By Emory Layne
A lot of material to cover today.
Must be an election year; we’re seeing activity that seems to coincidentally, start taking place just before we go to the polls. Things are getting cleaned up; more speeders are being pulled over.
But this year, some of the activities look more like Presidential pardons issued as the lame duck is leaving, instead of voting enticements. There’s a brand new storage building, built across from the Vermuele Park/Playground last month, on the site of one of those bungalows that got taken down. I don’t recall seeing or hearing anything about this in Council meetings, and since it was subcontracted out, shouldn’t we have? Looks like “get it in before we can’t” to me. Same thing with the nice, new paint job the Recreation Building got over on the Vermuele property, done by DPW workers.
I hope the people in office now understand that stuff like this leaves a paper trail.
Suggestion to the NPCCR: Want to host a REALLY well attended Town Meeting? Hold a meeting with the theme of “harassment,” and invite everyone who’s been subjected to official strong-arming from Borough Hall employees and officials to attend. Let them speak their piece; it will be the first time any of them have had the opportunity to discuss these incidents in anything approaching an “official” setting.
Then, compile all the information, and present it to a lawyer or a newspaper. No, wait. Just self-publish it, because it’s pretty obvious who the official lawyers and newspapers of this town work for … and it ain’t us.
On newspapers, does anyone besides me find it strange that the Courier-News, the ‘official newspaper of North Plainfield,’ hasn’t picked up and reported a single issue raised on this blog? If you ‘Google’ any of the elected officials, candidates or issues handled here, you get all kinds of links to this blog on the first page of results.
Yet even with so much of the research legwork already done, our official newspaper doesn’t seem interested in contacting anyone at this blog or in town and looking into any of this. Occasionally, reporters phone the mayor, who doesn’t answer or return the call. Pulitzer Prize level journalism! When information is a mouse-click away for an objective “non-partisan” publication, and they ignore it, I suddenly discern a new and more appropriate meaning to the phrase “official newspaper of North Plainfield.”
Do the people currently displaying Democrat signs consider the major logic problem involved in that sign display? Very recently, some of the people listed on those signs tried to rush through an ordinance that would have made it illegal to display that sign at current time.
Their opponents - and yes, I know it wasn’t totally for idealistic reasons - brought the issue into the public’s eye, and the ordinance sponsors backed down and revised the ordinance. And then, those candidates rushed out and printed the signs currently displayed for them. Those homeowners’ value to the candidates is solely as an advertising venue; had they posted homemade signs out of true, ardent support, and had the Republicans not challenged the sign ordinance, those homeowners would have been fined.
Yep, makes complete sense to me … after I hit myself in the head with a campaign sign a few dozen times.
Let’s run through the issues in this campaign. To be fair, I’ll use the incumbents’ list as the basis, not the challengers’ list.
However, to ”achieve economics of scale” in keeping with the Mayor’s recent tax letter, I’ll refer to our Current Elected Officials as the CEOs.
“Open and honest communication between Borough officials and citizens.”
That’s what the CEOs are promising us if they win. They’ve already had ample opportunity to show us their commitment to this type of communication, but to date, have done nothing of the sort. About the best they can point to are a Borough website (containing a lot of self-congratulatory content, but no acknowledgment of contrary views) and a Borough newsletter (two newsletters published in the last 12 years). Their party chooses not to maintain any web presence.
Meanwhile, their challengers maintain a website that addresses issues and makes proposals, something none of the incumbents have done specifically. While their challengers are saying “If elected, I will pursue this specific action,” the CEOs list a series of vague, noncommittal promises, none of which can be measured in simple ways (i.e., they did it or they didn’t do it.)
Their challengers openly communicate with residents on this blog and on their own; the CEOs have only deigned to participate in open communication when not doing so (the NPCCR’s Meet the Candidates and Debate nights) would, obviously, reflect very poorly on them.
