Published in the Herald News [Paterson], Friday, July 20, 2007
New Jersey may home in on broker rules
By HEATHER HADDON
HERALD NEWS
A consortium of 26 states took steps earlier this week to protect future homeowners from getting saddled with the risky mortgages that have left thousands of New Jersey residents on the brink of losing their properties.
But some housing experts say the guidelines provide too little, too late. That, and New Jersey wasn't among the states who initially signed on.
"I was disappointed," said James Bednar, of Clifton, who runs a real estate blog about North Jersey. "I had thoroughly expected New Jersey to be on that list."
State banking authorities say it's just a matter of time before New Jersey signs on. Regardless, housing advocates argue that no single set of recommendations can erase the damage done by loose lending standards to homeowners, pension holders and the economy.
On Tuesday, a group of banking regulators agreed to extend new guidelines for federal mortgage brokers to ones charted on the state level -- where many experts say the riskiest loans come from.
The guidelines would require brokers ensure that borrowers can afford a loan at its maximum monthly rate, not just an artificially low "teaser" amount. Brokers would also face new restrictions in issuing loans without income verification, which became a commonly abused practice in recent years.
"Hopefully, this will get more of the unscrupulous players out of the industry," said John Allison, a member of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors from Mississippi.
Unscrupulous brokers have already done extensive damage. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke devoted half of his assessment of the American economy to the negative impact of the mortgage and housing markets.
The bad news continued on Wednesday when Bear Sterns, the fifth-largest securities firm in the United States, announced that two of its mortgage investment funds had little or no value left. Pension funds, including in New Jersey, commonly invest in these types of funds. Now, angry shareholders have begun suing over their worthless investments.
The fallout reminds Bender of the junk bond fiasco of the 1980s.
"It's already caused a lot of suffering. Now, it's going mess up the economy," he said.
Homeowners struggling to hang on are in the eye of the storm. New Jersey ranked ninth in the nation for the number of loans in jeopardy of default in May, according to Bargain Network, a company that tracks the industry. In the past three months, more than 12,000 loans went into default in New Jersey, a 25 percent increase from the beginning of this year.
Not all loan defaults turn into foreclosures. But those have been on the rise as well.
In Passaic County, foreclosures are projected to rise by 22 percent this year, an analysis of county Sheriff's Department statistics shows.
Tighter standards for who can receive a loan would have prevented much of the hardship, according to Melissa Totaro, a West Orange lawyer who previously worked for the Passaic County Legal Aid Society.
"It's just a matter of common sense," Totaro said. "Any guidelines are better than just trusting the market."
Last year, risky loans like these constituted 20 percent of the mortgage market. Most went to low-income borrowers, people with bad credit or those who had personal debt to refinance.
Jacqueline McCormack, spokeswoman for the New York State Banking Department, said that signing onto the guidelines was a no-brainer because they mirror federal ones. "This needs immediate attention," McCormack said.
But New Jersey regulators opted to ruminate longer on the standards. "We wanted to make sure we understand them before we sign on," said Marshall McKnight, a spokesman for the state Division of Banking and Insurance.
McKnight said he couldn't estimate exactly when the state would make a decision, but it should be soon.
The guidelines will give regulators more ammunition to crack down on mortgage brokers that bilk homeowners into a loan they can't afford. But they don't outlaw the practice cold.
"One would hope (the guidelines) will be followed. But they don't have teeth," said Henry Wolfe of Legal Services of New Jersey.
Totaro, the lawyer, said that any measure helps.
"It's too late for people who are in foreclosure," she said. "It's not too late to stop this craziness and help people in the future."
LENDING GUIDELINES
• A consortium of banking regulators proposed new standards for state mortgage brokers earlier this week. New Jersey has yet to sign but is expected to do so. Here's some of what regulators recommend that brokers do:
• Ensure that a borrower has sufficient income to pay the loan at the highest interest rate, not just an initial teaser offer.
• If income isn't verified, limit loans to specific circumstances, such as when someone anticipates earning additional income.
• Explain possible risks for suddenly increasing payments in a company's advertisements.
• Stop giving predatory loans, or face investigation from regulators.
Source: Statement on Subprime Mortgage Lending
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Published in the Star-Ledger, Friday, July 20,2007
Setback for Newark condo project
Judge rules city failed to prove that the 14-acre site
on Mulberry Street is 'blighted'
BY KATIE WANG
Star-Ledger Staff
A Superior Court judge in Essex County has dealt a major blow to a plan to build 2,000 condominiums in downtown Newark, saying the city failed to prove the area in question is deteriorating and in need of redevelopment.
The 71-page decision, issued yesterday, cites the watershed state Supreme Court decision, Gallenthin Realty Development Inc. vs. Borough of Paulsboro, handed down earlier this year that limits the government's power to seize land.
In the Newark case, Judge Marie P. Simonelli said the city cannot designate the 14-acre Mulberry Street area "blighted" simply because the property could be used for better purposes. Property owners fought the designation, saying the area was still thriving and that they did not want their land to be seized through eminent domain.
"The court finds that the city declared the entire Mulberry Street area as an area in need of redevelopment solely because it is not properly utilized and fully productive," Simonelli said in her decision. "Under the Gallenthin holding, this declaration does not meet the constitutional requirement of blight and must be invalidated and set aside."
The decision puts the future of the condo project in jeopardy, though all parties involved disagreed on whether the project is dead or viable in an amended form. The Mulberry Street condo project, which was to be developed by the Newark Redevelopment Corp., is slated for a prime tract one block from the Prudential Center arena, scheduled to open in October.
Stefan Pryor, the deputy mayor in charge of economic development, said the Booker administration is analyzing the judge's decision and refused to say whether it will appeal.
"The outcome of the case will not affect the arena project," he said.
John Buonocore, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, declared the condo project dead.
"We are delighted that the court saw through this pre-arranged land grab on behalf of politically favored developers," Buonocore said. "The ruling sends a message to politicians across the state that the courts will not sustain economic development takings under the guise of the redevelopment laws."
Bruce J. Wishnia, one of the principals of Newark Redevelopment Corp., said the decision is a sad day for the city and the state. He said he is not sure what this means for the overall project.
"If the Mulberry Street area is not in need of redevelopment, then the court needs to tell us what kind of area would be," Wishnia said. "If this decision if not reversed, it will effectively shut the door on urban redevelopment in our state."
The Mulberry decision comes at a time when land and redevelopment issues are under intense public scrutiny in a city that has struggled for decades to rebuild itself.
One week ago, Sharpe James, who served as mayor for two decades, was indicted on charges he steered lucrative land deals to companion Tamika Riley. The property owners in the Mulberry case have long alleged political contributions from the developers swayed council members to vote in favor of declaring the area in need of redevelopment.
The judge concluded her opinion with a tart reference to James' criminal charges.
"This evidence certainly provides cause to question the results and validity of the redevelopment investigation," she said. "However, the court mentions it for historical purposes only and makes no determination of the merits of plaintiff's corruption claim. It appears that such a determination may be made in the recently initiated criminal proceedings involving former Mayor James."
The Mulberry Street Redevelopment project made its debut five years ago during James' administration. In November 2002, Wishnia and his partner, Emile Farina, a former aide to then Councilwoman Bessie Walker, pitched the idea to Nathan Allen, director of the city's Department of Economic and Housing Development.
Plans called for the Newark Redevelopment Corp. to negotiate with property owners for their land. If negotiations failed, the developers planned to ask the city to use its condemnation powers to seize those properties.
According to Simonelli's ruling, there is no evidence any negotiations took place.
Instead, she said, the city pursued an investigation into declaring the area in need of redevelopment, paving the way for condemnation.
