Mayor Adrian O. Mapp's nomination of three people to serve as PMUA commissioners is likely to be an item of high interest at Monday's double City Council meeting.
The council will hold both an agenda session and a regular meeting Monday. The schedule calls for an executive session at 6:30 p.m. and agenda-fixing at 7:30 p.m., followed by the voting meeting. All will take place in Municipal Court, 325 Watchung Ave.
Mapp has been trying since January to replace holdovers and fill a vacancy on the board of the authority that provides solid waste and sewer service to the city. The council so far has only approved two actions, replacing holdover Commissioner Alex Toliver with Charles Tyndale on the eve of the PMUA's February reorganization, and reappointing Commissioner Carol Ann Brokaw to the board.
The nominees for Monday are Thomas Crownover to replace holdover Commissioner Malcolm Dunn; Michell Graham-Lyons to replace holdover Commissioner Harold Mitchell (currently the PMUA chairman); and Ada Melendez to fill the vacancy created when Cecil Sanders left his seat as an alternate to become a full commissioner in January 2013. The first hurdle Monday will be whether the mayor's nominations get moved to the agenda for the regular meeting. If they do, approval is probable, but not guaranteed.
Crownover is an attorney and also executive director of a parking authority. Graham-Lyons is a senior investment research analyst. Melendez is a community and business development officer employed by Investors Bank.
The PMUA has been steeped in controversy since it began in 1995 with three former city Public Works officials in charge. The authority faced litigation by City Council members early on, and a citizen revolt dubbed "Dump PMUA" in 2009. A council-appointed task force in 2012.suggested its dissolution and results of a state investigation are pending. A lucrative settlement with outgoing executives Eric Watson and David Ervin caused an uproar.
Former Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs tried at least five times during her two terms to change the composition of the PMUA board of commissioners. Mapp has also tried with limited success since taking office on Jan. 1. He recently surprised Plainfielders by naming Watson acting director of Public Works & Urban Development, the department Watson left during Mayor Mark Fury's administration to head the fledgling authority. Before creation of the PMUA, property owners contracted with private haulers for trash removal and the city maintained the sewer system.
If appointed, Crownover will succeed Malcolm Dunn for an unexpired term ending Feb. 1, 2019 and Graham-Lyons will succeed Harold Mitchell for an unexpired term ending Feb. 1, 2016. Melendez will serve as alternate No. 2 for an unexpired term ending Feb. 1, 2015.
--Bernice
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Fat chance
ReplyDeleteBrokaw and Mitchell are still receiving illegal compensation, totaling close to $40,000 a year between them. And come January when Diane Toliver takes her seat on the City Council, she will join Tracey Brown as another member who has benefited from this PMUA abuse.
ReplyDeletehttps://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-51dYlart-_b0FfOXFVWTdoZWs/view?usp=sharing
Meanwhile neither the City or PMUA is living up to the financial terms of the Inter Local Agreement regarding the Solid Waste Lease and the City Appropriation.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-51dYlart-_SzdMQktVUGFmakU/view?usp=sharing
The new commissioner nominees are an accomplished group, and it is high time the City Council makes the necessary changes on the Board so the reform process may begin. But the mayor doesn't need new commissioners to get started. He should enforce the ordinance that limits commissioner compensation and has been on the books since 1995, calling those commissioners who have benefited to account. He should uphold the terms of the Inter Local Agreement by stopping the sham payment to PMUA of $100,000/mo, and demand the correct appropriation and Solid Waste Lease payment from the Authority. And he should put an end to the fraudulent booking of the Sewer Lease as Revenue Sharing in the City budget, which for years has masked the absence of any revenue sharing.
Monday we will see who wants the charade to continue and who has the interest of all Plainfielders at heart.
There are 2 sewer systems:
ReplyDeleteSanitary Sewers - Household toilets, industrial waste etc; pumped down to Sayreville, NJ for treatment and disposal in the Ocean. Pipes and pump stations in the City boundaries are maintained by the PMUA and this is where the $$$ goes.
Storm Sewers - Rainwater, snow melt; flowing by gravity to the local brooks. Maintained by Public Works Division.
What's your point?
DeleteWatson is going to be part of mapps cabinet and their going to fix pmua what punch of suckers webster be .
DeleteCarol Ann Brokaw was receiving the entire benefit package during her previous years of service. As a consequence of the public challenging the propriety of the Commissioners receiving this illegal compensation the policy was altered so that newly appointed Commissioners no longer receive these costly benefits. Did Ms. Brokaw's benefit package terminate with her reappointment?
ReplyDeleteThe Achilles heal of the PMUA is the disproportionate assignment of the amounts charged for Household collection versus Shared Services. The Shared services being inordinately high. The Shared Services being the portion of the PMUA bill that the public can not opt out of. If the proportion were appropriate, resulting in a large increase in the Household solid waste fee, there would be a massive exodus from the PMUA to private collection. At several past annual rater hearings the engineers and accountants for the PMUA, the CFO of the PMUA have been asked to provide the calculations from which the fees for each of these categories has been determined. It would be easier to obtain the password to the Pentagon computer. They ain't talking.
It is interesting to watch a cross section of the people appeal to the City Council during the public comment period, for cooperation between the Council and the Mayor. The next Council meeting will be the barometer of whether these appeals, and common sense, have fallen on deaf ears or there can be progress. If the nominees are again rejected it portends of continuing fowl weather for the next 4 years. Bill Kruse
Correction: Please chamge "heal" to "heel".
DeleteThanks. Bill Kruse
I hope citizens will be there to show their support for putting new blood on the PMUA. If not, we get what we put up with. Let's show that we have backbone and remind the City Council who they work for.
ReplyDeleteBrokaw and Mitchell were the only votes against the million-dollar settlement with Watson and Ervin. I've heard there were court cases pending--anybody got any word on that?
ReplyDeleteDo anybody knows when williamson contract is up for renewal
ReplyDeleteAlan, Really? If the PMUA commissioners were receiving illegal benefits with all of your noise, and that is what it exactly is, noise, the governor would have stepped in along time ago.
ReplyDelete