Plaintalker II

Click here to go to Plaintalker II. Please bookmark it. You can still search the Plaintalker archive for news from June 2005 to May 12, 2010.

--Bernice

Check Plaintalker II

Go to Plaintalker II

for news about a fiesta planned for the July 4 weekend.

Testing, Testing ...

Plaintalker II is still in the works, although some readers prefer the original Plaintalker. Blogger has many more features for newer blogs and it is cumbersome to look things up among Plaintalker's 2,400-plus posts for links.

Click here to go to Plaintalker II. The entire archive of Plaintalker will remain accessible indefinitely and I will include links to past stories that are related to new ones.

--Bernice

Brownfields Work to be Outsourced

The city recently advertised for RFQs (Requests for Qualifications) for "Management Services for the Brownfield Development Area" and "Environmental Consultant for the Brownfield Program."

The legal notice appeared in the Courier News, but has yet to appear on the city web site except as a brief flash before the main page comes on. The web site section devoted to RFPs and RFQs does not have the Brownfields RFQ.

Brownfields are sites where environmental remediation must take place before development or redevelopment. With its legacy of industrial uses, Plainfield has quite a few.

Until a layoff plan was announced this year, April Stefel managed the extensive accounting for management of Brownfield sites. Although the Plaintalker report excerpt below indicates she did a good job, it will now most likely go to an outside source.

Here is the excerpt from a City Council meeting that included comments on the layoffs:

"Several residents spoke in favor of retaining April Stefel, a certified landscape architect in the Planning Division who is staff liaison to the Shade Tree Commission and manages several other programs, including brownfields studies.

Shade Tree Commission Chairman Gregory Palermo praised Stefel for her “marvelous success” in coming up with grants for tree planting and maintenance.

“The grant money should be thought of as found money,” he said, “but it is not going to be found unless someone is looking for it.”

(Disclaimer: I am a member of the Shade Tree Commission.)

Stefel herself explained that she is responsible for more than $5.6 million in grants and that she had suggested her pay could be given back from various grants, but an analysis she made in December was lost or never given to the administration. She detailed the work she puts in to report to state agencies on grant-funded programs, saying the brownfields work alone takes up half her 63 part-time hours per month."

The scenario above points to yet another possible assignment for a favored engineering firm instead of having a highly qualified Plainfielder on the case.

When the Brownfields issue first emerged, it seemed to almost a vital element for redevelopment. Click here for one of several Plaintalker reports on Brownfields.

But at this juncture, maybe the best thing for the city would be for Stefel to become the consultant, although she would not have benefits.

The city in the last couple of months has published a number of RFQs and RFPs, including several that would apply to Stefel's previous duties.

Anyone working on the FY 2011 budget should take stock of these choices between in-house staffers and outside consultants, for every-day monitoring of ways to save money.

--Bernice Paglia

Restrictions on State Aid May Continue

Someone mentioned to me recently that stern conditions on acceptance of FY 2010 extraordinary state aid will elapse at the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

But the last sentence of the Memorandum of Understanding between the city and the director of the state Division of Local Government Services states, "It is finally agreed that the terms of this agreement shall be binding upon the City for any and all subsequent years in which Extraordinary Aid funds are allocated to the City."

For FY 2010, the city sought $3.5 million, but received only $250,000. The aid came with many conditions outlined in the four-page MOU, including 13 personnel requirements and six procedural and operational requirements.

Among the personnel requirements were a hiring freeze on new employees, a salary freeze for all employees not covered by a current contractual agreement, no money for charities or "sunshine fund"activities, a reduction in force through attrition and many more constraints.

Anybody connected with the FY 2011 budget process needs to review the MOU, because unless the city intends to forego applying for and accepting extraordinary state aid, the agreement will continue to impact personnel and operational functions.

Unfortunately, the city is still without a permanent finance director and a chief finance officer to guide the budget process. There has been no CFO, a required statutory position, since the end of 2007. The city received an extension to hire one by July 19. At present, City Administrator Bibi Taylor is also serving informally as acting director of Administration, Finance, Health and Social Services, which has the largest number of divisions among the three departments mandated by the City Charter.

Taylor is thus carrying on the legacy of former City Administrator Marc Dashield, who found himself wearing two hats in two prior budget years. The dual burden contributed to the late passage of those two budgets.

If there is a citizen budget advisory committee this year, each member should get a copy of the MOU as context to budget decision-making. Imposition of these conditions must be weighed against the value of possible extraordinary state aid for FY 2011.

--Bernice Paglia

Plaintalker II

Now that Plainfield Plaintalker has more than 2400 posts since June 2005, I am trying to convert to a successor, Plaintalker II.

I have duplicated posts in recent days on both blogs. The main impediment to making the change is my extreme aversion to change itself (being a Taurus and all).