In her decision, Simonelli leveled stinging criticism at the snug relationship between developers and officials in the city. Attorneys, relatives and consultants affiliated with Wishnia and Farina donated an additional $53,325 to some council members when they were making critical decisions about the project, according to the plaintiffs.
"There is evidence in the present case that the Mulberry Street Redevelopment project and NRC's role as its developer was "a done deal," a fait accompli, before the required statutory redevelopment process began," Simonelli said.
City-hired planner David Roberts issued a report in April 2004 declaring the area in need of redevelopment because the parking lots, storage yards and businesses in the area "consumes land that could otherwise be available for much more productive uses."
But Simonelli faulted Roberts' report, saying it lacked empirical evidence to support his conclusions.
On Oct. 14, 2004, the planning board passed a resolution recommending the city declare the Mulberry Street area in need of redevelopment. The city council agreed and on Nov. 3, 2004, it passed a resolution declaring the area in need of redevelopment.
Katie Wang may be reached at kwang@starledger.com or (973) 392-1504.
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Published in the Courier News, Monday, July 16, 2007
Shopping, condo projects moving forward in Plainfield
By MARTIN C. BRICKETTO
Staff Writer
PLAINFIELD -- Four major redevelopment projects promising commercial and residential growth -- with more tax revenue for the city coffers and more shopping opportunities for the city's residents -- are expected to move forward in upcoming months and years, Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs said.
Robinson-Briggs met with the editorial board of the Courier News last week to discuss what's been happening in the 48,000-person city since she took office as its first female mayor in January 2006.
Topping her list was news about the four new developments:
-- The Teppers II project from 216 to 226 W. Front St. will replace a dilapidated building with a four-story structure combining 12 market-rate condominiums with 6,250 square feet of commercial retail space on the ground floor.
Robinson-Briggs said she expects the project by Hearstone Development LLC to be finished by next year.
-- Work is under way on the North Avenue Transit Village, encompassing the downtown train station to East Second Street and Watchung Avenue to just west of Park Avenue and West Second Street.
The project is expected to include market-rate condominiums and about 120,000 square feet of retail space across several mid-rise structures, Briggs said. City Administrator Marc Dashield said the project by Landmark Development Corporation will take place in phases, starting in about two years.
-- At Plainfield Avenue and West Front Street, AST Development Group wants to build 63,000 square feet of commercial space at the former Marino's tract, including a major supermarket, Robinson-Briggs said.
A redevelopment plan for the 7.3-acre parcel now owned by the Liccardi Auto Group of Green Brook has been in place since 2000.
"This would be a way to provide jobs for people in Plainfield and surrounding areas as well as more ratables," Robinson-Briggs said.
The project -- still years away -- would generate $190,000 in annual revenue for the city, officials estimate.
Lavallette-based AST Development -- the company responsible for the redevelopment of the downtown Park-Madison tract -- received City Council approval in August 2006 to negotiate and execute an agreement with the Union County Improvement Authority for the redevelopment of the former Marino's Tract.
-- Earlier this month, the city broke ground on a new Senior Citizens Center on East Front Street. The four-story facility is expected to include a senior citizens center and veterans meeting space on the first floor with 63 two-bedroom condominiums on the upper three floors, Robinson-Briggs said.
The new building will generate $400,000 in ratables for the city, officials say, and has an anticipated completion date of early 2008.
All four projects were highlighted during a community forum conducted last month at Washington Community School.
During the session, residents could question city officials directly on the development plans poised to transform existing streetscapes.
"We were trying to add a personal touch," Robinson-Briggs said. "We wanted to let the community know we want them included in the projects. This is their city."
Other outreach efforts
During the editorial board meeting, the mayor also reviewed other services and programs her administration is offering for the city's residents.
- With sweltering, 90-degree temperatures leaving no doubt summer is here, Robinson-Briggs said all of the city's pools at three separate locations are up and running.
- The city will sponsor outdoor film screenings in upcoming weeks. "The Pursuit of Happyness" will be shown at 9:30 a.m. in Aug. 4 at Library Park on East Eighth Street and Park Avenue.
- For young people, the city is running a job placement program that will put about 100 teenagers in touch with public and private employment opportunities for the summer, she added.
- "It really isn't enough to tell them don't do drugs, don't be in gangs, stay off the corners," Robinson-Briggs said. "We have to provide them with options."
- The city has partnered with Union County College to distribute information on how high-school drop outs can receive free GED training at the college's Plainfield campus, she added.
- Robinson-Briggs said the city is investigating an expansion of teen center services or the creation of a new teen center. Existing centers don't offer extended hours that may address the needs of the city's older youth, she said.
Sense of security
Officials also are working to create a sense of security within the city's borders. As part of Operation Taking Care of Business, police officers have stepped up patrols on foot, bike and Segway motorized scooters in Plainfield's business district to crackdown of quality-of-life crimes like loitering and graffiti.
Briggs added that officers have been rewarding children with coupons to the local Dairy Queen if they see the children wearing helmets while bike riding.
Plainfield is also one of the newest municipalities in New Jersey to undertake Operation Ceasefire, a state-funded program that uses community outreach, strategic planning and state-of-the-art equipment to reduce gun violence.
Dashield said the city has been putting the community outreach side of the program together since February with clergy members, school officials, police officers and other community members. A nonprofit agency has been selected to provide services for shooting victims.
Dashield said he expects the program to be in full force this September.
Complimenting the police efforts are smaller but important municipal beautification efforts, Briggs said.
The city, private-sector partners such as Comcast and local volunteers have worked to clear debris-filled lots and alleyways as well as other properties, including a cemetery on Plainfield Avenue, partly owned by the First Park Baptist Church.
Briggs added that, with the assistance of a local master gardner, the city has also started a community garden on Berkley Terrace to grow squash, string beans, tomatoes and other produce for its senior citizens.
The idea is already paying off.
Local Girl Scouts visited the mayor's office a few weeks ago with about 30 pounds of produce, Briggs said.
Martin C. Bricketto can be reached at (908) 707-3176 or mbricket@gannett.com
WHAT YOU CAN DO
For more information on upcoming programs in Plainfield, including the date of the next community development forum, call the mayor's office at (908) 753-3310.
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.)
(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.)
With apologies to Hyacinthe Rigaud.
-- Dan Damon
Published in the Courier News, Sunday, July 15, 2007
King of the Queen City
Jerry Green has become a political power in Plainfield and beyond.
By BOB CONSIDINE
Staff Writer
PLAINFIELD -- The first ceremonial shovels were being readied for the ground to commemorate a new senior center on East Front Street. But before the first dig came the acknowledgment of the foundation.
"He always supports you," Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs said to the crowd at the July 3 event. "He's representing the 22nd District -- but he's ours."
Somewhat in contrast to the enthusiastic applause, Assemblyman Jerry Green languidly strode to the podium and spoke in his typically measured tones about how a project like this gets off the ground.
It wasn't thrilling. It was just the truth.
"A lot of people in the city may not want to accept it, but the people around the state of New Jersey understand the position I hold in Trenton when it comes to these types of functions," Green said. "Basically, it comes down to my committee. And if I feel it's good enough for the state, I pass it on to the governor."
This would also seem like a no-nonsense explanation of how and why Green, 68, has emerged as a powerful figure in Plainfield and the 22nd District, particularly in recent years.
In fact, over the past month, Green has seen the long-awaited groundbreaking of the $15 million senior facility that met his plan of being free to the city, as well as approval of two budget changes he solely supported in Gov. Jon S. Corzine's notably tighter $33.5 billion budget -- one that appropriates $9 million in charity-care funding for the Solaris Health System at Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center and another that provides $450,000 to Plainfield's Operation CeaseFire.
