August 14, 2009

Reading the blogs today, someone mentioned I was not in attendance at Adrian Mapp’s meeting on yesterday. For one, I was not invited to the Councilman’s event. Secondly, in reading the blogs the last couple of days, the purpose of the meeting was to hear from the public, and not politicians. I have been working with the current administration, without taking a leadership position, on some of the issues that were discussed last night at Councilman Mapp's meeting. Therefore, I am surprised that no one brought to the public’s attention that I was not invited, yet would try to make it seem as though I willfully declined attendance of the meeting.

I had a meeting with the Assembly leadership yesterday regarding State issues. I am confident that the State will overcome the crisis we are facing. The comments I received from the Corzine administration is that President Obama and his administration are continuing to work closely with New Jersey as we face our economic problems.

This morning I had the opportunity to be one of the guest speakers at a statewide Minority Leaders Conference. The African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, in conjunction with the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey, the Regional Alliance for Small Contractors, and New York & New Jersey Marriot Hotels hosted the event. Guest speakers included Governor Jon Corzine, US Senators Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, State Senator Ron Rice, and Assemblywoman Nellie Pou.

We discussed job opportunities and the importance of ensuring urban communities have the ability to put people to work. One of the main topics of discussion was the Mass Transit Tunnel that will connect New York and New Jersey, and the job opportunities becoming available for minorities with this project. We also discussed services contracts pertaining to trash pick-up and the maintenance of the train stations. My understanding is that these contract bids are sourced to outside entities; I would like to see local municipalities take advantage of contract biddings, growing our local infrastructures.

Also, I had an opportunity to talk to leadership at New Jersey Transit in terms of exploring ideas and ways that we can use the services of municipalities like the City of Plainfield for example, utilizing the PMUA trucks when digging out the tunnels. This is just an example of the different sort of services the City can offer, facilitating economic growth within the City.