Sharpton Returning Friday, Mayor Says At Forum

She's running for a third four-year term, but at a candidates' forum Sunday, Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs leaned heavily on political touchstones of the past - the 2005 homicide rate of her predecessor, the 2010 Town Meeting featuring Rev. Al Sharpton and the ensuing flap over a $20,000 check to WBLS.

Her immediate future - as in Friday - will include welcoming Sharpton back for another visit and she also revealed a "five-star plan" for the city's future, which she will share with the press and post on the city's web site. The May 24 visit is 6:30 p.m. at Washington Community School, 427 Darrow Ave. and is to discuss "Partnerships, Priorities and Progress for Plainfield." The date is also on Sharpton's National Action Network calendar for 8 p.m. Friday.

Robinson-Briggs was on familiar turf Sunday at the NAACP forum. She served as branch president and is a lifetime member, she said. Her husband, Peter Briggs, is the current president and conducted the forum. Her opponent in the June 4 primary, Councilman Adrian Mapp, did not attend due to a prior commitment.

The mayor cited shared services and road repair among accomplishments of her administration, but with no questions at first from the audience of 15 people, she launched into a recounting of how her tenure saw a reduction in homicides from a 2005 high under former Mayor Albert T. McWilliams and how, when gang activity caused a spike in shootings, she organized the Aug. 1, 2010 Town Meeting with a panel of 22 speakers, including other mayors and Sharpton. Lives were saved through the three-hour radio broadcast over WBLS and WLIB, she said.

To disprove criticism over the $20,000 cost that led to an investigation by the governing body, she produced large poster board "visuals" showing, she said, that bids for the broadcast were sought and that there was nothing wrong in receiving a $15,000 check from Investors Savings to help pay for it. The check was earmarked for the July Fourth celebration, but the mayor said the bank agreed to change its use.

"It proved to be very successful," she said of the broadcast, noting a gang truce eventually took place.

A question came from the audience regarding the shuttered Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center and the mayor said she had urged former Gov. Jon Corzine to authorize a statewide lottery to fund hospitals, but never got a response. She said she is against a proposal to erect 600 apartments on the site but believes the parent company is "massaging another proposal" with less density. A satellite emergency that remains at the site is scheduled to close in August.

Her future plans include more beautification, such as was recently carried out at City Hall, and establishment of a downtown storefront location where day laborers who now stand on the street can congregate. The five-star plan calls for more shared services; a debt collection task force that may pursue payment of court fines as well as $1.3 million the mayor alleged is owed by the Union County Improvement Authority; a contest to recognize the cleanest blocks in the city; a youth center; and expansion of the Office of Emergency Management.

The mayor also wants to establish an African-Caribbean Commission along the lines of the Plainfield Advisory Commission on Hispanic Affairs.

Late in the forum, the mayor traced events that ended with her not receiving the Democratic Party line for the June primary and disparaged Mapp, who did get the line despite a rocky relationship with the party over several years. Acknowledging Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Green as her mentor early on, she alleged he has been telling people she was not listening to him.

"I'm a grown woman," she said, alluding to reaching a point where mentoring was not needed.

She reminded the audience that Union County Democratic Chairman Charlotte DeFilippo, who gave Mapp the line, had recently been rebuked by state Local Government Services Director Tom Neff , and said Mapp "stole votes" in his Third Ward race which she said should have gone to his challenger, Rasheed Abdul-Haqq.

Calling herself "a woman who has given her all" to the community, Robinson-Briggs said of the primary, "This is an election that is going to change the face of Plainfield."

--Bernice