H.I.T.S.: HEARD IN THE STREET. . .
Plainfield Cooks returns... the fun fundraiser that benefits PHS seniors who have 'beaten the odds' comes back. Saturday, April 29th. Mark your calendar. How you can take part? One way is to cook up a favorite dish of yours that people enjoy and bring it along to serve... Another is to donate an item for the silent auction [services as well as goods are welcome]... Or join other vendors to offer crafts and other small items for sale... More details over the next few weeks, but to participate, call Kathy Brown-Bragg of School-Based Youth Services at (908) 731-4200 x5152 NOW...tell her Dan sent you...
...The late Pepsi Charles was a motivating force behind Plainfield Cooks. At the time, she was coordinating the Plainfield Coalition, the networking organization for the community's social services agencies, and worked from an office at the Plainfield Health Center. The contributions of Pepsi and another force behind the event, Leland Paul Michael, will be celebrated at the Plainfield Cooks event...
...speaking of the Plainfield Health Center... Word in the street is that the current head honcho has installed a pricey plasma TV in the office... Isn't that the same gambit that led to the unravelling of Harold Lucas' stint as the head of the Newark Housing Authority? But maybe more harmful to the community would be if the rumors that screening numbers for the Center's HIV conseling program are artificially inflated turn out to be true. Word in the street is that pregnant women, who are screened for several issues during their first trimester as a matter of course, are included in the Center's HIV-screening grant goal. This little bit of legerdemain, if true, would mean that the program is NOT using the grant money to reach out to the HIV population and offer life-enhancing -- if not life-saving -- services. This would be a scam of the highest order... How far things have fallen since the days of founding director Julane Miller!
...On the Real Estate Front, gossip about Plainfield's secret shopper continues apace... Word is the ex-powerful pol has been sited at one of Watchung Avenue's pricier listings... and that an offer on another top-end property was...ummmmmmmm...embarrassingly low?... Stay tuned...
Meanwhile, on the solid waste front... the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority, lovingly known as the PMUA, held its board retreat last Saturday. What?! You didn't know? And you didn't know that you were most welcome to attend not only the retreat, but all of their board meetings? Well, they advertise them, and you are welcome.... One item the board was treated to by the facilitator was a discussion of the PMUA starting a charter school... It did not resonate very well with the board, who somehow feel that the agency's mission is solid waste and sanitary sewers...
Staying focused: what a concept!...
...That is not to say that charter schools are not a subject of interest. But before the handwringing classes write off public schools altogether, we should recall that Plainfield High School each year continues to turn out top-level students -- two of whom the City Council honored recently for spectacular academic achievements. [Go here to see Councilman Blanco's comments on students of excellence from PHS.] My mother used to say schooling is a three-legged stool: the student, the teacher and the parents. A missing leg means a useless stool...each is equally important...
Is there no access to Plainfield's public access cable channel? The abrupt sacking of former station director Rebecca Williams on Feb. 27 left the city's cable channel, PCTV-74, in a twilight zone of perpetually recycling programming which only recently came to an end, with the hiring of a part-time coordinator -- Tony Gray -- for the channel's programming. But no one seems to know what qualifies him for the job...or exactly when he is there... Meanwhile, calling the station phone number [753-3301] elicits only an endless ringing... Gone is the recording advising callers that they have reached the station and how to leave a message, drop off a tape, or put an event on the community calendar... Things shamble along...
...Am I the only one who is shocked by the treatment the Mayor seems to receive at the Council's agenda-setting sessions? ...You know, these are the sessions in the City Hall Library, where the Council goes over the proposed agenda for the next business meeting, agreeing to add items or seeking more information before deciding or hearing presentations from various and sundry who wish to approach the esteemed councillors as supplicants... When the Mayor chooses to attend, she comes not as a private citizen but as the city's chief magistrate and executive... Common courtesy, if not historic precedent, would indicate she should be given a place of honor and not put down at the end of the long table with her back to half the room and without a microphone so that the public -- who should not be deprived of a bit of the meeting -- have to strain to hear, if they can, what she has to say. Where's the respect? To paraphrase Captain Renault in Casablanca, "I'm shocked, shocked to find out what is going on in here!"
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