Tuesday's City Council agenda contains yet another bid by Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs to make appointments to the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority, but no corresponding resolution for council action.
By Plaintalker's count, this is the fourth time in 2012 that the mayor has proposed PMUA appointments. The names are Cecil Sanders, currently an alternate; Alex Toliver, a holdover who needs reappointment; Harold Mitchell, who survived previous attempts to alter his status and who emerged as chairman again at the February reorganization; and Darcella Sessomes, whose name has been offered previously but who has yet to receive council confirmation. Details of the terms were not spelled out on the agenda posted on the city web site and this writer was doing yard work yesterday past the 1 p.m. closing time at the Plainfield Public Library, so was unable to see whether the council packet was on hand there for review.
The notation for Tuesday's meeting did include the fact that the mayor was offering Mitchell's name as an alternate, which if passed by the governing body would effectively cause Mitchell to step down as chairman.
The PMUA board of commissioners has five five-year regular seats and two two-year alternates. The battle over appointments goes back a long time. The Rev. Tracey Brown was appointed to succeed herself for a five-year term ending in 2015 and in November former Councilman Malcolm Dunn and entrepreneur Cecil Sanders were approved, Dunn for a full term and Sanders as an alternate. The pair, along with Toliver, gave the three votes necessary in December to approve a $1 million settlement for former Executive Director Eric Watson and former Assistant Executive Director David Ervin. Sanders was able to vote because Commissioner Brown was absent. Mitchell and Commissioner Carol Brokaw voted "no."
Click here to read Plaintalker's post on the last time the mayor offered names for the PMUA board.
Unfortunately, the PMUA's June meeting is at 6 p.m. Tuesday at 127 Roosevelt Avenue and the council meeting is 7:30 p.m. in City Hall Library at 515 Watchung Avenue. It may not be possible for Plaintalker to cover both in full. The council has quite a few other items that need coverage and if forced to choose, Plaintalker would prefer to cover the council meeting in its entirety. Often the agenda-fixing sessions start late due to the council's need to meet in closed session on certain items, but it would be a gamble to think one could stay to the end of the PMUA meeting and make it to City Hall in time for the start of the council meeting.
Obviously, the mayor wants to remove Mitchell from the PMUA chairmanship by way of changing his status on the board of commissioners. An irony in all this is that Brown won the June primary for the citywide at-large council seat and is considered likely to win in the November general election. If the drama continues through 2012 or if Brown is named as an appointee to replace Councilwoman Annie McWilliams if she steps down before her term ends on Dec. 31, the mayor may have her fourth vote to take Mitchell out. Brown's departure from the PMUA will also open another slot for a new commissioner to be named to the unexpired balance of her term.
The saga continues ...
--Bernice
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Only in a city government with no accountability is this possible.
ReplyDeleteToliver, Mitchell, Brokaw, and Brown should be removed and held personally liable (along with many past commissioners and the management team of Watson & Ervin) for the return of the many $100,000s they have stolen (yes, stolen) from the PMUA and its ratepayers in the form of illegal healthcare benefits in violation of state and local law. Sanders and Dunn should be removed, as even Mitchell requested in a letter to the mayor, for their subversion of the arbitration process and the award of the $1 million settlement to the two individuals most responsible for turning PMUA into such a lawless and unaccountable empire.
This leaves Sessomes, who looks to be simply someone to keep the employee pipeline juiced with cheaply hired former convicts.
These continuing nominations are a slap in the
face for all Plainfielders. That they come in bunches, rather than singly, year by year, is a damning indication of just how disfunctional this city remains. Not a one is anything other than a pawn or a player in a political system rife with conflicts and self-interested dealings. The same can be said for the City Council generally, five of whose members exhibit a marked bias for selling out Plainfield to the political machine that keeps us a backwater of the state.
We are being deceived. The deceivers know how to spread the public money around to buy votes and loyalty in order to win out over a mostly disengaged public.
Just yesterday I came across a PMUA newsletter from 2007 in which Councilman Reid, who at the time was PMUA's Vice-chairman, answers the question "How did PMUA get to where we are today?" "One of the most significant achievements at the PMUA", he wrote, "has to do with its management and the way they have adhered to City, County, State, and Federal rules and regulations." Sure Bill, I wonder what sort of nonsense you're selling today? It's folks like you who are faking us out. It's folks like these nominees that will continue the abuse. I am sure you will only have good things to say about them.
Thank you Alan Goldstein -- excellent commentary.
ReplyDeleteHopefully appointments will be a thing of the past, when the PMUA is dissolved in the very near future.
Can't wait!
Remember, the PMUA was created to have a cleaner town. Look around you, the proof is in the eating of the pudding.
ReplyDeleteThe PUMA should be put on hold and no appointments, since most of us want it disbanded or drastically changed. Five year term limits for Commissioners is crazy. Two or three year term limits is enough. Who set up this rip-off of an authority. Politicians, too bad for us.
ReplyDeleteYes GB it is in eating the pudding and the enpty cups are all over the streets in addition to TV's and mattresses.
ReplyDelete