COUNCIL 1 DISCUSSION TOPICS

I have been a licensed physician in Virginia and the State of New Jersey for 67 years, and I still have trouble reading my own handwriting. That is one of the reasons that my reports on Council meetings are generalized rather than a verbatim or fact laden reporter's report. Over the next few days starting today Plaintalker II with some comments in Plainfield Today plus the belated articles space permitting in the Ledger and Courier will give a factual if incomplete accounting of the Council's 260 minute sessions. That's over 4 hours.

The first and striking innovation was a rearrangement of the room's furniture so that the middle of the room long table was replaced by a long one across the far end of the library room, with Corporation Counsel, City Administrator and the Mayor during the brief time she was there siting parallel to the left side wall.

The public's chairs were now placed in rows and appeared to offer more seating. The effect now was that no Council member or administrative personnel had their back to any part of the public. A major and positive innovation.

The first matter of importance was discussion of the Mayor's veto of the two Ordinances. There was a question of time since her letter was dated Sept. 2, 2010 and Council had passed the Ordinances at its Aug 16th meeting. The Mayor has up to ten days after she receives it to exercise her veto. According to the record the Mayor did not get the Ordinances from the City Clerk's office until Aug 23,2010. Thus the date of her rejection letter just fell within her window.

No action could be taken at this meeting but an informal voice vote of 6:1 approved the consideration for overriding to be on the Sept 13 agenda.

Surprise, City Administrated Taylor reported that the Administration had placed an ad. in the Municipal employees paper for a director of Administration and Finance. Whereas they had no names to submit for interview that had several responses and were in the due diligence process. Perhaps next month a nominee will be presented for consent.

The question of the Mayor's not filling the vacancy on the Housing Authority resulted in a convoluted legal explanation by Corporation Counsel. Mr Williams was originally appointed to fill the unexpired term. At that terms end his name was submitted for reappointment and then withdrawn for some unknown to us, reason. The Charter and I believe the Housing Authority bylaws state that a commissioner serves for the duration of his term or until a successor has been appointed. According to Corporation Counsel no vacancy exists until the seat holder resigns or a new member is elected and takes the oath of office.Therefore it would be possible for a person to remain in office for life if no qualified successor is selected .

That may be legal justification but permitting a "holdover" for years circumvents the intent of limited terms in office and certainly is morally and ethically dishonest.

As expected, the Budget is not ready. The excuse; it can not be finalized until the audit for FY2010 is received. How do the many municipalities and organizations manage to adopt their budget at the beginning of the fiscal year have no problem?