Monday’s City Council agenda session includes a proposal to commit $1 million in Urban Enterprise Zone funds to a $1.8 million revolving fund for redevelopment loans in the city.
The other partners in the program would be private lenders and a third entity, possibly the New Jersey Redevelopment Agency, or a newly-created city entity.
Terms would allow loans of from $2,000 to $250,000, from six months to 84 months for repayment. (More later if it moves to the July 19 agenda).
Another proposed drawdown on the UEZ funds is $800,000 for the long-awaited CCTV program where strategically-placed cameras will assist public safety efforts. The new plan is to refit the Police Division basement for the surveillance operation. Previously, the former Tepper’s building basement had been considered.
My cursory study of the City Council packet in the Plainfield Public Library Saturday did not allow me to remember all the discussion items, but there are several. So all you council watchers, gird up for a long session.
There are a number of engineering items for Remington & Vernick, mostly for preliminaries. For example, the $140,875 tab for design and other preliminary services is for a $1.5 million reconstruction project on South Avenue. Council observers would have us believe that R&V is a favored firm for political reasons, but Plaintalker has no proof.
In other matters, JPMorgan Chase Bank has decided to drop municipal accounts, which in Plainfield’s case leave the municipality with more than $300,000 in checks that need to be canceled and put in the Budget Operations account. The check dates range from July 1, 2008 to June 15, 2010.
Another item would grant BC Productions of Plainfield a video recording contract at $100 per hour. Challengers included a Snellville, GA firm that wanted $173.25 an hour plus travel expenses. Not sure whether this is for regular City Council recording or something else.
Unfortunate that the public can no longer get the agenda online (Correction: Deputy Clerk A. Jalloh said Monday the link to tonight's agenda has been up since Friday. He suggests hitting the "refresh" button. Also links have been on the city web site all year, he said.)and especially the documentation that explains all. If you are able, the Plainfield Public Library council packet is now your best bet on getting advance info on the meeting.
--Bernice
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It's absurd that these documents cannot be put on line. All the information is provided in Microsoft Word Documents so how hard is it to upload to the website to be made available for viewing or downloading?????
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't take an IT Director to do this.
Geeze - even if you have to create a Facebook Account and put it there - it would be better than doing nothing.
If you add up the political contributions from R&V, its principals, and their spouses, that go to Jerry Green and Sharon Robinson-Briggs, as well as politicians across the state, you come to the conclusion that their generosity is at least on a par with the generosity of the government entities that give them contract business. R&V may not be favored for political reasons, but a favored tactic most certainly is turning engineering contracts into political contributions, and campaign contributions into engineering contracts.
ReplyDeleteRedevelopment of South Ave ??? Why is it not being given to the state highway department as it is Rt 28 ????
ReplyDelete