Back in March, Green's bill to establish a joint committee to ensure access to affordable housing was also signed into law. He's also flexed his political muscle locally with his involvement in the recent of resignation of Paula Howard, the Plainfield Board of Education's superintendent and his wish that an aging special-needs hotel in the city close.
But those who work with Green say his rise has been years in the making, constructed by his own deliberate way of discovering before deciding, his approach of applying his savvy business sense to housing and local government efforts, and his willingness to look past party lines and racial demographics for the greater good, even if it rubs some the wrong way.
All from a former butcher-turned-businessman who didn't get truly rolling in politics until his 50s.
"He is the true definition of a Horatio Alger story," said Charlotte DeFilippo, chairperson of the Union County Democratic Committee. "He started, really, with nothing. But he needed to be the master of his own fate, which I have found to be very beguiling. He's very low-key. He thinks very carefully before he speaks. And he wants to believe there's good in everyone. I think by his very nature, people listen to him -- and ultimately, I believe, that's what power is."
Early impressions
Some 30 years before he was trying to trim fat in state government, he tried more literal means. He graduated from Roselle High School and trained to be a butcher with the Foodtown chain.
He sought a quick promotion.
"I became a manager because I didn't want to be in a freezer the rest of my life," he recalled.
Green was a quick study. He learned how to work with budgets, to be sure, but also how to manage co-workers and the public at large. At one point, he found himself as the boss of a friend he had met through management training. And this friend was taking two-hour lunch breaks with no fear of repercussion.
Green would ultimately threaten his job.
"He said, 'But we're friends,' " Green recalled. "I told him I hear what you're saying, but it's business with me. Nothing personal."
Green was also dabbling in the real estate market, buying his first two-family dwelling at the age of 21. By his late 20s, he was making it a career. He also embarked on another career, as owner of an upscale club in Roselle called Mr. G's.
As a young and increasingly influential person in the community, Green found himself hearing the issues of local youths.
"Kids in the community approached me because they felt I could understand the problems they were going through," he said. "Up to that point, I had only just voted. But I was starting to become aware of how I could help a community by understanding politics."
City to state
So Green got involved. Working under the tutelage of Roselle Mayor Anthony Amalfe, Green was appointed to the town Planning Board in 1975. By 1981, now living in Plainfield and serving as the town's Democratic chairman, he had decided to take a greater leap into local politics.
He was met with instant resistance while running for the Union County Board of Freeholders in 1981. Leaders of the Baptist church weren't exactly wild about a club owner running for local office.
"You're put in an awkward position because I have a liquor license as part of my investment career," he said. "But it also put me in a position to make sure that whatever I was doing, I was doing it right. Having a liquor license made me look at everything twice."
Once he became successful, he wanted to know more about where his tax money was going and why, so he ran for the Union County Board of Freeholders. He served his first term from 1982 to 1984, then ran into a Reagan-era roadblock for four more years, before his next term from 1989 to 1991. He was also chairman of the board in 1990.
"I was working with different committees, countywide, whether it was the planning board, economic development," he said. "And it really became more and more interesting to me."
So Green took the next step and ran for the Assembly in 1992. It would be the start of eight terms as assemblyman, first for District 17 and later for the realigned District 22. He currently is chair of the Housing and Local Government Committee, is a member of the Health and Senior Services Committee and is the Assembly's Deputy Speaker Pro Tempore. He is running for a ninth-term in November.
Over the course of the past 16 years, he has been making his political mar with housing development and state policy.
"I wouldn't be where I am without Jerry Green," said General Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts. "I trust him with my life."
Home-cooking
Green was somewhat slow to introduce legislation in his early years as Assemblyman. In 1996 and 1997, he was the primary sponsor of only 11 bills. But as he became more comfortable with the law-making process, Green became more pro-active. He was a primary supporter of 15 bills from 1998 to 1999, 23 in 2000-01, 50 in 2002 to 2003 and 65 in 2004 to 2005.
"I think there's a learning curve for anybody when they first work in the legislature," Roberts said. "You develop an understanding of the procedures and a command of the issues. Now his role has really grown and his ability to lead has grown. He's now a key member of our leadership team."
One breakout moment for Green was in 1999 when he helped re-secure Abbott District status for Plainfield after it had been lost a year earlier. Once the city was re-established as a "special needs" area, it meant an automatic $12.5 million for area schools.
He recalled it as a time he would go to bat for Plainfield in Trenton, even if it meant not adhering solely to the party lines.
"I had to step during the Whitman administration to get Plainfield back," Green said. "It was good for the city and it was good for the kids. I had to support (Christine Todd) Whitman's budget, because it included funds for Plainfield. It showed me you have to work with everybody if you want to get something accomplished."
Once he became chair of the Housing and Local Government committee 51¼2 years ago, Green would make sure to abide by his own personal policy of supporting a good idea, no matter who came up with it.
"What I like the best about him is he really understands what it means to support bills that are about good government," said Alison Littell McHose, a Republican assemblywoman out of District 24 and another member of the Housing and Local Government committee. "Jerry is very much a behind-the-scenes type of guy and he is one of the fairest chairmen I've ever worked with. He really makes an effort for both sides of an issue to be heard."
Political challenge
It was four years ago when Green endured the roughest road of his political career. He found himself in a cutthroat power struggle with the late Plainfield Mayor Albert T. McWilliams, who was championing a new Democratic leadership in the city.
Rashid Burney, one of the supporters in McWilliams's "New Democrat" movement, said McWilliams was equally as passionate about improving Plainfield.
"Al was trying to move the city forward, especially with redevelopment," said Rashid Burney, a councilman for the 2nd and 3rd Ward in Plainfield and member of the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment. "That was a cornerstone for him. He wanted a change in what was an entrenched City Hall." When Green's slate of City Council candidates were beaten handily by McWilliams' class in 2003, Green resigned as chairman of the city's Democratic Party and said he would not seek re-election -- avoiding what likely would have been a losing vote.
It was the end of a 20-year run.
"I just decided not to challenge it," he said.
Green chooses his words carefully when reflecting upon the contentious time out of respect for McWilliams, who died of renal cancer on April 6.
"He was a decent guy and he wanted to make change," Green said of McWilliams.
DeFilippo described the episode as a "small chapter" in Green's long career.
"He came up against an ambitious mayor who wanted to take (Green) out, and (McWilliams) prevailed," she said. "But you know the old saying -- whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger -- that really applied here."
That's because a third mayor term was not in the offing for McWilliams.
Although he had won an unprecedented second mayoral term in 2001 and took the party chair in 2003, many found McWilliams' choice to offer one of his own candidates (Plainfield City Council President Linda Carter) as a challenger to Green's Assembly seat too divisive for the party. So McWilliams lost the endorsement of the Union County Democrats in his re-election bid as mayor.
McWilliams would run as an independent, but it was Robinson-Briggs who won the election. And it was Green who had served as a long-time mentor to the new mayor. Through that bond, Green's power in Plainfield had been fully restored.
In fact, after the June 2005 city primaries, Green had enough members of his slate back to get his chairmanship back with the Democratic Party. He received 45 of 68 tallies back then. And he won re-election to the seat unanimously, 68-0, last month.
"Well, it felt good to get it back, because no one wants to go out like that," he said. "You don't want to go out with a tarnished legacy."
"We all wrestle with local situations from time to time," Roberts said. "Jerry has always had Plainfield's best interest at heart."
Still, there was still the matter of Green working with those in city government who once flew the flag for McWilliams. Some say there are still chilly relationships between Green and McWilliams's followers, but others have learned to work together. "I really sat down with Jerry after the June '05 primaries," Burney said. "I knew we had to work together. I mean, we could sit there and argue and throw stones, or we can try to work together for the city. For me, I'd rather be sitting at the table and contributing.
