Jerry's Back

HALLELUJHA, The Jerry Green Blogger we got to know in July and August when he was defending his failure as our Assemblyman to try to preserve Plainfield’s hospital facility is back.

No longer will we have to scan press releases that reflect his political powers, instead on Thursday Dec. 18 we were treated to two typical Green vituperative blogs. Like a cornered wounded wild animal he has turned to attack the author of Plainfield Plaintalker, Bernice Paglia, and John Campbell the subject of Thursday’s column. Dan must be humiliated since he was not worthy of your scorn.

I am happy that we will not be forced to read personal attacks from Green between now and the primary elections (June?) 2009. How do I know that? He wrote on this date “PS: Moving forward, I have no interest in getting involved in gutter politics in this election.” Green does however threaten to take legal action against anyone who makes remarks about him that he considers slanderous or libel

Green accuses Bernice of "spoon feeding John Campbell’s mouth", as if Campbell is not capable of expressing his own opinions. He demeans Campbell for not supporting Obama, and for trying to divide the Afro-American vote to support the Republican ticket. My memory may be short but I cannot recall that fact.

I do recall that Green started out on the Clinton bandwagon and when she lost New Jersey, as a good party member he came out in support of Obama. I also recall that Councilor Burney was beating the drums and bushes for Obama from the beginning.And most unusual, Green although holding(in his own words)"the 3^rd highest ranking office in the General Assembly" did not attend his party’s national convention.

All in all after berating those who challenge him, Jerry Green fails to prove that he and his surrogate mayor have made Plainfield a better place to live in. In fact there are many intelectual concerned Plainfielders who wonder, with the sole exception of the County Offices on Park Madison,what you have done during your decades as local party chairman for Plainfield? You wrote " I am now able to be effect in getting things done, ushering solace, and achievement". Perhaps a recounting of you positive deeds rather then disparaging others may help us decide who will win the next local elections.

Bernice you have opened Pandora’s Box. The next 6 months shall be interesting.

Let it snow

A white Christmas may be in the books for this year.Already there is a layer of snow on the ground. With a significant snowfall predicted for tomorrow (Friday) night and more on Sunday and the 24th the odds seem to favor that possibility.

The sentimentalist will love it, those who plan to travel will hate it. As usual parents will worry. May it be a safe and happy time for all.

No random thoughts at this moment, rather four pictures of Alaska, whichj may be appropriate this season.

Glacier Bay

Birds and Ice- Tracy Arm

More ice floes- Tracy Arm

A Bald Eagle at Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau

You may see it on top of the gravel pile by enlarging the picture

and for all

May the Holidays and Holly Days be full of happiness

May the up coming year be free of worry and tragedy.

A colder Cedarbrook Park 70s

RANDOM THOUGHTS Dec.1 7,2008

Thank you Dan Damon for pointing out a quandary which the 2009 Council will have to face. This will be the first test for the newer members of the Council. I for one would not approve a financial document until I had sufficient time to digest all its ramifications. But then again I did not seek 10% annual return with Bernard Madoff'.

Incidentally, "loath" is an adjective meaning against or unwilling, "loathe" is a verb denoting dislike, abhor etc.. To loath is not hating. Dan does point this out in a response comment in his blog.

The annual reoccurring problems with the budget is one more reason that a return to a calender fiscal year must be a priority consideration for Mayor, City Administrator Dashield and the Council in the first half of 2009. The next fiscal year starts July 1, 2009. It is possible to b y ordinance make it a truncated one pending a 2010 calender fiscal year.

A loss from the return to the calender year, will be the ability to spend by special resolutions funds for 6 plus months until a definitive budget can be approved after the state allocations and anticipated grants are available. Why have a budget if one has already spent most of his income?

Our thoughts are with Councilor Reid and our hopes are for his speedy recovery from his present medical problem. His commitment and contributions to the Council affairs will be missed.

Congratulations to Plainfield High School Graduate, Eugene Monroe for being named second team All American offensive tackle while playing for a bad UVA team. Monroe is predicted to be one of the first two offensive tackle selected in the NFL draft. He has also has an excellent scholastic record at Virginia.

