Happy New Year

A New Year always brings promise. Plainfield can look forward to the opening of its second community school, Emerson, in 2008. A new schools superintendent is expected. Other things are more hopes than promises – road repairs, a working city web site, improved state test scores.

Plaintalker will keep reporting on matters of importance to Plainfielders, though maybe not as intensively as in 2007. Taking notes at a five-hour meeting, then spending a couple of hours doing the blog – that kind of schedule can wear a person out.

Some public meetings lately have made me wonder how they could ever be televised. There were 15-minute City Council meetings and long, long school board meetings with all the news contained in last-minute “walk-on” items. Often, meeting schedules clashed. Some of the most significant stories could not even be discerned just by going to the public meetings, but had to be researched in background documents for context or even the basic facts. Still, it would be nice to see more residents attend the meetings while we await Channel 74 coverage.

Promise yourself to pay a bit more attention to city affairs in 2008. Volunteer in the schools, write your council representative an e-mail about your concerns, celebrate the good news. And have a Happy New Year!

--Bernice Paglia