Power Issues Prolong Meeting

Veteran council watchers could tell something was up when they spotted some controversial nominees in Tuesday's audience, although none of their names were on the agenda for votes. The mystery did not start to unfold until late in the evening, after the the governing body held a two-hour closed session with employees who had received layoff notices.

Upon reconvening, Council President Annie McWilliams said she wanted to talk about two issues. First, she sought to clarify remarks made at the Oct. 4 agenda-fixing session regarding the administration's stance on council-appointed citizen committees. She produced copies of e-mails on the issue, but Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs said she had not seen the e-mails. McWilliams passed them to her.

"You stated the administration refused to work with you," the mayor said."We did not refuse. You asked if there was a discussion. I said no."

At the previous meeting, Robinson-Briggs said "no" just as McWilliams said "yes," setting off titters from the audience. On Tuesday, the mayor held up the sheaf of e-mails and said, "This is not a discussion."

One of the issues was whether council-appointed citizen committee members would take up staff time with various requests for information. The mayor said Tuesday any such requests would have to go through the city administrator. The two then traded comments about whether "secret meetings" had been held and the mayor reiterated that all requests had to go through the city administrator's office. McWilliams sighed.

The second issue had to do with the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority. McWilliams said several "action items" had been sent to PMUA Executive Director Eric Watson with no results. The requests included more transparency on the authority's web site and for research on billing to be sent to the governing body.

The authority has several holdovers on its board of commissioners, but the council has not voted to confirm the mayor's nominees. Meanwhile, authority Chairman Harold Mitchell declined the council's request for a joint meeting, asking that it be put off until after the Nov. 2 general election.

On Tuesday, McWilliams said in deciding who to put on the authority's board, the council needed more information on the state of the PMUA.

The authority has been under close scrutiny by a citizen group, DumpPMUA, and was the target of a lawsuit over some of its operating practices. While the PMUA prevailed in the lawsuit, it also made several operational changes sought by the citizen group.

In order to put the nominations on the agenda at Tuesday's meeting, a council majority would have had to agree, which did not happen. There was also the question of holding interviews with nominees. The mayor asked to speak and said the two items - the state of the PMUA and naming commissioners - were "totally separate."

Referring to PMUA nominees Hugh Smith, Charles Eke and Norman Ortega, the mayor said, "If you want to interview them, they're here and ready."

But when McWilliams invoked the council's need to be accountable to constituents, the mayor retorted, "I represent 50,000."

When McWilliams again stated the council's right to seek needed information, the mayor repeated that the two issues were separate and added, "You're hurting the residents."

At that point, Councilwoman Linda Carter interceded, saying she didn't think the council had the five votes needed to put the item on the agenda.

"It is quarter to eleven at night," she said, noting the council still had the deal with the agenda.

With that, the council moved on to public comment. It was not until near midnight that the council began voting on the 30 resolutions and seven ordinances on the agenda.

In retrospect, the mayor's push to get the nominations on the agenda seemed to challenge McWilliams' statement on Oct. 4 that, as council president, she has the power to decide what items are placed on the agenda. Recently the mayor had used her power to veto two key pieces of legislation that McWilliams had proposed for greater fiscal responsibility and which the council approved. Very late in the meeting Tuesday, one of the vetoed items, reduction of the bid threshold, was reintroduced. City Administrator Bibi Taylor began to raise objections, but McWilliams noted the administration did not support the measure and asked, "Is there anything you would like to add?"

--Bernice