business. As an elected official, I understand being in a position where sometimes you have to accept things being said that are not true, only for the greater good. I always try to remember that i will have a life after politics, so that I can always look people in their faces and know that I have been fair and honest. I hope these principles are adhered to within these final 8 days of the primary, especially in the use of the McWilliams name.

Whether the McWilliams’ decide to get in the campaign or stay out of it, the late Mayor deserves that respect. I for one have no feelings of negativity towards his family, especially since his daughter is an elected official within my District. The only relationship we have is a professional one. All I ask is that those involved in this local campaign give the late Mayor Al McWilliams the respect he deserves by keeping him out of political games within this primary season.

Posted by Assemblyman Jerry Green at 11:34 AM

Plainfield Schools - Courier - Guard suspended after strip search

2009-05-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Published in the Courier News, Saturday, May 16, 2009, page A-8

Guard who searched student suspended

By MARK SPIVEY
STAFF WRITER

PLAINFIELD -- A female security guard at the city high school has been suspended after she strip-searched a 15-year-old female student who was falsely accused of stealing a cell phone, school and police officials said.

Police launched an investigation into the incident shortly after it happened on May 8, according to Public Safety Director Martin Hellwig, who said authorities determined no touching or sexual gratification was involved and, therefore, no criminal charges are pending. But Hellwig said he supported the school district's decision to suspend the guard, callin the situation "an overstepping of her bounds."

"Although it's not criminal, it's certainly an intolerable action," Hellwig said.

Schools Superintendent Steve Gallon III said the guard said the guard was suspended with pay immediately after the incident being reported, and added that a final decision on further action will be takend after school officials have an opportunity to review reports from police and the state division of Youth and Family Services, which conducted its own review.

Gallon said that based on preliminary assessments of the matter, he is recommending that the guard, whom he declined to be identified, be terminated.

"This allegation is something we take very seriously," Gallon said. "These alleged actions were taken outside any current appropriate procedures employ in regard to student safety."

Gallon said school officials have offered the student their support.

This item appeared in the print edition ONLY on Friday, May 16. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Hackensack UMC - Record- Sanzari Involvement

2009-05-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

Published on NorthJersey.com, Tuesday, April 28,2009

[HUMC, Coniglio, Sanzari, Bergen Dems, PMK, more]

Sanzari got years to pay his dumping bill

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Last updated: Tuesday April 28, 2009, 10:07 AM

BY JEFF PILLETS
NorthJersey.com
STAFF WRITER

Firms owned by Joseph Sanzari, the prominent contractor with deep ties to Bergen County's ruling Democratic Party, dumped fill and construction debris at the Overpeck Park site for two years without being charged, while other haulers paid by the truckload.

The firms dumped well over 100,000 cubic yards of debris at the county-owned site before Bergen County officials even sent a bill, in October 2007.

Sanzari's trucks by that time had been coming to Overpeck since the spring of 2005 and had run up a $609,000 tab, delivering thousands of loads from publicly financed road and redevelopment jobs across North Jersey.

Scores of other haulers, by contrast, paid tipping fees as often as 10 times a month, records show, with most paying two or three times a month.

Even after Sanzari began to make payments, records show he maintained a significant balance. In fact, his companies still owed $320,000 in tipping fees when The Record first started to ask questions about the matter earlier this month. County officials said that Joseph M. Sanzari Inc. made payments of $150,000 and $18,000 the week of April 13. A second firm, Creamer-Sanzari, A Joint Venture, paid $152,000 last Friday.

Bergen County's failure to collect from Sanzari's companies came at a time when officials were struggling to finance skyrocketing expenses associated with the Overpeck project. More than $100 million in bond offerings and open-space tax reserves have already been dedicated to the project site in Leonia, Teaneck and Ridgefield Park, where a former garbage dump is being converted into what officials promise will be "Bergen County's Central Park."

Those officials are now declining to discuss details of their dealings with Sanzari, a leading Democratic contributor who is also the employer of state Sen. Paul A. Sarlo of Wood-Ridge.

The Bergen County Improvement Authority, which has responsibility for the project, said it was not equipped to keep tabs on such a large undertaking. The quasi-governmental agency outsourced oversight for the project to PMK Group, a politically connected project-management firm.

"There's basically a staff of three people over there," Keith Furlong, a BCIA spokesman, said last week. "They rely on hired professionals to do the oversight."

Furlong, in a prepared statement, said Overpeck truckers "occasionally" make late tipping-fee payments. "This is typical during such a large construction project," he said.

He added that the agency has full faith in the work of PMK of Cranford, which has received $6.7 million since being hired as project manager in 2005.

In a brief interview before issuing the statement, Furlong said he could not explain why the agency had waited more than two years to collect payments from one of Overpeck's major fill suppliers. He did not respond to further questions this week.

PMK officials also did not respond to requests for interviews last week. Discussing the issue earlier this month, PMK executive Bashar Assadi said the county, not PMK, made all decisions about the haulers who dumped at Overpeck.

"We aren't bill collectors," said Assadi, PMK's lead man at the Overpeck site. "We tell the county if someone owes, and after that it is up to them."

BCIA records show that all Overpeck documents, including billing invoices, are signed by Executive Director Edward Hynes. In addition to its $140,000-a-year chief, the BCIA has a board of directors that has approved a range of expensive add-ons that have pushed the project's price tag past $70 million, from a $45 million cost estimate just two years ago.

Neither Hynes nor BCIA Chairman Ronald O'Malley returned phone calls for this story.

Sanzari's office also declined to discuss their record at Overpeck. But in a statement released last Friday, a company official said the county sent Sanzari's firms only two tipping-fee bills in the past four years.

"As of today Joseph M. Sanzari Inc. and its affiliated companies does not owe any money to the BCIA," said Jo Ann M. Dellechiaie, the company's vice president. "At all times during the project, [Sanzari companies] followed all protocols regarding testing, sampling and invoicing as established by PMK Engineering."

She said that the Sanzari firms — which have supplied about 15 percent of all Overpeck fill — have paid as much per cubic yard as other haulers who dumped at Overpeck, and sometimes more.

Sanzari, of Ho-Ho-Kus, and his construction firms enjoy a reputation for timely completion of complex public projects, including the successful reconstruction of the once-snarled intersection of Routes 4 and 17.

He also is known as one of New Jersey's most visible pay-to-play contractors, one with deep ties to officials who set state policy and make key spending decisions. State records attribute more than $100,000 in contributions to New Jersey candidates and committees since 2006 to Joseph M. Sanzari Inc. and those associated with the firm.

Between 2006 and 2008, his companies were awarded more than $380 million in public contracts.

As the chief operating officer of Sanzari's construction firm, Sarlo has a direct role overseeing the firm's multimillion-dollar dealings with state and local public agencies. His work includes the endorsement of bid documents and the review of expenses in public projects.

Sarlo also had his Trenton aide, Chris Eilert, sign some Sanzari company documents as a witness. Eilert said he is a notary public and any signature for Sarlo's company was probably done "over dinner" with Sarlo, off government property.

Sarlo says his employment by Sanzari does not conflict with his part-time job in Trenton, where he sits as a majority member of key committees that control state spending on construction projects. He declined to speak about Sanzari's record at Overpeck.

"I'm not really allowed to say anything," Sarlo said.

Sarlo declined to respond when informed of data that show J. Fletcher Creamer of Hackensack, Sanzari's partner in the Joint Venture, made frequent and regular payments to the county for material trucked in by a firm he owns separate from Sanzari.

Overpeck project records show that in the fall of 2007, Sarlo stepped in to stop the county from an attempt to collect some of the money owed by Sanzari's companies.

In a letter to the BCIA, PMK had recommended that the county withhold $200,000 it owed to another Sanzari-related firm, North Bergen Rock Products, for clean rocks used at the Overpeck site.

But in conversations with PMK, the records show, Sarlo successfully argued that the county could not withhold payment because North Bergen Rock, legally, is a separate company.

Asked if the county challenged Sarlo's interpretation or sought any further negotiation on the debt, a PMK official said he was uncertain what happened next, if anything.

"Sarlo told us we couldn't deduct the payment and, as far as I know, that was the end of the matter," said Assadi, the project manager.

North Bergen Rock Products lists its business address as 90 W. Franklin St., Hackensack. It is the same address as Joseph M. Sanzari Inc., and at least two other Sanzari companies.

Overpeck project invoices show that the county does not have records detailing how much material Sanzari's crews trucked in from the Carlstadt project. An Oct. 31, 2007, letter shows that the Overpeck project manager instead estimated the amount once it was already in place, noting that it was spread over 6 acres to a depth of about 4 feet.

E-mail: pillets@northjersey.com

Online story here. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Hackensack UMC - Record - Deep Dem Connections

2009-05-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

Published on NorthJersey.com, Sunday, April 26,2009

Tangled web of power: Hospital's influence reaches far

Sunday, April 26, 2009
Last updated: Sunday April 26, 2009, 11:43 AM

BY MARY JO LAYTON
NorthJersey.com
STAFF WRITER

The trial of former state Sen. Joseph Coniglio, convicted in a bribery scandal involving Hackensack University Medical Center, exposed the hospital’s reach into the State House — and put a spotlight on the wealthy, influential men who serve as the hospital’s power brokers.

Hackensack’s board members have connections and political muscle that extend far beyond the hospital. At black-tie fund-raisers and dinners at board member Joseph Sanzari’s Stony Hill Inn, business — hospital and otherwise — is on the agenda.

Various board members help to underwrite Bergen County’s Democratic machine and powerful lawmakers in Trenton. They’re awarded many of the region’s public construction contracts. They have the network — and the money — to smooth over zoning issues for the hospital. Testimony at the trial this month showed they supported the hiring of Coniglio, who was convicted of steering millions in grants to Hackensack while on the hospital’s payroll.

"A political machine" is how Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas R. Calcagni described the hospital as he told jurors about Hackensack’s relationships with former acting governor and Senate President Richard Codey, state Sen. Paul Sarlo, Coniglio and others during the trial.

"There are board members who could pick up the phone and call the governor and say, ‘I need help on this,’ " Coniglio’s defense lawyer, Gerald Krovatin, said at the trial.

The hospital’s most powerful board members include major contractors Sanzari and J. Fletcher Creamer Jr., whose political roots run as deep as their wallets. Joseph Simunovich, who rose up through the Hudson County political arena to become chairman of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and a fund-raiser for Sen. Bob Menendez, is also a key member of the hospital’s inner circle of decision makers. With their help, John P. Ferguson, the hospital’s president and CEO, has taken what was once a community hospital and built it into a $1 billion enterprise — the busiest and, in many ways, the best hospital in the state.

But while Hackensack’s board members are generous donors — and prolific fund-raisers — some are also making money off the hospital. It’s a practice that is frowned upon by health care experts and outright banned at some hospitals in North Jersey, where officials say it crosses an ethical line.

A few examples from the hospital’s federal tax filings for 2007, the latest available:

* Companies owned by Sanzari and Creamer are building a 975-car garage as part of the $135 million cancer center now under construction. Creamer was paid more than $475,000 by the hospital for construction services.

* The hospital paid more than $2 million to Progenitor Cell Therapy, a private stem cell research company owned in part by Ferguson; Dr. Andrew Pecora, director of the cancer center; board members Peter C. Gerhard, George T. Croonquist and Samuel Toscano Jr.; and the hospital’s chief operating officer, Robert C. Garrett.

* The hospital paid $2.5 million to lease space from Sanzari 2001, where board member David Sanzari — Joseph’s cousin — is a managing member with an ownership stake. It also spent $68,000 at the Marriott at Glenpointe hotel, which is owned by David Sanzari’s family.

* The DeCotiis law firm, one of the most influential in the state, made more than $1 million from the hospital. It is representing the hospital in the Coniglio case and guiding its campaign to reopen Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood. During that time, Frank Huttle III, a partner, served on the board. He said Friday that he resigned recently.

* Universal Health, which operates a retail pharmacy at the hospital, received $200,000. At the time, Toscano was the company’s chief executive officer.

‘Squeaky clean’ is the goal

These types of arrangements trouble expert Jamie Orlikoff, who said hospitals nationally are moving away from allowing trustees to serve if they do business with their hospital.

"It doesn’t pass the smell test," said Orlikoff, a national adviser on governance and leadership to the American Hospital Association.

"When you govern a hospital, you’re governing the most important asset in the community," he said. "You should be squeaky clean."

Englewood Hospital and Medical Center had its general counsel step down from the board to avoid any conflict, said Douglas Duchek, the hospital’s president. Other than doctors, no other board members are being paid by the institution, he said.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, is so concerned about the potential for abuse that she introduced a bill in October that requires boards to disclose any potential or perceived conflict of interest. The bill also would require hospitals to solicit bids in awarding any contract for more than $25,000.

"If board members themselves are also making a profit from their association, that information should be fully divulged,’’ she said. "We can actually look at what’s grown up to be cozy relationships and decide whether they’re appropriate."

Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle, D-Englewood, sponsored the bill in the Legislature. Her husband is Frank Huttle, who said he resigned from the board because of time constraints.

Screen of privacy

Despite all the public money that goes to the hospital, it’s considered a private institution. Board meetings are closed and contracts are not disclosed. That makes it difficult to paint a full picture of the business of running the hospital.

The hospital has offered little in the way of comment since the Coniglio trial began. On Friday afternoon, however, it released this statement:

"Community-based institutions throughout the nation rely on the support of local civic and business leaders who serve on their governing boards. Members of the Hackensack University Medical Center board of governors are generous with their time and their financial support, but more importantly have gained the skills to govern a complex institution such as ours. An independent, nationally recognized authority on not-for-profit governance has counseled HUMC for more than five years. The HUMC board’s best practices model includes a rigorous annual disclosure statement and ongoing education. This conflicts of interest policy is enforced by a dedicated committee of the board of governors."

The Record called Creamer, Sanzari, Ferguson, Toscano and other board members for this article, but only one, Simunovich, would speak.

Simunovich said he was "saddened" by the Coniglio verdict, but said board members were not involved in hiring the senator.

"We didn’t sign off on him," he said Thursday. "Board members don’t hire or fire."

He said he had been in Florida and hadn’t paid attention to the trial. "All I got was a phone call that he was found guilty," he said.

There are "no politicians that I know of [on the board]," Simunovich said. "You certainly do have corporate representation, and of course you have people we count on for their advice and guidance."

He did not respond to a question about the possible ethical tightrope walked by board members who do business with the hospital.

Big winners in grant race

The Coniglio trial served as a primer on the backroom politics of New Jersey, where certain grants, known as "Christmas tree items," were doled out based on who has "the juice." By all accounts, Hackensack mastered the game and loomed large in Trenton. From 2004 to 2006, the hospital received $17.4 million for its cancer center, an extra $9 million in charity care above the millions it was already getting and $250,000 for the Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital. A $900,000 research grant was awarded to the private stem cell firm at the hospital and $70,000 went for a seat belt study.

Those awards dwarf the grants given to Hackensack’s competitors. The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, for instance, took in less than $1 million a year in both state and federal grants during that time, according to the hospital’s tax filings.

Robert L. Torre, a hospital vice president who was given immunity to serve as the government’s star witness, testified that Ferguson authorized Coniglio’s hiring. Torre, who testified that he didn’t need Coniglio, said that after a conference call with Simunovich, Joseph Sanzari and Ferguson, it was clear Coniglio would be hired.

Coniglio, a former plumber, was paid $103,900 between May 2004 and February 2006 for a low-show "community relations" job at Hackensack. "Hackensack’s personal senator," as he was called at the trial, got a $500-a-month raise after the hospital received checks for state grants, prosecutors said.

But the trial showed the hospital’s reach went further than one legislator. Coniglio’s defense attorney said that Torre had "played Joe Coniglio like a fiddle" to get to Codey. A Dec. 13, 2005, report from Torre to his board of trustees credited Codey, in his role as acting governor, for a $9 million award for the cancer center, and noted $3 million of that grant would be earmarked for The Maureen Fund, established in honor of Codey’s aide, to fight ovarian cancer.

Weight to throw around

The power Hackensack wields comes as no surprise to other hospital executives.

"The trial hasn’t showed us anything we didn’t know. It’s not a level playing field," Duchek said. Englewood and Valley are battling Hackensack’s plan — and its considerable P.R. machine — to open a 128-bed hospital in Westwood, which they say could significantly harm the finances of other hospitals in the region.

Besides its board and its members’ connections, Hackensack has weight to throw around because it is Bergen County’s biggest business and one of the state’s top 10 employers. It boasts marquee physicians providing care that rivals that of the nation’s best hospitals.

Hackensack University Medical Center ranks high in nearly every national and state assessment of patient care. Founded in 1888 with 12 beds and as Bergen County’s first hospital, it now has 775 beds and 7,200 employees.

Its fund raising is the envy of the other hospitals in the region. Benefactors include Don Imus and his wife, Deirdre. Even in these tough times, the Hackensack University Medical Foundation reported a staggering $25.3 million in donations last year.

Hackensack’s president, Ferguson, is ranked 12th — just behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — in Modern Healthcare’s list of the most influential health care leaders in the nation.

The 60-year-old Park Ridge resident’s name came up often at the trial as the omnipotent boss involved in every decision. He was never charged or called to testify.

But the case may not be over for the hospital. When asked why hospital executives weren’t charged, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Brown said the investigation is continuing. "I think heads at HUMC should roll," jury foreman Walter Palkocki said. "Their culpability is significant."

Influential roles

At Hackensack, a few names — Simunovich, Ferguson, Sanzari, Creamer — keep showing up in influential roles on key boards. They serve as trustees of the Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation, the hospital’s fund-raising arm, as well as the hospital’s board of governors and Hillcrest Health Service System, the hospital’s parent corporation. Leading contractors and developers — Sanzari, Creamer and John C. Fowler — are on the building committee.

During the trial, a large photo of Simunovich seated next to Codey at a hospital fund-raiser was shown to jurors as an example of his access and influence.

In his closing statement, Coniglio’s attorney credited Simunovich and Sanzari with snaring a $500,000 state grant for the hospital without the help of lobbyists or legislators.

Simunovich is the former chairman of the board of governors and current chairman of the board of trustees for the Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation, the hospital’s fund-raising arm.

Simunovich, the former president of United Water Management and Services, was a Hudson County freeholder for 12 years, three as chairman. He served under three governors on the New Jersey Economic Development Authority and is the former chairman of the Bergen County Economic Development Corp., serving along with Ferguson and Creamer. The corporation was later part of a movement to create a bio-tech development area near the hospital.

Governor Corzine did not reappoint Simunovich to the Turnpike Authority in 2007 after he was investigated by the State Ethics Commission; as chairman, he had voted on millions in public contracts that were awarded to Sanzari while he accepted free rides on the contractor’s private jet. Simunovich paid a $50,000 fine, which was not an admission of guilt.

"Mr. Simunovich’s actions do not reflect the standards demanded by the governor for those who serve in his administration," Corzine’s then-spokesman Anthony Coley said.

During that probe, critics pointed out that a company run by Simunovich’s son-in-law landed a contract in 2005 to renovate a thrift shop run by the auxiliary of the hospital’s foundation. Torre said at the time that Simunovich had nothing to do with that decision.

Big contributor

Joseph Sanzari serves as first vice chairman, the No. 2 position on the hospital’s board of governors.

He’s a generous hospital contributor: He and his wife gave $10 million to the children’s and women’s hospital that bears their names. Just days before the trial began, Sanzari contributed an additional $1 million to Hackensack.

Sanzari, who started his business with two trucks and a backhoe, is a leader in highway construction. His companies have taken in more than $380 million in three years through contracts with public agencies, including the Turnpike Authority, Xanadu, and other entities, according to the pay-to-play databank prepared by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. The Ho-Ho-Kus resident is such a prominent contractor that he was once serenaded by Luciano Pavarotti at a builders’ event in his honor.

Sanzari is part owner of both the Stony Hill Inn in Hackensack and the New Bridge Inn in New Milford, popular hangouts for Bergen County’s political elite. Sanzari, his companies and employees have contributed more than $100,000 to political campaigns and political action committees in the past three years, according to data the company provided to state elections regulators.

Among his top employees is state Sen. Paul Sarlo, also the mayor of Wood-Ridge. Sarlo oversees billions in public spending as a lead member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he also controls key appointments to state agencies that have awarded millions in contracts to Sanzari’s firms.

