Photos from National Night Out

I walked over to City Hall Tuesday to take some photos of the 2014 National Night Out and found a very diverse crowd enjoying the crime prevention event. Click images to enlarge or see slide show.

Plainfield Police Bike Patrol members show off their distinctive uniforms.

Public Works Superintendent John Louise mans the grill.

Remember the Yew project? Progress could be seen at the event.

The weather was fine, despite predictions of possible thunderstorms.

Danny Dunn and Council President Bridget Rivers are on the scene.

Face-painting is always popular.

Councilwoman Vera Greaves and the National Night Out Committee organized the event.

See Facebook for photos of the Netherwood Heights Neighbors National Night out event.

Former Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs has appeared at many events since leaving office on Dec. 31 and Tuesday's event was no exception. Here she is with political sidekicks Carmen Salavarrieta and Kim Montford and Councilwoman Gloria Taylor.

--Bernice

National Night Out

National Night Out, 2005

National Night Out began 30 years ago and will be observed at 6:30 p.m. tonight in front of City Hall with a basketball contest, a performance by the Plainfield Drill Team and a poetry reading.

Netherwood Heights Neighbors will hold a parade from Netherwood train station to Cook School Park for a neighborhood gathering, a model I hope other groups will be following. All are reminded to turn on porch lights as a way of increasing awareness of crime prevention.

For the rest of the year, I would like to propose a focus on increasing general civility - doing away with those little crimes of littering, defacing buildings with graffiti and riding bikes on the sidewalk. No merch is involved, just a willingness to think of others and how the city comes across to people who might be interested in living here or opening a business in the city.

--Bernice

2020 Visions

Click image to enlarge

It's only five years until Plainfield's 150th anniversary. In 1969, a Centennial Celebration Committee gathered memorabilia and "prophecies for the future" for a time capsule to be opened on Jan. 1, 2020, after the anniversary.

As noted on the plaque, the time capsule was donated by City Federal Savings.The building at East Second and Watchung is now a branch of Investors Bank, but the time capsule is still there.

As intriguing it is to speculate what might be in the capsule, it is even more so to imagine the shape of the downtown in five years if all the proposed development comes about. There could be hundreds of new apartments downtown and even more around the Netherwood train station. By then, there might be a parking deck instead of a parking lot on East Second Street.

One of the city's chronic impediments to progress has been the turnover of administrations every four years or so. During the tenure of the late Mayor Albert T. McWilliams, about a dozen development proposals were in the pipeline. Most were ignored by the Robinson-Briggs administration in favor of new ones, but the only major completed project was The Monarch, with 63 condos over senior and veterans' centers. The units are now largely rentals and the veterans' center has yet to be occupied by city veterans.

The administration of Mayor Adrian O. Mapp has pledged to revisit several redevelopment plans in addition to welcoming some new ones. I hope the study led by Dr. Roland Anglin will be considered also.

From a 2013 blog post:

Currently, the city is receiving guidance from The Anglin Group on economic development. I have read the 148-page document on "Promoting the Community and Economic Development of Plainfield" produced by Anglin and associates at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and can recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. It outlines five strategies for Plainfield that could be applied in the next four years. If they are being applied now, somebody should be able to tell the public how and give specific examples.

The key to progress appears to be a shared interest among all "stakeholders" including elected officials in a positive outcome. If the administration and governing body are at odds, developers will likely go somewhere else. This is not to say Plainfield has to agree to any scheme that comes along without proper vetting and controls over development, but there has to be more welcoming and less territoriality from officials. A developer can't be expected to intuit the turfiness of a city and pick one faction over another, hoping it is the right one to get things done.

Anglin advocated for a written plan to establish "Plainfield 2021," a process for improving the city's economy and quality of life. Whether one aims for 2019, 2020 or 2021, the impending milestone seems reason enough to cooperate on laying groundwork for the city's future decades.

Meanwhile, I wonder what is in that time capsule from 1969. If you had made one then, what would you have included?

--Bernice 

One for Jackie

I thought of Plainfield blogger Jackie Schnoop today when I came across a curious wildflower on the grounds of the main train station. Jackie is always coming across interesting plants on her travels to and from work. Many are in plain sight, but go unnoticed by most people. Those of us who have cameras and blogs tend to be scanning the landscape a little more closely.

