The issue at hand is the propriety of giving public funds to a charity. What are the guidelines and parameters? Should $10,000 be put in the budget for a charitable cause?
It is not about Rev. Tracey Brown. I have seen her good works since the days of her youth involvement at Washington School. She was affiliated with a city church and then was able to found her own. Her congregation increased dramatically. She met the pressing needs of her community, including many a funeral for a young person cut down by gun violence.
I know her world extends far beyond Plainfield as well, in her missionary work.
Sitting at the dais, she often has a thoughtful look that makes me think she is weighing her decisions from her very enlightened and spiritual outlook.
I believe she understands stewardship, and as an elected official acts from a moral basis.
She did not talk about the council putting $10,000 in the budget for a charity program. One of her congregants did so and incidentally invoked her pastor.
The simple issue here is whether a governing body can lawfully allocate government funds to a charity and if so, what is the mechanism that will satisfy the Local Finance Board within the Department of Community Affairs? When I get the legal citation on how this is prohibited or under what circumstances it is allowed, I will publish it.
--Bernice
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I agree with your assessment of Councilwoman Brown. I have often looked at her and felt that she would rather have the flu and a root canal at the same time instead of being on the council.
ReplyDeleteI say shame on sharon for taking advantage of Councilwoman Brown's relationship with her.
It is clear that Bernice has not learned Plainfield's Prime Directive yet. Although she has of her own free will, time and finances attempted to give various news stories to City residents, she has yet to learn this City of Plainfield Maxim:
ReplyDeleteNo Good Deeds Goes Unpunished.
[Ask anyone in City Hall to explain this from their own personal encounters with various Mayors]
HOGWASH! With all due respect to Tracey Brown and to you Bernice, your summation of her decision making process on the Council is a bunch of hogwash. Why? PMUA.
ReplyDeleteIn my mind all the good deeds she does for the residents of our city, and I am sure we only hear about a portion of them, they're all thrown out by her partisan votes on matters that affect desperately needed change at the PMUA. The NO votes she casts are neither "morale" nor do they come from an "enlightened and spiritual outlook" - they are political, they are partisan, and they give one the impression that she is just another venal politician.
Those NO votes do not serve her constitutions, they do not serve her city, and they financially hurt the members of her own congregation that live in Plainfield. They are self serving.
I wish I had met Jesus before I met a Christian.
Jim
DeleteMonday night Reverend Brown will have an opportunity to redeem herself by approving whomever Mayor Mapp nominates for Commissionership at the PMUA. It will be interesting to observe whether she avails herself of this grace. Bill Kruse
First of all if you two haters have noticed (Jim and Bill) The Good Reverend have abstained on all matters dealing with PMUA taking Alan's ridiculous advise.JIM you are just mad that she did not vote for you for PMUA so hogwash to you, but you are right the work that she does for this community and those in need the half have not been told. JIM what do you do, except criticize everyone that does not share your often wrong point of view, hogwash to you.BILL she has already been redeemed BY SOMEONE MIGHTIER than any of you , your redemption means nothing I am sure to her. Rita Lawson
ReplyDeleteNews flash, abstaining is the same as a no vote. I'm sure Tracy is aware of that.
DeleteIf Bill and Jim's redemption means nothing to her, than she's not half the person you purport her to be in the religious arena.... all are worth redemption and entitled to it... whether you or she believe it or not...practicing what you preach, not your strong point I see.
DeleteJim Spear has never been a candidate for nomination to the P.M.U.A.
Delete@ Rita Lawson, lying about this to the public and calling people names is not following the teaching of our saviour Jesus Christ or the advice of Pastor Brown.
Jim, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, giving sometimes literally the shirt off her back, feeding the homeless at the YMCA, visiting the prisons, providing free funerals for plainfield residents, helping people with rent money who are on the verge of eviction, asking her congregation those who could to bring turkeys for the needy, all her good works should be thrown out because you don't like her or the way she votes for PMUA, really? Well you guessed I am one of her members. I hate the fact that she is a politician and pray she does not run again, but for somebody like you to say throw out everything she did because of the stupid PMUA, who I personally think should go, but that is another story.Jim did you work with her in Haiti after the earthquake? OH, I forgot throw that out too.A Member of RFM who my pastor would be upset with for responding to negativity, she oftens tells us the Lord will fight our battles, but I could not let this go.
ReplyDeleteThis dialogue is a perfect example of the hazards that arise when a religious enters politics. No one has criticized Reverend Brown's outstanding works or her faith both are commendable. The commentaries related exclusively to her performance as a politician. Further muddying the waters is the fact that one of Reverend Brown's parishioners, who happened to be the Mayor, managed to direct Public funds to Reverend Brown's church to conduct a charitable dinner. When Reverend Brown chose to enter the public arena she should have accepted the reality that not every one would agree with her conduct. Politics is a nasty arena. And you as her parishioner should accept that not every one who criticizes her conduct as a public official "throws out" her magnificent charitable works, or is a "Hater". The Plainfield City Council is behaving like our Federal Congress: divided and incapable of progress. Reverend Brown can provide a measure of unity by voting affirmatively for the outstanding nominees that Mayor Mapp has placed in nomination for Commissionerships. . By voting no' or abstaining, she will contribute to the perpetuation of the disunity as well as endorsing the same party hacks that have mismanaged the Authority since inception.
DeleteNow you may disagree with my belief that many of the current Commissioners should be replaced. You may disagree that the nominees are better suited than those who are there now, But if you do disagree this does not entitle me to say that you are a Hater or that you disrespect whatever few good deeds I might have done in my lifetime. Bill Kruse
Like each and every one of us Rev. Brown wears many hats. Clearly as a pastor her hard work and kindness have helped thousands to people. For that she should be justifiably praised and held up as an example of the charity we should all have for our fellow men and women.
ReplyDeleteShe is also a politician. As a PMUA Commissioner she oversaw an organization that is corrupt and abusive to its ratepayers by charging twice as much for trash services and almost three times as much for sewer services which is flat our WRONG! As a Council member, she has repeatedly voted to support Jerry Green's agenda to block any meaningful reform in Plainfield so he and is political allies can help themselves to millions of dollars from the City and PMUA budgets. Recently, she voted against funding the forensic audit, which was recommended by the City auditors as a means of understanding where taxpayer money was spent when the City was run without any financial oversight during the last administration. As taxpayers, we have the right to know how and why our tax dollars were spent. In these actions, she has shown herself to be putting the interests of a few privileged individuals and companies over the needs of the people she represents and for that she should be justifiably criticized.
Tom Kaercher
You better watch out Tom, now those good Christians will attack you too. State and church are a clear divide. Look what it does to plainfield. And Tracey Brown is just a face to that divide. I am not a hater but as a taxpayer, I do strongly resent that I have to subsidize the tax exemption of any church or related property in this city. If it is true that our tax dollars went further than this as a charitable do attain, well then those Christ lovers who are clearly haters themselves deserve what they get.
DeleteAgain,for the hard of hearing and reading,Rev.Brown was not an elected official during the Feed the Children Event. Her church hosted it and did not sponsor it.Nevertheless, she was happy to help feed over 400+ families.Rita
ReplyDeletePraise be to jesus
DeleteRita or SRB, whoever you really are; what you failed to realize or just can’t comprehend, this isn’t about the Reverend Tracy Brown or even Councilwoman Tracy Brown. It’s about the previous Mayor and the possibility of her mishandling tax payers money. Can you understand that or do you truly believe your comments will take the focus on the facts?
DeleteKS