Sarlo, chief operating officer for Sanzari’s construction company, testified at the trial that he was largely responsible for getting the $900,000 grant for the hospital’s cancer center. He said he also lobbied Codey for the $9 million cancer center grant and played a role in the $900,000 grant for stem cell research at the hospital.

Deep connections

J. Fletcher Creamer Jr., the chairman of the hospital’s board of governors and vice chairman of the foundation board, also has deep connections in Bergen County.

J. Fletcher Creamer & Son Inc. received more than $84 million in public contracts in Bergen County and elsewhere in New Jersey from 2006 to 2008. The company contributed $152,185 to candidates or committees last year, according to ELEC’s pay-to-play Web site.

Like the Sanzaris, Creamer family members are significant contributors to the hospital: Hackensack’s trauma center bears the name of Jeffrey M. Creamer, the late brother of the current board chairman.

Frank Huttle — who is running for mayor in Englewood — is a partner in the Teaneck-based DeCotiis law firm, whose senior management includes chief counsels to two former governors and has a client roster that ranges from EnCap Golf and Xanadu to scores of public entities. Two partners in the firm attended the Coniglio trial virtually every day to represent the hospital.

Federal tax filings for 2007 identify several other board members who work for companies that do business with the hospital. For instance, the hospital paid North Jersey Media Group, The Record’s parent company, $371,255 for advertising in 2007. Jennifer Borg, vice president and general counsel, serves on the hospital’s boards.

In tax filings, the hospital notes: "Any goods purchased or services performed are done so at fair market value rates pursuant to arms length negotiations." The hospital’s bylaws require members of the board to tell the hospital of potential conflicts of interest and to abstain from voting on such issues, but that information — and even the votes — are not public.

Power over local decisions

Hackensack’s power, its money and its vast web of connections isn’t just in Trenton. It also reaches into the local level and into Washington:

* When the hospital wanted to build a new cancer center over the objections of residents, it turned to Scarinci & Hollenbeck, the influential firm where then-Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero was a partner. Two of the city’s five council members at the time were members of the county Democratic committee, a third was once a member, and a fourth had a job with the county. A political action committee run by the medical center had once donated thousands to this political team. In addition to those connections, the hospital paid the city $1 million and promised to take over its daytime ambulance services. Ferriero, who is now under federal indictment for conspiracy to commit fraud, notarized the deal, which was witnessed by Sanzari.

* Less than a week after the Bergen freeholders pledged not to take sides in the battle over whether Hackensack should be allowed to reopen Pascack Valley Hospital, they passed a unanimous resolution supporting Hackensack. That meeting was jammed with construction workers led by Richard "Buzzy" Dressel — a board member of Hackensack’s foundation who also is a leader of the county Democratic Party, the business manager of a local union itching for renovation work at Pascack and a partner in Sanzari’s New Bridge Inn. They grabbed all the seats before the session began, so that employees bused in from opposing hospitals were stuck in an overflow room.

* In Washington, Michael Hutton, a lobbyist who had done work for the hospital’s foundation, hosted a swanky reception to celebrate Menendez’s swearing in at the Senate in 2007. Hackensack hospital was among a handful of groups — including Verizon and AT&T — that funded the private celebration, where Simunovich and other partygoers feasted on shrimp and lobster pasta. When questioned later, Torre conceded that non-profit firms are barred from political activity. But this was not a political event, he said. "It was hosted by a third party," Torre said.

Union leader Ann Twomey said the trial "makes it clear there wasn’t enough oversight’’ at Hackensack.

"It’s a matter of making sure the scarce patient-care dollars are going to where they belong and that it’s not being influenced by those who are in the greatest position of power — the board of trustees," said Twomey, president of the Health Professional & Allied Employees, a union that represents employees at several area hospitals.

Twomey said Weinberg’s proposed legislation should outright ban trustees from doing any business with their hospital.

At The Valley Hospital, just one board member — its chairman, the president of a hospital supply company — does business with the hospital, said hospital President Audrey Meyers.

The chairman, Vincent Forlenza, who works at Becton, Dickinson and Co., does not participate in any decisions about purchasing supplies, she said.

The hospital directly bought $83,000 worth of supplies from the company and paid an additional $1.6 million as part of a group purchasing program, Meyers said.

"The Valley Hospital does not allow trustees to do business with the hospital unless a trustee works for a company where the value of our business is insignificant to that company," she said.

Others agree that hospitals need to stay away from mixing business with service on the board.

In the public’s mind, if a contractor who serves on the board is the successful bidder, there may be a perception of insider dealing, Orlikoff said.

"It’s exactly this sticky, one-hand-washes-the-other-hand mess you’re trying to avoid," he said.

Staff Writers Peter J. Sampson, Lindy Washburn, Mike Kelly, Jeff Pillets, Bob Groves and James M. O’Neill contributed to this article. E-mail: layton@northjersey.com

Online story here. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

New Dems - PolitickerNJ - Mapp opens headquarters

2009-05-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

Published on PolitickerNJ Monday, April 19,2009

April 19, 2009 - 3:43pm

In campaign HQ opener, Mapp appeals to 4th Ward,
emphasizes tough background

By Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJ.com Reporter

PLAINFIELD – Running as the New Democrat successor of the late Mayor Al McWilliams, 3rd Ward Councilman Adrian Mapp opened his campaign headquarters on Watchung Avenue Saturday and promised to end what he described as “a dictatorial form of government” in Union County’s Queen City, and to fairly represent all four wards.

“I will create an economic development plan that is not developer-driven, and develop an aggressive marketing plan to enhance Plainfield’s image,” said Mapp, standing at a podium in front of an American Flag hung from the ceiling. “With a transit village tax credit, the train station can be our linch pin for revitalization. I would also like to undertake a study of all brownfield structures and create retail store ratables where possible.”

A large concentration of those old structures stands in the 4th Ward, the city’s longtime poorest residential district and the epicenter of the 1967 Plainfield riots. When she first won election nearly four years ago with the establishment backing of Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield) , Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs defeated then-incumbent Mayor Al McWilliams in the 4th, 868 to 698 votes.

As a candidate on the New Democrats’ ticket with Mapp last year, McWilliams’ daughter, At-Large Councilwoman Annie McWilliams, came back and crushed Robinson-Briggs ally Councilman Harold Gibson. But while she beat him decisively in the 4th Ward, (233 to 151 votes), voter turnout remained low there compared to Plainfield’s other three wards. In the more affluent, New Democrat-controlled 2nd Ward, where McWilliams lives, she buried Gibson, 738 to 270.

On Saturday, Mapp made a special appeal to the 4th.

“We cannot leave anybody behind,” said the former freeholder, a native of Barbados who along with his wife raised two daughters in this city. “We must move forward with all four wards.”

Touted by his allies as an egghead who will be able to make surgical decisions regarding the city’s budget, Mapp works as the chief financial officer for the City of Roselle. That town’s mayor, Garrett Smith, Mapp’s wife Emilia and New Democrat Assembly candidate Rick Smiley joined a crowd of about 50 people at the storefront-sized downtown HQ in support of Mapp, who’s challenging Mayor Robinson-Briggs in the June 2nd Democratic Primary.

“You have a great man here,” Smith told Mapp’s allies. “You don’t get MBAs and CPAs everyday in this line, because of the dirt in politics, quality people don’t want to run. But you’ve got a gem, and he will be an awesome mayor.”

Pat Politano, campaign strategist for Robinson-Briggs, said there's nothing wrong with the current mayor.

"During Sharon's tenure, she has cut the murder rate by 300% - from 15 to five - and stabilized taxes," Politano said. "Come on, this is a candidate (Mapp) who collects two public paychecks and wants to be somebody. He's going nowhere. When he was a councilman (during the McWilliams era), he didn't even know the 4th Ward existed. He wanted to make cuts to the police department as a so-called fiscal lconservative without considering the impact in the greatest areas of need."

There is a larger political context to the mayor's race here, as Green and Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood) face a 22nd District general election challenge from Republicans former Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks and his running mate, Bo Vastine. In the meantime, they will have to get through Smiley, 49, who heads the ticket in Plainfield that includes Mapp.

Employed by the City of Plainfield for 23 years as director of community relations among other jobs, Smiley is on leave from his job coordinating the opening of Headstart facilities, to focus on the campaign.

“The closing of Muhlenberg Hospital transcends Plainfield,” said Smiley, speaking to his signature campaign issue. “My message will get around. I’ve got a little time now to get my message out there.”

The New Democrats’ decision to not field a second assembly candidate indicates their focus on the mayor’s race. “I’m comfortable having Rick on the ticket,” said Mapp. “There is such a level of dissatisfaction in Plainfield and in the 22nd District. Every town in the legislative district was affected by the closing of the hospital.”

In the speech he gave on Saturday following a shorter address delivered by Smiley, Mapp invoked the idealism of Lincoln and Obama, and committed to embracing renewable energy, building the police department to a complement of 160 officers, and ensuring the federal census properly records Plainfield’s population over the 50,000 mark in order to land a coveted category to qualify for more inner city funding.

“Most importantly,” he said, “I will listen to you.”

On the battlefield of ward politics, the knock on Mapp is he’s too cerebral, but his allies repeatedly plugged his intellect and detail-oriented approach as irrefutable strengths. The well-spoken candidate himself referred to his hard background lest anyone confuse him with a silver spoon transplant.

“I was raised in a one-parent household in extreme poverty,” he said.

As the challenger reached the emotional high point of his speech, a car alarm went off in the adjoining alleyway. Undeterred, Mapp’s vocal chords competed momentarily before outlasting the distraction.

While the New Democrats possess the advantage of having just vaulted Mapp and McWilliams onto the council last year, they still face the money and machine edge enjoyed by the establishment, and a formidable opponent in the mayor.

New Democrat School Board Member Christian Estevez told the crowd, “That tired machine will recruit teenagers to work for them and those teenagers will take their money and dump their pamphlets in the gutter. But we’ll be out there working for every vote.”

Max Pizarro is a PolitickerNJ.com Reporter and can be reached via email at max@politicsnj.com.

Online story here. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

PMUA - Courier - Watson defends conferences, travel

2009-05-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Published in the Courier News print edition Sunday, May 10,2009

May 9, 2009 [online]

PMUA chief defends cost of training conferences,
travel for Plainfield agency's employees

By MARK SPIVEY
STAFF WRITER

Having fallen under fire earlier this year for introducing drastic rate hikes and laying off more than a dozen employees, the city's waste management organization is on the defensive again after it spent thousands of dollars to send more than a dozen top officials to a conference in California two weeks ago.

Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority Executive Director Eric Watson confirmed that 13 members of the organization's board of commissioners and other executives attended the 2009 National Forum for Black Public Administrators conference in Oakland, Calif., from April 25 to 29. The trip cost approximately $25,000, Watson said, with that amount covering hotel stays of up to six nights at the Oakland Marriott plus airline tickets and conference registration fees. Watson also said he was allotted a $140 daily per diem for the trip, with other staffers receiving daily per diems of $100 or $75 depending on their seniority.

The trip came less than four months after the authority raised its solid waste fees by 20 percent and its sanitary sewer fees by 14 percent for 2009, costing the city's average single-family household nearly $200 more per year. Officials cited falling revenues and rising costs as necessitating those moves, adding that 20 of the authority's 170 workers were laid off and the remainder asked to take unpaid furloughs to help offset deficits.

The California trip resulted in a flood of complaints from residents and authors of some of the city's popular blogs, and drew near-universal criticism from both sides of the city's sharply defined political fence that separates two powerful Democratic camps.

"I think it's ridiculous, it's an outrage, to have the PMUA — in light of the challenges taxpayers are facing lately, and the fact that people are being laid off — pay money to take (13) people out to California," said City Councilman Adrian Mapp, the mayoral candidate for the city's self-labeled "New Democrats." "I think it shows that the leadership of the PMUA is totally out of touch."

"This is the final straw, because the public is crying out that this has to stop," agreed Assemblyman Jerry Green, D-Plainfield, longtime leader of the city's traditional Democratic organization. "I'm looking at the bigger picture when I say some of the city's agencies ... run by commissioner appointment by the mayor and council almost feel that they're not accountable to anyone. Well, that's not true."

BETTER SERVICE

Authority officials vigorously defended the trip last week, claiming it was intended to help improve business practices and efficiency within the organization. Watson, who sits on the National Forum for Black Public Administrators board of directors, said classes and seminars at the conference centered on various topics including improving morale in the workplace, coping with stress associated with downsizing and applying for federal stimulus funding.

"I think it makes us better employees, and the more knowledgeable you are, the better. And if you have disgruntled and unhappy employees, that's pretty tough on your business," Watson said. "Conferences and training are part of your job, and we want our employees to be the best trained as they can be."

Authority Chairwoman Carol Ann Brokaw Boles, whose participation as a panelist during a conference seminar titled "A Three-Way Affair: Tightening the Bonds Between Local Government, Immigrants and Established Residents" is touted on the front page of the PMUA's Web site, agreed. Brokaw labeled recent criticism directed toward the authority as representing political posturing, not legitimate grievances.

"I'm not saying the PMUA is perfect, but nothing about any entity is perfect. And we certainly try everything we can to make our operation as efficient and intelligent as possible," said Brokaw, who recently announced her candidacy for mayor. "PMUA has just become political football this year, and some people have decided to make that the mantra of their entire political campaigns."

Watson further defended the trip by pointing out the authority's annual travel and training budget, which he estimated to have approached $175,000 in recent years, recently was slashed to $100,000 "because of the economy." He said the authority does not intend to curtail plans to send from four to six officials to two additional conferences in Las Vegas and Long Beach, Calif., later this year.

"To suggest a person shouldn't be able to go learn something and train is ridiculous," Watson said. "As long as I am executive director here, I will allow people to grow."

PUBLIC OUTCRY

Explanations fell on deaf ears among many city residents.

"What are they doing? At a time like this, when the economy's bad and people are suffering, why would you do things that would create greater expenses for people and have to raise (rates) to pay for them?" asked Bill Pyfer, a 63-year-old retired federal agent who lives on Cedarbrook Road.

"It was a weekend vacation for these people," agreed Carol Pyfer, his wife. "I see very little being done for the good of the people here."

Philip Charles, who has spearheaded a residents' campaign against the PMUA by founding the Web site www.dumppmua.com and filing a lawsuit against the authority that features multiple charges and plaintiffs, said he and other fellow residents were "deeply saddened" by the news.

"The fact that they would continue to send this number of people to these, I'm going to say quote-unquote, "workshops,' ... I find it hard to believe," Charles said. "Even after they increased rates and let people go ... their spending doesn't look like it's changed."

Both Green and Mapp pledged action on the matter, with the assemblyman recently asking the Office of the State Comptroller to "examine the entire operation of the PMUA ... because of the high rate of dissatisfaction with this agency," as he wrote on his blog.

"I feel we should put all our different agencies on notice, the school board, the housing authority, everyone, that the city cannot tolerate this any longer," Green said. "These are all agencies that really govern themselves, but it's time now that the mayor and council sit down and come up with a city-wide policy dealing with travel."

Mapp, who earlier this year pledged if elected to disband the PMUA and bring waste management under the auspices of City Hall, said he feels one of the only ways the authority can reverse damage to its reputation is by taking matters into its own hands.

"I would go as far as to say that the leadership of the PMUA should reimburse the authority for all of the expenses that were incurred (during the trip) in order to show they understand in simple terms the hardships that taxpayers are facing," Mapp said. "I challenge the leadership of the PMUA to do the right thing."

Additional Facts

ON THE WEB
• For more on the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority, visit www.pmua.info, or call 908-226-2518.

Online story here. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

New Dems - PolitickerNJ - Mapp gets in game against Robinson-Briggs

2009-04-11T06:02:00.001-07:00

PolitickerNJ

January 26, 2009 - 6:16pm

In Plainfield, Mapp gets in the game against Mayor Robinson-Briggs

By Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJ.com Reporter

[Image: Councilman Adrian Mapp]

PLAINFIELD - Pledging transparency in government, better city services and better advocacy for residents, Ward Three Councilman Adrian Mapp today formally announced his intention to challenge one-term Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs.

A former two-term member of the Plainfield City Council and former Union County Freeholder, Mapp won re-election to the council last year on a ticket with Annie McWIlliams, daughter of the late former Mayor Al McWilliams, whom Robinson-Briggs defeated four years ago.

"I had planned as far back as 2007 on running for Mayor," said Mapp, "but put that thought on the back burner after I was approached by residents about running for the Ward 3 seat. Folks were concerned that with the issues the country and the City were facing, a more experienced and pro-active presence was needed from the Third Ward.

“Like the rest of the country, Plainfield is facing an extremely difficult future for at least the next two years,” added Mapp, a chief financial officer for the City of Roselle. “People are losing their jobs and their homes, the likelihood that our tax receipts will be negatively impacted is very high, and we must come to grips with the realities of the situation. Plainfield simply cannot afford four more years of a mayor who rushes to hug people but seems incapable of actually helping them.”

Max Pizarro is a PolitickerNJ.com Reporter and can be reached via email at max@politicsnj.com.

Related topics: Sharon Robinson-Briggs, Rick Smiley, Jerry Green, Annie McWilliams, Al McWIlliams, Adrian Mapp

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

2009 Primary - PolitickerNJ - Robinson-Briggs vs. Mapp's New Dems

2009-04-11T04:58:00.000-07:00

PolitickerNJ

December 21, 2008 - 6:05pm

In Plainfield, Mayor Robinson-Briggs
will try to withstand Mapp's New Democrats

By Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJ.com Reporter

[image: Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs]

PLAINFIELD – Get it right in four years or you’re gone.

That’s the message the voters consistently deliver in the Union County city of Plainfield, and looking at past results, most of their elected leaders get it wrong.

In 125 years of political wrangling, only one mayor won reelection here.

That was the late Al McWilliams, a self-professed New Democrat who in 2005 failed to get over a rising crime wave and lost his bid for a third term to machine Democrat Sharon Robinson-Briggs by 325 votes, 2,713 to 2,388.

Now Robinson-Briggs, 49, Plainfield’s first woman to serve as mayor, readies for her reelection campaign next year in what will likely be a hard fought Plainfield contest with once and future councilman Adrian Mapp, a McWilliams ally and now leader of the New Democrats, who’s energized by his successful return to local politics.

Mapp already filed to run for mayor – a $35,000-per year part-time job - with the state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), but insists he’s not yet made a final decision.

“If more and more people approach me I will consider running,” says the 52-year old former county freeholder and at-large city councilman, who earlier this year defeated Robinson-Briggs ally Don Davis by a 10 percent margin to become the 3rd Ward councilman.

“If there’s a groundswell of support for me, I would give it very serious consideration. I would be guided by the desires of the people.”

Should he run, Mapp, a CPA and chief financial officer in Roselle, is likely to make competence the issue as Plainfield’s nearly 48,000 residents this year lost Muhlenberg Hospital – the city’s biggest employer of 1,000 jobs; while homeowners fear the prospect of a local tax increase of 9.5 percent.

“The roads are in a state of disrepair, people are paying high taxes, and we have a shrinking commercial tax base,” says Mapp. “Residents don’t feel their tax dollars are offering a return on investment. They want to know their elected officials are capable of leading. Clearly, the city needs someone to get out front.”

In defense of her administration, Robinson-Briggs says the 9.5 percent figure reflects on a working $78 million budget that has not yet received state extraordinary aid. She continues to examine every option in difficult economic times, she says, including renegotiating contracts and implementing a four-day work week for city employees.

As for the hospital, Robinson-Briggs with pain in her voice argues that she did everything she could to avert what was ultimately a private sector decision made by the suits at Solaris Health Systems.

Her administration lobbied the hospital itself, and failing that, “We sent an overabundance of letters to Gov. Corzine,” says the mayor. “We proposed a statewide lottery with money to be divided among (urban) hospitals (like Muhlenberg). That was an idea that didn’t pan out. We started to work on the issue at the end of last year. We wrote over 2,000 letters. I understand the governor is in a tight spot and looking at things equitably in the State of New Jersey.

“But I told them, if you close the hospital, people will die.”

While the mayor refrains from listing her accomplishments days before her New Year state of the city speech, observers of Robinson-Briggs’ administration say positives during her four-year watch include crime reduction, fewer workers on the city payroll than when she took office, and construction of a senior citizen complex on Front Street for under $1 million.

People like her. What she lacks comparatively in schooling, she makes up for as a ceremonial force whose positive energy fills a room.