"So we found common ground. In fact, some of the projects that Al started, we now work on together. We don't have to love each other. We're not always going to agree. But we want to work for the city and Jerry does carry a lot of clout in the state."
Plainfield partners
Robinson-Briggs is well aware of local skeptics who wonder if she is just a political extension of Green. But she refuses to let that temper her praise for the man.
"He's a politician, he's a businessman and he's a family man," said Robinson-Briggs, who previously served as president of the Plainfield Board of Education. "But I think the side of him that I don't know if everyone knows is he really has a good heart. He will try and help whoever asks him for help.
"I think sometimes people might try to take advantage of that part of him, but I can't tell you how much he goes out to help the people of Plainfield," she added. "We're really lucky to have him. I hope he runs for at least three or four more terms."
There are those who see the partnership between Green and Robinson-Briggs as a positive.
"If he is supportive to Mayor Briggs, I would say he does have Plainfield's best interests at heart," said Plainfield resident Nadya Lawrence. "From what I understand, he is in the background of a lot of things, but it's all very positive."
The senior center, to be constructed by Plainfield Dornoch LLC, is the first major project to pass site-plan approval since Robinson-Briggs became mayor 18 months ago. Green insisted the mayor does make her own decisions in the city, but maintained he is there to facilitate development -- and he doesn't apologize for it given his credentials.
"I think for the first time now, people are coming to Plainfield because they recognize that with me putting a team in place, they're not going to waste time or money," he said. "They know when it comes down to it, they're going to get a business approach.
"You can't take 25 years of experience that I've gained and then ask someone who's only been in office a year and a half to take it all on. So you teach them and you train them," he added. "And you know what? We saved $4 million because the previous administration wanted to go out and finance it."
Green thumbs
With a supporting administration back in place, Green hasn't been shy in involving himself in Plainfield's issues.
In late May, Green requested to the City Council that the Park Hotel Board Home in Plainfield's downtown business district be closed and its residents relocated to smaller group homes. The home's license expires on Aug. 31. A license would only be revoked if the facility has significant violations, according to the state Department of Community Affairs.
Green said he and his staff did their own investigation and found something more than antiquated conditions.
"We realized the hotel was not just a hotel for (special-needs) clientele," he said. "We found the hotel is now becoming a low-income hotel and that less than 100 of the 180 that live there have handicap issues."
Whether Green gets his wish or not, he insists that large hotel-type board home is a "dying breed" and that New Jersey would not approve such a facility today. To be sure, it's the last one in Union County
"It was just a question of who wants to be responsible for locating them right now," Green said. "Eventually the owners are going to be like other owners, he'll find a developer or somebody to take it off his hands because eventually those patients will be put into another city. Now we've got a homeless hotel in the heart of downtown that won't survive."
When former Plainfield Schools Superintendent Paula Howard abruptly resigned last month, Green also jumped right into that fray. His concerns were obvious. Plainfield, still one of 31 Abbott Districts in the state, didn't have anyone authorized to sign paychecks for the school's employees. And there was the matter of managing the day-to-day operations of the school system.
So he suggested perhaps someone from the state could fill in, in the short-term. Or have Howard -- who ultimately tried to rescind her resignation -- remain in the short-term for the important bookwork involved with school construction.
The school board reacted swiftly by conducting an emergency meeting to appoint its own interim superintendent and interim business administrator.
"My position was that, one, she resigned, but also she has a contract that gives her 30 to 60 days to be here," he said. "So that would have meant she would have been here to be able to (help) whoever else coming in where she's the point person and two, come back and (say), 'What can do now to move ahead?' You can't have a new guy come in overnight and do that kind of catch up."
Ultimate savings
Albio Sires couldn't help but laugh at the irony. The New Jersey congressman and former Assembly speaker had given Green the opportunity to be a deputy speaker in 2002. And Green gives Sires credit for "opening doors" for him.
But Green would still bust down his doors in his persistent effort to get state aid for the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center in Plainfield.
"He was in my office every single day trying to save that hospital," Sires recalled. "The guy works hard. He knows the politics of it all and the time it takes to get things done. But still, he'd see me on the floor and say, 'You hear anything yet?' And I'd say, 'Jerry, we just talked two days ago.' "
In addition to getting charity-care funding for Muhlenberg, Green also saw to it that the hospital was able to conduct emergency angioplasties, even without cardiac surgery on site, after their application to do was denied in 1997.
"Jerry was very helpful in petitioning the Commissioner of Health in recognizing that Muhlenberg serves a unique population when it comes to minorities," said John P. McGee, chief executive officer and president of Muhlenberg. "Having those services when it's sometimes not easy to access a hospital has saved lives -- there's no other way I can say it.
"Jerry is one of the very few legislators I've worked with who has taken time out to understand this complicated industry and all of the nuances and it has had a direct impact on the physical health and the economic health of the people he serves," he added.
Green, who lost his father when he was 4 years old and is one of nine children himself, said no one is immune from affordability in health care.
"When you have so many families that are going without health benefits, that's a very scary thing," he said.
Due respect
While it may be tough being Green, Green can also get tough. Last June, he joined State Senator Stephen Sweeney (3rd District) and Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (4th District) in calling for a 15 percent cut in compensation costs for state government employees.
At the same time, he was one of the most vocal denouncers of Gov. Corzine's one-percent sales tax -- or "penny tax" -- increase last summer. Corzine threatened to shut down the state if his sales tax increase was not made into law. Green wasn't budging either.
"He was angry with me," Green acknowledged. "But he knows I'm a team player. He brought me into the office last year and says to me, 'Jerry, what's going on?' I said that these (lawmakers) really believe in what they believe in. These guys have to go back and justify raising a penny and not being able to give the public back some tax dollars. I was one of the 47 votes that said we're going to stand together as a team."
Green then looked up at a picture of him, Corzine and former President Bill Clinton above his desk.
"'Looking back, maybe that was the toughest decision I had to make, telling the governor I've got to support the caucus," he said.
But Green said all of his tough choices are in the name of how to serve the people -- or his customers -- best.
"Sometimes people have brought back a cooked roast," he said, recalling his food management days. "They didn't like the way it tasted. Well, OK, ma'am, do you want me to get you another one or do you want a refund? I'm going to take that one person and turn the store upside down for her."
Although he serves sporadically as a business consultant nowadays, he has cashed out on many of his real-estate investments and can afford to make his position as assemblyman is main job.
While some may view him as a mover and a shaker in Plainfield, Green said he would prefer to be known for his nuts-and-bolts business approach to politics at a time when it's most needed.
"I find that politics is changing," he said. "The world is changing. And the world is looking for people to basically respect each other. So I think one of the things I've learned over the years is respecting other people will take you a lot further."
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Published in the Star-Ledger, Thursday, July 12, 2007
Mercer County town looking to tap into solar power
BY DARRYL R. ISHERWOOD
TIMES OF TRENTON
Continuing his quest for a greener township, Hamilton Mayor Glen Gilmore will be requesting proposals for installation of solar panels on all township buildings.
Gilmore's plan involves soliciting solar power firms to install the solar panels, then sell the generated power to the township for a specified length of time, generally from 10 to 25 years.
"Solar panels could help us significantly reduce our electric costs, while also helping us to be more environmentally responsible," Gilmore said. "We're looking at not only cutting our energy costs, but also at cutting harmful emissions we as a municipality generate."
Gilmore estimated the township could save as much as 10 percent off the township's nearly $1 million per year energy bill by finding a solar provider willing to enter into the "purchase power agreement."
The proposals would require the investor to cover the cost of installing and maintaining the equipment. The provider would own the equipment, acting as a utility provider.
