The grift that keeps on grifting

Back in November of 2017, we spent a couple of days examining former Mayor Eric Jackson's failed Trenton Resident Employment initiative. We outlined how there was nothing to show for the program or the money paid to Charles Hill, the consultant hired to shape and oversee the initiative. Should anyone be surprised to learn that all these months later, Mr. Hill still hasn't been made to answer for his blatant ripoff of the city?

To recap: in September of 2014, early in the Jackson administration, the council passed an ordinance creating the Trenton Employment Commission. The purpose of the commission was to meet monthly to oversee the Mayor's Trenton Resident Employment Initiative.

Thirteen months later, in October of 2015, the council passed a resolution authorizing a one year/$50,000.00 contract with Hill Consultants LLC and its principal, Charles Hill coordinate and implement the initiative.

We pointed out at that time very little work had been done; no one had been appointed to the commission; no meetings of the commission had been held; and Mr. Hill seemingly walked away after billing the city and being paid about $23,000.00 for his alleged work on the project.

It was also noted at the time that Mr. Hill appeared to have arbitrarily and unilaterally raised his hourly billing rate from $100 to $125 on the six invoices. He was paid the extra money and no one ever blinked an eye or raised a question.

Even after we published our findings and shared the same with the DCA and its Trenton "monitor", no one from the state, the administration or the city council bothered to inquire into what happened to the initiative or what did the city really receive for the money spent.

Well, as it turns out, the city did make at least a half-hearted attempt at clearing some of this up. On June 18, 2018, in the waning days of  Mayor Jackson's term, the City of Trenton filed a complaint against Mr. Hill and Hill Consultants, LLC to recoup $4,750.00 in over payments to Mr. Hill, plus interest, court costs, attorney fees "and any further sums that the court may deem equitable and just."

Good, right?

Well, it would be except that the defendant was never served. It appears as though they tried to serve him at his business address in Trenton; a rented office long since vacated. We're guessing they didn't try to serve him at his last known residence address in Newtown, Pennsylvania.  The address is right there in Hill's response to the city's original RFP. Surely they could refile the complaint to be served there.

Recovering $4,750.00 + in owed money will not come close to solving the city's fiscal woes, but it just might stop one more con from walking away with pockets lined with taxpayers funds.

For what it's worth

Entry edited to clarify actual title holder of the property in question

"I must stress that this is very much a personal, not a political decision," Jackson said at the podium outside his City Hall office.

"I still believe I have much to contribute to Trenton's rebirth, but I believe my contributions will be greater outside the halls of City Hall and the mayor's office," he said. "I am grateful, eternally grateful to every resident for entrusting me with the responsibility of being mayor."

So said outgoing Trenton Mayor, Eric Jackson in Kevin Shea's Times article on January 26 of this year. 

Well, we guess Jackson forgot to add "from outside of Trenton" to his statement.

Looks as though Jackson, like his one time employer and mentor, Doug Palmer, is ready to pack up and leave town once out of office. The soon-to-be former Mayor's Melrose Avenue home in the city's Villa Park neighborhood is on the market for $205,000.

Public records indicate that the house was purchased in 2007 by Denise Johnson, presumably, the now Mrs. Jackson, for $235,000. 

Good luck getting that price.

And goodbye, Mr. Mayor.

Indicative

It's the little things that matter

On Thursday, March 8, Mayoral Candidate and current At Large Councilman Alex Bethea opened his Campaign Headquarters at 201 Mulberry Street.

This seemed like an odd decision.

Mulberry Street is in the far northeast corner of the city. It's busy but not what we would consider a main artery and certainly not centrally located. In our long experience with Trenton municipal elections, Mayoral Campaign Headquarters were normally situated somewhere in or very nearby downtown, not some two miles away.

If the location isn't odd enough, here's another tidbit. Mr. Bethea chose a building where the landlord has been cited for various code violations.  As recently as March 6, the property owner was issued summonses for violating the city housing code.

From documents obtained via OPRA request from the city, it appears as though an inspection was conducted by the city on March 5, 2018. At that time, the 2nd floor apartment was found to be occupied but there were no certificates of occupancy on file. The property also had a new electrical service that no permits had been issued for; and there were a variety of other violations.