“The mayor is very warm can and can connect with people in an emotional way,” says At-Large Councilman Rashid Burney. “Adrian Mapp’s base is more affluent and educated.”

“No, Adrian’s not Bill Clinton,” admits 2nd Ward Councilman Cory Storch. “But he’s really good with constituent relations. I saw that when he first served on the council. Then there’s his financial background. He’s going to run on fiscal management and delivering overall quality of services.”

If the mayor’s poise and interpersonal skills – “Let me give you a Plainfield hug,” she tells a newcomer - and Mapp’s numbers-crunching prowess jump out as arguably the political antagonists’ most obvious strengths, both the councilman-elect and Robinson-Briggs also have important allies on their respective sides who underscore the city’s political divide between the regular Dems and the New Dems.

Robinson-Briggs boasts the political muscle of Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield), speaker pro tempore in the state legislature, who championed her early in her career on the school board and who has ready access to Democratic Party campaign cash. Green’s own PAC dropped $8,200 on Shannon-Briggs’ massive $200,000 campaign effort in 2005, while the assemblyman generated significant campaign contributions from Statehouse allies like Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) and Assemblywoman Nellie Pou (D-Paterson).

Mapp, meanwhile, enjoys the alliance of the New Democrats’ symbol of polished poetic justice in the person of Annie McWilliams, 24-year old eldest daughter of the late and – in some quarters – beloved – mayor, who died of kidney cancer in April of 2007.

As Mapp’s running mate, the young McWilliams crushed the organization’s at-large candidate in the June primary by a 3-1 margin.

A Wharton School of Business graduate who will serve as the city’s at-large councilwoman when she gets sworn-in with Mapp come January, McWilliams comes out of the ward that contains the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood, Plainfield’s own ivy covered homage to Victorian grandeur. She supports a Mapp mayoral candidacy, and at the very least makes it clear, “I will be disappointed if we see this mayor back in office.”

Coming off their win, the Mapp-McWilliams duo can make a compelling case that the New Democrats have momentum as they consider a citywide contest in Plainfield’s four wards.

Mapp in November seized control of the council seat in the mayor’s home ward, officially dealing her some disrespect in her own neighborhood. In addition to his base support in the 3rd ward, where presumably he would have to fight the mayor house to house for votes, Mapp can count on the old McWilliams support in the 2nd ward, reanimated by his daughter and reinforced by Storch. The 2nd remains the New Democrats’ strongest ward, where Al McWilliams built his own base of operations.

In their 2005 face-off, McWilliams won the 2nd over Robinson-Briggs by 273 votes: 924 to 651.

The late mayor lost in the city’s three other wards, by 224 votes in the 1st, 170 in the 3rd, and 204 in the 4th.

Already in possession of a political structure in Robinson-Briggs’ home ward and anchored in the 2nd by McWilliams, Mapp faces the challenge of reaching out to those two wards where the sitting mayor has an advantage over the New Democrats, the regular Democrats’ bread and butter districts: the 1st and 4th wards.

Predicting the usual political conflagration here next year, politicos like Burney are staying uncommitted for the moment.

“If I pick a side now and that side loses, I’m out,” says the at-large councilman, who ran and won as a New Democrat but has since tried to be more independent, in his words.

“I respect and like Adrian Mapp a lot, as I do the current mayor,” says state Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union). “I will say that any attacks on elected officials regarding the hospital closing are absolutely unfair. From the get-go, market factors made it impossible for the hospital to remain open.

“The two main issues in Plainfield are education and crime,” adds the senator. “It’s no longer an Abbott School district. Crime is reduced. Usually in an economic downturn you see an escalation of crime but that’s not happening.”

Eighteen miles southwest of Newark, Plainfield resembles a smaller version of New Jersey’s biggest city – at least demographically: 62 percent African American, 21 percent white, 25 percent Latinos of any race. Its downtown looks like some headlong train trestle melding of Union City, Orange, and Passaic, heavily textured from the neon-lit windows to the curbs.

“The Queen City,” says native son, Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), who served on the city council representing the 2nd ward from 1985 to 1991 before he moved to Westfield, the second to last Republican to serve on the council.

On Friday, the city mobilizes to confront a snow and ice storm.

The mayor’s on duty in City Hall.

A fire truck slaps slush in the windshields of oncoming traffic as it heads downtown, through a blur of African hair braiding studios, Mexican restaurants, grocery, private detective and bail bonds stores, tattoo parlors, donut shops, past the Religious Society of Friends- Quakers, they settled the town - under train tracks and past Central Americans in front of diners trying to make eye contact with drivers of passing cars, and public works employees in yellow vests on foot in the falling snow, shoveling.

A gray public building, one of New Jersey’s blue collar pyramids - in this case a post office - emblemizes the older era, when some WPA architect dreamed Greek columns could as appropriately adorn Watchung Avenue as the Parthenon between the liquor stores and a passing beef-pork-poultry truck out of Elizabeth.

It’s been over 40 years since the 1967 Plainfield riots, an era when Mayor George Hetfield conducted city business from the auspices of a local country club and the hard luck 4th Ward went up in flames and a mob killed Officer John Vincent Gleason, Jr.

And Hetfield – guilty or not, those who were there judged – was voted out of office, carrying on the one and done mayoral cycle that Al McWilliams finally broke and that Robinson-Briggs wants to break again.

On the hill overlooking the rest of the city, above the factories and abandoned factories and projects of the 4th Ward - “There used to be a Mack Truck factory there, a great big factory,” remembers Bramnick – stand the 2nd Ward Wall Street millionaires’ massive summertime mansions of all styles - Colonial Revival and Jacobethan Victorian, Queen Anne’s, Tudor, Second Empire, after a while you can start inventing names that evoke elegance but still not get to the architectural finery that is only, of course, part of the city’s legacy; as Robinson-Briggs and Mapp and McWilliams and Green, and everyone, gets ready for yet another season of politics in Plainfield.

Max Pizarro is a PolitickerNJ.com Reporter and can be reached via email at max@politicsnj.com.

Related topics: Sharon Robinson-Briggs, Rashid Burney, Nicholas Scutari, JON CORZINE, Jon Bramnick, Jerry Green, George Hetfield, Cory Storch, Annie McWilliams, Al McWIlliams, Adrian Mapp

[Link]

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

New Dems - PolitickerNJ - McWilliams resigns from Board

2009-04-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

PolitickerNJ (Then known as PoliticsNJ)

September 24, 2005 - 6:34pm
Press Release

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New Democrats for Plainfield

By desnuda

Mayor Albert McWilliams Resigns from Executive Board
of the New Democrats for Plainfield

Plainfield Mayor Albert T. McWilliams submitted his resignation from the executive board of the New Democrats for Plainfield today. Mayor McWilliams served as Immediate Past President of the organization since July of this year. In accepting his resignation current president, Union County Freeholder Adrian Mapp thanked the mayor for his service and wished him well on his future endeavors. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2005

Contact:
Adrian Mapp at (908) 577-0630
Shep D. Brown at (908) 405-5755

Mayor Albert McWilliams Resigns from Executive Board of the New Democrats for Plainfield

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2005

PLAINFIELD - Plainfield Mayor Albert T. McWilliams submitted his resignation from the executive board of the New Democrats for Plainfield today. Mayor McWilliams served as Immediate Past President of the organization since July of this year. In accepting his resignation current president, Union County Freeholder Adrian Mapp thanked the mayor for his service and wished him well on his future endeavors.

Mr. Mapp announced the Mayor's resignation in a statement to members today reminding them that according to the by-laws of the organization the New Democrats for Plainfield could only endorse registered Democrats.

“Although the organization will not be making any endorsement in this race, we will seek to play a positive role in the upcoming elections by hosting a candidate's forum where all candidates for local office will be invited to share their views with the members of the New Democrats and the general public, said Mr. Mapp in his statement. “I believe that it is in the best interest of all the citizens of Plainfield to have a comprehensive issues based debate for all mayoral candidates."

Shep Brown, spokesperson for the New Democrats said that no date or location has been set for the candidates forum. He went on to state: “In keeping with our mission to increase the civic involvement and participation of residents in all segments of Plainfield community life, we encourage other organizations and neighborhood associations in Plainfield to keep up their tradition of hosting their own candidate forums so that they can hear where all of the candidates stand on the issues that are important to them."

For further information contact Shep D. Brown at Walliedog1@nycboe.net

###

Address : <http://www.politickernj.com/new-democrats-plainfield>

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

2009 Primary - PolitickerNJ - New Dems field challenger in LD 22

2009-04-11T03:46:00.000-07:00

PolitickerNJ

April 9, 2009 - 6:08pm

News

With eye on mayoral line, New Democrats field
Plainfield challenger in LD 22

By Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJ.com Reporter

Jim McGreevey’s residential status in Plainfield sends Union County Democratic Party operatives into off-the-record spin mode characterizing the disgraced former governor as a fixture of the local rebel camp of self-styled New Democrats, a charge that today made mayoral candidate Councilman Adrian Mapp chuckle just before he shot it down.

“Jim McGreevey is a neighbor of the McWilliams’s (family of the late Mayor Al McWilliams and Councilwoman Annie McWilliams),” said Mapp, who’s challenging incumbent Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs in the Democratic Primary. “He’s not affiliated with the New Democrats in any shape, or fashion. There’s no affiliation.”

Running for her second term, the party establishment-backed Robinson-Briggs is allied with Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield) and Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood), who face a 22nd District general election challenge from Republicans former Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks and his running mate, newcomer Bo Vastine.

In the meantime, Green and Stender will have to get through Rick Smiley, 49, the New Democrat Assembly candidate who heads a ticket in Plainfield that includes mayoral candidate Mapp, an ally of Councilwoman McWilliams’s and leader of the organization.

Employed by the City of Plainfield for 23 years as director of community relations among other jobs, Smiley is on leave from his job coordinating the opening of Headstart facilities, to focus on the campaign.

“The closing of Muhlenberg Hospital transcends Plainfield,” said Smiley. “My message will get around. I’ve got a little time now to get my message out there.”

The New Democrats’ decision not to field a second assembly candidate who does not hail from Plainfield indicates their focus on the mayor’s race.

“I’m comfortable having Rick on the ticket,” said Mapp, Roselle’s chief financial officer by profession. “There is such a level of dissatisfaction in Plainfield and in the 22nd District. Every town in the legislative district was affected by the closing of the hospital.”

Max Pizarro is a PolitickerNJ.com Reporter and can be reached via email at max@politicsnj.com.

Related topics: Sharon Robinson-Briggs, Rick Smiley, Martin Marks, Linda Stender, Jim McGreevey, Jerry Green, Bo Vastine, Annie McWilliams, Al McWIlliams, Adrian Mapp

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

North Plainfield - Ledger - Yeshiva seeks approval for 50 new students

2009-02-16T03:07:00.000-08:00

Published in the Star-Ledger, Sunday, February 15, 2009

Yeshiva seeks approval for 50 new students

NORTH PLAINFIELD: An Orthodox yeshiva that has been operating for about a year on a two-acre Rockview Avenue property wants to increase its student capacity.

Yeshiva Tiferes Boruch wants to allow an additional 50 students to study at its campus, said Ted Gast, the applicant's attorney. As a condition of the previous approval, the school's occupancy was limited to 115 people. However, the yeshiva believes the state building code permits the increased capacity and that the municipality does not have jurisdiction, Gast said. Currently, there are 85 students and 20 staff members at the site.

The school operates out of the 15,000 square-foot 19th-century McCutchen mansion in the borough's historic Washington Park district.

The board of adjustment will review the application Wednesday at its 7:30 p.m. meeting, which will be held in the community center, 614 Greenbrook Road.

Item appear in print only; transcribed by DD. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Obama Stimulus Plan - Ledger - Table: How NJ would be stimulated

2009-02-01T07:34:00.000-08:00

The following table is transcribed from the print edition of the Star-Ledger for Sunday, February 1, 2009. It accompanied a story on New Jersey and Obama's economic stimulus plan: "NJ stands to get vast boost"

The Stimulus Plan: How Jersey would be stimulated
Under the House version of the economic stimulus bill, New Jersey would get roughly $4.3 billion. Experts said that figure probably would not be appreciably different in the Senate version. This is a rough breakdown of what New Jersey could expect to get in various programs.
State budget stabilization aid (includes some school funding)	$1.7 billion
Highways and bridge projects	$777 million
Mass transit projects	$500 million
Individuals with Disabilities Act	$397 million
Funding for poor children, special education	$252 million
Public schools modernization, renovation and repair	$289.9 million
Modernization, renovation and repair of college buildings	$129.7 million
Employment and training programs	$64 million
Upgrade law enforcement drug courts and gang prevention	$52.3 million
Low-income home energy assistance	$37.8 million
Child Care and Development Block Grants	$34 million
Community Service Block Grants	$27 million
Educational technology grants	$18.2 million
Head Start programs for pre-school children	$12.5 million
Preventive health services	$9 million
Elderly nutrition services	$5.2 million
Source: House Appropriations Committee	THE STAR-LEDGER

Report Card on Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs

2009-01-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

Like the report cards we used to take home for our parents' review and signature, Mayor Robinson-Briggs will be earning grades ranging from A to F (plus E for effort) --

A - Excellent
B - Above average
C - Passable
D - Does not meet standards
F - Fail
E - Evidence of effort

ITEM	GRADE	LINK	COMMENT
01/08/09: State of City Address: Homicides 01/12/09: Preparation of Council documents 01/12/09: Withdrawal of Resolutions 01/29/09: On Obama Stimulus	F C C F	See story HERE. See story HERE. See story HERE. See story HERE.	Failed to compare 2008 to 2007. No excuse for not reviewing. Half-fast not the way to go. No evidence of local proposal.

-- Dan Damon

MLK Events - 2009

2009-01-05T04:36:00.000-08:00

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. :: 2009 EVENTS Print this calendar for a handy one-page reference.
SATURDAY · January 10 · Begins at 1:00 PM Dr. King and Health Care for All 1 PM - March: City Hall to Friends' Meeting House 2 PM - Program At Friends' Meeting House Sponsor: *POP/Plainfield Chapter*	TUESDAY · January 13 · 3:30 PM MLK: Story and Craft Times At the Library's Children's Room. Public Library, 8th Street & Park Avenue Sponsor: *Plainfield Public Library*
TUESDAY · January 13 · 6:30 PM MLK: A Celebration Annual NAACP celebration. City Hall Library, 515 Watchung Avenue Sponsor: *NAACP, Plainfield Chapter*	THURSDAY · January 15 · 3:30 PM Film: The Rosa Parks Story Her act of courage sparked the famed bus boycott. Public Library, 8th Street & Park Avenue Sponsor: *Plainfield Public Library*
FRIDAY · January 16 · 11:00 AM The Life and Legacy of Dr. King Senior Center, 305 East Front Street Sponsor: *Plainfield Senior Citizen Center*	FRIDAY · January 16 · 7:00 PM Medical Apartheid The dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans. Mohawk Lodge #307, 1357 West Third Street Sponsor: *Mohawk Lodge #307*
SATURDAY · January 17 · 1:00 PM 'Dare to Dream' An afternoon of inspiration and fun for youth. Hubbard Middle School, 661 West Eighth Street Sponsor: *Omega Psi Phi Fraternity*	SUNDAY · January 18 · 5:30 PM MLK: A Day of Celebration Speaker: Apostle James I. Clark, Jr., New York. Kings Temple Worship Center, 1020 West Seventh Street Sponsor: *Concerned Urban Clergy* Dr. Gary Kirkwood, Host Pastor
MONDAY · January 19 · 8:30 AM Annual MLK Breakfast Speaker: Kevin Powell, author, activist, Hip-Hop historian. PHS Cafeteria \| $16 / $12 Seniors/Students. Call 756-4663 Sponsor: *Frontiers International*	MONDAY · January 19 · 3:00 and 4:00 PM 3:00 PM: 'Community in Conversation' 4:00 PM: Citywide Commemorative Service Speaker: Rev. James S. Hall, Jr., Senior Pastor, Triumph Baptist Church, Philadelphia, PA. Shiloh Baptist Church, 515 West 4th Street Sponsor: *Shiloh Baptist Church* Dr. Gerald Lamont Thomas, Host Pastor

BUF - Legal Notice - UCIA Bond - $7M - 9/13/2007

2008-12-22T19:26:00.001-08:00

Published in the Westfield Leader, Thursday, September 13, 2007 (from PDF)

PUBLIC NOTICE

UNION COUNTY BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS

ORDINANCE NO: 657-2007

INTRO: 9/6/2007

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the following proposed Ordinance was introduced and passed on the first reading at a Regular Meeting of the Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Union, New Jersey held on the 6th day of September 2007, and said Ordinance will be taken up for further consideration for final passage at a meeting of said
Board to be held at its meeting room in the Administration Building, Elizabeth, New Jersey, on the 27th day of September 2007, at 7:00 p.m., or as soon thereafter as said matter can be reached, at which time and place all persons who may be interested therein will be given an opportunity to be heard concerning same.

A copy of this Ordinance has been posted on the Bulletin Board upon which public notices are customarily posted in the Union County Administration Building of the County of Union and a copy is available up to and including the time of such meeting to the members of the general public of the County who shall request such copies, at the Office
of the Clerk of the Board of Chosen Freeholders in said Administration Building, Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Nicole L. DiRado, Clerk of the Board of Chosen Freeholders

ORDINANCE PROVIDING THE CONSENT OF THE BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF THE COUNTY OF UNION TO THE ISSUANCE BY THE UNION COUNTY IMPROVEMENT AUTHORITY OF ITS NOT TO EXCEED REVENUE BONDS, SERIES 2007 (AFRICAN AMERICAN FUND OF NEW JERSEY PLAINFIELD PROJECT) IN AN AGGREGATE PRINCIPAL AMOUNT NOT EXCEEDING $7,000,000 IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUTHORITY’S PROJECT

WHEREAS, the Union County Improvement Authority (the “Authority”) has been duly created by an ordinance of the Board of Chosen Freeholders (the “Board of Freeholders”) of the County of Union, New Jersey (the “County”), as public body corporate and politic of the State of New Jersey (the “State”) pursuant to and in accordance with the county improvement authorities law, constituting Chapter 183 of the Pamphlet Laws of 1960 of the State, as amended and supplemented from time to time (the “Act”); and

WHEREAS, The Torain Group on behalf of its Client, the Black United Fund or its affiliate or transferee has requested the Authority’s assistance in relation to the expansion of a pre-school facility in the City of Plainfield; and

WHEREAS, the City has expressed its support for the Project in a letter from the Mayor dated August 7, 2007; and

WHEREAS, the Authority proposes to finance the Project through the issuance of one or more series of Bonds (the “Bonds”) in an aggregate principal amount of not to exceed $7,000,000; and

WHEREAS, the Bonds shall have such other terms as set forth in those certain resolutions authorizing the issuance of the “Revenue Bonds, Series 2007 (Black United Fund-Plainfield Project)” of the Union County Improvement Authority to be adopted by the Authority prior to the issuance of the Bonds (the “Bond Resolution”; the Bond Resolution, and any amendments or supplements thereto in accordance with the terms thereof may be collectively referred to as the “Bond Resolution”); and

WHEREAS, the principal of (including sinking fund installments, if any) and interest on the Bonds when due may be, if the Authority determines it to be in its best interest, insured by a municipal bond insurance company (the “Bond Insurer”) in accordance with the terms of a new issue municipal bond insurance policy (the “Bond Insurance Policy”); and

WHEREAS, the Authority shall make application to the Local Finance Board in the Division of Local Government Services of the Department of Community Affairs of the State (the “Local Finance Board”) for the Local Finance Board’s review of the Project; and

WHEREAS, the Authority believes: (i) it is in the public interest to accomplish such purpose; (ii) said purpose is for the health, wealth, convenience or betterment of the inhabitants of the County; (iii) the amounts to be expended for said purpose are not unreasonable or exorbitant; and (iv) the proposal is an efficient and feasible means of providing services for the needs of the inhabitants of the County and will not create an undue financial burden to be placed upon the Authority.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS
OF THE COUNTY OF UNION, NEW JERSEY, as follows:
Section 1. In accordance with Section 13 and all other applicable law, the Board of Freeholders hereby consents to (i) the Project and the financing of same, (ii) the execution and delivery by the Authority of the Financing Documents and such other documents as necessary and reasonable for the transaction, which documents shall be filed with the Clerk of the Board prior to the issuance of any Bonds, (iii) the adoption by the Authority of the Bond Resolution, and (iv) the issuance, sale and delivery of the Bonds to effect such purpose. The consent hereto given to the Financing Documents contemplates the insertion of the final financing terms.
Section 2. This ordinance shall take at the time and in the manner provided by law.
Section 3. Upon the adoption hereof, the Clerk of the Board of Freeholders shall forward certified copies of this ordinance to the County Manager, County Counsel, Executive Director of the Authority, and John G. Hudak, Esq., Bond Counsel to the Authority.