The agreement allows the township to take advantage of state and federal tax benefits that would not otherwise be available to a municipality.
The provider retains the credit, but in return will sell power to the township at a rate as much as 30 percent below coal fired energy rates, said John Drexinger of NJ Solar Solutions of Metuchen.
The plan also allows for predictable energy costs for the township during the life of the agreement, Drexinger said, removing a large uncertainty from the budget process.
"The advantageous thing is you are not paying for the installation because you are signing a power purchase agreement, but you are locking in utility costs at a stabilized rate," Drexinger said. "For schools and municipalities, power purchase agreements are a very smart investment."
Gilmore said he decided to explore a purchase power program after the township was stymied in attempts to gain federal grant money for solar panel installation.
Solar energy has been tagged as one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which have been linked to global temperature increases in the past century.
On Friday, Gov. Jon Corzine signed the Global Warming Response Act, which mandates reduction in greenhouse gases by the year 2020. The law has been cited by environmental advocates as among the most sweeping emissions reduction legislation passed to date.
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Published in the Courier News, Saturday, July 14, 2007
[CDBG grants]
County receives John A. Sasso Award
Union County recently received the John A. Sasso Award in recognition for exemplary utilization of Community Development Block Grant Funds in low- and moderate-income and urban communities.
To be eligible for the award, applicants must give evidence, usually based on past programs, that the commitment exists to improve the lives of its lower income residents.
Union County's distribution of Community Development Block Grant Funds have supported such programs as The Center for Hope Hospice, the Cerebral Palsy League, and more.
Named for the founder of the National Community Development Association, the John A. Sasso Award was one of five national awards given at the association's annual meeting June 21 in San Francisco.
-- Bradley W. Wadlow
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Published in the Star-Ledger, Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Newark tries to take back city lots sold on the cheap
Some in bargain-basement deals haven't built homes, lawyers say
BY IAN T. SHEARN
Star-Ledger Staff
Newark Mayor Cory Booker is looking to reclaim acres of city land sold by the previous administration at cut-rate prices to developers who have not built the new homes they promised.
City lawyers have identified more than 250 lots and have sent out letters to 32 builders, informing them that the city will "invoke the full range of remedies," including taking back the land.
"Your purchase of the property was for the purpose of redevelopment and not for speculation in land holding," the May 16 "Notice of Default" letter sent to the property owners said. "The City of Newark has elected to invoke the full range of remedies available to it under the agreement, including but not limited to the reacquisition of title."
Several of the developers enjoyed "cozy relationships" with former Mayor Sharpe James, "and have been sitting on the properties for years," Booker said in an interview.
Most of the redevelopment contracts call for new home construction within 18 months of purchase, according to Stefan Pryor, the city's director of housing and economic development. The city reviewed properties that were sold between 2000 and 2003.
Booker said his administration also is finalizing a public land policy, which will include putting city-owned land up for bid, as opposed to the $4-per-square-foot, below-market price it was selling for. The policy should be complete within a month, the mayor said. If prices are discounted, Booker said, it will be to induce benefits that come back to the city, like building parks and utilizing local labor.
During the past seven years, under the James administration, more than 5,000 city lots were sold at cut-rate prices, in some cases to developers with close ties to the mayor or city hall.
Federal agents are investigating city land sales to developers with ties to the mayor, according to sources close to the investigation, who asked not to be identified because the probe is ongoing.
One property owner who received the May 16 Notice of Default letter is Tamika Riley, a local businesswoman who bought nine parcels from the city during the James administration for a total of $46,000 and resold them -- in some cases just a month later -- for $700,000. The city also tried to sell her three more properties in James' final months as mayor, but a judge halted those plans.
FBI agents subpoenaed city records related to Riley's land deals late last year. The subpoenas, copies of which were reviewed by The Star-Ledger, instructed Newark officials to deliver the documents to the federal grand jury that has been investigating James' travel bills and city land deals during his last years in office. Federal prosecutors last month formally notified James he was the target of the grand jury probe and likely faces indictment.
Agents also have interviewed Riley about trips she made with the former mayor in the past four years, according to two sources familiar with the probe. Investigators are trying to determine her role on the trips and who paid her expenses. The sources declined to characterize the 70-year-old former mayor's relationship with Riley, except to call them "travel companions."
The phone for Riley's business has been disconnected, and she could not be reached for comment.
James did not respond yesterday to requests for comment, but last week he delivered a handwritten letter to the Associated Press, dated June 16, denying any responsibility for the cut-rate city land deals, saying they were the responsibility of the city council.
Messages left for 10 of the property owners went unanswered yesterday, while two who responded said they have developed the properties in question and have informed the city it is in error. Newark attorney Francis Giantomassi, who said he represents three of the property owners who have been sent notices, said he has responded to city lawyers and that his clients will answer the letter.
Eight of the 32 developers did not meet a May 29 deadline to respond to the city's letter, said Booker spokeswoman Desiree Peterkin Bell.
Aney Chandy, the city's corporation counsel, said that if any of the owners has a legitimate reason for not building, or if the city's findings are inaccurate, she would be happy to hear it. But absent a reasonable excuse, she will pursue putting the properties back in the city's hands.
If the city is successful in reclaiming the land, it will not reimburse the owners, Peterkin Bell said.
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Published in the Star-Ledger, Monday, July 9, 2007
Downtown Montclair's guardian angel earns his wings
Retail director strives to maintain 'funky but chic' image
BY PHILIP READ
Star-Ledger Staff
He has reigned over the "Montclair Mile," eyeballing retail vacancies and spiking rents. He has waved petitions before officials in defiance of customer-unfriendly parking meter rates and spearheaded a drive to blacklist such undesirables as drive-through banks.
He has watched the demise of such iconic stores as The Soda Pop Shop, where piped-in music of Herman's Hermits went hand-in-hand with the sundaes, and Over The Rainbow, where a Moses-like proprietor once served up an "All You Can Eat" crockpot buffet for $3.99 to those with scant resources.
Tom Lonergan, the tall guy with the ever-present smile and the July 8, 2002, start date, is five years into his role as overseer of Montclair's main retail drag, ranked as a "funky but chic" downtown and one of New Jersey's best.
"We have so much to be proud of yet so much to accomplish," said Lonergan, a 35-year-old who was raised in the Bronx and New York's Rockland County and ultimately picked up his master's degree in geography and urban studies at Temple University.
Here, along a busy stretch of Bloomfield Avenue also known as "restaurant row," Lonergan is the de facto mayor, the ambassador with a welcoming handshake, the guy who can pull a few crumbled-up ones and fives out of his blue jeans' pocket.
"Come in, Jon," he tells the staffer on his cell phone before offering an explanation about a street-cleaning vacuum. "The 'Green Machine' operator needs gas money."
His life as executive director of the Montclair Center Business Improvement District is evident in the refitted industrial space that is his office on North Willow Street with banners proclaiming "Montclair Center: You've Arrived," green bike racks to be installed this month and stacks of newly arrived thigh-deep planters.
Outside, he waltzes up the avenue while eyeing colorful flowers.
"These planters are no joke," he said, "watching them like babies."
Outside the Diva Lounge, a night spot, he pauses ever so briefly to touch the blooms.
"Our most troublesome planter, because it sits next to you know where."
To be sure, Lonergan is diplomatic as the man-everybody-knows along the Montclair Mile, a catchy label that is itself a marketing coup for a one-time bland shopping corridor that is actually longer than a mile.
He earned his downtown stripes as director of Paterson's special-improvement district a decade ago and then a stint in Newark's Ironbound. Today, he oversees what by New Jersey standards is a mid-sized business-improvement district, or BID, with an annual budget of $370,000 and a staff -- besides himself -- of two full-timers and two part-timers largely occupied with landscaping and street maintenance.
