Bulldozer Vanquishes Sidewalk Snowbank

The rumble of heavy machinery was music to our ears on Block 832 Monday. A mighty bulldozer not only cleared the driveway from Park Avenue to Parking Lot 7, it demolished a four-foot pile of snow that was blocking the sidewalk on the East Seventh side of the lot.

On Sunday, churchgoers who normally use the lot found the driveway impossible to negotiate. The car in the foreground had a big piece of plywood at the rear, presumably to warn others who might get stuck. The truck blocked the entry off Park Avenue as an added measure.

This was the view looking east on the sidewalk near Scott Drugs Sunday.

Thanks to the bulldozer, pedestrians now can use the sidewalk and drivers can use the Park Avenue driveway. As the mayor might say, "Yay!!!"

--Bernice

A Budget Note

The municipal tax rate edged over the $4 mark with the December passage of the SFY 2011 budget.

The new rate is $4.005 per $100 of assessed valuation for the year ending June 30, 2011, meaning the owner of the average $113,000 home will pay $4,525.65 for the municipal portion of the SFY 2011 tax rate, up $216.96 from SFY 2010. (To figure the amount on homes valued higher or lower, divide the assessed valuation of your home by $100 and multiply the result by $4.005.)

The municipal rate is up 5 percent from the SFY 2010 rate of $3.813. But in June, a preliminary tax rate of $3.968 was set for the first two quarters of SFY 2011, so part of the increase has already been paid.

Plainfield's fiscal year and the calendar year do not match up. The city adopted a fiscal year, from July 1 to June 30, in the early 1990s. The process involved a six-month "transition year" budget. Some council members have spoken in favor of returning to a calendar year, but no action to that end has yet been proposed. The preliminary tax rate approved in June covers the first two quarters of the new fiscal year, which are the last two quarters of the calendar year.

The city has had a very high turnover in finance directors since 2006 and just received a new chief finance officer after a vacancy of three years. Even though the current system is confusing, the city probably needs to regain a sound financial footing before switching back to a calendar year.

--Bernice

Demise of the Payphone

This former wall of payphones at Twin City supermarket is looking pretty barren.

A couple of months ago, Verizon took out the payphone in Parking Lot 7, along with all its wires and the metal stanchion it had been mounted on. That phone was often vandalized and repair was quite costly.

The vanishing payphones reminded me of a feature in 2600 magazine, photos of payphones around the world. Click here for a link. Probably a lot of them are gone as well, now that people even in developing countries use cell phones for talking and even for monetary transactions, as is being done now in Haiti. There is a system that makes a phone a virtual debit card, according to a radio program I heard last week.

Years ago, when Faheemah El-Amin was on the City Council, payphones in Plainfield had become such a nuisance that the city proposed a phone ordinance (I forget whether it was enacted). Payphones had become the outdoor offices of some drug dealers, who stood at them for long hours and littered the vicinity with snack bags and such. There was also a flurry of protest over private payphones, which could be purchased by a property owner who then collected the coins. As I recall, they also attracted loiterers and and litterers.

Payphones were also a target of hackers, who figured out how to activate them for free to make long-distance calls (another flash from the past). Some users could whistle the tones needed to activate the phones. Click here to see an interesting history of the "Blue Box" era of hacking.

The payphone's wire pole in Lot 7 crashed on a truck parked in the lot after the base of the pole rusted through. I will not miss that payphone, which was the source of many a shouted one-way early morning phone call by lovelorn or angry callers, who accompanied their rantings with gestures and copious curse words. I was awakened many times each summer by these monologues at 2 or 3 a.m.

It's kind of funny now that cell phones have become a nuisance to those who are forced to listen to half a conversation on the train, bus or street. Maybe someday there will be implants that make people virtually telepathic and then they can babble back and forth in their heads without bothering others.

--Bernice

New City Clerk Sought

Now that City Clerk Laddie Wyatt has retired, the administration has begun a search for her successor.

The ad above was in the Sunday "Jobs" section of the Courier News, mixed in with ads for sales reps and telemarketers. Plaintalker thought a more likely place to get a response would be the municipal job listings on the League of Municipalities web site, but the only city ad there was for a director of Public Works & Urban Development. Click here to see their listings.

One hopes a permanent clerk will be named soon for this very important office. Meanwhile, Deputy Clerk Abubakar (AJ) Jalloh is ably holding down the fort.

