The Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority will have a special meeting Tuesday, with one item being employment of a new executive director.
According to a legal notice published Saturday, the meeting will open at 1 p.m. in PMUA headquarters at 127 Roosevelt Avenue and its board of commissioners will then go into closed session to discuss "and take action" regarding contract negotiations involving the executive director and the assistant executive director and employment of a new executive director.
Both Executive Director Eric Watson and Assistant Executive Director David Ervin announced earlier this year they would be retiring. Chief Finance Officer James Perry also said he would be stepping down in the fall. All three have been with the authority since its inception in 1995.
While contractual matters are one of the topics that can be discussed in closed session under the Open Public Meetings Act, any votes arising out of such discussions normally take place in public. Given the time of the meeting, not many members of the public will be able to attend to witness any vote that may occur.
As Plaintalker previously reported, since Watson announced his retirement, several speakers at public meetings have portrayed him as being under some kind of duress that led to his decision. Even before that, in meetings with the governing body Watson often took a defensive stance. A successor will face the same challenges of management that Watson had, but will also have the opportunity to set a more collegial tone with peers in city government and to choose a new approach to ratepayers' concerns.
Change is coming to the PMUA. Its past model may no longer fit the times. Let us hope the commissioners can identify individuals who can build on the authority's accomplishments while bringing leadership that can take the organization to a new level of service to Plainfield and beyond.
--Bernice
Maybe his successor will be someone who can - A) Handle the pressure of dealing with a multi-million dollar business, hence worth the pay and B) Be open withe all the records and seek opinion from it's customers to improve it's business model.
ReplyDeleteIf being open and honest with business dealings is too much pressure maybe he should run for State Assembly...it's not required or expected of them.
I received the latest newsletter from PMUA last week. 3 1/2 of it's 8 pages were a tribute to the three soon to be gone executives. Nothing could more eloquently describe how the PMUA is about the executives' personalities and opinions of themselves rather than the services provided by the authority. It's why we hear about how upset they've been made by legitimate criticism. Can you remember any public servants who complain so much about being criticized? Well, aside from Mayor Robinson-Briggs and Assemblyman Green?
ReplyDeleteOne can only hope the commissioners employ a director who is in it for the city but then again this is Plainfield so there were probably no interviews - just a couple of back door deals.
ReplyDeleteDUMPPMUA recently stated that Watson, Ervin, Brokaw, and Toliver were recently in Chicago for an NFBPA "conference" Maybe they were actually looking for the replacements at that "conference"
Only time will tell.
@2:10 Yup our public funds hard at work
ReplyDeletehttp://pmua.info/docs/memo.pdf
NFBPA NJ Chapter head listed as Carol Ann Brokaw Esq. with PMUA phone number as contact.
ReplyDeleteUsed to be Don Davis with a Scotch Plains address.
If, as has been speculated above, the trip by the PMUA leadership (minus David Beck, naturally) to the National Forum for Black Public Administrators was a recruiting trip, one could reasonably infer that they are willing to eliminate 87% of the possible candidates on the basis of race. No wonder Plainfield is what it is.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nfbpanewjersey.org/
ReplyDeleteEXECUTIVE OFFICERS
Eric C. Watson - National Board Member
David Brown - President
Yolanda C. Cox - 1st Vice President
Jeffery Booker - 2nd Vice President
Lana Carden - Treasurer
Lisa Casey - Secretary
Dollie Hamlin - Parliamentarian
PMUA is an instance where narrow self-interest gets the better of the common good. As a city, we are paying way too much to maintain this empire, presumably based simply on sewer and garbage. But it's really all about the extra layers of bureaucracy, with its full contingent of lawyers, engineers, auditors, and other professional service-types who get the big contracts and buy our public officials with their campaign contributions, Regular Dem and New Dem alike, and no doubt Republicans too if they had any clout in Plainfield.
ReplyDeleteLet's not also forget the many patronage jobs that keep PMUA's back office over-staffed, while so much else of city business is short-staffed and getting leaner.
Now, of course, the fall-back position we hear all the time is how great it is that the PMUA is in the forefront of the social justice business too, giving opportunities to ex-offenders through its re-entry program. Super! However, as a community we would be able to do much more if we weren't first paying the freight of enriching the contractors who buy the politicians that turn around and give them the contracts.
We are one smallish city that is suffering at the hands of the greedy and self-interested, and we simply cannot afford to maintain this empire of excess. Make it seamless, or make it go away.
All of the above are PMUA employees. If Eric wants to waste his own money to go to the NFBPA let him do so but don't waste the taxpayers on this club.
ReplyDelete