"We really couldn't have a better BID director," said Erik Maran, who chairs the district's 21-member board and stepped out of his offices at Smith Maran Architects to see Lonergan. "He's very involved. He's on the street."
Lonergan has had his share of street battles.
For one, he led the charge on outlawing the sale by merchants of "loosies," or single cigarettes, largely because they were contributing to loitering by hordes of teenagers, he said.
Then, when a video store's racy window shelves included such adult games as "The Erogenous Zone," he championed a prohibition, made law by Montclair's council, to prohibit the provocative displays.
"Cleaning house before inviting the guests," he said of the strategy.
If the strip is going higher-end, Lonergan isn't.
Just last week, Lonergan -- wearing blue jeans, a jacket and sport shirt with sunglasses perched atop his head -- was toting a paper cup labeled "Lotta Java." It wasn't from the Starbucks up the street but the corner gas station.
"Shell," he says with a broad smile. "They have great coffee."
He was standing by a banner-draped stage in the plaza at Montclair's landmark "six corners," where six streets converge on the strip's epicenter.
On Sundays, the BID success story is the locale of free summer concerts sponsored this year by The Siena, a nearly complete luxury condo development whose banner proclaims, "We've put the world within walking distance."
In the span of an hour one weekday morning, Lonergan has taken calls on everything from a band wanting a shot at the new concert venue ("I need a CD," he tells the caller) to someone in vain pursuit of reaching the closed retro ice cream parlor.
"We're like the downtown clearinghouse," he says.
Lonergan, as the point man for the district, keeps his own retail version of an obituary page: "Copacabanas," "Toys in The Attic," as well as "The Soda Pop Shop" and "Over the Rainbow." All were homegrown shops.
Some, he said, departed because of lease rates that can reach as high as $50 a square foot. Have they eased? he is asked.
"A little bit," he said hesitantly. "A little bit."
When The Soda Pop Shop closed in February, proprietor Bobby Restaino was lamenting the avenue's transformation. His main beef had been what he characterized as aggressive enforcement of parking meters and the resulting heap of tickets.
"Very corporate. It's losing its charm. There's something wrong in Gotham as they say," said Restaino, invoking the fictional metropolis of Batman.
Lonergan is saddened but pragmatic.
"There were some losses along the way that we regret," he said, "but then again, there are so many reasons why these people left."
At the Church Street Cafè, owner Cheryl Spinelli said Lonergan has a difficult balancing act as the district's point man.
"It's almost a one-man show. He has to make a lot of things happen without a lot of volunteers," she said.
For now, he's focused on the BID's goals as spelled out in a streetscape initiative penned by Montclair native Andy Attinson at Street-Works LLC. Its 10 goals, he said, are the most important of his tenure.
"It's like our 10 commandments," he said.
One now on his radar is a makeover of South Park Street, home to a newer arrival in Urban Outfitters, the downtown's first national retailer in memory, as well as such standbys as Leone's Kitchen, known for its brick-oven pizza.
The bold, original vision calls for the creation of a pedestrian plaza along the street, which now has diagonal parking and sits directly in front of the towering Siena. It appeals to Lonergan. There's also an alternative plan that retains some on-street parking.
"The devil is in the details, and there's a lot left to work out," Lonergan said.
He's also pursuing an initiative to make what's called blade signs, which project from buildings on poles, and make retail banners permissible in the downtown, something he said Montclair's council might act on this summer.
"We think it gives our business mix the opportunity to market themselves in distinctive and stylish ways," he said.
His attention to detail extends to the arrival of three NJ Transit bus shelters with a design selected by the BID.
"Standard and simple but tasteful," he said. But during the installation -- now signed-off on -- there was a scare that something less desirable was in the offing for the shelters' rooftops.
"We actually think we saw the plastic bubble," he said.
Philip Read may be reached at pread@starledger.com or (973) 392-1851.
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Published in the New York Times, Tuesday, July 3, 2007
State-Financed Trips Weren’t Improper, Bruno Says
By DANNY HAKIM
ALBANY, July 2 — Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, angrily denied on Monday suggestions that he had improperly used state aircraft and police escorts, saying he had been the subject of a number of death threats and needed protection.
His statements came as Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration called for a state review of the matter, marking a new low in the contentious relationship between the two men. The governor’s office forwarded documents relating to the flights to both the state attorney general and the Albany County district attorney on Monday.
The issue became public following a report over the weekend in The Times Union of Albany, which obtained documents indicating that Mr. Bruno took a series of taxpayer-financed helicopter flights to New York City in May that coincided with Republican fund-raisers. The State Police also drove Bruno to his scheduled events.
Mr. Bruno said he has always scheduled multiple events during his trips to the city, including state-related business, and was not doing anything that other state officials did not do. Mr. Bruno also said he used State Police transportation in part because he was the target of threats.
“They told me, the authorities, not to open mail at my home at times, not to open packages,” he said
He said a “deranged” man had been stopped outside of his office door once. “He was trying to get in, and when they asked him he said he was going to kill me,” he said. “So, you know, give me a break.”
The governor’s staff tried to undercut those claims by pointing out that no one had ever asked for a formal threat assessment to determine risks to Mr. Bruno, who has been Senate majority leader for more than a dozen years. Lt. Glenn Miner, a spokesman for the State Police, said a threat assessment would be made only if it was requested by Mr. Bruno or by the governor.
He also said he could not discuss specific security measures already being taken for Mr. Bruno.
Mr. Bruno said he was outraged that the governor’s staff members moved so swiftly to refer the matter to investigators, noting that Mr. Spitzer receives police protection and escorts during trips that involve events that can be considered political, including a recent series of speeches lambasting Senate Republicans.
The state’s Republican Party said it was seeking state records relating to the governor’s travel coinciding with fund-raising events.
Asked if his recent trips to New York were solely for fund-raising, Mr. Bruno said, “Of course not.”
“That would be just plain stupid,” he added. “It’s against the law, it would be criminal, it would be dumb, and it’s dumb for anybody stupid enough to allege that somebody would do that.”
Darren Dopp, the governor’s communications director, said the senator’s use of the helicopters was approved on the understanding that it was for “legislative business meetings,” adding that “we are forwarding documents regarding use of state aircraft to appropriate state authorities for review.”
Officials can be penalized under ethics rules or prosecuted under criminal statutes if they use state resources solely for political activity, but not if the trips mix politics and state business.
Mr. Bruno railed at the governor at length on Monday, calling him “an overgrown rich spoiled brat who has tantrums all over the place” and “too temperamental to be the chief executive of 19 million people.” He said the governor “does not understand that he is not a dictator, he is not a tyrant, he is not a king.” He also said the governor had done “practically nothing” to create jobs.
Mr. Bruno said Mr. Spitzer would “make a great salesman” because he has no capacity to hear people say no. And he said the Senate would be closely scrutinizing the governor’s nominee to head the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Dale Hemmerdinger, because he had held a fund-raiser for the governor.
“I grew up in the toughest part of Glens Falls, next to the boxcars, where kids would come up to you when you weighed 90 pounds and they weighed 120 and just punch you right in the mouth just because you were Italian, O.K., or just because you lived next to the boxcars, or just because they felt like it.”
“That’s how I grew up, O.K.?” he added. “So swing away.”
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Published in the Star-Ledger, Friday, July 6, 2007
[Imam Heshaam Jaaber]
Elizabeth loses imam of historic courage
BY JEFF DIAMANT
Star-Ledger Staff
By Heshaam Jaaber's account, Muslim clergy were not exactly lining up to officiate at Malcolm X's funeral in February 1965. Mosque leaders in the metropolitan area reportedly were warned, anonymously, not to perform rites for the onetime Nation of Islam spokesman.