After Friday the 19th we will happily be inundated for the next 10 days but fortunately not concurrently with 4 great grandchildren, 2 sets of dotting parents, The "greats"'s grandparents, and sundry other " issues including spouses, significant others etc. Only earth shaking developments will be reason to post a blog, thus there will be a hiatus for all of the next week or so.

For everyone:

May the Holidays and Holly Days be full of happiness

May the up coming year be free of worry and tragedy.

Winter in Cedarbrook Park 70s

Monday's Council Meeting

At best this will be brief. I can't write shorthand, and certainly am not a court stenographer so I have to dash down notes in that well know doctor's handwriting, which even I can't decipher. For a lucid report please read Plaintalker.

Monday night the Council approved the sending out of an estimated first and second quarter calender year tax bill. This is actually the third (and fourth) quarter of the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Of the three items that make up the bill, the School Tax and County tax portions will have to be based on the 2008 bills perhaps with some e minor adjustments. The estimated city tax will be done after the state aid is determined which may be by 12/31/08. This has been about 40% of the funds needed.

City Administrator Deshield gave a power point presentation describing where the revenues come from. If I heard right, in 2008 $48 mil. were from taxes, and 40% of the remainder funds of approximately $23 mil.was in state aid. Since approximately 15% of the city's revenues come from state allocations which are not made until late December would it not be logical to revert to the calender year for our fiscal year? Or is it to our benefit to make things complicated?

It would be my guess that this year the total raised by taxes at the same rate of 2008 could be substantially less and state aid may well be significantly less. Thus the true impact on our tax bill will not be known before Jan.1,2009.

At the public portion of the meeting mention was made of a possible Health care forum.hopefully with Sen Daschle the to be Obama's secretary Of Health. The subject would be centered on the acute care crisis in this city.

Besides the usual small group of public commentators, members of CBAC were out in force to present their side of the misunderstanding over their report. I hope that in the next budget process a well defined advisory committee will be able to participate.

Council President Gibson in his farewell remarks noted the economic problems facing all communities and that "cuts" will have to be made. He, correctly, urged that it not be at the expense of our core safety departments, Police and Fire. The 2009 Council should heed him.

This marked Councilman Davis, and Council President Gibson's last meeting. They tried to the best of their abilities to serve the city well.That is all we can ask of our elected public servants, . The 2009 Council should also be very interesting and I hope that there is greater public interest.

PMUA has scheduled a meeting Jan 20,2009 at 6pm- very convenient for the public- to discuss rate changes. With a crash in the recycle markets, a marked increase is inevitable.

ABOUT THE COUNCIL

Yes, Council President Gibson’s letter in response to a critical Courier editorial is not without merit. It gives validity to the comments he made after the CABC presentation. Unfortunately, there is still no appreciation of cause and effect.

He addresses the deficiencies in CABC’s product without considering why such a product was produced. Nor does he address why the committee was given only 15 minutes to present its case, which boiled down to a Power Point exercise.

To begin with, the CABC was ill conceived. Given that its proponent Councilman Burney was desirous of some citizen input in the Council’s budget review process, such a committee could have been effective if;

1. -- It had been given a clearly defined charge.
   
2. --The scope of its report had been delineated.
   
3. --Unrestricted information had been provided
   
4. --Adequate time had been allowed
   
5. --The department presentations had been properly presented.
6. --The Council membership understood what they were creating and not tried to restrict it through fear that the committee would usurp the Council’s prerogatives.
7. --The CABC membership had any idea what they should focus on or how to proceed.

To fault the CABC because it dealt in generalities and not specific names is unjust.


A properly charged CABC with full cooperation of the entire Council could be a valuable asset in the budget setting process. More importantly the production of the annual budget lacks professionalism, and in itself often lacks specifics and has too many vague items.

The fault also lies in the city’s poor selection of responsible administrative individuals. It is apparent from the most recent fiasco that the vetting by the Mayor’s office has been inadequate and that the Council’s consent has been based on inadequate perusal of support documentation.

Which brings me to the topic of Council meetings, their format, location, and public convenience?

This year after a few years’ hiatus for personal reasons, the Muhlenberg crisis was the impetus for me to resume a two decade attendance at the meetings. Much to my amazement the dedicated and vociferous public attendance that I remembered was no longer evident. If there were a minion (10) citizens present that was a lot. I am sure that was in part the result of the weird meeting schedule in effect for over a year.