And this isn't the only time the property owner has been cited. Back in July of 2017...just last summer...the city sent a letter instructing the property owner to remove the high vegetation and junk from the property.

One other thing we noticed when reviewing the documents...the non-occupant owner registration form shows the owner as an individual, Ms. Peggy Bellamy. However, public records indicate that the property is actually owned by her LLC, B & S Properties. Ms. Bellamy either failed to register the property correctly OR to record the transfer of title to from her LLC to her name. (And we won't comment on the couple of tax liens that have been issued on the property...one of which may still be active)

Good choice for a campaign headquarters, councilman.

Indicative of your thought processes.

"And this ordinance has been properly adopted."

Edited on February 22 to include the response from the Municipal Clerk (see end of post)

Or has it?

At the January 16, 2018 meeting of Trenton's city council Ordinance 17-80 was up for it's second reading and public hearing. There were only four members of council present when the ordinance came up and the vote was three to one in favor. (Audio here)
Trenton's Municipal Clerk, Dwayne Harris, can clearly be heard saying after the vote, "And this ordinance has been properly adopted."  (Audio here)

Except that is wasn't.

The exact same ordinance came up for reintroduction (first reading) on Thursday, February 15. How can this be?

Recap

From the moment that it first appeared on the council docket in early December of 2017, we argued against giving Mr. Torricelli more tax breaks for his project. Not surprisingly, the ordinance passed first reading at the December 7 meeting. The council members voting in favor of the introduction of Ordinance 17-80 were Mr. Bethea, Ms. Caldwell-Wilson, Mr. Chester, Mr. Harrison, and Ms. Reynolds-Jackson. Ms. Holly-Ward and Mr. Muschal were apparently absent as no vote was recorded from either of them.

The second reading was postponed from December 21 and rescheduled for January.

At the January 16 meeting, the ordinance was brought up for it's second reading. According to the audio (provided courtesy of Kevin Moriarty) of the meeting, there was no one present who wished to speak on the matter so the public hearing portion was closed. The ordinance was then brought forth for a vote. Council members Caldwell-Wilson, Chester and Holly-Ward voted in favor of granting the 10 year tax abatement. Councilman Muschal voted against. Council members Bethea, Harrison and Reynolds-Jackson were absent.  The Clerk declared the ordinance adopted.

A couple of weeks later, we started hearing murmurings that something was up and the ordinance hadn't passed. Then, sure enough, Kevin Moriarty spotted an item on the docket for February 15.

How could this be?

We submitted an Open Public Records request to the municipal clerk asking for the ordinance, its effective date, any communications regarding why it may not have gone into effect, minutes of the meeting where it was adopted, etc.

What we got back was a copy of the ordinance with a large stamp across the front page noting that it had failed to be adopted on January 16.

While we received a copy of the minutes of the December 7 meeting at which Ordinance 17-80 was introduced, were not provided with the minutes of the January 16 meeting because (per the Deputy Clerk's note) they "have not been prepared."

We asked for information on exactly why the ordinance failed on January 16. Trenton's Municipal Clerk, Dwayne Harris, sent along the following information regarding why the ordinance was NOT adopted on January 16:

"Ordinance 17-80 failed upon second reading because it failed to obtain the affirmative vote of a majority of all the members of the council, which would be four, as required by NJSA 40:69A-180." 

For those interested, here's the relevant part of the cited statute:

40:69A-180. Rules of procedure; quorum; ordinances and resolutions; presiding officer; compensation
(a) Council shall determine its own rules of procedure, not inconsistent with ordinance or statute. A majority of the whole number of members of the council shall constitute a quorum, but no ordinance shall be adopted by the council without the affirmative vote of a majority of all the members of the council. 

The key phrase being "but no ordinance shall be adopted by the council without the affirmative vote of a majority of all members of the council".

On January 16, only four members were present for the vote. Three of them voted in the affirmative, one against. Three is less than a majority of the total membership of the governing body. The ordinance was therefore not adopted.

