Musings on Plainfield Politics

While I have been somewhat hors de combat due to illness this past week, I was intrigued by the push for the City Council to move school board elections to November. Both Dan Damon and Jerry Green want it to happen, Dan saying the governing body could beat the board to the punch and Green claiming on Thursday that the board "is not moving on this issue."

Reviewing the sequence of events, it appears that first all concerned had to get guidelines from the state. Dan says he got "notice" of the guidelines Wednesday afternoon; the guidelines appeared Thursday on the DOE web site, the same day when by 12:19 p.m., Green determined the board was "not moving" on the issue. Green said "therefore" he had spoken to some council members because they "have the ability to move on the issue."

The council has an agenda-fixing session Feb. 6 and a regular meeting Feb. 13. Dan carps about the school board scheduling a special meeting Jan. 24 after he raised the question of changing the election date, but then they took no action. Well, did they have the guidelines at that time? The board calendar calls for a special meeting on Feb. 1, a Policy/Work & Study meeting on Feb. 7 and a business meeting on Feb. 21. The Feb. 1 agenda is not posted as of this time (2 a.m. Jan. 30), so for all we know the board may yet beat the council to the punch.

Why all this rigamarole anyway about one public entity beating another to the punch in taking action on a matter of (one hopes) general community interest? Could there be a political angle to all this? Think back to 2008. Annie McWilliams and Adrian Mapp, with the support of "kingmaker" John Campbell, beat Green's Democratic Party line candidates in the June primary, thus winning the Democratic line on the November ballot. But up until late last year, Mapp staunchly retained his "New Democrat" identity. The sight of Regular Democrats and New Democrats (including Dan) together on Election Night 2011 startled more than a few observers and gave rise to speculation that Mapp would receive the party line in a 2012 re-election bid.

The April 2 filing date for the June primary is still months away, but chatter about possible candidates is rife. Feb. 27 would have been the filing date for the school board, but with moving the election apparently now inevitable, the primary could be the first opportunity for the public to assess political shifts that may affect future contests.

Beyond all that, some of the nuances of the school board election change still need to be spelled out regarding Plainfield. For example, the state in its attempt to re-balance the 80-20 funding ratio for Plainfield has mandated increased local tax levies. That was why, in 2010, the City Council took no action on the $21.8 million local school tax levy, because it was mandated by the state. In contrast to suburban districts where most of the school costs are borne by local property owners, the great majority of Plainfield's funding came from the state. Year by year, the levy was to be increased until the proportion of local to state funding was to reach about one-third, as I recall.

Currently the budget is set in April for the following school year. Under the new guidelines, the budget must be under a 2 percent cap or voters will decide by referendum on an amount over-riding the cap and possibly on a capital spending proposal. Being too literal-minded for my own good, I can't envision how this change will work for the district and its charter schools after the school year has begun. I guess it will take a year or so to see how it plays out in real life.

But of course the technicalities of this change are not as much fun to think about as the possible political power plays that may emerge. Kingmaker John Campbell's SLAM team, including his wife, swept the last two elections. Four seats will be up this year. Jerry Green, profiled as "King of the Queen City" four years ago, claims to stay away from the Board of Education, but as chairman of the Regular Democratic Organization, he must meet any municipal challenges from the Campbell camp head-on. In 2008, he complained that Campbell was "dividing the black vote here in Plainfield."  Will the kingmaker take on the king again in some fashion this year? We'll see on April 2.

--Bernice