In addition the Council had instituted the practice to place almost all the resolutions to be acted upon into the consent agenda irrespective of the resolutions contents. Since there can be no discussion on Consent Agenda items during the 30 minute 3 minutes per individual public discussion prior to the Council action, public opinion was was obvious not desired.

There would also be no discussion by Council members at the business meeting on most items.Indeed, the focus seemed to be “let's get out of here as quickly as possible”

It is true that some Resolutions elicited some discussion at the agenda setting session which are held in an inadequate uncomfortable venue which is not conducive for public participation. Not only does the public have no opportunity to express an opinion prior to the council's decision to include the item on the business meeting agenda, but adherence to the 30 minutes , 3 minutes per individual, afforded the public for comments after the meeting has deprived some the opportunity.

I was amazed that when at the first meeting I attended I attempted to exercise my right to request the removal of a resolution from the Consent Agenda so that I could make a comment, the Council members did not know how to react. Although that right is specifically provided in the Council rules, they were going to vote whether it should be removed or not. It took another member of the public to instruct them on their own rules.

Such ignorance of their own rules is consistent with either a lack of fiduciary responsibility, or lack of commitment to the public. To schedule meetings for the Council Members convenience and not the general public isolates them from the people.

The proposed fewer Council meetings and more time for Committee meetings is self serving. Perhaps the Council can inform us when was the last time a standing or special committee presented a report at the public meeting? Who keeps attendance for committee meetings? If minutes are taken, where are they available for perusal?

I am sure there are meetings formal or informal, but they are all private and the public are not privy. That occurred for every meeting about the hospital and no formal report was ever submitted.

Change for change sake is not an answer. The tried and true formula worked well in the past; it is the discouragement of public participation that is today’s problem.

I will grant that here are those on the Council who appear to have genuine concerns, but let’s get back to basics and see why there may be problems that could be corrected. Above all accept the fact that there are members of the public that make constructive remarks which should not only be encouraged but also heeded.

BAILOUT

The bailout failure should come as no surprise. Did I not suggest the likelihood?

I would call attention to a comment by 'B-Bob" that I posted today to my Dec 9th or 10th blog about the automobile maker's bailout.

The writer makes valid points which we tend to overlook, but certainly played a prominent political role in the Southern Republican's opposition to lending GM and Chrysler money'

The foreign companies who are producing cars in the United States located their plants in Southern States where they not only received large subsidies but also were able to negotiate union contract wage levels that are at least 5/7th that of the Michigan-Illinois-Ohio plant contracts.That alone lowers labor costs by about 30% before other more favorable management labor fringes are included. It doesn't take a math genius to figure that out.

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````The An other side of the coin is that the big three have outsourced the manufacturing of their money making lines to either the Southern foreign owned plants or to foreign countries such as Australia or Brazil.

Those Southern Republican's have not taken in to account the impact on the plants located in their state.

Obviously, I have no valid shareholder argument against bankruptcy in regards to Chrysler since it it privately held by a " risk investment" management group. They do not deserve a public rescue that was denied the stockholders of Lehman Brothers.

While on the subject of "High Finance", how could the watchdogs let the 50 billion Ponzi scheme go undetected. It is an axiom that "if it is too good to be true it probably is not". Yet the list of big investors is amazing. Greed seems to be the dominant factor that has led to the market collapse.

"NAYSAYING"

“NAYSAYERS”, seems to be a favored word of our local politicos. JG is constantly using it by innuendo to demean all who dare to criticize his actions.

Councilman Burney, apparently also considers anybody who expresses any negative opinions relating in any manner to President-elect Obama, or objecting to his own Council agenda as a “naysayer”. This seems to have become the ultimate derogatory word, replacing more common vulgarity expressions, but intended to discredit those that do not accept 100% his plans.

