Will poust later Monday on a subject that is nationally oriented not just local.

JUST POSTING

No blog today, just a reminder that this month is known as March Madness month. Next week end the ACC men's tournament. The following week starts the NCAA tournament the play in games and rounds of 64 and 32. Spring Baseball has started, Ice Hockey will go on indefinitely. 12 days to St Patrick's day (17th) and 4 days later there is 12 hours of daylight.

The Council will meet twice plus ta special meeting (29th) with the PMUA Task Force as well as a 3rd Ward Town Hall meeting on the 20th.

On the National scene this Tuesday is "Super Tuesday". Who will end up leading; the Clown, the Idiot, the Fascist, or the "Foot in Mouth"? It may be important but at this time I doubt it.

Therefor, I dug up some ancient photos for today.

Twin Towers 1984 from Circle Line boat

Grand Old Oprey 197?

Schroon Lake, NY 1960s

Cedar Brook Park many years ago

Amish Country 196?s

PLIMINARY REPORT on MONDAY NIGHT'S AGENDA

A rapid review of Monday night's agenda reveals that all the contract resolutions that were tabled (withdrawn) last month at the Administration's request are back on the discussion agenda. Since the wording on the Agenda is the same it will take a review of the support data to decide if there is any residual problem.

I expect to see the material at the Library this Saturday morning and will have comments in tomorrow's blog.

There are two items of interest that merit notice now. The first is the mayor's veto of Ordinance 2012-1. If I am right this the I believe that this is, in my opinion, the silly Mapp introduce Ordinance stating that any elect official who becomes a lame duck is not entitled to any perk benefits such as meetings, courses and possibly health insurance..

Although the professed intent is to not waste money on someone who will not be able to give the City any benefit from meetings or courses attended this is at best a case of "Penny wise;pound foolish". Moreover in view of some of the other actions taken by some members of the Council this past two years it seems to be a matter of pre-election posturing. I look for the Mayor's veto to be upheld next week.

The other item is 10 minutes being allowed Citizen Maria Pellum to discuss the 'Idea of a Community Health Citizen.s Task Force As you may be aware this is a subject that is dear to my heart. It will be interesting to hear what she has to propose and if the council will accept such a concept.

10:00AM: As of this hour the Council material was not available at the Library. I will not have time to check later today,thus no further comment on Sunday or Monday.

Since the Council failed to approve of the Compliance Officer last month and did not OK an acting one who did so function in order to approve the tabled contracts? We will find out Monday pm.

OH POLITICS

Here are three quotes that describe a politician; pick the one you feel that best applies to the announced candidates for Council. When I read in Bernice's blog that Rev. Brown* and Council President Mapp were running as a ticket, of course with the local Chairman's blessing I at once picked those three to reflect my disgust

I never desire to know anything of the detail of political measures, lest even those which I think best should lose anything of their intrinsic value to me, by seeing what low, paltry, personal motives and base machinery and dirty hands have helped to bring them about. FANNY KEMBLE, Further Records, Feb. 14, 1874

A politician is like quicksilver: if you try to put your finger on him, you find nothing under it. AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct. ~Thomas Jefferson

But there is another quote that reflects on the majority of the electorate; Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. ~George Jean Nathan

I am by nature opposed to any religious leader being an elected official. In most cases if they are sincere in their religious beliefs there are too many times when they can not act without their personal bias affecting their actions.

In other instances even as a small majority they tend to impose their beliefs upon the majority.Examples are the Theocracy that rules Iran and the small extreme orthodox rabbinical group that has created restrictive laws in Israel; an example no bus service on the Sabbath even in the largest cities.

For those reasons alone I am disturbed by Rev. Brown's candidacy for Councilor at Large. I know there may not be a major religious impact, but is it not possible taht some form of the "Blue Laws" might be proposed?

But even more important is a question of her qualifications. Certainly her stint as a Commissioner for PMUA has not demonstrated a concept of working in the public interest. Of course she did not vote for the atrocious payout, but she did not oppose it. Absence can help one from making a public declaration.

Rev. Brown has already demonstrated her priorities by her defense of her parishioner, the Mayor's actions in the WBLS incident.

Mr. Mapp the defender of transparency and good government as proclaimed by the "New Democrats" has suddenly switched hats and has become a Green proselyte. And he blasted Burney for seeking the Committee's line. Protestations of ethical conduct disappear when it is time to vote an in-law into a paying civil position

No wonder Annie McWilliams is not seeking reelection . She has appeared to be honestly committed to good government and as things play out she must have become very discouraged.We need more Annie McWilliamses in government.

There is whole month ahead for untainted candidates to come out of the woodwork and perhaps enough voters who desire good government will turn out at primary time. The hope for an independent ticket in November is less likely since too many vote by party not by the person.

Plainfielders prepare yourselves for four more years of mediocrity.

*An error is corrected, I had mistakenly written Rev. Taylor instead of Rev. Brown. Thanks to those who caught that mistake.

Insomnia Trivia

For all of us insomniacs read this and feel better: bbc.co.uk

BUDGET PRELIM.

We are entering the third month of our fiscal year without any evidence that a budget is ready for adoption. Finances are critical so I read on Wednesday with interest the Star Ledger's front page article about the excessive costs of insurance some communities were carrying by not belonging to the State Plan but using private agents to obtain policies. The savings could be astronomical.

Undoubtedly, Plainfield with it perpetual lack of a fiscal control officer or director has never considered that alternative. There has never been a reluctance to avoid bidding on contracts but to award them to "State approved vendors"

In the case of insurance the State has a policy pool which municipalities can participate. I do not believe that they have a list of approved agents.

Since the agent's commission is paid by the carrier, there is no information on how much of our payments goes to the agent. There is no way to determine if the deal agreed to is best in benefits and costs. We must trust that the agency handling the contract is not influenced by the size of the commission .

This is #2 post today

MORE MUHLENBERG

I had not intended to devote any more blog space at this time on the MRMC issue My attention, however has been directed by Maria's blog to this blog http://www.themuhlenbergindependents.blogspot.com/ which has a summary of much of Solaris' financial deals that resulted in the rape of Plainfield's hospital.

Read it all and weep. Draw your own conclusions about who knew or did not know what was going on leading up to the closure of the hospital. But the fact is that from the day of the "merger" of the two hospitals Solaris was planning to close Muhlenberg. Moreover, the city's political power who must have been aware of the long range plans f ailed to involve the public in an attempt to counter them.

The author of this blog Deborah Dowe in 2008-9 had contacted a "for profit" hospital group that showed interest in the facility. It is questionable whether the municipal authorities paid any attention to them since they were focusing on a real estate entrepreneur recommended by Green at that time.

A fact that is overlooked is that when two entities merge the personnel are also combined. After the JFK/MRMC merger there was never any attempt to unite the medical staffs. Instead JFK selectively sought out certain specialist groups from MRMC and gave them inducements to bring their patients to Kennedy. This weakened the inpatient admissions at Muhlenberg of profitable patients contributing to the so called losses.

There has always been a question about the bookkeeping allotment of expenses and income in the Solaris balance sheet concerning charges allocate to Muhlenberg that were system wide and included salaries of JFK officials who had minimal contact in Plainfield.

Why has to this date Plainfield not collected taxes at least on the profit earning property that still occupies portion of the property?

A second brief post to follow.