Into the void stepped Jaaber, then a 34-year-old Elizabeth man of Sudanese descent who was national imam for an Arab Muslim group, the Addeynu Allahu Universal Arabic Association Inc.
A year earlier, Jaaber had helped persuade Malcolm X to leave the Nation of Islam for traditional Sunni Islam, and now he believed it a sacred Islamic duty to help bury another Muslim, regardless of the threats, he wrote in his 1992 book, "I Buried Malcolm."
Jaaber would become a heroic figure in local Muslim communities, also officiating at the 1997 funeral for Malcolm X's widow, Betty Shabazz.
Now area Muslims are mourning Jaaber. He died Saturday night in Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital at Rahway, at age 76, after battling heart and kidney problems for months. His funeral was Tuesday.
He was known as a steady presence in turbulent times. The 1968 report of the Kerner Commission, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to study civil disturbances around the country, including Newark, from the previ ous year, praised Jaaber as an effective peacemaker during near- riot conditions in Elizabeth in 1967.
He also helped found several Sunni mosques and Islamic schools in New Jersey, including the Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth in 1993.
His career also extended to the secular realm. He owned a McDonald's franchise in Queens and worked as an insurance agent and as a journalist for Islamic Press International.
Still, it was the funeral of Malcolm X that was viewed by Mus lims in Elizabeth, Newark and nearby cities as the defining moment in Jaaber's life -- even though he rarely talked about it.
"He was more humbled by it," said Hassen Abdellah, a lawyer and president of Dar-ul-Islam. "If you were around him and didn't know, he wouldn't mention it."
About 600 people packed Faith Temple, Church of God in Christ, in Harlem on Feb. 27, 1965, for the funeral of Malcolm X. Thousands listened outside on speakers. The ceremony is known for the eulogy by actor and social activist Ossie Davis, who called the deceased "our own black, shining prince." Jaaber led everyone in prayer.
In his book, he described his feelings when he changed into clerical regalia before the ceremony:
"When I came out of the bal cony, everyone was in awe. A very scary quietness came over the entire place. I very slowly walked to the front of the closed coffin and turned to announce that I was going to perform the Janaza Salat (funeral prayer) and asked all Muslims who had wudu (washed for prayer) to join me. Everyone in the building stood and bowed their heads, Muslims and non-Muslims."
Jaaber continued:
"By Allah's leave, here we were at the threshold of the completion of our task. ... Where the Muslim world had been silent, we had been outspoken. Where the world had been shocked and confused, we had been steadfast and organized. Where all had succumbed to fear and threats, we affirmed our faith in Allah for the world to witness."
Jaaber had come to know Malcolm X around 1961, when the two often sat near each other on the same dais for lectures, said his son Muhammad Jaaber, one of five children of the imam and his wife, Latifah, who also survives.
Jaaber counseled Malcolm X in 1964 to leave the Nation of Islam, a religious organization for black people, which has had a controversial history for its views that white people were the creation of an evil scientist.
Malcolm X then made a pilgrimage to Mecca. As he re counted in his autobiography, he saw Muslims of all races mix there, renounced his race-based views and changed his name to El Hajj Malik El-Shabbazz.
Jaaber "was feeding him a steady diet of Orthodox Islam be fore Malcolm X made pilgrimage," Jaaber's son said. "He was one of those who reminded El Hajj Malik El-Shabbazz there was a contradiction between being a Muslim and saying the white man was the devil."
UP FROM NORTH CAROLINA
Jaaber was born in Union County, N.C., just east of Charlotte, in 1931, to Sudanese-American parents who practiced both Christianity and Islam at home. He married Latifah in 1954 and moved to New Jersey the same year.
Active in the Addeynu Allahu Universal Arabic Association as a young adult, he helped ensure that Sunni Islam had a presence in Elizabeth, doing so with easygoing mannerisms that let him straddle the worlds of competing camps, said Abdellah, the mosque president.
The Kerner Commission report paints a tense scene in Elizabeth on July 17, 1967: broken store windows, fires in trash cans, a Molotov cocktail thrown at a tavern, an unabashed display of police power. Then a community delegation proposed starting a "peacekeeping task force." The mayor agreed.
Jaaber, according to the report, became a peacemaker, traveling in a car with a bullhorn as two dozen of his followers, "in red fezzes, took to the streets to urge order." The report says Jaaber "had witnessed the carnage in Newark and believed it could serve no purpose to have a riot."
Police soon left the area and Elizabeth had no further troubles, the report said.
"Even though he wasn't a member of the Black Panther movement, they respected him," Abdellah said this week. "And he successfully persuaded them that civil disobedience was different than violence."
Jeff Diamant may be reached at jdiamant@starledger.com or (973) 392-1547.
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*
Published in the Courier News, Sunday, July 1, 2007
Plainfield officials detail plans for long-awaited senior center
By BERNICE PAGLIA
Correspondent
PLAINFIELD -- The promise of their own new center has tantalized seniors for nearly a decade, but now city officials insist it will come true.
Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs said a July 3 groundbreaking at 400 E. Front St. will not just be ceremonial, but also will mark the start of construction on the $15 million project that includes three floors of market-rate condos over a new 12,770-square-foot senior center.
Developer Glen Fishman of Dornoch Plainfield LLC will build the center at no cost to the city, and its design will reflect wishes of the seniors for a commercial kitchen, a large meeting space and rooms for activities and administration.
A 10,000-square-foot, second-floor roof garden will be accessible to both condo owners and seniors, and the roof will have solar panels. The building will have 93 parking spaces, or 1.5 per two-bedroom unit.
Among other terms of the agreement:
- No closings will be held on condos until the center is built and ready for occupancy.
- The developer will use up to 1,500 feet on the first floor for a sale model. After all the condos have been sold, the space will revert to the city for use by seniors or veterans.
- If nothing is built by two years after the city issues a building permit, barring an "uncontrollable circumstance," the city can take back the land.
- The senior center will have a 13.96 percent ownership interest in the building and will have to pay for "common expenses" at that rate. If a separate veterans center opens at the site, it would have to pay common expenses at a rate of 1.02 percent.
Seniors have been waiting several years for actions on city promises.
In May 2005, a group of seniors walked half a block from the present leased space at 305 E. Front St. to a city-owned vacant lot where officials stuck shovels into a pile of imported dirt and posed for photographs. But after then-Mayor Albert T. McWilliams lost the June 2005 primary, plans to build a $4 million center at the city's expense were dropped.
It wasn't until mid-2006 that Robinson-Briggs introduced Fishman to seniors and unveiled his plan for the mixed-use project with the condos that will bring in revenue and prevent the site from being taken off the tax rolls. Of several major new proposals the mayor has floated since taking office in January 2006, Fishman's is the first to make it through to site plan approval.
Fishman, who told seniors he has done projects in 22 places across New Jersey, pledged to have the building up in 12 months after receiving building permits, even though his agreement with the city allows two years.
As of last week, Dornoch was in the process of posting a performance bond necessary for release of the permits, Planning Director Bill Nierstedt and Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson said.
Dornoch Plainfield project manager Isaac Kirzner could not be reached for comment last week.
A home of their own would be a first for the seniors.
The city had a 10-year lease on the space at 305 E. Front St. at $66,333 annually, but after it expired in 1999, the rental amount went up to $86,000. It is now about $100,000 a year, center president Charles Nelson said.
Meanwhile, seniors rejected plans to relocate the center to the Plainfield Armory or to the basement of the former Tepper's building, which was converted to 75 apartments with stores at ground level. A proposal by former NBA basketball star Jayson Williams to pay for a new center also fell through in early 2005.
