PLAINFIELD CELEBRATES

DEMOCRATIC WINS

Plainfield Democrats celebrated an excellent election yesterday, and I want to acknowledge and thank each and every one of the individuals whose hard work made it possible. In Plainfield City, we brought in high numbers for our Candidates for U.S. Senate and Congress. Our unofficial count shows that 6,797 Plainfield voters supported Cory Booker, where 456 supported his opponent Jeff Bell. 6,179 Plainfield voters approved Bonnie Watson Coleman for Congress, where Alieta Eck received 675 votes.  Column “A” Democrats Gloria Taylor, Rebecca Williams and Diane Toliver all won their races for seats in Plainfield City Council, with similar high margins. I hope that our city is able to respond to the positive energy that our Democratic voters brought with them to the polls, and work together to move this city forward.

How should we move forward? Plainfield Democratic voters made it abundantly clear last Tuesday: voters care about good policy more than petty politics, both in our city and in Washington. They have chosen to support Booker and Watson Coleman, candidates for National office that will prioritize working for concrete results on behalf of the hard-working citizens of New Jersey over the cynical politics of government shutdown and negativity that have become hallmarks of the Republican Party. I hope that our Plainfield elected officials remember that they won their seats because the voters in Plainfield remain dedicated to the values of our Democratic Party: the belief that our communities only prosper if we share opportunity equitably; a commitment to investing in education, infrastructure and healthcare; and that every human being, regardless of the conditions of their birth, is a worthy investment in our shared future.

 For my part, I plan to continue to fight hard in Trenton on behalf of Plainfield voters and all voters in the 22^nd District in my role as Speaker Pro Tempore of the General Assembly, member of the Health and Senior Services Committee, and Chair of the Housing and Community Development Committee. I challenge our local Plainfield representative to move away from the negativity that has surfaced in some of their blogs, and bring the conversation back to policy. If any local citizen or elected official wants to talk about policy that they believe will benefit our community, I encourage you to call my office and we will see if we can make it happen.

I would like to clarify something. I am a man that balances several distinct roles. I am an elected official, and I am Chairman of the Union County Democratic Committee. I am also an individual, private citizen who lives in and cares about Plainfield who is devoted to the Democratic values that make our Country great. As an individual citizen, I chose to support a team of candidates for the recent Plainfield Board of Education race who I felt share in my personal values: Michael Horn, Norman Ortega, and Tania Center. I did this as an individual who believes that our children deserve more than the pettiness that often emerges in political campaigns. For that reason, I insisted upon supporting these candidates only as an individual, and kept politics totally out of it: obviously, absolutely no funds from the Plainfield City Democratic Committee were used for any Board of Education candidate. Horn, Ortega and Center organized their own campaigns, raised their own funds, and printed their own, independent literature. As a citizen of Plainfield, I am sad to see that candidates who I believe care deeply for our children lost narrowly. As an individual citizen, however, I only had one vote to cast, not the 61 votes that would have flipped the Board of Education election the other way. 

In closing, I look forward to seeing Plainfield move forward, and I truly believe that we should turn toward out voters and away from petty, negative politics. Let’s listen closely to the rational voices of our Citizens and let the petty negativity of the blogs fade into the background as we move together toward our shared future.