Conclusion: the yard signs displayed for the CEOs is about the only communication they do in an expedient manner. But they swear they will communicate, if elected.
“Fair and consistent enforcement of ordinances.”
Curious thing - news continues to leak out that enforcement in North Plainfield is often unfair and insconsistent.
Let’s look at the track record. One of the challenging candidates (Frank D’Amore) has, for years, researched violations and presented them gift-wrapped to Borough Hall for absolutely no compensation. Zoning Officer James Rodino, the hand-picked employee whose work Mr. D’Amore is doing for him, manages to NOT complete the process. The CEOs have repeated their ‘commitment’ to this topic each and every election year, yet the hard numbers show they’ve ignored it.
Except certain enforcements certainly do take place in a highly selective manner, and sometimes, there’s even an actual violation. But in far too many situations, there is no violation, and paid representatives of the Borough hand out summonses or claim violations that do not exist.
And by another one of those amazing North Plainfield coincidences (it must be the water), the people set upon by the CEOs just happen to be critics of the CEOs.
To the CEOs, of all the ordinances on the books, the most vital ones have to do with leaf piles or other unthinkables. Illegal apartments, reckless driving, and other such nonsense are best left alone.
One last thought on that promise of enforcement. “Paying taxes” is a law that would be good to “fairly and consistently enforce.” Yet the CEOs have gone beyond ignoring hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes owed from the Villa Maria property, and actually appear to be trying to find ways to excuse them.
To date, we haven’t received one answer to the simple question:
“If I have to pay my taxes, why don’t they?”
Conclusion: the CEOs track record in this area is so abysmal, they probably shouldn’t have brought it up. But then, they’ve brought it up every election in the past and won, so perhaps it’s some kind of good luck charm to them.
Just like those signs they didn’t want up in September, and then rushed to put up in September.
“Incentives to increase commerce Downtown and on the Route 22 corridor.”
Let’s step back and look at this from a distance. The CEOs have pretty much had the run of the town for the last 10 years. They’ve stocked the business-related committees with their own fish, and hired all the people (borough planners and other consultants) whose work could go a long way toward making North Plainfield an attractive town for businesses to come to and set up shop.
Yet all we’ve ever heard about are “new” businesses that replaced “old” businesses that left.
Mayor Allen made a rather big deal of the “new” CVS pharmacy they “brought in” next to the high school football field, never mentioning the ACME supermarket that left, which it replaced. This election, it’s the “new” Circuit City, which replaces the “old” Staples and pet store/furniture stores that vacated the site.
Economics 101: You can’t “increase” commerce by trading the customers of one old business for customers of one new business. That’s a wash.
You need to attract
- (a) NEW businesses to sites that have been empty and dormant for years (i.e. the long-vacant sites along Route 22 between Kmart and the aforementioned new Circuit City), and
- (b) NEW businesses into unused commercial property.
Some communities have managed to achieve results in these areas, even with some pretty stringent (approaching dictatorial) ordinances about signage and parking … including other communities “along the Route 22 corridor.”
Somehow, North Plainfield can’t, even with everyone the CEOs want sitting on, running and providing professional input to the committees.
As far as downtown goes, we have quite enough of what we already have there. How many more check cashing places, ethnic restaurants, ethnic stores, laundromats and convenience stores are needed?
Is there something WRONG with an ethnic store or restaurant, Emory?
…someone says, menacingly.
Nope, of course not. But with all the “Downtown Revitalization” that’s been one of the Allen/Giordano team’s pet projects for a decade, this is what’s been achieved. Oh, and some cobblestones and lamppost banners.
The CEOs have been running the show. Does anyone have a clue what they’ve done to this point? If new business is important to the CEOs, they certainly seem to be clueless about what new businesses look for when trying to find a place to do business. My guess it that business owners want what so many residents want - which is at odds with so many of the CEOs’ policies that ignore enforcement of selected laws and ordinances, possibly to pander to a substantial portion of the CEOs voter base.