1 T - 9/13/07, The Leader Fee: $131.58

2009 Primary - PolitickerNJ - SRB will try to withstand New Dems

2008-12-22T07:58:00.000-08:00

Published on PolitickerNJ.com, Monday, December 21, 2008

December 21, 2008 - 5:05pm

In Plainfield, Mayor Robinson-Briggs will try
to withstand Mapp's New Democrats

By Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJ.com Reporter

PLAINFIELD – Get it right in four years or you’re gone.

That’s the message the voters consistently deliver in the Union County city of Plainfield, and looking at past results, most of their elected leaders get it wrong.

In 125 years of political wrangling, only one mayor won reelection here.

That was the late Al McWilliams, a self-professed New Democrat who in 2005 failed to get over a rising crime wave and lost his bid for a third term to machine Democrat Sharon Robinson-Briggs by 325 votes, 2,713 to 2,388.

Now Robinson-Briggs, 49, Plainfield’s first woman to serve as mayor, readies for her reelection campaign next year in what will likely be a hard fought Plainfield contest with once and future councilman Adrian Mapp, a McWilliams ally and now leader of the New Democrats, who’s energized by his successful return to local politics.

Mapp already filed to run for mayor – a $35,000-per year part-time job - with the state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), but insists he’s not yet made a final decision.

“If more and more people approach me I will consider running,” says the 52-year old former county freeholder and at-large city councilman, who earlier this year defeated Robinson-Briggs ally Don Davis by a 10 percent margin to become the 3rd Ward councilman.

“If there’s a groundswell of support for me, I would give it very serious consideration. I would be guided by the desires of the people.”

Should he run, Mapp, a CPA and chief financial officer in Roselle, is likely to make competence the issue as Plainfield’s nearly 48,000 residents this year lost Muhlenberg Hospital – the city’s biggest employer of 1,000 jobs; while homeowners fear the prospect of a local tax increase of 9.5 percent.

“The roads are in a state of disrepair, people are paying high taxes, and we have a shrinking commercial tax base,” says Mapp. “Residents don’t feel their tax dollars are offering a return on investment. They want to know their elected officials are capable of leading. Clearly, the city needs someone to get out front.”

In defense of her administration, Robinson-Briggs says the 9.5 percent figure reflects on a working $78 million budget that has not yet received state extraordinary aid. She continues to examine every option in difficult economic times, she says, including renegotiating contracts and implementing a four-day work week for city employees.

As for the hospital, Robinson-Briggs with pain in her voice argues that she did everything she could to avert what was ultimately a private sector decision made by the suits at Solaris Health Systems.

Her administration lobbied the hospital itself, and failing that, “We sent an overabundance of letters to Gov. Corzine,” says the mayor. “We proposed a statewide lottery with money to be divided among (urban) hospitals (like Muhlenberg). That was an idea that didn’t pan out. We started to work on the issue at the end of last year. We wrote over 2,000 letters. I understand the governor is in a tight spot and looking at things equitably in the State of New Jersey.

“But I told them, if you close the hospital, people will die.”

While the mayor refrains from listing her accomplishments days before her New Year state of the city speech, observers of Robinson-Briggs’ administration say positives during her four-year watch include crime reduction, fewer workers on the city payroll than when she took office, and construction of a senior citizen complex on Front Street for under $1 million.

People like her. What she lacks comparatively in schooling, she makes up for as a ceremonial force whose positive energy fills a room.

“The mayor is very warm can and can connect with people in an emotional way,” says At-Large Councilman Rashid Burney. “Adrian Mapp’s base is more affluent and educated.”

“No, Adrian’s not Bill Clinton,” admits 2nd Ward Councilman Cory Storch. “But he’s really good with constituent relations. I saw that when he first served on the council. Then there’s his financial background. He’s going to run on fiscal management and delivering overall quality of services.”

If the mayor’s poise and interpersonal skills – “Let me give you a Plainfield hug,” she tells a newcomer - and Mapp’s numbers-crunching prowess jump out as arguably the political antagonists’ most obvious strengths, both the councilman-elect and Robinson-Briggs also have important allies on their respective sides who underscore the city’s political divide between the regular Dems and the New Dems.

Robinson-Briggs boasts the political muscle of Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Plainfield), speaker pro tempore in the state legislature, who championed her early in her career on the school board and who has ready access to Democratic Party campaign cash. Green’s own PAC dropped $8,200 on Shannon-Briggs’ massive $200,000 campaign effort in 2005, while the assemblyman generated significant campaign contributions from Statehouse allies like Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) and Assemblywoman Nellie Pou (D-Paterson).

Mapp, meanwhile, enjoys the alliance of the New Democrats’ symbol of polished poetic justice in the person of Annie McWilliams, 24-year old eldest daughter of the late and – in some quarters – beloved – mayor, who died of kidney cancer in April of 2007.

As Mapp’s running mate, the young McWilliams crushed the organization’s at-large candidate in the June primary by a 3-1 margin.

A Wharton School of Business graduate who will serve as the city’s at-large councilwoman when she gets sworn-in with Mapp come January, McWilliams comes out of the ward that contains the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood, Plainfield’s own ivy covered homage to Victorian grandeur. She supports a Mapp mayoral candidacy, and at the very least makes it clear, “I will be disappointed if we see this mayor back in office.”

Coming off their win, the Mapp-McWilliams duo can make a compelling case that the New Democrats have momentum as they consider a citywide contest in Plainfield’s four wards.

Mapp in November seized control of the council seat in the mayor’s home ward, officially dealing her some disrespect in her own neighborhood. In addition to his base support in the 3rd ward, where presumably he would have to fight the mayor house to house for votes, Mapp can count on the old McWilliams support in the 2nd ward, reanimated by his daughter and reinforced by Storch. The 2nd remains the New Democrats’ strongest ward, where Al McWilliams built his own base of operations.

In their 2005 face-off, McWilliams won the 2nd over Robinson-Briggs by 273 votes: 924 to 651.

The late mayor lost in the city’s three other wards, by 224 votes in the 1st, 170 in the 3rd, and 204 in the 4th.

Already in possession of a political structure in Robinson-Briggs’ home ward and anchored in the 2nd by McWilliams, Mapp faces the challenge of reaching out to those two wards where the sitting mayor has an advantage over the New Democrats, the regular Democrats’ bread and butter districts: the 1st and 4th wards.

Predicting the usual political conflagration here next year, politicos like Burney are staying uncommitted for the moment.

“If I pick a side now and that side loses, I’m out,” says the at-large councilman, who ran and won as a New Democrat but has since tried to be more independent, in his words.

“I respect and like Adrian Mapp a lot, as I do the current mayor,” says state Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union). “I will say that any attacks on elected officials regarding the hospital closing are absolutely unfair. From the get-go, market factors made it impossible for the hospital to remain open.

“The two main issues in Plainfield are education and crime,” adds the senator. “It’s no longer an Abbott School district. Crime is reduced. Usually in an economic downturn you see an escalation of crime but that’s not happening.”

Eighteen miles southwest of Newark, Plainfield resembles a smaller version of New Jersey’s biggest city – at least demographically: 62 percent African American, 21 percent white, 25 percent Latinos of any race. Its downtown looks like some headlong train trestle melding of Union City, Orange, and Passaic, heavily textured from the neon-lit windows to the curbs.

“The Queen City,” says native son, Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), who served on the city council representing the 2nd ward from 1985 to 1991 before he moved to Westfield, the second to last Republican to serve on the council.

On Friday, the city mobilizes to confront a snow and ice storm.

The mayor’s on duty in City Hall.

A fire truck slaps slush in the windshields of oncoming traffic as it heads downtown, through a blur of African hair braiding studios, Mexican restaurants, grocery, private detective and bail bonds stores, tattoo parlors, donut shops, past the Religious Society of Friends- Quakers, they settled the town - under train tracks and past Central Americans in front of diners trying to make eye contact with drivers of passing cars, and public works employees in yellow vests on foot in the falling snow, shoveling.

A gray public building, one of New Jersey’s blue collar pyramids - in this case a post office - emblemizes the older era, when some WPA architect dreamed Greek columns could as appropriately adorn Watchung Avenue as the Parthenon between the liquor stores and a passing beef-pork-poultry truck out of Elizabeth.

It’s been over 40 years since the 1967 Plainfield riots, an era when Mayor George Hetfield conducted city business from the auspices of a local country club and the hard luck 4th Ward went up in flames and a mob killed Officer John Vincent Gleason, Jr.

And Hetfield – guilty or not, those who were there judged – was voted out of office, carrying on the one and done mayoral cycle that Al McWilliams finally broke and that Robinson-Briggs wants to break again.

On the hill overlooking the rest of the city, above the factories and abandoned factories and projects of the 4th Ward - “There used to be a Mack Truck factory there, a great big factory,” remembers Bramnick – stand the 2nd Ward Wall Street millionaires’ massive summertime mansions of all styles - Colonial Revival and Jacobethan Victorian, Queen Anne’s, Tudor, Second Empire, after a while you can start inventing names that evoke elegance but still not get to the architectural finery that is only, of course, part of the city’s legacy; as Robinson-Briggs and Mapp and McWilliams and Green, and everyone, gets ready for yet another season of politics in Plainfield.

Max Pizarro is a PolitickerNJ.com Reporter and can be reached via email at max@politicsnj.com.

Online story here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Robinson-Briggs - Courier - Cooke: On not taking calls

2008-12-21T05:28:00.000-08:00

Published in the Courier News, Saturday, December 20, 2008

[Robinson-Briggs...taking phone calls]

Color in Black And White
Being 'nice' does not qualify you to run for governor

By Jay Jefferson Cooke

I am sure you've heard the expression "Nice guys finish last."

Well, I sure hope so.

I don't know whether to be bothered beyond belief or disgusted to distraction with the announcement that Franklin Mayor Brian Levine has filed papers to run for governor.

Levine, who is referred to as a "nice guy" by almost everyone who mentions him to me, has a good chance of becoming governor. How do I know? Because if Central Jersey voters are an indicator of voters statewide, Levine can't miss. Let's face it — Central Jersey voters elected a kindergarten class to the South Plainfield government; elected an underqualified, pompous, "red-menace" fabricator Deborah Trout (who if she were not so dangerous might be referred to as a scalawag) as sheriff of Hunterdon County; elected Sharon Robinson-Briggs — who you never can get on the telephone unless she calls you to say "we need you to cover this fabulous event that I am going to be present at" — as mayor of Plainfield; and the less said about Mike Ferguson, the better.

Now, Levine may be as nice as the smell of a rose garden after an April shower, but what in the world has he done as mayor of Franklin to make anyone believe he should be the governor of New Jersey? As previously stated in this column, I have heard precious little else about Franklin this year but the growing gang problem that exists there. At the township's 11th Anniversary Community Breakfast Commemorating the Life & Work of The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., Levine inappropriately used his speech to say "we have to take Franklin back from the gangs." Well, he failed. And probably because he had no plan, and neither did the Franklin Police Department. And who can forget that under Levine's watch, Franklin Councilwoman Kimberly Francois, who during the past few years has been one of the most vocal when it comes to talking about expelling gangs from our society and spearheaded a supposed effort to purge gangs from Franklin, still has not said "boo" on the subject of her son Rahmel Francois' criminal and gangster activity. Rahmel Francois (before he went on the lam to who knows where) lived with Madame councilwoman and has been indicted on charges of conspiracy, eluding, possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute, unlawful possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of an assault firearm, violation of weapons laws, unlawful possession of a large-capacity ammunition magazine, receiving stolen property and being a person not to have a weapon.

Mr. Francois, who is much too despicable a criminal to be called a rapscallion, still presumably is running from the law (if he hasn't stopped running because apparently no one is trying to find him) and has been linked to gangs by law-enforcement officials. But the Boys in Blue haven't managed to produce him for trial. Maybe they should check Ms. Francois' basement, but they must be careful not to trip over any weapons of mass destruction that President Bush believed were in Iraq.

Ms. Francois refused my call to resign from the Council, and Levine has done nothing. Perhaps Levine would find it gauche to ask Ms. Francois why her offspring is Franklin's Most Wanted. Perhaps as governor he will allow the entire state government to let their offspring deal dope, stash weapons, launder money, etc., etc., from their homes. Maybe Drumthwacket can be turned into a hideout for America's Most Wanted.

Perhaps if that happens, Levine will make a speech saying something like "Drumthwacket cannot and will not be a place that gangsters can use as a safe haven — we must take it back from the gangs!"

I took another spin around Franklin Township this week. It's reasonably big. But it isn't the entire state — heck, it isn't even the entire county. Levine hasn't done a sufficient job leading that municipality. I hope Levine changes his mind and decides to do a better job in his own backyard. I don't trust New Jersey's voters not to elect him governor.

Thanks for reading. If I ever need an ambulance, I want the dangerously delightful duo Diana Rivera and Kimberly Selmer to give me the ride. And I may just need an ambulance after receiving a collection of stupid holiday newsletters, which naturally I did not read.

Online story here. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or CLIPS endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Council President Gibson - Courier - Letter: CBAC failed in its task

2008-12-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

Published in the Courier News, Saturday, December 13, 2008

[Letters to the Editor]
Citizens panel failed in its budget task

The editorial comment in the Courier News printed on Friday, Nov. 28, without a rational interpretation, requires what I consider a reasonable response. The report presented by the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee contains comments and recommendations that are inaccurate and lack any substantial documentation to support the conclusions.

The Courier News editorial stated I, as City Council president, complained the committee overstepped its bounds. Your inquiry of "What did he expect? Only positive opinions? No opinions at all?" [sic] What I expected were conclusions and recommendations based on facts. The truth is all any of us on the governing body should expect. I do not consider a request for accuracy "whining." For the record, I want your readers and the citizens of Plainfield to know I am not mad.

Under the CBAC Observations section the comment, "How can we expect parking tickets and potholes to be "high quality," if we're not," and the comment "Several city employees forget who pays them," without identifying either the employees or the work area of such employees (even if this were done in confidence) leaves one to conclude this comment is generally applicable.

The CBAC also indicates "more substantive cuts and efficiencies are possible." If that is true, the locations where such cuts could be made should have been identified.

In the report there is a general statement that the CBAC was "disappointed in City Council attendance and somewhat passive responses." The councilperson(s) should have been identified. As one who is serving in what is commonly referred to as a "lame-duck" status, I am proud of my continued attendance record during the time the CBAC has functioned.

The area of the report which should be carefully re-examined is entitled "CBAC Approach." There is no credibility in the 100 percent point totals. First, the "30" assigned to Public Safety together with the so-called grades fails to take into consideration the fact that the crime rate in our city has consistently been lowered. The subjective grading process with no statistics to back it up is, and should be cause for concern. This section goes on to include a "25" for performance/reputation of the school system with a consistent "F" grade for the public schools performance. This area should not have been a part of the budget process as the city administration nor the municipal council has any control over the budget of the Plainfield Board of Education.

The section of the report entitled "Overall Budget Recommendations - 1," states "No Budget Increase." Presuming all the members of the committee have a degree of concern for what was presented on their behalf, they should know there is no way, considering contractual agreements, the Council can arrive at a zero percent increase. The CBAC states there has been "Significant progress made in the last three years to reduce operating expenses, and further, 2008-2009 budget faces extraordinary conditions." This is probably the most accurate comment in the report.

The "Overall Recommendations 2 and 3" have credible suggestions although there may be areas where the council cannot do more than suggest the changes to the administration.

We clearly recognize it is our responsibility to strike a budget but we also must recognize their [sic] are services which must be made available. There is no quarrel on my part with the CBAC effort to do a good job. The resulting report is a document with errors of fact and judgment.

Finally, the area of recommendations in the Appendix is full of first person, "I" and "My" preceding recommendations. It makes the final determinations appear to be one person's judgment as opposed to a committee.

I respect the Courier News' right and obligation to express, as the editorial states, "Our Position." I ask for nothing less.

Harold Gibson
President
City Council
Plainfield

NOTE: This letter appeared in the print edition cited above, but not online. I have transcribed it exactly as it appeared in the printed newspaper, without editing or 'tidying up'. -- Dan Damon

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Webcasts - Courier - Branchburg gets Webcasts of town meetings

2008-12-01T05:38:00.000-08:00

Published in the Courier News, Sunday, October 5, 2008

Branchburg plans Web video of municipal meetings

By MARTIN C. BRICKETTO
STAFF WRITER

The township committee has awarded contracts to stream municipal meetings over the Internet and make improvements to Old York Road.

[Building improvements at Old York Road.]

WEBCASTS

The committee also awarded a roughly $21,000 contract to Intelligent Meeting Management of Ronkonkoma, NY to Web cast government meetings via the township's Web site at www.branchburg.nj.us. The service would cost the township $9,000 annually, officials said.
Mayor John Sanford said the service should be in place within a matter of weeks.

"I think the more that government can do to be transparent, to be transparent to the people that government serves, the better," Sanford said.

Sanford said he has also talked with school officials about using the service to Web cast their meetings, and the township could apply for a shared services grant to subsidize the cost.

Martin C. Bricketto can be reached at 908-707-3176 or mbricketto@mycentraljersey.com

Website: "IQM2: Intelligent Meeting Management"

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Library - Courier - Auction of Homer Paint to benefit posterity

2008-11-29T04:39:00.000-08:00

Published in the Courier News, Thursday, November 27, 2008 (online 11/28/2008)

Plainfield hopes painting draws big bucks

By MARK SPIVEY • Staff Writer • November 28, 2008

PLAINFIELD —A young fisherman who lived in Maine more than a century ago could unwittingly wind up being among the most generous donors in Plainfield Public Library history.
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He was the model who posed for Winslow Homer's "Winding Line," an approximately 16-by-23 inch oil-on-canvas painting depicting a young man untangling a fishing line while leaning against a small boat on a rocky shore. The piece is emblematic of the native Bostonian's finest work, much of which details rural life along the East Coast toward the end of the 19th century.

The painting, along with two other Homer originals, represented a centerpiece of the library's extensive Fine Arts Collection for decades. But when funding for $6 million of long-term library renovations recently fell short by about half, the library board unanimously elected to convert a masterpiece into a windfall.

The painting, which has been appraised from $2 million to $3 million, matches a 1929 Georgia O'Keefe work as the most valuable piece available in "American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture," a 184-lot auction scheduled next week at the world-renowned Sotheby's in New York City.

"We want this for the community, and they deserve the best," said library board President Anne E. Robinson. "So we did some soul searching about tailoring our assets to our mission."

According to Sotheby's auction notes, Homer, who ranks among the premier artists in American history, likely painted "Winding Line" shortly after his first trip to Prout's Neck, Maine, where he would live from 1883 until his death in 1910. A likely description of the work, the notes indicate, appears in the Nov. 6, 1875, edition of Appletons' Journal, a 19th century periodical covering literature, science and art.

The journal article, describing a series of paintings Homer completed during his 1875 summer vacation, notes a "very picturesque figure of a young fisher-boy, who left his nets for a good consideration to devote his time to the business of posing for Mr. Homer."

"In one of the pictures in which this boy appears," the article reads, "he is sitting upon the edge of a broad, round-keeled boat that has been drawn upon a pebbly beach, beyond which the blue seawater is dancing in a small cove."

The painting was first bought between 1875 and the turn of the century by Benjamin M. Day, who "probably acquired (it) directly from the artist," according to Sotheby's notes. After it was bequeathed to Day's widow upon his death, it was then left to Benjamin M. Day Jr., the couple's only son, upon her death in 1931.

The Day family, according to Da Rold, lived in North Plainfield for several decades in the late 19th century and early 20th century, when the library billed itself as a "Library, Art Gallery, and Museum." Benjamin Day Sr. even loaned out the three Homer works to be displayed during a library exhibit, Da Rold said, before his son donated them permanently the same year he inherited them.

