Nobody Checked The Charter
Plainfield’s chief political maxim is that you have to be able to count to four.
That means the mayor needs four votes on the seven-member City Council to get things done.
But there’s another count-to-four that eluded everyone in the tumultuous 2005 election season.
An idle glance through the city’s special charter on New Year’s Day revealed that Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs may have come up short on a requirement that a mayor “shall have been a legal voter in the City for at least four years prior to his election.”
Never mind the gender discrepancy - until 2006, there had been no female mayor.
The point is, as it came out in a prior dispute about Robinson-Briggs’ qualification to serve on the Board of Education, she has only been a registered voter in Plainfield since Sept. 30, 2002.
The BOE dispute was whether Robinson-Briggs met the one-year residency requirement for the April 2003 school board election. Although she received the most votes, her status was questioned by candidate Veronica Taylor-Hill because Robinson-Briggs signed a house sale document on April 29, 2002 with a Piscataway address, a few days short of the one-year requirement. Robinson-Briggs countered with an April 2, 2002 lease for her father’s East Front Street apartment, saying she lived there.
In the end, Robinson-Briggs prevailed.
But the legal challenge brought out her voter registration status as well, and in all the fuss this year over the mayoral race, it seems nobody checked the charter.
Defeated Mayor Albert T. McWilliams, who even changed parties and later tried a write-in campaign to beat his opponent, said his supporters were thinking there was a one-year requirement, as there is for City Council candidates.
“Nobody looks at that darn charter,” he said.
But he added, “I think the charter has to be upheld.”
Assemblyman Jerry Green, who is also the Democratic Party chairman and was campaign manager for Robinson-Briggs, said he didn’t know about the requirement either. But now that he is advising Robinson-Briggs on putting together her new administration, he said, he is paying attention to the charter.
“We want to do everything right,“ Green said.
The charter spells out the structure of government - mayor, city administrator and three department heads - as well as the powers of the top leaders and budget rules.
Green said the new administration is checking with acting Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson on charter rules and with the state Department of Personnel on proper hiring procedures.
It doesn’t seem likely that anyone will actually try to undo the election at this point. The new mayor‘s supporters could argue that the charter does not say four consecutive years, and Robinson-Briggs was previously a Plainfield voter before registering in Middlesex County in 1996.
Die-hard opponents of Robinson-Briggs may find the lapse fuel for a recall effort, but according to the charter, an elected official must serve at least one year before a recall petition can be filed.
The last person to run afoul of the mayoral voter registration requirement was Arthur L. Harriatt, a convicted bank robber who ran for mayor in 1997. Not only did his parole status cast doubt on his viability as a candidate, the Union County Board of Elections confirmed just before the November 1997 general election that Harriatt had only registered to vote in February of that year.
Plainfield became a city in 1869 and the current charter took effect 100 years later. Since then, the charter was reviewed in 1972 and again in 1990, with some changes recommended each time. But the steps to effect major changes - approval by the state Legislature and city voters - have never been pursued.
Studying the charter is not easy. There is a copy on file at the Plainfield Public Library, but for those who don’t already have a copy of the thin, pamphlet-sized charter, the tab to purchase one in the City Clerk’s office is $20.
That means the mayor needs four votes on the seven-member City Council to get things done.
But there’s another count-to-four that eluded everyone in the tumultuous 2005 election season.
An idle glance through the city’s special charter on New Year’s Day revealed that Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs may have come up short on a requirement that a mayor “shall have been a legal voter in the City for at least four years prior to his election.”
Never mind the gender discrepancy - until 2006, there had been no female mayor.
The point is, as it came out in a prior dispute about Robinson-Briggs’ qualification to serve on the Board of Education, she has only been a registered voter in Plainfield since Sept. 30, 2002.
The BOE dispute was whether Robinson-Briggs met the one-year residency requirement for the April 2003 school board election. Although she received the most votes, her status was questioned by candidate Veronica Taylor-Hill because Robinson-Briggs signed a house sale document on April 29, 2002 with a Piscataway address, a few days short of the one-year requirement. Robinson-Briggs countered with an April 2, 2002 lease for her father’s East Front Street apartment, saying she lived there.In the end, Robinson-Briggs prevailed.
But the legal challenge brought out her voter registration status as well, and in all the fuss this year over the mayoral race, it seems nobody checked the charter.
Defeated Mayor Albert T. McWilliams, who even changed parties and later tried a write-in campaign to beat his opponent, said his supporters were thinking there was a one-year requirement, as there is for City Council candidates.
“Nobody looks at that darn charter,” he said.
But he added, “I think the charter has to be upheld.”
Assemblyman Jerry Green, who is also the Democratic Party chairman and was campaign manager for Robinson-Briggs, said he didn’t know about the requirement either. But now that he is advising Robinson-Briggs on putting together her new administration, he said, he is paying attention to the charter.
“We want to do everything right,“ Green said.
The charter spells out the structure of government - mayor, city administrator and three department heads - as well as the powers of the top leaders and budget rules.
Green said the new administration is checking with acting Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson on charter rules and with the state Department of Personnel on proper hiring procedures.
It doesn’t seem likely that anyone will actually try to undo the election at this point. The new mayor‘s supporters could argue that the charter does not say four consecutive years, and Robinson-Briggs was previously a Plainfield voter before registering in Middlesex County in 1996.
Die-hard opponents of Robinson-Briggs may find the lapse fuel for a recall effort, but according to the charter, an elected official must serve at least one year before a recall petition can be filed.
The last person to run afoul of the mayoral voter registration requirement was Arthur L. Harriatt, a convicted bank robber who ran for mayor in 1997. Not only did his parole status cast doubt on his viability as a candidate, the Union County Board of Elections confirmed just before the November 1997 general election that Harriatt had only registered to vote in February of that year.Plainfield became a city in 1869 and the current charter took effect 100 years later. Since then, the charter was reviewed in 1972 and again in 1990, with some changes recommended each time. But the steps to effect major changes - approval by the state Legislature and city voters - have never been pursued.
Studying the charter is not easy. There is a copy on file at the Plainfield Public Library, but for those who don’t already have a copy of the thin, pamphlet-sized charter, the tab to purchase one in the City Clerk’s office is $20.
--Bernice Paglia
KEYWORDS: city charter, mayor
NOTE: The full text of Plainfield's City Charter can be found on Councilman Rashid Burney's website.
posted by Bernice at 3:23 PM
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