PMUA - Courier - Watson defends conferences, travel

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.)

Sewer tax liens - Courier - Plainfield flushes out late players

Published in the Courier News, Friday, March 21, 2008

[Sewer liens]
Plainfield flushes out late payers

By BRANDON LAUSCH
STAFF WRITER

PLAINFIELD — Some names on the list read like a roll call of Plainfield notables or a catalog of movers and shakers.

But this directory of roughly 1,600 names — including the city's personnel director and health officer, as well as at least two school board members — isn't a roster of Queen City officials. It's a rundown of residents who, at least at some point, were behind on their sewer bills.

In a public notice that took up nearly four pages of Tuesday's Courier News, city Tax Collector Maria Glavan announced that a lien sale will be held inside City Hall at 10 a.m. April 15 on properties that are behind on taxes and other municipal charges for fiscal year 2007, which began July 1. The notice, which will be printed four times, will cost taxpayers a total of $19,519. Nearly all of them are back sewer fees.

Although Glavan and representatives of the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority — the body created in 1995 to manage the city's solid-waste operation and sanitary sewer service — said the number of delinquents isn't unusual, the cross-section of residents included in the list may raise eyebrows.

Included in the columns of fine print is Boniface Udenta, the city's health officer, who owes $858.08 for a property on West Third Street that he said has remained vacant for two years. When notified Thursday of his appearance on the list, Udenta said he was shocked.

"I can't explain how they work," Udenta said. "To be honest, I'm at a loss. How am I getting billed when nobody lives in the house? That's my dilemma."

Udenta said his search for tenants has been fruitless because of crime in the neighborhood. The property he is trying to rent, Udenta said, has been broken into three times. Although he maintained that no one is using the building's sewer system, Udenta admitted receiving notices from the utilities authority.

Udenta said he contemplated contesting the charges but lost track of the bills after vacationing abroad and returning to a stressful job. He said he plans to visit the authority next week "and say, "How come I'm getting all these bills when nobody lives in house?"

Though some echoed Udenta's commitment to address their debts —- like city Personnel Director Karen Dabney, who owes $1,411.32, or school board member Christian Estevez, who remains $533.37 behind —- others said they already paid up or were listed incorrectly.

Plainfield Tax Assessor Tracy Bennett said she paid the outstanding $1,704.34 balance on her account this week while Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Sheldon Green said he was also in the clear. But Adrian Mapp, a former city councilman and Union County freeholder, said "there's no way that could be possible" when informed of the $1,399.81 he apparently owed for a property on West Seventh Street.

Shortly after hearing the news, Mapp drove to the authority's headquarters and said he straightened out the erroneous listing.

"I don't know how the . . . records came to reflect the names of my wife and I, but it's not a good thing to have your name in the paper for something that I know nothing about, for a property that we do not own," Mapp said.

According to Erin Donnelly, a representative for the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority, the average household pays a quarterly bill of $127.25, which equates to $509 annually. The charges reflect last year's 20 percent rate increase that raised the average household charge from $106 every three months to the current $127.25 rate, she said. Bills are determined based on use.

Donnelly said the Utilities Authority expects to recover $1.5 million during next month's sale "for services rendered to these delinquent accounts."

Though Ingrid Reed, director of the New Jersey Project at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics, said public officials getting behind on their sewer fees may typically remain a private matter, she said it clearly becomes public when notices are published.

"And I think the issue is both of appearances and expectations that people who are public officials, particularly those who are close to budget matters and municipal matters . . . you should be aware of the need to pay bills and what the routine is," she said.

Reed said it's not unreasonable for citizens to expect that public servants should understand the importance of fiscal responsibility and the need "to comply with this kind of payment, which really makes government more efficient and effective."

"There is a need for public servants to give the public reason to trust them," Reed continued. "And I think that this kind of dereliction could just once again make people feel, "Well, they think they can get away with it,' and that's unfortunate."

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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.)

PMUA - 2008 Calendar - Garbage and Recycles

To print, click on the small printer icon at the right edge of the graphic BELOW,
in the thin bar at top of calendar that says 'SCRIBD'.

Page one is English, page two is Spanish.

PMUA - State Statutes - City Ordinance

Below are scans of materials relating to membership terms on the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority. Click on any image to enlarge; they are sized to print on letter-size sheets.

First, the State Statute regarding County and Municipal Utilities Authorities, in two pages, the first covering full voting members and the second alternates.

The State statute concerning appointment of full members and their terms.




The State statute regarding alternates and their term lengths.



Below is a scan of the section of the Ordinance of the City of Plainfield establishing the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority, its full members and alternates. (As the matter continued overleaf, the two pages have been combined into one image.)



The Plainfield Today post on which this material is discussed is here. The online Statute may be found here.