Painstaking research was undertaken to confirm the painting's provenance, according to library director Joe Da Rold, who said the timeline of the work's ownership is indisputable.

"I will say Ann and I really have done a lot of homework," Da Rold said. "We even hired an attorney to search the wills from the Day family to make sure there were no errors, that all the records were correct."

It was during a February Chicago Art Museum exposition at which "Looking Over the Cliff," the library's Homer watercolor, was on display that officials were first made aware of a spike in value of their oil painting (the third Homer original in the collection is a lithograph).

"We'll put it this way: we always knew it was worth a lot, but it had not been officially reappraised in over 10 years," Da Rold said of the revelation that the work ranked toward the top end of some of the most valuable American paintings in existence. "The new appraisal really jumped out at us, being very extreme, and then it was suddenly costing us more to insure it."

Nearly $20,000 more, Da Rold added, as one of the library's greatest assets turned into one of its bigger headaches.

"Unlike the watercolor, which has been exhibited in major museums throughout America and included in important art books, the oil painting has been hidden away in storage," Robinson said. " As a neglected masterpiece, never seen or known in art circles, its value had suddenly become a liability."

It was for those reasons that the work, which had sat locked away in a bank vault for years — the risk of displaying it in the library was too great — was put up for auction. Research into the painting's provenance also revealed that Day's 1931 donation came free of restrictions against the library's use of it.

Library officials are hopeful that, being as an extremely limited number of Homer oil paintings have sold at recent auctions, the sale price of the painting can even exceed the upper $3 million end of the appraisal price. But no matter the end result, all funds from the auction — which will also include the sale of a library-owned bust of George Washington completed by 19th century sculptor Hiram Powers, appraised at from $150,000 to $250,000 — will be placed in a special "Library Heritage Fund," with strict limitations on its use.

Da Rold said the library plans to limit the fund usage to 5 percent or less annually, meaning the building will likely still be benefiting from the auction in 2028. Projects some of the fund are planned to be directed toward, Da Rold said, include completing renovations to the library's children's room, resurfacing staircases, exploring the possibility that the building can be partially operated by solar energy and even possibly building a two-story "technology tower" that would replace the 40-by-40 foot lower-level pool that occupies the atrium in the center of the building.

An agreement with Sotheby's will also result in the elimination of insurance costs for the library's Homer watercolor, Da Rold added. The auction house has also arranged the storing and insurance of "Looking Over the Cliff," and will present the library with a hand-painted reproduction of "Winding Line" to be displayed in the original frame.

The decision to sell, Da Rold concluded, though difficult, was the right move.

"The way I like to describe it is that we're really turning one asset into another," he said. "We had an asset in our cultural collection, and it's going to be a physical asset in improvements to the building."

Mark Spivey: 908-707-3144; mspivey@MyCentralJersey.com

Online story here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Abbott Schools - Ledger - MacInnes: Court's Delusion

2008-11-26T03:25:00.000-08:00

Published in the Star-Ledger, Tuesday, November 25, 2008

[OpEd]
The Supreme Court's Abbott delusion

BY GORDON MacINNES

The New Jersey Supreme Court dealt a crushing blow to Gov. Jon Corzine and the Legislature with its decision to re tain its own formula for funding poor school districts, at least for this year. The court's decision effectively kills the plan to improve educational opportunities for poor children who happen not to live in the 31 Abbott districts recognized by the court.

That the court invited the Abbott districts to seek more funding on top of the new school aid for mula -- despite a looming $5 billion deficit -- only accelerates New Jersey's collision with bankruptcy.

Perhaps most disturbing is the court's lack of any doubt about the so-called "remedies" that it ordered 10 years ago in an effort to close the achievement gap between poor and affluent children. It proceeds as if the 1998 court decision had finally solved a problem that has nagged the nation for four decades. The justices appear to think that if only the Abbott districts continue implementating [sic] these remedies and the administration and Legislature provide more funding, the goal of a "constitutional" education will be achieved.

One would hope that, after 35 years of litigation and the expenditure of billions of additional dollars, the court would show more curiosity about why poor kids in the Abbott districts do not perform better and why the gap persists. All branches of New Jersey's government should face some inescapable realities.

Abbott is supposed to be about inequities that constrict the educational opportunities of poor children residing in poor districts. Un happily, 50 percent of New Jersey's poor children reside outside the Abbott districts. Moreover, Abbott districts like Hoboken, Burlington City, Phillipsburg, Neptune Township, Pemberton and Garfield are much less disadvantaged than many non-Abbott districts.

The court expects New Jersey's poorest districts to accomplish something that has not been achieved anyplace, despite 40 years of programs, remedies, reforms and other panaceas. No district or state has succeeded in closing the educational gap between poor, predominantly minority students and affluent, predominantly white stu dents.

The primary reason these efforts have not succeeded is the failure of courts, advocates, bureaucrats and governors to define accurately and concretely the problem to be solved.

Children from poor families ar rive at kindergarten with too little general knowledge and vocabulary and too few ideas to start reading and writing in first grade. This is the gap that most districts never close. The court, to its credit, recognized this problem and ordered high-quality preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds in Abbott districts. "High quality" is what matters, and it takes time, focus, talent and persistence to bring it about in every preschool classroom. Despite the new formula tripling the number of districts that must provide preschool, the Corzine administration has reduced the staff that provides this crucial training.

The court-ordered remedies of 1998 reflected the latest in educational fashion. In particular, the justices ordered that every elementary school adopt a model of "whole school reform" based on the testimony and research of the designer and chief salesman of one such model. The problem was that none of the models was aligned to New Jersey's then-new curricular requirements, so that, even if those were perfectly implemented, Abbott students would continue to fail (and did).

Worse, the court cut out the district central office at just the time its leadership was essential to give coherence to the implementation of hundreds of new curricular standards. So everyone was focused on the wrong thing.

Abbott funding has helped districts like Elizabeth, Union City, Orange and Perth Amboy achieve dramatic improvements in student performance, while others have spent more money to no effect. The districts that have concentrated on early literacy and student achievement tend to spend less money than those that have faithfully implemented the court's "remedies."

Camden increased per student spending from $8,300 to $15,400 without any improvement in performance. Distinctions should be made between districts that are focused on improved achievement and those that are not. Instead, all districts have been encouraged by the court to seek more funding.

Courts can determine if funding for schools with concentrations of poor children is equitable, and they should. What courts cannot do is to require classroom instruction. The Abbott decisions overlook entirely that poor Latinos are the fastest- growing population in the Abbott and many other districts. How can jurists decide among several pedagogical approaches to educating students who speak no English and whose parents read no Spanish?

This is a pretty tough nut to crack, but the court felt no compunction about ordering solutions to all sorts of other pedagogical puzzles (to no consistently efficacious result). The court's latest decision was a chance to back out gracefully from such bravado by agreeing that, with all their shortcomings, local districts are better positioned to deal with the stu dents in their charge and should be given the responsibility to do so.

The overriding reality is that New Jersey and the nation are tapped out. No one is sure how deep or long this Great Recession will be. Other states have acted quickly to reduce spending. New Jersey's time will come, presumably. When it does, additional costs of hundreds of millions of dollars from a few school districts will not be welcome.

Gordon MacInnes was the assistant commissioner for Abbott districts at the state Education Department from 2002 to 2007. He is a lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School and a fellow at the Century Foundation, which will publish his book on Abbott next month.

Online story here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Sub-prime Mortgages - Courier - Green's Bill: Safety net or disincentive?

2008-10-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

Published in the Courier News, Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Subprime mortgage rescue fund: Safety net or disincentive?

By LISA G. RYAN • GANNETT STATE BUREAU • October 14, 2008

TRENTON —A plan to create an estimated $40 million trust fund to help New Jersey residents who have subprime mortgages avoid losing their homes is instead creating a growing controversy.
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Nonprofit housing groups are championing the New Jersey Homeownership Preservation Act as a safety net for homeowners struggling to pay mortgages they can no longer afford, but mortgage lenders are criticizing it as a costly, knee-jerk government reaction that will dissuade lending institutions from doing business in New Jersey.

"Not everybody is going to be able to renegotiate their mortgage and stay in their home. But we want to help as many people as we can," said Staci Berger, advocacy and policy director at the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, which supports the bill.

"The process being suggested is too costly and too onerous, and it could stop businesses from lending in New Jersey," cautioned E. Robert Levy, executive director of the Mortgage Bankers Association of New Jersey.

The bill is one of 19 economy-related measures that moved forward last week during the Assembly's much publicized session on the global financial crisis. The full Assembly could vote on the bill later this month.

It calls for the state to assess a $2,000 fee on any mortgage lender that forecloses on homeowners who have a subprime mortgage. The money collected would go into a trust fund run by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, which would distribute it first to nonprofit groups qualified to counsel people facing foreclosure. Remaining money would provide homeowners facing foreclosure with emergency assistance loans and help buy and convert foreclosed homes into affordable housing.

The bill would also require lenders to offer homeowners with subprime mortgages a six-month hold to give them time to renegotiate their loans.

There were more than 134,000 subprime mortgages in New Jersey as of June 30, and 32.5 percent of them were in foreclosure or close to it, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association National Delinquency Survey.

The state's housing and mortgage agency estimates another 10,000 to 20,000 subprime loans will fall into these categories over the next two years if the situation continues unabated. It projects the trust fund would receive between $20 million and $40 million by 2010.

"I don't think the individuals who were trying to secure these loans thought that at some point they were going to lose their jobs to the degree that jobs have been lost, that the values of their homes were going to decrease to the point that they are less than the money that they owe," said Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-Mercer, before the Assembly Budget Committee last week.

Since March, Watson Coleman and Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Essex, have been leading the effort to get the bill approved in the Legislature and adopted into law. The lawmakers told the budget committee that many homeowners now facing hardship were preyed upon by unscrupulous lenders.

But Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon Jr., R-Monmouth, who opposes the bill, fears it would give mortgage companies, which are now facing their own problems in the credit market, another disincentive to lend to qualified New Jersey consumers.

The lending institutions could also pass the $2,000 state fee along to their customers, said Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose, R-Sussex, who criticized the program's estimated $675,000 in startup and staffing costs as too high for financially strapped New Jersey.

"For the amount of money this bill could generate, I think it has a lot of holes in it," McHose said.

SKEPTICS: For more criticisms of the bill from lawmakers, who wonder who'd benefit financially and who'd shoulder the load, visit the Gannett State Bureau's new Capitol Quickies blog at http://blogs.app.com/capitolquickies

Lisa G. Ryan: lgryan@gannett.com

Online story here. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Unauthorized municipal expenditures - Record - Christie subpoenas Paramus records

2008-10-09T05:14:00.000-07:00

Published in the Bergen Record, Monday, October 6, 2008

[Funds transferred without Council approval; Christie subpoenas]

Affordable housing funds shifted

Monday, October 6, 2008
Last updated: Monday October 6, 2008, EDT 6:43 AM

BY MICHAEL GARTLAND

STAFF WRITER

Paramus Mayor James Tedesco authorized the transfer of nearly $4 million in affordable housing funds without obtaining the Borough Council's approval, an apparent violation of affordable housing rules, public records show.

Council approval for borough expenditures is required under state guidelines, said Chris Donnelly, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.

Tedesco, a Democrat who became mayor in 2003, ordered the largest transfer — $3.6 million — from the affordable housing fund to the Paramus Affordable Housing Corp. in January 2004, according to municipal records. The rest of the money was allocated in three smaller transfers over several years.

Tedesco, who also is president of the non-profit PAHC, offered only a written statement conveyed through Keith Furlong, the borough's spokesman.

"If the borough did not adopt any specific resolutions, this was an oversight," Tedesco said.
His Republican predecessor, Cliff Gennarelli, ordered a similar transfer, but for a much smaller sum, $100,000. Gennarelli did not respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. Attorney's Office has served at least two subpoenas related to the borough's affordable housing program. The non-profit received one in August and the borough received one in July.

It is unclear what specifically drew federal attention.

Much of the overall $4 million transferred to PAHC eventually went to contractors, whose role in building affordable housing in Paramus is unclear.

The money eventually made its way to Paramus Affordable Development LP, a for-profit company that disbursed borough, county and state funds to contractors for a 46-unit project completed in 2005.

A significant portion of the project's funding — $3.6 million — came from the borough itself. Bergen County paid $900,000, and the state provided about $4.4 million.
The state guidelines also bar a mayor from formal involvement in releasing affordable housing funds, Donnelly said.

"The town council authorizes expenditures," he said. "The CFO would ultimately execute them."
The borough did not provide any council resolutions authorizing the transfers, despite several public records requests by The Record. Instead, it provided four resolutions that did not specifically authorize the transfers.

$3.6M mystery

Council members who served in 2004 also did not recall voting to release the $3.6 million. Former council members Sandra Gunderson, Joe D'Ambrozio and Connie Wagner, who is now an assemblywoman, said they did not remember allowing that sum for affordable housing.
"When it came to affordable housing, I saw virtually nothing," Gunderson said.

The current council president, Frank Ciambrone, also served on the council at the time. He did not respond to several calls for comment.

In a letter to Paramus Chief Financial Officer Joseph Citro on Jan. 6, 2004, Tedesco requested that $3.6 million be moved from the borough to the PAHC account "as per the agreement approved by Dennis J. Oury LLC."

Oury was Paramus' borough attorney in 2004. State records also list him as the registered agent for PAHC.

State records held by the Department of Community Affairs show that $3.6 million was transferred, but federal tax records show no record of $3.6 million coming into or going out of PAHC in 2004.

Tax law experts could not reconcile the contradiction. Victoria Bjorklund, former chairwoman of the IRS Advisory Committee on Tax Exemption, said that if the non-profit received $3.6 million — as state records indicate — then, by law, the money would have to appear on the tax form.
"All the contributions should be shown," she said. "It should show up at least on the balance sheet as funds that came in. If it came in and went out the same day, it should still show up."

Oury involvement

Oury resigned as counsel for the Bergen County Democratic Organization last month after he and BCDO Chairman Joseph Ferriero were indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of fraud conspiracy not related to Paramus.

The indictment accuses them of using political influence to gain contracts for a consulting firm in which both had financial stakes. Oury's attorney, Gerald Krovatin, did not return calls for comment.

The accountant who handled PAHC's 2004 tax return, as well as the returns in 2003 and 2006, was William Katchen, according to the tax records. He, too, did not respond to several requests for comment.

46-unit project

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development slapped Katchen with a one-year suspension from federal housing work in 1990 after the Passaic Housing Authority misspent $1.7 million in taxpayer money. He was the authority's accountant.

After money was released to PAHC, state records show it went into an escrow account held by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.

The mortgage agency then released the money to Paramus Affordable Development LP, the for-profit company that disbursed funding for the 46-unit project.

Eugene Walsh is president of Paramus Affordable Development LP, a company that shares an address with four of those contractors:

* Penwal Affordable Housing Corp. (non-profit): Walsh and Laury Pensa, directors.
* Canyon Capital Corp. (for profit): Pensa, president, incorporator, agent.
* Summit Capital Corp. (for profit): Pensa, president, incorporator, agent.
* Steamboat Corp. (for profit): Walsh, president; Pensa, agent and incorporator.

Steamboat received a $976,500 development fee from Paramus Affordable Development for a project with an $8.1 million budget, according to records provided by the state. Canyon received at least $44,000, and Summit took in at least $5,000.

Development fee

In a financial disclosure form filed with the state's Housing Mortgage and Finance Agency, Walsh wrote that Penwal — which, according to its tax form, has "implemented and developed low-income housing projects in Dumont, Garfield, Jersey City and Paramus" — would get the development fee. He did not mention his interest in Steamboat on the form.

Other records obtained from the state mortgage agency show that the development fee went to Steamboat.

A financial disclosure form submitted to the state for Steamboat does not list Walsh or Pensa's interest in Penwal or Paramus Affordable Development LP. Pensa's signature appears on that financial disclosure statement.

In addition, a public records request submitted to HMFA by The Record showed that disclosure statements for Penwal and Canyon Capital were not filed with the agency.
Walsh and Pensa did not return calls about the payments.

Bergen County's United Way President Tom Toronto, who has experience with state-funded affordable housing projects, said development fees are a common cost of such projects. He also said any changes regarding development fees would have to be approved and recorded by HMFA.

"HMFA has to bless it each step of the way," he said. "Otherwise, the money wouldn't flow."

E-mail: gartland@northjersey.com

Find this article at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/bergenpolitics/Affordable_housing_funds_shifted.html

Online story here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Homicide - Courier - Monroe & West 3rd, number 3 for 2008

2008-09-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

Published in the MyCentralJersey.com, Thursday, September 25, 2008

Man killed in Plainfield drive-by, police say

By MARK SPIVEY • STAFF WRITER • September 24, 2008

PLAINFIELD —A 31-year-old man was killed in a drive-by shooting in the city Wednesday night, Public Safety Director Martin Hellwig said.
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Plainfield police responded to a report of shots fired near the intersection of Monroe Avenue and West Third Street around 9 p.m., where officers found the victim, a black male, Hellwig said.

The victim, whose town of residence was unclear, remained unidentified late Wednesday night pending notification of his family.

Officials from the Union County Prosecutor’s Office’s newly-formed Homicide Task Force, established just one week ago, were on the scene along with the Union County Sheriff’s Office officials. Investigators are following “numerous leads,” according to Hellwig.

The homicide was the city’s first in more than six months and its third of the year.

URL:

Online story here.

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(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Muhlenberg - Courier - OpEd of Dr. Brian Fertig

2008-09-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

Published in the Courier News, Sunday, September 7, 2008 [not on website until 9/09/2008]

Closure of Muhlenberg demonstrates deeper crisis

By Dr. BRIAN FERTIG • September 7, 2008

Health care nationwide is in a crisis of uncoiling despondency. Half of New Jersey's hospitals are financially in the red. Inadequate insurance coverage and dramatic cutbacks in state government funding, despite a rising charity-care requirement, explain the dilemma. Hospital inefficiency related to bed inoccupancy and lower quality of care with more prolonged and complicated illnesses requiring longer lengths of stay and increasing number of procedures amplifies the dilemma.

It is plausible to restrain government spending for inefficiency. However, desultory withdrawal of funding to some of the state's most efficient facilities is a senseless instigation to this health care calamity and geometrically rising costs; Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center is a paragon precedent to this point.

"We were rearranging the furniture on the slanting deck of the sinking Titanic," was quoted by the commissioner of health, who also referred to the hospital as a "sacrificial lamb."

Muhlenberg became the topic of escalating news coverage as it was being closed. It made the front page of The Washington Post on July 7. Daniel Schorr lamented the closing on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." A heartwarming yet discriminatory documentary will undoubtedly be done on the historic nature of this institution based on its foundational stabilizing value as the city of Plainfield's largest employer and the elite ilk of standards and delivery of health care care throughout its 130 year existence.

"Done deal" from the start has never mattered; this fight needed to be fought and the story needs to be told.

A prevailing consensus of desolate presentiment daunted any effort to preserve the vitality of Muhlenberg's acute-care facility. Nevertheless, the gravamen of common sense, political correctness and reverence for the cost-efficient and highest quality of health care delivery (including the Reinholdt report) consummated a personal decision to embrace this battle. It appeared not only possible but easy to expose the sophistry for desecration to the sanctuary of health care, basic human rights and life.

Moreover, our New Jersey state elected officials, whose decision it was to withdraw state funding for hospital charity care, after all, embody a sympathetic cord for their multicultural underprivileged constituents. In fact, there were pre-emptive intentional, conspicuous measures to lead the bereaved public down a garden path of understanding and hope. Effusive emotion, sentimentality and factually incontestable well-articulated moral indignation failed to achieve any measure of moderate retrenchment by the Corzine administration. This became the defining watershed red flag for distrust.

Befitting a similitude to a hidden twist to the theme of a detective mystery, beguile and vulpine leadership became implicit, although the motives remain murky. The only explanation can be jockeying (e.g. for broader national-scale universal health care) or other even more villianous corruption.

It is a bewildering reality sometimes to have to think of our friends or elected safeguards as foes. Several tacitly credible reports have incriminated state governing officials of collusion and political blocking designed to disrupt and diffuse any focus capable of exposing an effective generator of outrage. One source points to stealthy manipulation of isolated executive individuals for the People's Organization for Progress. Another source supportive of the loyalty and virtue of the People's Organization cite threats from government officials to such individuals (who are state employees) if their level of advocacy for Muhlenberg persisted.