Nelson, center president for the last seven years, has seen proposals come and go, but he said, "I feel confident that it's going to go through now."
Nelson also serves on the center's building committee, which meets monthly. Over the last year, its focus has been on the Dornoch plan.
"I would say they're very cooperative," Nelson said.
When the city signed over the land to Dornoch in January, the mayor insisted on having Nelson add his signature as a witness.
With his early doubts allayed, Nelson said, "We're on the road to having a new center."
TIMELINE FOR PLAINFIELD SENIOR CENTER
- January 1989: Seniors move from 334 E. Front St. to 305 E. Front St.; space has an annual rental of $66,332.76.
- January 1999: The 10-year lease expires, and the rent escalates.
- June 2005: Ground is broken for a new $4 million center after several other options fail, but that plan also falls through.
- July 2006: Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs introduces seniors to developer Glen Fishman, who proposes a four-story, $15 million building with a new senior center at ground level and 63 condos on the upper floors.
- December 2006: Fishman's firm, Dornoch Plainfield LLC, receives site-plan approval from the Planning Board.
- January 2007: Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs signs documents that convey the city-owned property to Dornoch for $1.
- July 3, 2007: A groundbreaking and "commencement ceremony" marking the start of construction will be conducted at 11 a.m. at 400 E. Front St.
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Published in the Courier News, Thursday, November 10, 2005
Dust in Plainfield settling
Race for mayor could end up being the most costly in the city's history.
By CHAD WEIHRAUCH
Staff Writer
PLAINFIELD -- A day after Sharon Robinson-Briggs won the city's highest elected office and said she would work to heal the political split in Plainfield, a final election tally still was unavailable.
However, one thing that did seem clear in this year's mayoral contests -- the primary and general election campaigns combined -- probably will end up being the most expensive in the Queen City's history, costing at least $320,000.
The Union County and Plainfield clerks' offices said Wednesday that write-in votes, most of which likely will go to incumbent Mayor Albert T. McWilliams, still were being counted.
Robinson-Briggs, a Democrat, received 4,336 votes, and Independent Robert Ferraro picked up 1,118 of the unofficial total 8,787 cast. That would leave McWilliams with a maximum 3,333 votes, assuming all remaining voters chose him -- though that probably was not the case.
McWilliams said he estimated he had received about 2,300 votes.
Robinson-Briggs was not immediately available for comment, but McWilliams added Wednesday he thought he had been beaten by money.
"Clearly it was mainly outside influences that bankrolled the Robinson-Briggs campaign, and that's been clear from the beginning. And I guess that's New Jersey politics," he said.
However, Assemblyman Jerry Green, Robinson-Briggs' campaign manager, said the mayor's loss was a result of discontent.
"He has to accept the responsibility that the city and the people in the city do not think the city was moving in the right direction," Green said.
McWilliams, 52, is a former Democrat and two-term incumbent who lost his re-election bid in the June primary to Robinson-Briggs.
He later switched his political affiliation to become a Republican and fill a vacancy on the ticket when a previous GOP candidate stepped down. However, the state Supreme Court refused his attempt to appear on the ballot as a Republican, upholding a law that says candidates cannot run for one party's nomination in the primary, then switch parties and run for the same office in the general election.
McWilliams ran as a write-in candidate for mayor in Tuesday's election.
Robinson-Briggs, 46, is a school board member who, with her win, becomes Plainfield's first woman mayor.
According to documents filed with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, Robinson-Briggs' campaign had raised $201,225 through the end of June for primary spending. McWilliams had collected $77,250 in the same period.
The $201,225 was more than the three Union County Democratic freeholder candidates collectively had raised through Oct. 28 -- for the general election -- through their political committee, Union County Victory 2005.
However, the spending frenzy fell off in Plainfield after the primary.
As of 11 days before the general election, McWilliams had raised even more than Robinson-Briggs, claiming just $25,590, compared to her $23,828.
By contrast, in the last mayoral race in 2001 -- the only other year for which figures are available on the Election Law Enforcement Commission's Web site -- the two mayoral candidates combined raised only about one-fifth of the total spent this year: $64,561.
McWilliams was a Democrat then, and out-spent Ferraro, who was then a Republican, by about 4-to-1.
Even the more than $300,000 spent this year by both campaigns is deceptive, McWilliams said, because it does not include outside money spent in Plainfield supporting the entire regular Democratic slate.
"We estimate that they spent from the primary alone something approaching half a million dollars," he said.
Still, Green said Democrats spent relatively little money in the run-up to the general election. After bouncing McWilliams from the party's slate in June, more expensive advertising methods were abandoned, he added.
"There was no reason to get into spending money with a TV campaign," he said.
Final campaign funding reports must be filed with the state in about three weeks.
Chad Weihrauch can be reached at (908) 707-3137 or cweihrau@gannett.com
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Published in the Star-Ledger, Wednesday, April 13, 2005
[Tom Moran]
'Machine' goes after mayor of Plainfield
The city of Plainfield has more than its share of gang murders and drug deals, and more than enough poverty.
But things are improving. Crime is down overall, and new buildings are finally sprouting up next to boarded-up storefronts in the downtown. Homes that have been vacant for years are being renovated as the city's population grows.
"People are working together like never before," says Donna Albanese, president of the local chamber of commerce. "The mayor deserves the credit for that."
The mayor is Al McWilliams, a soft-spoken attorney who has won two elections by landslides. People in Plainfield like him.
But the party bosses don't.
They have declared war on him by denying him their endorsement, and backing a rival for the June primary.
And that could spell trouble for McWilliams.
Because in New Jersey politics, it is not enough to be competent and popular. To be secure in your job, you also need the blessings of the county bosses.
They are the gatekeepers who can make or break your political career, no matter how many landslides you've won.
They decide who gets the money, who gets the best position on the ballot, and who gets help on Election Day turning out the vote. In a primary, when turnout is low, the bosses almost always get their way.
The bosses in Union County -- led by Sen. Ray Lesniak and county chairwoman Charlotte DeFilippo -- are moving against McWilliams because he's been fighting for years with Assemblyman Gerald Green.
And Green is one of the old boys.
"If you can't work with people on the line, then you can't stay on the line," says DeFilippo.
What exactly was McWilliams' offense? What did he do wrong?
"He's trying to destroy my career by blaming me for every problem in the city," says Green. "He has to take responsibility. He's the mayor."
McWilliams says the trouble began when he fired a political ally of Green's who was doing shoddy legal work for the city.
"He called Jerry, and Jerry went ballistic on me," says McWilliams. "Our fights are usually over who gets what contract, and who gets what legal business. I don't care as long as the price is right and the quality is good. But you can't give away the store to be cooperative."
The party leaders could have left this one alone by endorsing both of them, despite their rivalry, and letting them battle it out in Plainfield. It would be awkward to put two rivals on the same team, but it could be done.
Instead, they decided to go after McWilliams with a head shot.
And so a man who has been mayor for eight years will now have to fight for his political life against his own party establishment.
"It boggles the mind," says McWilliams.
He drove through the city this week, pointing to improvements. A small park with benches and a fountain where weeds once grew. New sidewalks and street lamps near a train station. An office building in the downtown on what was a vacant lot.
Williams is promising to deal the machine a well-deserved blow.
He started out as a volunteer trying to revive the city's downtown, and ran for office only after he couldn't get the city council interested. Since then he's beaten the machine twice by supporting challengers for the city council and for the local Democratic committee.
And some people in Plainfield don't like the idea of bosses from the suburbs telling them whom they should support.
"I think this is dirty pool," says Valerie Cummings, eating a sandwich at the Plainfield Donut Shop and Luncheonette. "The mayor is trying. And he's a good man."
Tom Moran's column appears Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or (973) 392-1823.
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