From the state statutes, here are the duties of a municipal clerk:

The municipal clerk shall:

(1) act as secretary of the municipal corporation and custodian of the municipal seal and of all minutes, books, deeds, bonds, contracts, and archival records of the municipal corporation. The governing body may, however, provide by ordinance that any other specific officer shall have custody of any specific other class of record;

(2) act as secretary to the governing body, prepare meeting agendas at the discretion of the governing body, be present at all meetings of the governing body, keep a journal of the proceedings of every meeting, retain the original copies of all ordinances and resolutions, and record the minutes of every meeting;

(3) serve as the chief administrative officer in all elections held in the municipality, subject to the requirements of Title 19 of the Revised Statutes;

(4) serve as chief registrar of voters in the municipality, subject to the requirements of Title 19 of the Revised Statues;

(5) serve as the administrative officer responsible for the acceptance of applications for licenses and permits and the issuance of licenses and permits, except where statute or municipal ordinance has delegated that responsibility to some other municipal officer;

(6) serve as coordinator and records manager responsible for implementing local archives and records retention programs as mandated pursuant to Title 47 of the Revised Statutes;

(7) perform such other duties as are now or hereafter imposed by statute, regulation or by municipal ordinance or regulation.

--Bernice

Yale Carilloneurs Visit Plainfield

Fifteen members of the Yale Guild of Carilloneurs performed on the Pittis Carillon at Grace Episcopal Church Saturday as part of a "mini-tour" that will also include a visit to the Princeton University carillon. Here, Vera Wuensche begins with "On the San Antonio River."

She uses her closed hands to play the keyboard, which is attached to the bells above with a system of levers and wires.

The pedal keyboard is played with the feet.

Jessica Hsieh plays "The Dance of the Fireflies." See the video in the post below.

Clarence Cheng's selection was "Image No. 2."

This group arrived first for the visit. Others were delayed by car trouble. This view is from the steps to the bell tower.

Here are some of the massive bells. Read more about the Pittis Carillon here.

This is the narrow staircase to the tower.

Michael Solotke performs "Toccata for 42 Bells." As explained by the visitors, at Yale, the students perform twice a day and take requests, including popular songs. There are 24 Guild members in all. They do not have a teacher, but members commit to teach other students. Every spring break, they go on tour. Every other year, they go to Europe to play carillons.

When the group visits Princeton, they will meet with Robin Austin, who was once the carilloneur at Grace Church. Jeff Spelman is now the carilloneur. He greeted the students and noted their visit brought possibly the most carilloneurs ever to visit Grace Church at one time.

The imposing tower has gargoyles at its four corners. Click on any image for a larger view.

Al Pittis, whose family donated the carillon to the church, welcomes the visitors to cocoa and snacks after they perform.

Al Pittis gives the students a brief history of the carillon from its origins in the 1920s.

Only a couple of Plainfielders turned up Saturday for the tour and performances, but the visit was well-documented. Look for video on the Grace Church web site soon and even a YouTube post. The video below is a Plaintalker first.

Thanks to all the Yale students for a memorable occasion!

--Bernice

Carilloneur at Grace Church

What a treat to see members of the Yale Guild of Carilloneurs at Grace Church Saturday!

See my blog post for photos.

--Bernice

CN "Facelift" Explained

Online readers of the Courier News are invited to view a video that explains the changes in the site's look.

Click here for the link.

It seems that Middlesex and Somerset counties will be the main focus of the new site. A link to Top News for Plainfield was vacant this morning, although the Plainfield InJersey site is still good.

One of the quirks of online news sources is a feature called "Related Stories." It kind of bulks up the content, but the stories may be quite old in the news cycle. It's a clever gimmick that, in my opinion, leads the reader down memory lane when what readers really want is the news of the day. One example I saw yesterday was a local breaking news story with a link to Seattle homicides that, because I read The Seattle Times online, I recognized as a very tragic story that happened months ago. Today there is a "related stories" link to something that happened in Los Angeles in September!

As we all have heard many times over in 2010, news media are in the process of reinventing themselves to fit the times. People are getting their news on electronic gizmos all day, making the ink-and-paper model obsolete for many readers. Bloggers are treading on the hallowed ground of news reporting and "citizen journalists" are urged to join in after 20 minutes of training.

In the overall scheme of things for the so-called legacy media (what your parents grew up reading), Plainfield may emerge as a less attractive subject than more affluent towns that yield more advertising revenue. Even the hyperlocal "Patch" blogs are tending to focus on towns with more spending power than cities where dollar stores prevail.

So check out the new format and see both what you think and what they think about news coverage. The old adage, "The more things change, the more they remain the same," does not seem to be operative when it comes to delivering the news.

--Bernice