This may explain the fundamentally extraneous cynosure to Solaris Health Care Systems for the impending closure of Muhlenberg's acute-care operation. We need to remember that the state funding for charity care had been voluntarily taken away by the state government. Regardless of whether Solaris sees or even planned this as an opportunity to expand JFK Medical Center, it is curious that virtually no attention had been directed to the actual fundamental cause of the problem.

Framing the vital distinction of Muhlenberg's acute care provided the tangible opportunity to destabilize the accepted sophistry of the state's administration. The spurious reasoning that closing the acute care at Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center protects the financial interest of New Jersey taxpayers or ennobles fiscal responsibility is ridiculous and outrageous.

Muhlenberg has a record of scintillating efficiency and quality of care that irrefutably translated into cost savings. Repeated vacuous demonstrations directed by the People's Organization for Progress acclaimed only blank signs of "Save Muhlenberg." There had also been the conspicuous absence of worthy statewide media coverage.

It is retrospectively predictable for the state to grant the certificate of need filed by Solaris. The animus builds along with predictable prolonged legal courses of action between the sister hospitals of Solaris; this attention fulfills the function of political blocking. For Solaris to serve as a scapegoat for our state's administration, via state denial of a certificate of need, would only translate into a sooner realization that the New Jersey state government, and not Solaris, is the elemental problem to Muhlenberg's fallout. This would logically revivify the legs of Muhlenberg's supporters by directing their focus and goals.

The value of the New York Giants as a role model for champion teams must be epitomized. They have fought for Team Muhlenberg as they did for themselves. They even likened their achievement of the 2007-2008 greatest playoff and Super Bowl run in professional football history to the accomplishment that supporters of Muhlenberg pursue.

Tiki Barber, the "Mighty Mouse": He is relatively small, but found the holes that O'Hara, the front line and team created, to produce incredible statistics and outcome. The New York Giants consummated their world champion status after consecutively overcoming three redoubtable strongly favored and probably more talented opponents. Metaphorically, Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center epitomizes Mighty Mouse as a small Giant.

Built in 1877, a 400-bed hospital at its height, it has ranked No. 1 in the entire state of New Jersey (of almost 300 hospitals) and even in the top 10 percent in the country statistically for parameters of care. These include: infection rates in the intensive care unit; emergency cardiac angioplasty time; and neonatal morbidity. This efficiency of care results in decreased mechanical ventilation, transfusions, dialysis requirements, and so on, that underscore prolonged serious illness with an incommensurably high cost of delivering health care.

Champions know who they are. Fundamentals make team Muhlenberg a betting favorite. Getting knocked down can be disorienting; getting back up coupled to a cyclopean instinct of faith for the triumph of justice reorientates focus and innately the direction of the field of play. Muhlenberg's offensive game is poised for long gains, ball control and predictably a touchdown win and renaissance for the people it serves.

Both the certificate of need filed by Solaris Health Systems and the Reinhardt Report by the commissioner of health recognize and praised the outcome, quality and safety of Muhlenberg's patient care. This small community regional medical center that served the predominantly underprivileged and racial minorities of Plainfield outperformed the care of an overwhelming majority of larger medical centers in well-to-do areas.

The game plan for Muhlenberg at this point must be to illuminate Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center so brightly that it clearly exposes the sophistry of our governor's reasoning and decision-making to withdraw charity care funding to the hospital. Evidence-based medicine and statistical validation of the highly efficient delivery of care at Muhlenberg needs to be tangibly demonstrated. This can be done. Such a sophisticated analysis endeavor is the current challenge. The depth of this analysis, as already discussed with a leader in this area of econometrics, needs to be impervious to anticipated widespread scrutiny.

Dr. Brian Fertig is an endocrinologist living in Edison.

Online story here.
(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Armory - Courier - Bids on Armory start at $1M

2008-09-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

Plainfield Armory going up for sale; bids start at $1M Courier News, Thursday, June 30, 2005

By CHAD WEIHRAUCH

Staff Writer

PLAINFIELD -- It was once considered a good location for a new senior citizen center and has been used as a place for martial arts classes, speeches and large-scale gatherings.

Now, the Plainfield Armory is for sale at a minimum bid of $1 million.

Assemblyman Jerry Green said the State House Commission decided last week to sell the property, recommending to the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs that it be auctioned off after it was declared a surplus building.

The commission is in charge of selling and leasing state-owned property.

Green, D-Plainfield, said it would be preferable for the city to retain control of the armory by purchasing it from the state. He said city officials, including Mayor Albert T. McWilliams, were sent a letter in April notifying them of the sale, but they never replied.

"By him or the council not responding, they (the state) decided last Monday to put the property out to bid," Green said.

McWilliams said he never received that letter -- a copy Green submitted showed it was dated April 27 -- but said the city might be interested in the armory. However, McWilliams added that the building needs a new air-conditioning system and other upgrades.

"There's a lot of work that has to go into the site, but it's a great location," he said.

A spokesman for the state Department of the Treasury, which manages state-owned properties, indicated there is at least one month for Plainfield to act.

"The property will be offered to state agencies and the municipality first, and if there is no interest expressed, it will be sold at an auction with a minimum bid of $1 million," spokesman Tom Vincz said Monday.

The statement Vincz read was part of a letter sent to McWilliams, dated June 22. In it, Gene Hayman, chief of the Office of Real Property Management at the Treasury, asks the city to contact him by July 29 if officials are interested.

If the city does nothing by then, the state will auction the armory to the highest bidder.

The building at the corner of Leland Avenue and East Seventh Street is about 18,000 square feet, and when it was considered as a possible new senior center site six or seven years ago, it contained mostly small offices and narrow corridors. The tight spaces and lack of handicap-accessible features made seniors hesitant about relocating there.

Vincz said the older building is a candidate for the state and national Register of Historic Places, meaning there would be restrictions on alterations and uses by any potential buyer.

"In other words, you can't knock the building down," Vincz said.

Green noted that armories such as the one in Red Bank -- which became an ice rink -- have been converted for public use, which is what he would like to see in Plainfield.

"It's a lot of options out there. I have staff doing research now how other municipalities have responded to this," he said."

http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050630/NEWS01/506300328/1006

Armory - Ledger - State puts Armory up for sale

2008-09-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

State puts Plainfield armory up for sale

Friday, June 24, 2005

BY JULIA M. SCOTT

Star-Ledger Staff

The Plainfield armory is up for sale with a price tag of a million dollars, officials said.

The state-owned building will be offered to state agencies and the city first, said Tom Vincz, a spokesperson at the state Treasury Department, which is overseeing the sale. It could not be determined exactly when the property will be put on the market.

The armory was closed in the early 1990s because it was underutilized. But instead of selling the space, the state rented it to veterans groups.

Recently, the Military and Veterans Affairs Agency requested the armory be designated as surplus, prompting the sale. On Monday, the State House Commission approved the sale.

Plainfield Mayor Albert McWilliams said the city might be interested in the property if the price is right. But the building needs "hundreds of thousands" of dollars for a cooling system and to make it handicapped accessible, he said.

"If we had the money to do the upgrades, it would be a great community center for the city," he said. "We would have to look at the details."

Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Union) has worked with the state to make sure the city has first dibs.

"I think the city should control a valuable piece of property," he said.

The armory is eligible for the state and national registers of historic sites, said Vincz, meaning the building cannot be torn down.

Julia Scott cover Plainfield. She may be reached at (908) 302-1505 or jscott@starledger.com.

Armory - Courier - Task force considers Armory

2008-09-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Courier News, Sunday, July 10, 2005

IN BRIEF

Plainfield eyes deal for armory

PLAINFIELD -- A task force has begun meeting to consider the possible acquisition of the Plainfield Armory by the city.

Mayor Albert T. McWilliams announced the establishment of the group earlier this week, and the task force met for the first time Wednesday night, he said.

The nine-member panel, chaired by resident Michael Pyne, an AT&T executive who has been active in several other city groups, will consider possible uses for the property and the feasibility of acquiring the armory, from finances to development.

A public hearing may be scheduled to gather community input.

The state announced in late June that it had declared the armory, at the corner of Leland Avenue and East Seventh Street, a surplus property and would sell it at auction with a starting bid of $1 million.

-- Chad Weihrauch

http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050710/NEWS01/507100379/1006

Muhlenberg - Courier - Green airs differences with Solaris

2008-09-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

Published in the Courier News, Thursday, September 4, 2008

Plainfield, Solaris air differences at Muhlenberg meeting

By MARK SPIVEY
STAFF WRITER

The State Department of Health and Senior Services is attempting to mediate a series of disputes between the city of Plainfield and Solaris, Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center's parent company, regarding the recent closure of the 131-year-old hospital.

Department of Health and Senior Services Commissioner Heather Howard met with Assemblyman Jerry Green, D-Union, and officials from Plainfield and Solaris in Trenton on Wednesday in a session that lasted nearly three hours — the talks revolving around disagreements regarding some of the 18 conditions outlined by Howard in a written decision released in late July approving Solaris' certificate of need to close the hospital.

"They got to discuss a variety of concerns centering around the (certificate of need)," said department spokeswoman Donna Leusner, "And she (Howard) is working with both parties to resolve the issues."

Those issues include a dispute over the adequacy of schedules for transportation to other medical facilities supplied by Solaris to city residents, plus the lack of a "watchdog" entity to ensure the conditions for closure continue to be met by the company, two topics that, according to Green, dominated the meeting. The assemblyman said he believed that without tangible amendments to the original approval of the certificate of need, the city would lean toward filing a formal appeal of Howard's decision, the deadline for which Green said is next week.

"I would say right now that I'm more inclined (to believe an appeal is pending), because there's so much mistrust there. I would say unless the commissioner makes these adjustments, there's a good opportunity that the city would appeal," Green said. "If she doesn't render a decision in a favorable way, there's going to be a problem, but I want to give her the benefit of the doubt first."

Leusner said her department was aware of the possibility for such an appeal. Yesterday's meeting was the second in three weeks to include the commissioner, Green, and Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs in discussing the hospital, which city officials have said was vital to the community. Solaris has cited massive financial struggles stemming from low patient volumes, high rates of charity-care patients, and continuing state and federal reimbursement cuts for such patients as reasons for closing the hospital, the annual losses for which officials have said were approaching $20 million.

Solaris spokesman Steven Weiss characterized yesterday's meeting as being positive, expressing optimism that its eventual outcome could prove agreeable to both his company and the Plainfield community.

"The meeting itself was really a beneficial and healthy dialogue between the interested parties," Weiss said. "They're (the Department of Health) going to look at what can be done to look at some of the conditions to see if they can simplify some of them to make them more beneficial to the community."

Weiss said yesterday's meeting also touched on the hot-button issue of the possible sale of the hospital or parts of the hospital grounds. Green and others have accused Solaris of being uncooperative with prospective buyers, but Weiss said his company explained during the meeting that such transactions are complicated.

"We were clarifying the parameters that our investment bankers use for the sale," Weiss said. "There are a lot of specifics when it comes from turning a nonprofit (facility) into a for-profit."

Weiss added that Solaris remains willing to listen to any offers for parts of the 17-acre campus. Green has said he knows of no fewer than four interested parties.

"We remain open to being approached," Weiss said.

Yesterday's meeting originally set up as a showdown between Green and Solaris over the possible approval by the state of nearly $170 million in bonds for the financially distressed health-care company, funds that the assemblyman last week said he hoped to get the state to defer pending the city's grievances being addressed.

Green softened his stance slightly yesterday, saying Solaris officials spent part of the meeting emphasizing the fact that the denial of the bonds in question could spell financial disaster. The matter was originally due to come before the New Jersey Health Care Facilities Financing Authority on Aug. 28, but was postponed, although the case now appears on the authority's Web site under a list of pending business with a decision date yet to be set.

"They were pleading their case, and they made it very clear that without financing in place, all the things we're talking about, including employees, (could be in jeopardy)," Green said. "Without that revenue needed for Solaris to get in good financial shape, then it could be a crisis for them. That's why it's important it should be give-and-take on both sides — they have financial concerns, we have health concerns."

Mark Spivey can be reached at mspivey@mycentraljersey.com or 908-707-3144.

Online story here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Immigrants - Courier - Connolly Properties: LAC engages lawyers

2008-08-31T05:23:00.000-07:00

Published in the Courier News, Sunday, August 31, 2008

Plainfield Hispanic-rights group hires lawyers in immigration suit

By MARK SPIVEY
STAFF WRITER

The Latin American Coalition, a city Hispanic-rights group, has retained attorneys from a prominent New York City-based civil-rights organization in response to a federal lawsuit that has the potential to turn the city into the epicenter of the national debate concerning illegal immigration.

The coalition retained the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which will work pro bono in opposing the Washington, D.C.,-based Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The institute previously supported anti-illegal immigration ordinances in Riverside and Hazelton, Pa., but both towns were ultimately forced to abandon them. The Defense and Education Fund played a pivotal role in one of those cases, when U.S. District Judge James M. Munley overturned the Hazelton ordinance by ruling it unconstitutional, and Riverside rescinded its ordinance when township officials said the town could not afford the legal costs of defending it.

The lawsuit was filed in June against defendants with Connolly Properties, a locally based real-estate investment and management company that oversees apartments here and in East Orange and Allentown, Pa. The plaintiffs in the case are Maribel DelRio-Mocci, a former leasing agent for Connolly, and two current tenants of Plainfield Connolly Properties, Linda Elliot and Robert Bolmer, who allege that the real-estate group has run and continues to run a scheme to lease rental units to undocumented residents. The plaintiffs contend this is done "through a pattern of encouraging and inducing illegal aliens to reside in the United States and harboring those aliens from official detection in knowing and/or reckless disregard of the fact that such aliens were present in the United States in violation of federal law," according to the language of the suit. Connolly, an official for which declined comment for this story, has until Sept. 15 to file a formal response with the U.S. District Court of New Jersey in Newark.

Setting legal precedent?

The lawsuit is unique in that it ranks among the first ever to cite RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) statutes, which the federal government has traditionally used mostly to fight organized crime, in order to declare Connolly as being tantamount to a criminal-harboring enterprise. The lawsuit also alleges multiple violations of the Fair Housing Act, claiming that Connolly agents deliberately segregate tenants by race and nation of origin in order to reduce the risk of illegal aliens being discovered by authorities.

Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund Executive Director Cesar Perales said the potential ramifications regarding the outcome of the suit are enormous.

"The civil rights implications are very clear, and they go well beyond Plainfield," Perales said. "If this concept that anyone who rents to undocumented people is harboring (criminals) ... and violating federal law, this is going to affect landlords and immigrants all over this country."

Immigration Reform Law Institute Staff Attorney Garrett Roe would not comment extensively on the specifics of the case but agreed that a powerful precedent could be set by its outcome.

"The ideal situation," Roe said, "is that small towns around the country that are dealing with the same problem (of illegal immigration), hopefully they're going to see this,and it will help them deal with such issues."

Along with RICO and Fair Housing Act violations, the lawsuit claims that illegal aliens were "encouraged or allowed to use false identity documents" by Connolly when applying for housing, along with claims that such tenants were not subject to the same maximum occupancy restrictions to which legal citizens were subject. The suit also claims that some legal citizens were falsely informed that no vacancies were available in certain buildings and goes on to cite substandard living conditions existing at some Connolly properties, specifically Plainfield's Central Avenue and Pingry Arms Apartment Complexes.

Tenants say conditions are bad

Two tenants with 25 years of combined residence at Pingry Arms independently claimed some of the allegations in the lawsuit are true, specifically echoing assertions that the demographics have changed and the conditions have deteriorated at the building rapidly since Connolly acquired the property almost directly across from City Hall on Crescent Avenue several years ago.

"They've (Connolly) been getting away with murder," said Troy Moyd, 68, and a resident at Pingry since 1995. "Since they got this place in the last four or five years, the place has been going downhill ever since. They don't believe in fixing anything."

Moyd cited water leaks in his bathroom and ceiling, mouse and roach infestations, and other factors, closely mirroring claims from Bolmer outlined in the lawsuit. Another tenant, who asked only to be identified by his first name, Roger, cited drug dealing and urination in the hallways.

Both men also said they believe Connolly is guilty of deliberately mistreating non-Hispanic tenants in order to homogenize the building by driving other tenants out, even claiming that some phone calls made for maintenance are answered by company employees who claim not to speak English.

However, Clarence McGhie, a retiree who lives in a Central Avenue residence just steps away from the Central Avenue Apartments, said he is not aware of any adverse effects to his neighborhood caused by the nearby Connolly property.

"We're talking about a complex that's maybe one-fifth of a mile from my house, and it's not like I'm ever looking over my shoulder to see who's coming and going," McGhie said. "I've lived here for almost three years and had no problems at all."

McGhie said he isn't sure just what to make of the lawsuit but said he did believe many area immigrants — legal or otherwise — are only looking to improve their lives.

"I don't think it's a black-and-white issue or yes-and-no issue," McGhie said. "But a lot seem to be hard workers who may not be getting a fair deal."

Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs said while she is unaware of the specifics of the lawsuit, she will be keeping an eye on how it unfolds due to its potential to affect the city at large.

"My position, and the position of the city of Plainfield, is that we advocate equal rights for everyone and fair treatment of everyone, regardless of anyone's nationality or ethnic background," Robinson-Briggs said when asked what the city's policy on illegal immigration was. "And we are looking for any and all companies in Plainfield to be fair and equitable to all members of the community."

Company experiences huge growth

The lawsuit further alleges that Connolly was able to achieve much of its financial success — it cites the company as going from overseeing one six-unit building to operating nearly 2,000 units in 45 separate complexes during a 12-year span — due to the existence of the alleged scheme. The plaintiffs contend that Connolly "has been able to acquire extensive real-estate holdings in old and dilapidated apartment buildings, and to operate such holdings as a residential rental enterprise without investing funds correcting the ... dangerous conditions therein."

Connolly oversees at least 27 separate housing entities in Plainfield alone, according to the company's Web site, the vast majority of which are bunched in a narrow corridor spanning Seventh and Ninth streets between Spooner and Richmond avenues. The site includes photos of all 27 properties, advertising rental units ranging from one to three bedrooms and ranging in size from under 350 square feet to more than 1,500 square feet. The site also says Connolly was formed in 1996 "with the intention of making real-estate investment and ownership available to investors who may possess little or no expertise and may have limited capital for investment."

Carl Reed, broker owner for one of the city's most successful property-management firms, ERA Realty on Park Avenue, said he believes Connolly is anything but a criminal enterprise.

"I happen to know the quality of the property he (owner David Connolly) runs and manages, and they are in the top percentage of the properties in this city. He is by no means a slumlord," Reed said. "I would be honored to own some of the properties he owns; he's actually raised the real-estate values in Plainfield. And I believe most of the landlords in town feel the same way."

Reed went on to label the lawsuit as unfairly targeting one property-management company that only is mirroring what countless others do every day.

"I don't know why Connolly was singled out when a majority of landlords in this town probably have a similar situation (in renting to undocumented residents)," Reed said. "In a town that is struggling in an economic downturn, with a population that is such a melting pot, it's unfortunate."

Not all city real-estate officials echoed Reed's words, though. Jeannette Edghill, senior housing administrator for the Plainfield branch of Covenant Manor, a senior citizen apartment complex on East Front Street, said she believes Connolly properties within a block of her building are hotbeds for crime.

"I've had some question marks in my mind about this whole Connolly thing; all of a sudden they're owning all the realty in Plainfield," Edghill said. "Right across the street, there's a lot of drug-dealing going on in there. It's just constant crime."

Flor Gonzalez, director of the Latin American Coalition, said she believes the lawsuit threatens not only tenants of Connolly properties but the city's entire Latino community.

"If this lawsuit is successful, it will result in Latinos being denied the opportunity to obtain housing. It will make many landlords reluctant to rent to Latino tenants ... and have a chilling effect on all landlords," Gonzalez said. "We intend to defend our rights."

Gonzalez also said, in spite of being on the defensive, she was eager to embrace an opportunity to make a statement concerning Hispanic rights that could resound around the country.

"It's time for us to really try and make history," Gonzalez said, "to not allow this to go forward."

Mark Spivey can be reached at 908-707-3144 or mspivey@mycentraljersey.com.