Plaintalker II is also very spare, without all the bells and whistles that Barbara Todd Kerr created for it in 2005. I am interested to know what readers think about the new format, so feel free to comment. I can never replicate all the work Barbara did on the original, so the main focus is on content, not format.

Please take a look and let me know your opinions.

--Bernice

Watching the Pot

Last night I decided to leave the school board meeting at around 9:30 p.m. I see that the meeting did not open until nearly 11 p.m., and after the nugget of news, it was not reported how long it took the board to deal with the 41-page agenda.

Lately I have had to do a lot of waiting. We are waiting to see whether our building will be sold, and waiting to find out what it might mean in terms of our living situation. I am presently waiting to see whether the latest repairs will mean the ceiling leaks will not recur. We are also waiting to see whether the landlord will pay the water bill before the latest shut-off notice kicks in.

As far as the whole Gallon story, there will be an outcome, but we don't know what or when.

An old adage comes to mind here, reminding us all to have patience and not to get all worked up while waiting for something to happen. Some may think the pot has already boiled, but I think it is still simmering and my attention is not needed every minute until it does come to a boil.

"Que sera, sera" and then you can read all about it. Surmising, speculating and second-guessing meanwhile might possibly be a waste of time.

--Bernice

Commentary: A Wynn-Wynn Situation

Yet another hour of the governing body's time and energy was spent Monday on how to settle a conflict between a volunteer youth baseball league and the city's Recreation Division, which launched its own league with paid coaches this year. Both leagues need access to municipal ball fields, but the Queen City Baseball League has had lights turned off, bases under lock and key, its banner vanished and other signs that the Recreation Division accidentally or on purpose is making the season difficult for its 50 or 60 young players.

In talks and protests since last fall, parents and coaches have suggested that Recreation Superintendent Dave Wynn's style of management is part of the problem or maybe is the problem. There was supposed to have been a sitdown last fall with Wynn and the administration to get to the bottom of the issues, but on May 3, Queen City players and advocates packed City Hall Library and had the ears of the governing body for two hours.

The clash is taking up many hours out of the lives of City Administrator Bibi Taylor and Public Works & Urban Development Director David Brown II, as well as the seven council members and the mayor. Calls are being fielded at all hours, from what Taylor said Monday, and Public Works Superintendent John Louise is being dragged into it as well.

When Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs was first elected in 2006, she said publicly there was not enough for children to do in Plainfield. Wynn correctly pointed out the city's huge roster of athletic programs and events for children and before long, the mayor was one of Wynn's most staunch supporters. Even when council members later sought to cut back on public events as the economy worsened, Wynn dodged the fiscal bullet. But some events took on political overtones, such as the Music in the Plaza series that featured the mayor's re-election campaign image on all its promotional materials.

The situation escalated Monday with the council proposing passage of two ordinances aimed at defusing the problem by changing who would be responsible for field access.The mayor was absent, but Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson, the most highly paid city employee, read off a series of remarks from the mayor, including one in which she threatened legal action if the council passed the ordinances.

"I am very sorry to hear that," Council President Annie McWilliams said, but noted seven days had elapsed without the administration naming a requested "point person" to replace Wynn in the current dispute.

Both measures failed, with McWilliams, Adrian Mapp and Rashid Burney voting "yes" and Linda Carter, Bridget Rivers and William Reid voting "no." Cory Storch was absent.

Then there was the notion that a newly-minted Recreation Committee, advisory in nature, should be made into full-blown commission with broader powers. Taylor objected, saying that would produce another budget line item with no duties assigned.

Responding to the mayor's suggestion of possible legal action against the council, Mapp noted budget decisions are coming up and said the "next level" might be to remove salaries from the Recreation Division.

Despite the heated nature of the controversy, Taylor described it at one point like this: "When you start a new program and mesh it with the old, you will have hiccups."

Apparently in this case, you will also have an ever-expanding sphere of well-compensated officials trying to deal with what time the ballfield lights should go out and why bases are being stored in the ladies' bathroom.

It is hard to conceive of any other organization where a middle manager can be at the center of a months'-long controversy without suffering any consequences. Parents and coaches are upset, children are perplexed, government officials are being drawn in when they have plenty of other things to deal with in these still precarious times.

Two commenters at the end of the meeting summed up their feelings, which no doubt many Plainfielders share.

Dwayne Wilkins of the new Recreation Committee said of seeing the children at the May 3 meeting, "I struggle with that."

Their plight "should not have to go to the highest levels of government," he said.

Lamar Mackson, who grew up in the city in what he described as "simpler times," said he was "hurt and distraught by what we're doing here."

"When you look at the headlines, there is nothing but distress coming from Plainfield," he said.

Mackson said he wants to see things that put Plainfield in a better light.

He said of the controversy, "It's just unconscionable."

--Bernice Paglia