4/17/2009

I would like to take this time to provide further answers to the questions Maria Pellum raised in recent blog postings. I must be careful how I respond to personal attacks and in accusing anyone of mismanagement due to my position as an elected official. But any question as to facts I will answer for every constituent, even those who treat others with as much disrespect as Ms. Pellum consistently does.

For example, I have already responded to Ms. Pellum’s questions regarding the $400,000 the Plainfield Board of Education recently sent back to the State. Informing my constituents about this matter was in no way an attack on Dr. Gallon. I have made it very clear that this issue did not happen on his watch but rather on the watch of others. Our children need every last dollar in school aid that we can get for their education. It should bother any resident that the New Democrats on the Board of Education did not take advantage of this money so that it could be used for our children. The New Democrats’ mismanagement of our schools has been constant. Under a previous School Administration, the School District accumulated $3,000,000 that it attempted to keep rather than spend on what the State intended them to, the children. The State asked the District to return this money. I worked very hard with the State Department of Education to allow the School District to keep some of this money to plug a hole in their budget caused by its poor accounting of its charter schools. Only through hard work and coordination were we able to come up with a solution. Our School District will not stop running into these types of problems unless our residents know about them. It is my duty as your representative to make sure that my constituents know about these issues when I learn of them.

Now, in response to Ms. Pellum’s remaining question regarding a previous $500,000 grant that the City did not use. This grant was part of money meant for use in Plainfield to be given by the NJ Department of Community Affairs in fiscal year 2005. Councilman Cory Storch was part of the City Council at this time. This money could not be used to help our residents because of problems with the City Administration at that time. However, everyone now has enough information to research this issue further if they wish.

On another matter, I have a question to Mrs. Pellum and other bloggers. I recently attended a National Community Development Celebration on April 15, 2009 in Linden where different non-profit organizations were honored for their service to Union County. The Plainfield Chapter of the YMCA was honored, but neither the former director nor anyone else represented the Chapter. This was embarrassing and done solely out of political pettiness. Ms. Addy Bonet, the highly regarded former director, took an agency that was essentially a homeless shelter and brought it back to the point where it received respect as a YMCA when compared to other YMCA’s in Central Jersey. I would like the bloggers to comment on this. This is an embarrassment to all those who helped restore the Plainfield YMCA to an actual YMCA. Ms. Bonet moved to Plainfield and put her heart and soul into improving our YMCA and she deserved better than she received.

Many people know about these issues, but no one has come to her defense. I just want to see if anyone will step up and give her respect and show that they can put the Queen City ahead of petty politics. This is just another example of how partisan these bloggers are rather than being an honest source of community information.