Conclusion: Perhaps someday we’ll see some new business signs cropping up in North Plainfield, in places where they haven’t been before or haven’t been for a long time. But it won’t come from the people promising to do it if they haven’t been able to do it with 10 years of free rein.
“Environmentally conscious development.”
Personally, and I’m speaking solely for myself, I won’t lose sleep if the old buildings at the Villa Maria get knocked down someday. And one tree or one shrub here or there is not going to send me into paroxysms of grief. I’m no Zealous Villa Maria Protector.
Here’s what I do lose sleep over. If there’s an area that would make a pretty nice park or Open Space area, and the CEOs have invested every last drop of their energy into making it a breeze for a developer to build something on that property that will make him, the developer, a ton of cash, how can they even utter that phrase?
Remember, these are the people who take great pride in a new business replacing an old one.
So how about ‘new’ apartments replacing ‘old’ apartments?
Or ‘new’ single-family homes replacing ‘old’ ones?
Nope, they’re dead-set on making sure that property up there off Watchung Avenue has SOMETHING profitable (for the developer) built on it. They’ve practically had the ways and means of dealing with this development in an environmentally conscious (their words) manner, GIFT WRAPPED for them, and have not only ignored those who brought those ideas forward, but harassed and tried to prosecute them.
Conclusion: that’s the one outright lie of the group. You don’t have to be tree-hugger to understand that a long time ago, it was determined that some people were going to get wealthy off that property, and the only efforts since have been concerted efforts to achieve that, and only that, goal. The CEOs can’t wait to get the builder’s signs up there.
“Shared services and grant acquisitions to stabilize taxes.”
Economics 102: grants don’t stabilize taxes. They redistribute taxes. You’ll hear the ‘S’ word (stabilize) over and over, but never the ‘R’ word (reduce).
Many grants are a function of the political machine. In the exact same way only insider investors get first crack at IPO stocks, (when they are guaranteed to make a huge profit), many grants are little more than political favors. Are we to believe that we have to vote for Democrats because the higher-ups in the grant-giving pyramid scheme are also Democrats? Then why aren’t towns with GOP mayors and councils going bankrupt for lack of this funding?
Some grants are available to any government body that properly applies. Yet we’ve heard that the CEOs have BOTCHED some grants by ignoring them or waiting too long. So, on the one hand, they tell us how wonderful they are at this particular process; one the other, they apparently aren’t even as good as they believe they are.
Challengers can’t obtain grants because all save one are not elected officials. How many have they gotten? The exact same number that the CEOs got when they weren’t in office either.
Shared services MIGHT stabilize taxes, but all we’ve seen from the CEOs are tax increases each year and no shared services agreements. I’ve always suspected that the one big drawback of a shared services agreement, to a politician, is loss of their direct control of the service. People from another community enter the process.
The FACT is, the Mayor herself proved my earlier observation 100% correct in her recent letter - the only ‘shared service’ they can point to having achieved in 10 years is combined fuel purchasing with the Board of Education. She, her handpicked successor Giordano and his fellow CEOs have had complete control of departments and managers necessary to have achieved it long ago, if they ever actually worked on it in the first place.
Conclusion: This group can never pull off shared service cost-savings, because shared service agreements require cooperation among different entities, and this group has shown its consistent approach to cooperation with people who are ‘different’ - ignore them, harass them, fire them, replace them, blockade them. How are they going to work out cooperative efforts with other communities? Only if they can first pick the elected and hired officials are in those communities. Not likely.
Even if you go only by what the CEOs themselves say, they don’t deserve votes. I asked readers what I was overlooking, and no one took the time to respond. I guess it’s a big secret that only “they” know. Fine. Let them keep their secrets. Or explain how people who haven’t yet done even one of their own campaign promises during their last 10 years in office, are now going to do those things.
Or is this another one of those campaign sign conundrums that only makes sense if you’ve first gone through the looking glass?
