Questions have come up recently about brownfields and a committee that is supposed to be involved in oversight of a brownfields program.
Like several other initiatives that began over the past seven years, the brownfields program sunk out of sight. This could be due in part to a turnover in Public Works administrators after Jennifer Wenson Maier left the city. She was director of Public Works & Urban Development for the entire four-year first term of Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, but was not reappointed. She stayed on briefly before taking a similar post in Hoboken.
After that, David Brown III was director for less than a year and then the post was vacant except for an acting appointment of Jacques Howard in 2010. It was not until Eric Jackson became director in September 2011 that the department had a full-time director again.
Plaintalker posted several articles about brownfields in Plainfield, one of which sums up some of the information needed now. Click here to read it. Anyone interested in other posts in the Plainfield Plaintalker archive can put "brownfields" in the search box and see them.
The Plaintalker archive of 2,400-plus posts spans the period from June 2005 to May 2010, after which there are currently 1,738 more in the Plaintalker II archive. I urge readers with questions about city topics to check these archives. I don't know how much longer I will be able to blog, but these archives themselves stand as a contribution to understanding Plainfield.
--Bernice
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"I don't know how much longer I will be able to blog"
ReplyDeleteYour service to Plainfield is priceless. You certainly deserve the rest, but the sentence above makes me sad. You need to know, Bernice, that you are respected, loved, and appreciated for all you do.
Bernice: as someone whose news career started at the BBC in London and ended with 23 years at The Star-Ledger, I heartily agree with anon. 1.12 (why be anonymous, btw?) One: your comment made me sad, Two: We need you.
ReplyDeleteI too felt concern with that sentence, Bernice. Sounds like a prophetic statement, which we are sadden to hear.
ReplyDeleteI echo all that @1:12 has said.
Siddeeq W. El-Amin
Didn't state funds for brownfield clean up disappear and there was not audit process to enable anyone to find where the money went?
ReplyDeleteLee Place $200,000.00 for clean -up (USEPA)
DeleteThe 200,000.00 for Petroleum and 200,000.00 for Hazardous is/was being utilized for the continuation of studies required for various sites within the City mostly in redevelopment areas.
As I have frequently remarked you are still the quintessential reporter. Your blog is the singular one for factual and investigative community news. There are no others. Having held a medical license for nearly 70 years that infamous sentence disturbs me.Hope it ain't so.
ReplyDelete??? I've rarely seen you put a sentence in the wasn't intended to state something... I am worried Bernice.
ReplyDeleteLike Doc says, I consider you a "news source" as well as someone I've become accustomed to in my daily life.