In a 4-3 vote Monday, the City Council approved formation of a seven-member task force to study and make recommendations on the authority that provides solid waste and sewer services to Plainfield.
The resolution cites high comparative rates coupled with the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority’s rejection of discussions with the governing body as the reasons for creation of a task force. Each council member will have one appointment and the task force will report back to the council in four months. Its work will be to compare PMUA costs with those in neighboring and similar municipalities, to recommend ways to control and reduce costs, to name steps to maximize the number of PMUA jobs for Plainfielders and to examine the options on what entities should “operate and deliver PMUA services.”
The last item refers to a notion that the city should take over operations now provided by the PMUA. Before its inception, the city had a sewer utility and residents contracted with private carters for trash pickup. Opponents of a city takeover have cited PMUA debt as a deterrent, as well as the cost of shifting operations.
Before the vote on Monday, Councilman and former PMUA Commissioner William Reid gave a lengthy defense of the authority, followed by Councilwoman Bridget Rivers’ challenge to the proposed makeup of the task force. Reid and Rivers are the council liaisons to the PMUA and have consistently taken its side in council discussions.
Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs also objected to the seven-member makeup at the May 2 agenda-fixing session, saying the administration should have a representative. When her suggestion was rebuffed, she withdrew it, saying “Good luck!”
Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson then reminded the council that it has no authority over the PMUA, which is autonomous. But supporters of the proposed task force said only a study was being proposed.
On May 9, Rivers rehashed the idea of a mayoral appointee to the task force along with an additional council appointment to yield an odd number, but supporters of the task force said the mayor had withdrawn her request.
The next agenda session, on June 14, should yield names of appointees or perhaps a mayoral veto.
To trace how the PMUA saga got to this point, Plaintalker is offering a bit of history.
After a rocky start in the mid-1990s, the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority sailed through a decade or more of providing solid waste and sewer services with nothing more than some random grumblings from the 16,000 householders served.
Then came the January 2009 rate increases, 20 percent for solid waste and 14 percent for sewer services. Hardly anyone attended the required public hearing before commissioners approved the rate increases, but when bills hit the ratepayers’ mailboxes, a revolt ensued. A group of outraged residents formed DumpPMUA and began probing the authority’s operations, posting their findings on a web site for all to see. They launched an “opt-out” tutorial and used the Open Public Records Act to ferret out details of pricey “business lunches” and trips, and compared PMUA rates to those in nearby towns for the same services.
The PMUA board of commissioners soon faced unprecedented crowds at its monthly meetings and even a legal challenge from DumpPMUA organizer Philip Charles. The authority eventually prevailed in court, but meanwhile changed some of its policies in an apparent tacit recognition that the public was fed up.
In 2010, PMUA executive director Eric Watson and the commissioners began backing off joint public meetings with the governing body. Watson announced he was stepping down, along with second-in-command Dave Ervin and chief finance officer James Perry, all of whom had served since the authority’s inception. Appointments to the board of commissioners faltered and a small band of holdovers was left in charge of doling out millions of dollars in annual contracts. A 61 percent increase for “shared services” – affecting even those who opted out of PMUA trash pickup – coupled with refusals to meet with the governing body brought the simmering controversy to a boil this year. Hence the task force.
But even as it was voted into existence Monday, a council member who voted “no” predicted that the task force resolution would soon be vetoed by the mayor. Clarification: Resolutions are not subject to mayoral veto. Disregard the following. And a fifth vote needed to override the veto would most likely be lacking on the council, rendering the task force just a stillborn casualty of governmental stasis. If so, too bad for ratepayers and taxpayers alike who want to see elected and appointed officials collaborate on effective stewardship.
--Bernice
I do not believe that Resolutions especially those that do not require administrative action, are subject to the Mayor's approval. Ordinances yes. She has a set number of days to reject (veto) them before they become the "law".
ReplyDeleteReid Rivers and Greaves are useless..they don't even try to hide the fact that all they do is work for Sharon and Jerry and not the citizens of Plainfield...They should start standing up the council meetings looking over at the Mayor and ask her how they should vote. So..this is what no sense of self worth and pride look like, the 3 of them.
ReplyDeleteLet's make this clear to all who read this: ROBINSON-BRIGGS, RIVERS, REID, GREAVES all want you to pay more, not less, MORE!
ReplyDeleteThe all continually vote to take money out of your pocket to pay for their self-serving agendas that help their friends and families, like the PMUA.
Please go to the council meetings and voice your opinion and let these people know you will not support their agenda of paying more for anything.
It's clear to all who go to these meetings that there is something odd about all of this and the attorney general should be contacted and this should all be investigated.
Please call, e mail or phone the Robinson-Brigss, Rivers, Reid and Greaves and tell them you don't support their non-sense!
Forget the Mayor's Veto, what Plainfield needs is a good 'ol fashioned "Vito" to come into town with a few of his friends and clean this place up!
ReplyDeleteThe PMUA is nothing but a fraud. It's a cover for Jerry's illegal operations. The next few months should be interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhen all else fails, form a committee, then when you are really in hot water call it a Task Force. Sooner or later another problem will eclipse the present one and you are out of the woods until the next crisis moment. From someone who has sat in the City Hall Library and watched it all happen, over and over and ....
ReplyDeleteWait one minute! If most of the council knows rates are much higher than surrounding cities, why doesn't the Mayor and her three cronies on the council know this? When will someone take real action against the PMUA? They continue to overcharge us for services.
ReplyDeleteBTW - Every town near us has their sewer service included in the tax bill. They don't have a fraudulent "shared services" as a separate charge, and they certainly don't send their upper management team to 5 "conferences" per year.
When will our elected officials wake up and SHUT down the PMUA?