Before the June 7 election, Green had posted on his blog "I can understand someone coming home to help mommy however there is a big difference when someone comes home to LIVE off of mommy. When a parent raises a child and gives that child the best years of their life it is a shame that in their senior years they still have to take care of the child. When is it time to give mommy a break? If someone abuses a parent's goodness like this, I don’t dare imagine what that person would do as an elected official."
Dameron, making her first bid for public office, had said she came to Plainfield six years ago to care for her ailing parents. Her father has since passed away, but Dameron brought her mother to Tuesday's reorganization meeting to confront Green personally and receive an apology. She was too ill to stay for the whole meeting and did not hear the public apology.
New Democrat Cory Storch, who won the election and will be on the November ballot for a third term, and New Democrat leader Adrian Mapp, who was not even on the primary ballot, also came in for personal attacks during the campaign. Green gave each a chance to address the committee after saying he was "man enough to apologize" and giving a rambling narrative of troubles his own family had experienced.
Besides Storch, Dameron and Mapp, Second Ward challenger Tony Rucker and First and Fourth Ward at-large winner Vera Greaves spoke to the committee., mostly invoking themes of unity and setting aside Democratic factionalism for the sake of the city and future campaigns.
Officers chosen included Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs as first vice-chair, Christian Estevez as second vice-chair and Ken Robertson as third vice-chair. In naming Estevez, Green said all eight committee candidates of Hispanic heritage had lost in the primary and noted Estevez' statewide standing in Hispanic affairs. Estevez was passed over in 2006 by Green as a possible successor to the late Councilman Ray Blanco, a strong advocate for Latino inclusion in civic affairs.
After Green called a break for committee members to pick ward leaders, observers could see that a problem had arisen with the Third Ward selection. Green cited "misinformation" that made the vote go wrong and gave the Third Ward committee members five minutes to correct it. But Mapp said the first vote was a tie and in the second vote the tie was broken in favor of Joseph Ruffin, a New Democrat. Mapp said New Democrats refused to take part in the third vote Green requested. In the final vote, the seat went to Regular Democrat Cecil Sanders.
Others elected to lead wards were mayoral aide Barbara James for the First Ward, Councilwoman Rebecca Williams for the Second Ward and Greaves for the Fourth Ward.
Green complimented Williams, a longtime New Democrat campaign manager, for her "e-mailing and high-tech" skills, but took credit himself for a "street operation" that he called "one of the best in the state."
Late in the meeting Green excoriated bloggers and anonymous commenters on blogs, summing up, "All of us need to stop it and as your chairman, I am prepared to stop it."
(More later on aspects of the Democratic reorganization. Green urged all committee members to attend the countywide party reorganization tonight, although for some it will be a conflict with a City Council meeting to be held at 7:30 p.m. in City Hall Library.)
--Bernice
I know that Jerry fans will say that no matter what Jerry does, he can't win the "Respect and Forgiveness" game, and for me, they are correct.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't we all have called the action that Green took apologizing to Dee's mother? He knew that Dee would have given him a sound tongue lashing, and even his own supporters would have had to agree that he was wrong. By apologizing first, and then admitting that he got "Carried Away", well, who wouldn't be Christian enough to forgive the old man?
I am not in a position to judge, but what I do know is that when you keep repeating the same actions, as Green does year after year, you are either stupid or have enough people to back you because you have given them patronage jobs.
In my opinion, Green is not more sorry for this antic than he is for the ones that he has pulled every year for the past 20 years. When will the people in Plainfield get off their duffs and vote him out? Are you really better off today than 20 years ago?
Green is prepared to stop it? Stop what exactly? Green should go read up on the Constitution. Anonymous speech is protected under the First Amendment as much as he may hate it. Too bad.
ReplyDeleteCommenter Bob Bolmer could not access Blogger comment so here is what he wanted to post:
ReplyDeleteBob Bolmer, Ward 2, District 1 Committee Member
I was glad to hear the opening theme of coming together, but felt by the end of the meeting that little was accomplished to achieve that end. Having taught young adults in Newark, Elizabeth, Plainfield, and Jersey City where not taking personal repsonsiblity is one thing I try to teach, the evening was more about not taking personal responsibility and blaming others, than "manning up" and moving on. I hope the future bods better for the Plainfield democratic party than last night's meeting would portend.
Don't hold your breath Plainfield. This is political theater at its best. Now that the fake kumbaya is over and done with, it will be back to business as usual with an inept mayor and a ragtag, motley crew of part-time and quality-less department heads and administrators.