Muhlenberg - Courier - Green calls for freeze on Solaris bonds

2008-08-26T04:47:00.000-07:00

Published in the Courier News, Tuesday, August 26, 2008

August 25, 2008

Assemblyman calls for freeze on funds
for Solaris upgrades at JFK Medical Center

By MARK SPIVEY
STAFF WRITER

State Assemblyman Jerry Green will ask the state Department of Health and Senior Services to put a hold on possible approval of nearly $170 million in bonds for Solaris Health System, the nonprofit parent company of the recently-closed Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center in Plainfield and JFK Medical Center in Edison.

It was first reported nearly three weeks ago that Solaris had requested a $169 million bond issue to pay for expansions and renovations at JFK and to refinance the debt of the two hospitals.

Green. D-22nd Dist., said he will ask that those funds be put in limbo until specific grievances regarding Muhlenberg's closure are directly addressed by the state.

"This is no longer people hollering that "I want to see Muhlenberg stay open,' " Green said yesterday. "Now the argument from the people in the community is...that they support the (Department of Health) Commissioner (Heather Howard) and the treasurer not moving forward with this bond issue until they get some questions answered."

State Department of Health and Senior Services spokesperson Dawn Thomas confirmed yesterday that Howard and state officials had scheduled a meeting with Green for Sept. 3 in Trenton, but would not comment on the nature of the meeting.

Solaris' bond request was originally scheduled to go before the New Jersey Health Care Facilities Financing Authority in Trenton on Thursday, Aug. 28, but company spokesman Steven Weiss said yesterday the date has been pushed back to sometime in September.

Green outlined a number of issues his task force planned to discuss with the commissioner, including a claim that state-mandated transportation service to other area hospitals offered to Plainfield residents by Solaris does not currently meet the department's standards and the fact that the company has refused to publicly release an asking price for prospective buyers of the 131-year-old hospital.

Another issue Green said he planned to discuss with state health officials is the existence of a potential buyer for Muhlenberg who has claimed massive delays in arranging a tour of the Plainfield campus. A person from within DBR Healthcare, a Philadelphia-based coalition of investors, said earlier this month that his group had been attempting to arrange an evaluation of the hospital grounds since April, but only received approval the Thursday before the hospital's closure.

Green said he is also seeking detailed documentation of Solaris' financial records, ranging from a 10-year revenue report down to a list of all the assets and property on the Plainfield campus and how much is owed on each by the company.

"The community needs to know, because over the last 130 years, the community has not only used this facility, but donated money to it," Green said. "We need to get a clear picture of exactly what Solaris paid for the property, but also what they owe on the property...they're asking the state to back these bonds, so there should be the ability for the state to ask these questions."

In response to the assemblyman's statements, Weiss claimed that Solaris' transportation services to the Plainfield community not only meet the state's requirements, but that the state has already confirmed as much.

"The Department of Health has sent people to look at our transportation to make sure we are meeting the requirements of the certificate of need (for closure)," Weiss said, "and they have been pleased with our efforts to not only comply, but exceed."

Weiss also said that Solaris is annually audited by a private firm and that the information stemming from those audits is available to the public on the company's Web site.

In response to Green's statement that the public is interested in knowing what collateral the company plans to offer in seeking approval of its loan, Weiss said that a working group will discuss the matter this week.

But Weiss said his company was not yet prepared to discuss what, if any, parts of the 17-acre Plainfield campus are currently up for sale, or to publicly issue any specific asking price.

"Solaris won't speculate on the price or the use of the campus in the future when, right now, we are putting all of our efforts into satisfying and exceeding the conditions set forth in the certificate of need (approval)," Weiss said. "The bottom line is, we're not there yet."

Solaris' original bond request called for $22.2 million in capital improvements, while the rest would go toward debt restructuring. The largest chunk of capital-improvement money was to go toward 59 additional inpatient beds at JFK, with other funds being used to expand the emergency room and renovate the cardiac catheterization lab and hyperbaric wound center.

Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, who said Muhlenberg would be a key topic of discussion for a community forum to be held at 6:30 tonight by the city at Washington Community School, said the assemblyman has the city's support regarding his planned meeting with state officials.

"I'll tell you, this is a mutual request," Robinson-Briggs said yesterday regarding Green's stance. "We also want the state to please hold back on giving this loan to Solaris."

Mark Spivey can be reached at mspivey@mycentraljersey.com or 908-707-3144.

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080825/NEWS/808250346

Online story here. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Landlords - Herald News - Towns look for overcrowding, illegal apartments

2008-08-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

Published in the Herald News, August 22, 2008

Landlords take heat on illegal dwellings
Towns start looking harder for lawbreakers

By KAREN KELLER and JENNIFER CUNNINGHAM, STAFF WRITER | 08/22/08 02:01 AM

[image]
Paul Ramirez says that a hefty mortgage payment each month has forced him to rent out rooms in his Hope Avenue property, which he purchased two years ago in Passaic. (MICHAEL KARAS/Staff Photographer)

Passaic is cracking down on illegal dwellings, with inspectors hitting city streets day and night.

Clifton reports an uptick in the number of illegally rented attics and cellars. In January, North Haledon landlords of two-family houses will have to register tenants' names with the city.

For three municipalities, there are three different ways officials are taking a closer look at illegal dwellings. But the message is the same: Landlords, beware. Officials say they're intent on protecting tenants' safety.

Illegal dwellings often lack bathrooms or kitchens and create fire hazards by restricting tenants' access to exits.

In the event of a fire or accident, emergency personnel need to know just how many people are living in a home, and where, officials said.

Fires can start easily near boilers in cellars or from a hot plate. In August 2006, two Englewood men living in what officials said was an illegal basement dwelling died in a fire.

Aside from safety, illegal dwellings stretch municipal services, schools and strain infrastructure -- leaving residents in legal properties to pick up the tax and utility tabs.

In Passaic -- a starter community for new immigrants -- cash-hungry landlords have always rented attics and cellars without permits to people willing to squeeze into small spaces, officials said. But acting Mayor Gary Schaer, who took the helm in May, is intensifying the hunt.

It's part of the mayor's larger goal of improving the quality of life in the city, he said. In addition to checking for illegal apartments, inspectors issue summonses for property maintenance violations such as uncut lawns.

"The purpose here is not revenue enhancement. It's to put a clean, fresh face on the city," Schaer said.

Two inspectors take turns going out four nights a week, and twice a week during the day, said Angelo Pallotto, an inspector. That's up from roughly two nights a week in years past, and once every two months during the day.

The daytime inspections are carried out as part of the city's "Clean Sweeps" project, in which a team of a dozen other city inspectors, including fire, public works and health officials, pick several blocks to inspect during a three-hour period, rotating each week among the city's four wards. The city started "Clean Sweeps" once every two months in 2001 and now conducts them twice a week.

Pallotto said many landlords say they are unaware of the law. Offenders' common explanation is that when they bought the dwelling, their real estate agent or bank told them they could rent out every room, Pallotto said.

"When you buy the property, the bank says it's OK," said Paul Ramirez, 40, a landlord who also owns a mechanics shop. "You have to rent all the space you have."

He said he bought a single-family house on Hope Avenue two years ago and received a violation notice in June for renting the attic and cellar space illegally. He said it's impossible to pay his $5,000 mortgage without renting every room.

"How are you going to pay for a property for that much [monthly overhead]?" he asked. Ramirez's father, a signatory on papers for the house, pleaded guilty in municipal court Thursday to the offenses. The pair now owe the city roughly $2,000 in fines.

In Clifton, the economy, property taxes and the mortgage crisis have led to an increase in the number of illegal dwellings found in the city, local officials said. The city's six code enforcement inspectors found 70 illegal dwellings in Clifton from January to June, up from the 43 found during the same time last year, public records show.

"I think it's more of the mortgage crisis than anything else," Sam DeGrose, head of the city's code enforcement department. "There's a lot of foreclosures in town."

DeGrose said that as many homeowners refinance their adjustable mortgage rates, they are forced to find new ways to pay their mortgage every month.

"We found two-family houses where the owner moved to the basement and rented out the two apartments, just to pay the mortgage," DeGrose said.

Inspectors look for multiple doorbells, air-conditioning units in attics and cellars, multiple names of tenants on mailboxes and people moving in and out, said Mayor James Anzaldi. But tips from neighbors are the best indicator, he said.

In North Haledon, a town with relatively few renters, the borough hasn't had a problem with illegal housing, but wants to be proactive, said Mayor Randy George. Next year, the borough is undergoing a tax reassessment, the first in decades, and the city is taking advantage of the timing to begin a tenants' registry, George said.

Landlords of every two-family house will have to pay $50 annually to register names of tenants. North Haledon has 241 two-family houses, George said.

"It's a hot-button issue that we've been reading about in other towns, and we just want to make sure we're ahead of it," he said. "It's not for money but for public safety."

Thursday mornings in Passaic are landlords' day in court.

Outside the courtroom, Pallotto, the inspector, clutched files on 10 cases in which he'd testified. Seven were for illegal dwellings. His files contained photos. One showed an attic bedroom with an unmade bed near a tiny window that looked out onto a roof next door. In the room was a Winnie the Pooh teddy bear.

"A picture is worth a thousand words," Pallotto said.

Comments

Posted by Dominick on 08/25/08 12:18 AM:
I said it before and I'll say it again : If the towns are serious about cracking down on illegal dwellings, offer a reward for information. Clifton does this for people who inform about students illegally attending city schools and it has worked incredibly. By the way, Mayor George is full of it. It's always about the money with these crooks. How does paying $50 make the public safer?

7th Congressional District - Wfd Leader - Stender, Lance to debate 9/16

2008-08-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

Westfield Leader, 8/22/2008

Lance and Stender to
Debate September 16 in Scotch Plains

SCOTCH PLAINS – Two candidates vying for Congressional representation in the 7th District, Republican State Senator Leonard Lance (LD-23, Clinton) and Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Stender (LD-22, Fanwood) will debate for the first time at 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday, September 16.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey will host the debate at their offices, located at 1391 Martine Avenue in Scotch Plains.

The event will offer voters insight into critical issues, including key domestic and foreign policy questions. The race, to fill the seat vacated by retiring Republican Mike Ferguson, is likely to be one of the most closely watched in the country.

Organizations co-sponsoring this event include: American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League New Jersey, Community Relations Committee of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, JCC of Central New Jersey, Jewish Community Relations Council of Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, National Jewish Democratic Council, New Jersey State Association of Jewish Federations, Republican Jewish Coalition, Westfield Chapter of Hadassah, and The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeiter Ring.

Cohen replacement - PolitckerNJ - Quijano wins narrowly, 87-82

2008-08-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

PolitickerNJ - Wednesday, July 20, 2008

August 19, 2008 - 8:34pm

Quijano narrowly wins Cohen seat
By Matt Friedman

Category: LocalTags: Patricia Perkins-Auguste, Annette Quijano

MOUNTAINSIDE -- Attorney Annette Quijano came to the Union County Democratic Committee’s special election tonight as the party leaders’ favorite to replace former Assemblyman Neil Cohen in District 20, but Elizabeth Councilwoman Patricia Perkins-Auguste put up a serious fight.

Quijano, 46, an assistant counsel to Gov. Corzine, bested Perkins-Auguste 87-82 in a vote by county committee members from the legislative district’s four towns: Elizabeth, Kenilworth, Roselle and Union. It’s the first time a minority will fill a seat in the district, which despite having a minority-majority population, has long been represented by three white men.

Quijano’s term begins immediately. She replaces former Assemblyman Neil Cohen, who resigned from his seat amid allegations that he possessed child pornography on his legislative office computer. She will have to run again against a Republican in November to hold the seat, although the district’s registration breakdown makes her a near shoe-in.

Perkins-Auguste and Quijano both gave speeches in front of the committee members, but although members were voting to send a new legislator to Trenton, the meeting was closed to the press and general public.

The controversy surrounding Cohen made the occasion a little more somber than it otherwise would have been for Quijano.

“I’m excited, but I’m not. I’m saddened because these are the circumstances,” said Quijano, who didn’t let the accusation against Cohen get in the way of what she saw as an altruistic legislative legacy.

“I always admired Neil for being such an advocate for the people, and I have, as I see it, big shoes to try to fill. I used to sit in his Assembly financial institution committee and I saw first-hand how he was an advocate for the people,” she said.

Quijano, whose name did not pop up in the initial field of candidates, said that she was approached by “a few people” about running for the position. Although she’s never run for a legislative seat before, Quijano said that she’s always wanted to fill one.

But with such a whirlwind candidacy, Quijano hadn’t yet outlined much of her legislative agenda.

“I’m going to represent people in my community. We’re going through a tough economic period and I want to make sure that seniors don’t have to decide between groceries and medication. I want to bring jobs back into the district,” she said.

In her speech to the committee members – provided in written form after the meeting – Quijano listed her experience as a past experience as a campaign volunteer, her work as the Clerk of the Union County Freeholder board, and her work in as an assistant counsel during the McGreevey, Codey and Corzine administrations. She said that she would work to improve schools, fight for aid for cities and stabilize property taxes.

There were actually two votes tonight—one to send a legislator to fill part of Cohen’s unexpired term, and one on who should get the party’s nomination for the November election. After her defeat on the first vote, Perkins-Auguste moved to make the second vote unanimous for Quijano.

Despite that gracious move, however, Perkins-Auguste, who’s African-American, was critical of Quijano, accusing her of using her Hispanic heritage as a campaign ploy in a district where Hispanics outnumber blacks.

“She stood up there and said she was Latino… Basically she race-baited, but she’s entitled to that. You use what you have to your advantage.” she said.

Among Perkins-Auguste's allies was Joseph Adair, a reverend and relocation officer from Elizabeth who used to run the local NAACP has long been the councilwoman's political ally.

While not a county committee member himself, Adair bussed in 25 members from Elizabeth to support Perkins-Auguste, who he said had a better record of public service than Quijano.

“I don’t even know who[Quijano] is. I’ve lived in Union County for 46 years. Never heard of her. I have a problem with that," he said.

Although the local party’s heavy hitters like State Sen. Ray Lesniak, Assemblyman/Democratic State Chairman Joe Cryan and County Chairwoman Charlotte DeFilippo remained officially neutral, Perkins-Auguste cast herself as the rebel candidate against the machine. She did, however, have Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage – a close Lesniak ally—behind her. Perkins-Auguste also expressed disappointment that committee members from Roselle went with Quijano instead of her.

“I went up against the machine, the political power brokers of the stat eof New Jersey. I lost by five votes. Ray Lesniak, Joe Cryan and Charlotte DeFilippo. People I have great respect for,” she said. “I believe in God and that’s who I get my direction from. I don’t believe in backroom politics. I believe in serving the people.”

Freeholder Director Angel Estrada, who took his name out of the mix for the seat after he found that “the numbers didn’t add up,” was forthright about the importance of the seat being filled by a person of Hispanic heritage.

“The 20th legislative district is a Latino district, no matter what anybody claims,” he said. “The reality is we need to start recognizing Latinos' contribution to our society in terms of the work we do every day.”

Quijano, however, disputed Perkins-Auguste’s claim that her ethnicity is what ultimately won her the seat.

“I can’t say it’s solely because I’m latino. If you saw a number of individuals here, they were from a lot of nationalities, and I want to represent all of the community.

Defilippo, meanwhile, played up the fact that the race for the seat came down to two women, showcasing what she said was an effort to recruit more women into local government.

“I think were both were very articulate, but Annette has a depth of government experience,” she said.

-------------------------------------------
Update: Below is the response from Union County Republican Chairman Phil Morin.

"Tonight, the Union County Democratic machine had an opportunity to fill a disgraced former assemblyman's seat with a fresh face of change. Instead, party insiders have selected someone who represents more of the same. Instead of choosing someone who will change the culture of corruption in Trenton, they have chosen someone who is inextricably linked with the failed policies of the Corzine and McGreevey administrations. Undoubtedly, the newest member of the Trenton aristocracy will be a loyal footsoldier who will blindly vote for higher property taxes, bigger government and sweetheart deals for connected insiders.

It is hard to believe that someone who has served as legal counsel for Governor Corzine and undoubtedly advised him on initiatives such as the ill-fated toll tax plan to the latest COAH tax legislative disaster will be any different than her predecessor, who was more concerned with sparing a vicious dog's life than reducing the financial pressures on the overtaxed citizens of the 20th District.

Address :

Comments

Lesniak? DeFillippo? Cryan?
posted by Mr. Democrat

Was Quijano the candidate of Lesniak? I hadn't seen that reported anywhere.

Very close race. Makes it seem like the Bosses aren't in solid control (unless they just didn't have a preference between the two).
08/19/08 8:46 pm

------------------------------------------------

Phil Morin -A stand up guy offers good insights and interesting

posted by KathyCallahan

analysis of the -same old same old unispired and entirely predictable machine.
08/20/08 7:44 am

----------------------------------------------

They are in control, the bosses
posted by bitaryo

Remember the meeting was closed to the press and the public. What is reported is stage managed.

Still can't figure out why it is a Latino district with only a 24% share of the population.
08/20/08 7:52 am

Address :

Muhlenberg - Westfield Leader - Closing hikes UC unemployment

2008-08-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

Westfield Leader, 8/13/2008

Muhlenberg Closing Adds
To Unemployment Hike in Union County

By CHRISTINA M. HINKE
Specially Written for The Westfield Leader

AREA – As of August 6, 300 Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center employees did not have jobs. This comes at a time when Union County’s unemployment rate rose to 5.6 percent in June (latest available), 1.1 percent higher than the average rate for 2007. Comparing it to the national and state average for June, Union County has slightly more out-of-work employees.

Tom Casey, vice president of public relations for Solaris Health Systems, said to The Westfield Leader July 31, “We found positions for roughly 650 employees mainly at JFK Medical.” Some, he said, have taken jobs at Solaris’ nursing facilities and other health service centers in Middlesex County.

He said 450 employees had resigned prior to the letter Nancy Fiamingo, senior vice president and chief operating officer for Muhlenberg, submitted to workers July 29, notifying them of the date the hospital would close. Of those who resigned, some took jobs at Trinitas Hospital in Elizabeth as mental health and psychology professionals, some went on to jobs elsewhere, and some retired. John Oatis, Fanwood volunteer rescue squad president, told The Leader that most of the doctors have moved from Muhlenberg.

Last Thursday, approximately 15 patients remained at Muhlenberg, and the hospital planned to move them the following day, according to Barbara Germinder, a volunteer at the medical center. Thursday was the last day for all volunteers. She said she did not have another volunteer post lined up yet but planned to find a position after the end of the year, once the holidays pass. The hospital halls were virtually empty, no one was sitting in the waiting room on the third floor, and three nurses manned the nursing station on the third floor last Thursday afternoon.

Most employees of the Plainfield medical center come from Union, Somerset and Middlesex counties, according to Mr. Casey. He did not have information about the number of displaced employees from each town or city. Of the people unemployed due to the closing of Muhlenberg are a mix of professional staff, including secretaries, clerks, clinical staff and service workers, such as food service and housekeeping. About five employees of Muhlenberg were asked to comment, last Thursday, on their career plan once the hospital closes, but no one wished to talk to the press. Administration declined to speak to the press as well.

A severance package was offered to those who did not take a job in the Solaris health system. Mr. Casey would not disclose specific details of the package but said the severance is in correlation with their position’s rate of pay and length of service to Muhlenberg. In compliance with state law, employees and their eligible dependents are entitled to receive medical coverage through COBRA, paid by the beneficiary. Mr. Casey did not have cost information. According to the state’s Division of Pension and Benefits website, the COBRA monthly payment is the “full group rate plus a 2 percent administration fee.”

Of the 650 people who stayed with Solaris, 200 to 250 employees will be on-site at Muhlenberg’s satellite emergency department to provide services. Diagnostic imaging, lab employees, dialysis, home care and medical records are also on the premises. The school of nursing adjacent to the hospital is unchanged at 300-plus students per year, according to Mr. Casey. The students will continue to attend classroom lectures and rotate through other acute-care facilities, including JFK and Overlook hospitals.

NJ Media - NY Observer - Ledger, Record, Gannett Woes

2008-08-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

Published in the New York Observer, Wednesday, August 12, 2008

Welcome to New Jersey, Media Wasteland
What if a big juicy scandal happens
and there’s no one to cover it?

by John Koblin | August 12, 2008
This article was published in the August 18, 2008, edition of The New York Observer.

Is New Jersey really that uninteresting?

Since the start of summer, The New York Times emptied out its two New Jersey bureaus in Trenton and Newark; in June, The Record of Bergen County announced it would shut down its headquarters and its reporters would be homeless; in July, The Star Ledger announced that it was cutting about a third of its newsroom, and its owners said they would consider selling the paper.