On Dec11 Burney wrote: From the beginning, Obama's message was one of change. We have to change not only the party in Washington, but Washington itself. Many before had promised change. Trouble was that it was usually the politician who was changed once they got to DC. Just look at George W. Bush's promise of bi-partisanship when he was running in 2000.”--------------Yet today, people today are criticizing the team he has put together. "Same old people" they say. "Where is the change?" the naysayers are quick to say. They continue to fail to see what the majority of the country clearly sees. That Obama will be the President and the President sets the agenda. He needs qualified and experienced people in DC to get his agenda through. And it will be his agenda that everyone will be pushing. It will be his goals and promises on the campaign trail that they will work towards. ------Change will come to America. Many will be uncomfortable, too vested in current ways. Much resistance will be put up, and we will hear words like "we just don't know enough about the plan right now" and "never been done before" and the classic line of status-quo: "we need to study this more".

Perhaps I am one of those despicable “naysayers”. I have been very critical of the Assemblyman’s handling of the Muhlenberg closing. I do not feel that he and our other state legislators tried strongly enough to buck Trenton’s bureaucracy in an attempt to save Plainfield’s hospital.

Yes I have written concerns that Obama’s administration is being overloaded with Clintonites. At the same time I expressed my hope and confidence that there will be a positive change from the egotism of the Cheney/Bush executive.

I wrote ON Nov 22:OBAMA WATCH: Despite the fact that the selection of his incoming leaders reflects a return to the Clinton Washington of old and new a true change, he has chosen wisely with perhaps, to me. One exception.--Obama is avoiding Carter's mistake of surrounding himself with people who had no concept of Washington and National politics. He continues to impress me as a very astute politician and certainly seems on the right road restore economic and social confidence in the United States. If his adviser's input is not too radical to create resistance, I hope Congress will not go off the deep end with their own, and to date destructive, agendas. ----My exception is of course, Hilary as Secretary of State.

On Nov. 23 I suggested that people should listen to a rebroadcast or read Obama’s reply to Bush’s weekly radio address.

And from my Dec. 5, blog; Tempering hope: Obama seems to be approaching his Presidency well prepared with strong personalities in critical positions. I have no problem with most of his choices except on close examination we are returning to an extension of the Clinton era. -------So much for campaign promises of clean sweep from the Washington politics of today. I supposed that means that there will be few carryovers in the grunt jobs from the Republican years. The political sacrifice of well functioning agency workers could be acceptable but regret able if it were not for the fact that patronage may apparently be going on full blast. To the victor belong the spoils. The danger is that any economy recovery will be short circuited by personal agendas.

Councilor Burney, I did not bash Obama, I expressed my concern that from a disastrous self-centered administration we might be going back to the morally corrupt, I did not have”, “Whitewater” Clinton White House.

I know you have been Plainfield’s strongest most verbal advocate for Obama from the start of his campaign, not a late comer. However don’t cast him as the 21<sup>st</sup> century Messiah. He like today’s discredited Illinois Governor is the product of the same Chicago Democrat machine. There are questions which state’s politics, New Jersey or Illinois, is more corrupt.

A comforting precedent is Harry Truman, a product of the Kansas City Prendergast machine who became one of our greatest. Presidents. Obama not only has a similar opportunity, but represents another monument of America coming to racial maturity. Would that not also be true of all ethnic and religious diverse problems.

Since this already is too long I intend on Monday to address my “naysaying” your council meeting proposal, which I would presume is a beforehand “done fact” . I hope also to comment on Harold Gibson’s letter and the overall interaction of the Council and public at the same time.

One supportative point, this is from the lead article in today's LA Times. Congress itself will be the biggest "Naysayer" and has the power to prevent Obama from being effective. The did that to Carter, Obama is wiser and is selecting tried and true Washingtonians. He has proven time and time again that he is a smart capable politian. That in itself will not make him a great President, but it helps.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Obama may bring change, but Congress will be the same

A larger Democratic majority is unlikely to change the political nature of the House and Senate, which have just concluded a typically unimpressive year.

By Janet Hook
December 14, 2008

Reporting from Washington -- The collapse of legislation to bail out the U.S. auto industry is a fitting end to this year in Congress -- and a warning to President-elect Barack Obama that even larger Democratic majorities next year won't guarantee smooth sailing for his ambitious agenda on economics and other issues.

Polarized, beset by crises, and preoccupied with ideological and regional politics, this Congress followed a pattern all too familiar in the past decade. It railed and wrangled over the nation's toughest problems, but in the end failed to advance solutions.-----(see article)