ReplyDeleteThe damage has been done, Mr. Green. Politics has won out, and the people will be sold out as a result. Plainfield remains a city of beggars, just the way you like it, with a few hundred (your 'street operation') bought and paid for, and about 49,000 other souls suffering the consequences.
It is unfortunate that the Chairman made those irrelevant comments on his campaign literature. I was happy to witness him publicly apologize. Some, like the comment @ 8:19am, will question his motivation. That is their right, but I am happy he did apologize. It's a start and I hope it is the beginning of the healing process for Dee and her family. She would be a good Council person.
ReplyDeleteI hope the Chairman will also take the opportunity to correct the information on his campaign literature about Councilman Storch's daughter. The statements were misleading.
Councilman Storch gave a well thought out and articulated speech. He spoke on the issues and the challenges we face. He has done good things as our ward council representative and I will continue to offer my help to him at anytime.
One could sense the bruises of the campaign in Cory's speech as he spoke out against some of the shortcomings that occurred on the opposing camp. Though he did fail to speak out against the shortcomings on his own campaign team. And he did fail to ask for, (or offer), apologizes for the outrageous remarks made my members of his team.
We all need to take more ownership, then we truly will be able to start to work together.
Jim Spear
Member,
Democratic County Committee
Ward 2 , District 8
Wonder when Dan Damon and the New Democrats who lied will own up?
ReplyDelete1n 2008 (please forgive any factual inaccuracies), the New Democrats had two opporunities to run Christian Estevez who lives in the third ward. They did not. They ran Mapp and McWilliams.
ReplyDeleteMaybe both Jerry and New Dems are right. Should we run candidates on the color of thier skin or because they look like Ray Blanco?
In my remarks last night, there were some things that I wanted to say, but because of attention-deficit and short-term memory loss--lol--I neglected to mention them. One was a final point about our club members being called "Republicans," which the chairman always resorts to during campaign season. He always neglects to mention former Republican County Committee member Sharon Robinson-Briggs when he talks about the GOP--she is now registered as a Democrat. It was her right to switch parties--I hope that the next round of campaign literature doesn't go back to calling lifelong Democrats "Christie Republicans"--we are all outraged by the current governor's excesses.
ReplyDeleteOur New Democrats for Plainfield club members are Democrats, and there is nothing wrong with being in a Democratic club--there are many different types of clubs, as I have noted before: LGBT Dem clubs, senior citizen Dem clubs, Dem clubs for young people, etc. My hope is that anyone who decides to run for elective office at least get the respect he or she deserves as a Democrat while running. As the Ward Democratic Leader for the 22 Democratic City Committee representatives in the Second Ward, our role is to get Democrats out to vote, just as the role of the other party's city committee representatives is to promote their party's candidates and ideology. I told the 2nd Ward reps that I will be in touch with them so that they can get out and walk their districts--they were elected by the Democrats in those districts to do the work of the party.
In my role as council rep for half of our city, though, I was elected to serve all the people in the 2nd and 3rd Wards, regardless of party affiliation--there are well over 50,000 residents in our city, and only about 21,000 or so registered voters. That leaves another 30,000 people. In my role as a Democratic leader, I will not ignore those other individuals I represent simply because they are not members of my party. I consider myself a public servant and I will do my best.
Rebecca
@ Jim Spear -you have so much to learn within Plainfield politics. It AIN'T nothing like a neighborhood block association. 8:19 is soooo very correct -obviously a person who knows too well the Plainfield politics and slimey Jerry Green. You only "witnessed" JG pretending to be apologetic.
ReplyDeleteJerry Green will apologize to Ms. Dameron and her mother today and during the next election, if Ms. Dameron doesn't come to him to ask for his blessings, he will do the same and worse. The next time he will say, "she not only lives off her 'mommy' she has her mother fight her battles."
Jerry Green will be Jerry Green FOREVER!
Plainfield Politics is NASTY!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhy am I not seeing anything about Dans legal problems on any of the blogs? His police report was distributed the same way Mapps credit issue was. Is Dan not worthy of an apology?
ReplyDeleteMike
And you guys wonder why Jerry Green hates bloggers... His main reason is that you can speak the truth and he can't shut us up. What do you have to say about that Mr. Green? Go ahead waste your time in Trenton "introducing" legislation about anonymous blogging. Ha ha the joke is you.
ReplyDelete@Rob - I am still deciding whether to post your comment - with the sounds of Kumbaya still ringing in my ears. "Thug" is a bit harsh, no?
ReplyDeleteTake the comment down Bernice. It's awful. Let Rob start his own blog.
ReplyDelete