Mayor Wants Four PMUA Nominees

Although Monday's agenda-fixing session includes a mayoral intention to name four PMUA commissioners, the packet included no corresponding resolutions. The "communication" from the mayor was lacking some details, such as terms and successions, which need to be spelled out in resolutions.

Of the four, one can guess that current Chairman Harold Mitchell, a holdover since his term expired last February, is being nominated to succeed himself. If so, he would be in line for the balance of a five-year term to Feb. 1, 2016.

Cecil Sanders was just confirmed in November for an unexpired term as Alternate No. 2, succeeding Eugene Dudley for five years to Feb. 1, 2014. However, the city's own records state that Dudley's term as an alternate was only two years ending Feb. 1, 2012. So perhaps this nomination is to properly give Sanders a two-year term from Feb. 1, 2012 to Feb. 1, 2014.

The terms of incumbent commissioners Carol Ann Brokaw and Alex Toliver expire on Feb. 1, 2012, so perhaps Darcella Sessomes and Wilbert O. Gill are meant to receive five-year terms succeeding them. Until it is spelled out, one can't say. Gill previously served as an alternate from 2004 to 2006. Sessomes never served previously but apparently had some links to the authority's re-entry program in her role as head of the Department of Corrections' Office of Transitional Services.

After six years of making appointments to boards and commissions, the mayor and her staff should know the need for details. In addition, the names of both Mitchell and Sanders were spelled wrong. Mitchell was a councilman and a mayor before becoming a PMUA commissioner. Surely he deserves better than a typo or misspelling by now. Sanders is also very well-known in Plainfield and was just recently the subject of a resolution in which his name was spelled correctly. How hard could it be to check?

Maybe the mayor "indicated her intention" to submit the names in order to allow time for interviews. But these nominees themselves need to know what they are committing to, such as how long their terms will be and when they start. The PMUA reorganizes in February and it would be good to have these seats properly filled now that the authority is attempting to get off on a new footing.

--Bernice