You can tell by the leaves that this plant is related to clover. It is part of the huge family that includes peas, beans, kudzu, vetch, golden chain trees and many more. This one is called Birdsfoot Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus, also known as Crowtoe.

A look at the seedpod will explain the latter nickname.

Jackie posts her Plainfield blog every Sunday and includes lots of flower images. It's always good to see aspects of the city through another person's eyes, so check out Jackie's perspective.

--Bernice

Snowflakes vs. Hats

Somehow crocheting snowflakes is not proving to be as relaxing a pastime as I expected.

I am working from an old booklet on how the make the snowflakes and I forgot how complicated the directions can get.

So far I have produced a couple dozen wadded-up lumps of string that will need to be starched and pinned into shape. My quest for rust-proof straight pins led to many inquiries on Amazon. Is nickel-plated steel really rust-proof? Where are the stainless steel ones? Should I use T-pins or ball-topped pins? What the heck else can I order to add up to $35? Solution: A Broken Bells CD, a replacement spool for the (other kind of string) trimmer, another crochet booklet and an extra pack of pins.}

Now all I need is a foam board for pinning. I already picked up white glue to use for stiffening. I have designated The Crochet Architect as my official coach in this venture. Geez - 54 pins per snowflake? Twenty-four hours to dry?

The winter holidays are a long way off, enough time to test my tenacity in following crochet instructions and doing all else necessary to turn out a snowflake made of white string and glue.

Come to think of it, I also have plenty of time to reconsider and drop back to crocheting hats. They require little concentration, can be done in an hour and will keep some kiddies' heads warm all winter.

Exquisite seasonal doo-dads or simple practicality? This world is so full of major dilemmas, I'm glad I have just this little one.

--Bernice

Foushee Makes Three for Trenton

-Bob Jagendorf

In 2011,  the Queen City was on the receiving end of governmental talent from the state's capitol and Plaintalker quipped, "Trenton Makes, Plainfield Takes?"

Now the talent is flowing in the opposite direction. Not only did Plainfield Public Works Director Eric Jackson return to Trenton as mayor, he named former Plainfield Corporation Counsel David Minchello his acting Law Director and, according to a report in nj.com, has just named Plainfield city engineer Jacqueline Foushee as his acting Public Works director.

In January 2011, Plainfield finally got a chief financial officer, Ron Zilinski from Trenton, after several years without one. Zilinski served for a year. Jackson became Public Works director in September 2011 and quickly won approval for his warm personality and professionalism. He was so popular that even after his term ended on Dec. 31, 2013, he was appointed to serve in the new administration of Mayor Adrian O. Mapp.

One City Hall staffer deemed him "mayoral material" even before he filed on March 10 to run for the office in Trenton. In fact, he had narrowly lost a 2010 Trenton mayoral contest to Tony Mack, who is now serving prison time for corruption

Jackson did not win the May primary outright, but received 55 percent of the vote in a July 10 runoff election. He had barely been sworn in on July 1 before he named Minchello acting Law Director. Minchello will retain his ties to Plainfield by serving as city solicitor.

As reported in nj.com, Foushee will be the first African-American female director of Public Works in Trenton.

Plainfield moved from an in-house engineering division to contracting for engineering services with Remington & Vernick about eight years ago. Foushee served most recently as the firm's representative and developed an encyclopedic knowledge of Plainfield's roads and other physical features.

Jackson and Foushee inherited one of Plainfield's thorniest problems, a supposed five-year road repair program from 2005 that had gotten so far off-course that officials began speaking of "phases" rather than years of accomplishment. Foushee's calm demeanor in explaining each road project seemingly did a lot to assure the public that progress was being made.

The next Public Works director and engineer will find road repairs an ongoing challenge and still a prime source of residents' complaints to City Hall. The Mapp administration recently consolidated unused bond funds in order to redirect them to road repairs.

--Bernice

How Did the Town Meeting Go?

"What did I miss?"

I was unable to attend the Town Meeting but will take comments, impressions, reactions, whatever - from anyone who attended and can respond in a civil tone.

--Bernice