It’s becoming reasonable to wonder if, at this rate, there will be anyone left to cover the state soon.

“Can you cover the big stories that really mean something to people—how taxes are spent, projections for jobs, stuff you just need to know if you live here—if you have too few journalists?” said Frank Scandale, the editor of The Record. “That’s a concern I have now as a journalist and as a citizen of New Jersey.”

As usual, it all comes down to money. The Record’s publisher said it would save $2.4 million per year by shutting down its Hackensack home; Donald Newhouse, president of Advance Publications, which owns The Ledger, said the paper is losing $30 million to $40 million and needs to cut 200 jobs in order to stay afloat; The Times eliminated its bureaus amid larger job cuts.

So what caused the problems?

“The Ledger has been very badly hit by the real estate downturn,” said Mr. Newhouse in a phone interview with Off the Record. “New Jersey was a very strong real estate economy, but it soured. It is much more serious in New Jersey than in any of the other markets that we are publishing in.”

But even if the housing market is crashing, that’s cyclical. Those things don’t last. Newsday, the Long Island daily newspaper, is battered by the same things that are affecting Jersey papers, and yet it makes money—last year it had an operating cash flow of $88 million, according to its publisher, and it sold for $650 million in July.

Like Newsday, The Ledger caters, in theory, to a populous, affluent market rich in potential advertisers.

And yet it would be a stretch to imagine that The Ledger could be sold for anything like that number, since it loses so much money. (Mr. Newhouse declined to discuss precise financials.)

One reason The Ledger, or The Record for that matter, could never be the Newsday of New Jersey is simply that there’s competition.

“Those papers aren’t surrounded by water, which, believe me, helps Newsday a lot,” said John Morton, a newspaper-industry analyst. “It sort of insulates the Long Island market and Newsday owns Long Island. New Jersey, in the overall market, is one of the most highly competitive markets in the country. If you look at a map and see how many daily newspapers are in that part of New Jersey, it’s astounding.”

There are 18 daily newspapers in the state that are members of the New Jersey Publishers Association, a trade organization. A retrenchment, in retrospect, was only a matter of time.

It’s been grim.

“It almost happened overnight,” said State Senate President, former governor, and all-around Jersey cheerleader Richard Codey.

The smaller papers haven’t fared much better than the big ones. Gannett, whose stock price recently hit an 18-year-low, eliminated 55 jobs this year at four of its six Jersey papers including the Asbury Park Press, the Home News Tribune in East Brunswick, the Courier News in Bridgewater and the Daily Record in Parsippany. This came just weeks after it extracted 83 buyouts from the Press, the Home News Tribune, the Courier News, the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill and the Daily Journal in Vineland. The Record’s sister paper, the Herald News, recently collapsed its sports department into the Record’s since it wasn’t sustainable to run both independently. The Ledger’s sister paper, the Trenton Times, is absorbing 25 buyouts.

But Mr. Codey seemed particularly shocked at the rapid dissolution of The Times’ presence on the other side of the river.

Shortly after The Times announced it would cut 100 jobs earlier this year, the paper began to unroll plans to remove reporters from its Newark and Trenton bureaus. Ever since The Times eliminated most of the original content for its Sunday New Jersey section two years ago in favor of consolidated material shared by all its regional supplements, its presence in the state has been dropping. Now, it’s pretty much all gone.

“Fortunately, when I was governor, The Times did really good stuff,” said Mr. Codey. “I miss it. Now I go to the metro section and when I see a Jersey story, I go, ‘Whoa! This is unbelievable—a story!’”

In a July Q&A with Times metro editor Joe Sexton, a reader asked why the paper had abandoned the state. Mr. Sexton wrote: “Dude, ouch! But Jersey? Love Jersey.”

He said that The Times was leaving behind David Kocieniewski, an accomplished reporter who is well regarded by the masthead. He added that The Times was indeed planning to “concentrate more on New York City,” but pledged that the paper would continue to send reporters to Jersey to cover “major news” and trends on the regular metro beats. Also: Peter Applebome’s twice-weekly “Our Towns” column.

But the numbers speak for themselves. The dozen or so reporters and editors that The Times had covering the state two years ago are gone, farmed out to cover areas still of interest to the paper. David Chen, the former Trenton bureau chief, is the New York City Hall bureau chief; Andrew Jacobs, who covered Cory Booker in Newark, is now in Beijing; Newark reporter and published poet Tina Kelley is, according to an internal memo sent out by Mr. Sexton, “spending more and more of her reporting life online, busting rhymes here and there along the way.”

The cost-saving measures that The Times has taken in Jersey, however, aren’t much more dramatic than what The Record has done. In order to stay afloat, the Hackensack-based daily is actually shutting down its offices and sending reporters onto the streets.

“We have two counties we focus on—primarily Bergen and Passaic—so our reporters will be in these counties and they’ll be running around with their cell phone, a laptop, a camera, and he’ll be writing a story in the lobby of a building and he can shoot and file a picture,” said Mr. Scandale, the editor of the paper.

The Record will keep a small office in West Paterson, but Mr. Scandale said the vast majority of its reporters wouldn’t have office space there, and only some editors would have some.

“People will be coming in and out all day long,” he said. “They can touch base, or not come in for three or four days because there’s no need to.”

Job cuts notwithstanding, The Ledger, under the leadership of Jim Willse, is acting with relative restraint.

It has always been regarded as a good-paying place to work—interns are paid $700 a week, according to one source—and Mr. Willse raised the salaries company-wide. In addition, The Ledger still generates stories out of fully formed suburban bureaus. As a result, it is a good editorial product, but it is expensive to produce.

That, with the combination of the loss in real estate advertising, seems to have taken its toll on the paper.

“It is a perfect storm of economic problems,” said Mr. Newhouse. “It is a very bad year, there’s no question about it. I don’t think there were any forecasts that would predict how serious the downturn would be.”

The Ledger will do it the old-fashioned way: job cuts. The paper will cut 200 non-unionized employees, and one newsroom source anticipates that will mean about 100 newsroom jobs—a little less than a third of the newsroom’s body count of roughly 350. In the course of announcing the cuts, Advance Publications said in a memo that if the cuts couldn’t be achieved, they would consider selling the paper. (Observer publisher Jared Kushner was cited in news reports as a potential buyer.)

Mr. Scandale is confident that The Record will remain a good paper, even without a newsroom. But when asked what the general decline means for the state, and if things will actually get far worse than they are right now, he didn’t offer much.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It remains to be seen.”

jkoblin@observer.com.

Online story here. Archived here.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Street cams - McClatchy - Catch speeders and raise cash

2008-08-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/v-print/story/47592.html

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Posted on Mon, Aug. 11, 2008

Cop cameras don't just catch speeders, they raise cash

Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspaper

last updated: August 12, 2008 08:32:34 AM

WASHINGTON — The leafy capital suburb of Chevy Chase Village is a great place to live but you wouldn't want to visit there.

At least not by car. Easy-to-miss automated speed cameras on its half-mile main drag, where the speed limit is 30 mph, caught 3,500 speeders on their first day of operation last fall. Before that, the norm was six tickets a day.

Many speeders first learn they've been caught when citations, along with photographic evidence, show up at the addresses that match the violators' license plates.

Be forewarned: More than 300 U.S. communities use automated "cop cam" systems like Chevy Chase's. They're after not just speeders but also red-light violators and railroad-crossing jumpers.

In the works are bus-mounted cop cams that ticket bus lane intruders, cop cams to punish speeders in highway construction zones, even cop cam systems that ticket motorists based on a car's average speed over a mile. They catch drivers who brake for known camera sites, then resume speeding.

Want to fight a cop cam ticket?

The same software that processes violations lets drivers view the five seconds before and after their alleged offenses on their home computers.

"It's very compelling evidence," said Cristina Weekes, the executive vice president for sales and marketing at Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., of Scottsdale, Ariz., a leading cop-cam maker.

"It's almost a no-win," admitted Horace Bradshaw, Washington's best-known traffic court defense lawyer.

When polled, substantial majorities approve of cop cams. When ticketed, however, lots are outraged.

"It's like Nazi Germany!" sputtered Dan Bradley, 41, a federal personnel investigator who routinely runs the six-lane Chevy Chase gantlet. "They ticket you for speeds that aren't dangerous."

In the peaceable United Kingdom, where cop cams are 10 times more widely used, saboteurs have shot out cameras lenses, disabled them with bolt cutters, set fire to them and pulled them down with a tractor's help, according to news reports.

What bugs people is clear from an industry pioneer's explanation of the effectiveness of cop cams:

"It's like the prospect of an IRS audit: The perception of risk promotes voluntary compliance," said Jim Tuton, founder of American Traffic Solutions of Scottsdale, Weekes' rival.

Three more tangible advantages excite municipal officials:

Cop cams suppress violations effectively by all accounts, at least around known camera sites. In one widely cited study, six speed cameras posted on an eight-mile stretch of the Loop 101 freeway in Scottsdale cut speeders by 88 percent over a nine-month period.
Cop cams reduce accidents, by most accounts. The frequent exception is more rear-enders, due to sudden stops on yellow at intersections where drivers know that the light is camera-monitored. Reductions in more hazardous right-angle crashes more than offset the added rear-enders, police say.
The third reason, which municipal officials downplay, is that cop cams can be cash cows.

In Chevy Chase, for example, where speeding tickets brought in about $8,000 monthly before cop cams, "We are routinely bringing in approximately a quarter-million dollars per month," Geoffrey Biddle, Chevy Chase's village manager, told his Board of Managers in February.

For a community of 2,000 with an annual budget of $4.6 million, that's a bonanza. What's more, because locals know enough to evade the cop cams, the village's new revenue mostly comes from outsiders, rather like a commuter tax.

Nor are Chevy Chase's big gains unique. Washington's dozen cop cams have taken in more than $200 million since 2001. Scottsdale's six freeway cameras took in $17 million in 2006.

Chevy Chase Police Chief Roy Gordon said in an interview, however: "It's not about how much revenue we're taking in with these cameras; it's about changing driver behavior."

There are four ways to avoid cop cam tickets: Most communities warn motorists that traffic laws are photo-enforced. New York City is one exception. Most municipalities also list cop-cam locations on their Web sites. Some new navigation systems warn drivers of known cop cam locations. And there's a site that tries to keep track of them, www.photoenforced.com.

Municipalities and contractors both do well by doing good, but contractors do more of the work.

The contractor studies a community's violation patterns, recommends camera locations, and calibrates and maintains the cameras. Using the police department's definition of speeding — typically 10 or 11 miles above the posted speed except in school zones — the cop cam system saves only the images of likely violators. Police review these along with the proposed citations.

Reviewers toss those with flaws, such as blurred license-plate numbers, more than one car in a single radar photo image or, in many jurisdictions, rental cars, whose drivers are too hard to track down. Contractors ticket the remainder and track collections.

Revenue splits vary, depending on the amounts of fines and traffic.

In Kingsport, Tenn., for example, Redflex receives 80 percent of the ticket price ($40) for the first 95 tickets issued at each intersection approach each month. Kingsport gets the remaining $10, according to Deputy Police Chief David Quillin.

After 95 tickets, Redflex and Kingsport split the fines evenly. In addition, Kingsport gets court costs, which the city council hiked from $13.50 to $50 last year. (The increase "would have happened regardless of the cameras," Quillin said. )

For the city, the gain is from $160,000 a year pre-cameras to an estimated $1.4 million. Redflex will make about half that.

Currently, 27 states — including California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas and Washington — permit some kind of cop cam system. Arizona bought 100 speed and HOV-lane cameras this year for state highways. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants hundreds more.

Their only natural enemies are proving to be state legislatures. Many are so keen for a big share of cop cam revenue that local governments lose the incentive to introduce the cameras.

Nonetheless, cop cam maker Tuton predicts that the cameras someday will be part of the "standard national infrastructure."

The big reason is that their spread is viral: When they work, violations and revenue both fall. To that, the likeliest answer is more cameras.

On the Web:

Muhlenberg - Westfield Leader - Colvins' letter on finances

2008-08-20T04:25:00.000-07:00

Westfield Leader, August 7, 2008

Letter of Revs. Jim and Sarah Colvin

Taxpayers Pay for Questionable
Hospital Closings in New Jersey

Thanks for your coverage of Muhlenberg.

The only entities who benefit from the closing of a hospital are the large corporations that close them. Gov. Jon Corzine must be pleased that his friends at the top of the economic food chain benefit so handsomely. Catholic Health East of Pa. will receive $252 million in low cost bonds issued by the state as it takes over St. Michel’s in Newark, and the issuer may well be Corzine’s alma mater, Goldman Sachs. (Goldman Sachs is listed as a possible issuer in the NJ Hospitals and Facilities Authority bulletin). For the first six years, we taxpayers will shell out $8.8 million per year, then theoretically the company will take over payments, although we remain on the hook for the duration.

Solaris Health Systems, who declared Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center insolvent and convinced Corzine and his Health Commissioner, Heather Howard, to close this essential urban hospital, will benefit greatly from the closing. At first, Solaris applied for $70 million to close Muhlenberg. Now the number has magically increased to $160 million — an astonishing figure that could be used to maintain the hospital for another ten years! We taxpayers have a right to see just what the $160 million is intended to do.

Instead, Solaris is trying to cash in at the expense of state taxpayers and at the same time selling off as much of the property as possible. (It is valued at over $90 million.) Solaris must be drooling in wait of the day when they can shut down all operations in Plainfield and cash in to support bloated executive salaries. CEO John McGee makes $652,000 on the books and who knows how much from his other business dealings partnering with local politicians.

Corzine should be held accountable for these amoral shenanigans that end up endangering people by depriving them of healthcare. Not surprisingly, most of them are located in poor urban areas with large minority populations.

We pray for the day when Corzine holds no public office and Solaris is out of the healthcare business — and for the day when healthcare is seen as a human right rather than a source of profit for the few.

Revs. James and Sarah Colvin
United Church of Christ, Plainfield

Taste of the Plainfields

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Christie - Westfield Leader - Union County pols need to worry

2008-07-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

Published in the Westfield Leader, June 26, 2008

[Christie wants to hear about Union County misconduct]
He's Going to Jail July 29, Christie Says of Sharpe James

By HORACE CORBIN
Specially written for the Westfield Leader

WESTFIELD -- U.S. Attorney Chris Christie said, "He's going to jail, July 29" referring to the sentencing of former Newark Mayor, and State Senator, Sharpe James, in an interview last Thursday with publisher, Horace Corbin, of The Westfield Leader and The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Times.

"We're asking for ten to 15-year sentencing from Judge [William] Martini who presides over the case," Mr. Christie said. "That sends a message to all other politicians in New Jersey who think they are untouchable." Unlike in state prison, federal prison inmates are not eligible for parole. 72-year-old James would likely be spending most, if not all, of the remainder of his life in jail. When asked about James' two Silver Cloud Rolls Royce's, yacht andshore estate, and if the taxpayers will ever see any of their money back, Mr. Christie said, "Unlikely. What we've convicted him of is relatively small in the context of what you're talking about."

The 40-minute interview with Mr. Christie can be viewed at goleader.com/video.

For seven years, Mr. Christie has served as U.S. Attorney with his office located in Newark and branches in Trenton and Camden. He said even his mother confuses his job with that of state Attorney General (AG). The U.S. Attorney is appointed by the President of the United States, confirmed by the Senate and is responsible for enforcing federal laws.

The AG is appointed by the Governor of New Jersey and is responsible for enforcing state laws. Mr. Christie said he has a close relationship with recently appointed AG Anne Milgram. They confer once a week. He said she is a true professional and clearly understands the basis of prosecution. They often work together, as exemplified by the James conviction. He publicly admitted to not always having a good relationship with the AG's office, so referring to those formerly in the position, Peter Harvey and Zulima Farber. Mr. Christie said his opinion changed when Stuart Rabner was appointed as AG for one year, and now is Supreme Court chief justice. Mr. Rabner had worked for Mr. Christie in the U.S. Attorney's office.

With a 128-0 record of convicting corrupt public officials, Mr. Christie said he is proud of the accomplishments of his office. When asked why he did not press for more convictions, Mr. Christie said his office prepares a case and when they are absolutely sure they can get a conviction, they present the case to a jury. "An indictment damages a person's reputation, so we want to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt," he said.

Mr. Christie said his office pursues cases regardless of political affiliation, a tactic that helps him to avoid the reputation former governor Eliot Spitzer developed as attorney general in New York, with his aggressive style. Mr. Christie said he does not believe the state has turned the corner yet on the culture of corruption; however, the issue is foremost on many minds.

"Invariable," he said. "We're not going to prosecute our way out of corruption. Given 566 municipalities, 611 school districts, 21 counties and a $35-billion state budget, 128 convictions is a small number. "Still, we've shined a very, very bright light on the problem, and now there is enormous discussion of this at every corner. Six to seven years ago, that was not the case."

About the message getting down to all other levels and special interests, he said, "I really do [think so], but that doesn't mean, I'm not claiming we've changed behavior across the board." He added the U.S. Attorney's office has a "zero tolerance" policy. It takes two to three years to investigate a case and obtain a conviction. With his term coming to an end in a few months, he said we have a `very active' pipeline.

"Anyone who's breaking the law in Union County has to be nervous and beyond that, I will not be making any comment about any particular individuals," Mr. Christie said. Aside from political corruption, his office handles several other matters, such as drugs and organized crime.

One area of particular concern to him is human trafficking what he said is a "terrific tragedy." His office has prosecuted more such crimes than any other office in the country. He said due to New Jersey's diverse culture; criminals from Mexico, Central America, Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia could find a community in the state where they would not be conspicuous in contrast, say to Oklahoma. His office put two women in Federal prison for the next 17 years for the sex enslavement in Plainfield, of four teenage girls from Mexico.

However, his stance on immigration is somewhat different. "Being without proper documentation is not a crime," Mr. Christie said, pointing out the legal difference between illegal immigration and improper documentation. "I don't make the law, I just enforce it." He said someone could have an expired visa and that is not something a person can be arrested for in this country although they could be deported. However, entering the United States illegally and/or having false documents are a crime and one would be subject to arrest.

On criticism he received was from The New York Times over the hiring of John Ashcroft to oversee compliance of five companies that had been paying kickbacks to doctors; Mr. Christie responded that although Mr. Ashcroft may be a controversial, national figure, no one claimed he was unqualified for the job.

He said these five companies, which manufacture artificial hips and knees, have 95 percent of the market. Mr. Christie said the companies were illegally paying doctors to use only their products. He said this practice has been halted, and $511 million have been recovered to Medicare. Medicare pays for two-thirds of hip replacements in the country. He said several doctors involved in this situation are in his "pipeline," and are soon to come out, which he would not comment on at this time. Mr. Christie said he can't comment on his plans after the November Presidential election, and must focus on the duties of his office.

Asked if Presidential candidates Barack Obama or John McCain requested him to stay on, he quipped that it is unlikely that Mr. Obama would give him a call. Regarding Mr. McCain, he said it would be very difficult to turn down a request from a President, but he could only imagine the conversation that this would generate with his wife.

He advised the press to be diligent, and urged citizens to attend meetings, protest against faulty government and campaign against elected officials that break their promises. "Throw them out," he said.

Further, he said he knows it is possible for citizens in any town in to have a direct impact. When he lived in Westfield early in his marriage, he said he witnessed door-to-door citizen campaigns.

He asked anyone with a complaint of government or suspecting wrong-doing to call him in Newark at (973) 645-2700; or if they prefer, call the FBI in Newark at (973) 792-3000. He said he has e-mail but prefers to talk to people directly. He said they need not be concerned and he doesn't record his phone calls. "I'm here to serve you, the public."

He said he's "incredibly flattered" to be mentioned as a candidate for Governor next year, but said it is presumptuous for him to even consider it at this time.

Mr. Christie was born in Newark and raised in Livingston where he became friends with Senator Tom Kean, Jr., now of Westfield. Mr. Christie lives with his family today in Mendham.

Next year, for the first time in history, New Jersey will also choose a Lieutenant Governor. Mr. Corbin posed, "Could it be 'Christie and Kean, Perfect Together'?"

"LINK" to online story.

(Note: Online stories may be taken down by their publisher after a period of time or made available for a fee. Links posted here is from the original online publication of this piece.)

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