Mr. Harris notified Council of his error on January 17th and made a public announcement during the February 15th council meeting.

It's probably all moot as the matter will likely succeed in its second go around. But Trenton again experiences a procedural fail.

Just in time, the scene has changed

Yesterday, we took a snapshot of the current field of candidates running for elected office in Trenton's May Municipal Elections and who had run previously. We gave a quick review of their filings with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission to spot any areas of concern. 

Taking off from there, Kevin Moriarty yesterday looked a little more closely at some of the reporting errors he saw in forms filed by mayoral candidate Paul Perez.

Today, the picture has changed ever so slightly. It appears as though the rumblings are true and Councilman At Large Duncan Harrison, Jr. will be announcing his run for mayor this weekend.

The news of this announcement sent us right back to the NJ ELEC website to see what, if any, new filings had shown up since we last checked. Indeed, we found that Mr. Harrison had opened up a reporting channel for his new campaign for mayor this year by filing his D-1 designating his campaign treasurer and a depository for his funds.

OOPS!  It looks as though Harrison is using the same depository (bank account) for his newly formed mayoral campaign committee as he used for his Council At Large campaign.  Now, we may be getting down to splitting hairs here, but we don't think that is allowable. It certainly isn't desirable.

The NJ ELEC Compliance Manual for Candidates and Committees states on page 9:

 C. Candidates for Two Different Offices

An individual who is a candidate for two or more offices in an election is required to establish separate candidate committees, or separate joint candidates committees, or both, for each office sought, and establish separate campaign depositories. {our emphasis}

Now, we realize that there must be quite a bit of activity going on in the Harrison camp as they switch gears from running for council to running for mayor. An entirely new set of paperwork must be filed, a new set of signed petitions collected and all with just a couple of weeks to go before the filing deadline. It is possible that the use of the same account number for the new depository was a mistake. Or maybe Mr. Harrison and his Treasurer were't aware of the separate depository rule.

As we noted yesterday, Mr. Harrison has not technically closed out his 2014 Council At Large election reports but he did appear to accurately report the left over funds as the starting balance of his 2018 council run. He will now need to properly close the reporting on both the 2014 and 2018 accounts as he begins the reporting on his 2018 mayoral run. Until he does that, it is our contention that he has two open committees for different offices (even though state law precludes him from actually running for election to both offices) and thus needs to have separate bank accounts.

Is past performance indicative of future results?

Four years ago, then mayoral candidate Eric Jackson's campaign reporting irregularities were being pointed out. At that time, Jackson had failed to file his ELEC reports for the time period between the end of his 2010 campaign and the start of his 2014 run for office. It wasn't until it became a campaign issue that candidate Jackson played catch up and filed the back reports.

Unfortunately, his compliance was short lived. After winning the 2014 run off against Paul Perez, the newly elected mayor soon fell behind in his reporting. Even though he's been repeatedly reminded publicly, mostly by Kevin Moriarty through his blog, Jackson has continued to ignore the reporting requirements. As things turned out, non-compliance and lack of follow through are the hallmarks of Jackson's one term in office.

Looking ahead to this years municipal elections, we decided to review the ELEC filings of those candidates who have run before to see how compliant they are with the requirements. Sadly, it appears that some of the candidates are just as negligent as Jackson.

Let's start with some background. On page 48 of the Compliance Manual for Candidates you can find this chart.

It breaks things down pretty clearly as to what spending amount triggers which required forms to be filed. (For the sake of this article, when we say "candidate" we are speaking of a candidate for city council or mayor.}

1. A candidate spending nothing must still file an A-1 form. 
2. A candidate spending up to $5,100 (note: the amount of this threshold has risen over the last couple of cycles) must file the A-1 and a D-1. Other forms may be required.
3. A candidate spending more than $5,100 must file the D-1 and the R-1. Other forms may be required. 

In this review we are most concerned with the A-1, D-1 and R-1 forms. (NOTE: the forms for each candidate that are referenced can be found in a folder at this link or via the NJ ELEC website's searchable database.)

The A-1 form is a candidate's certification that the amount spent on the campaign will be $0 or not more than the threshold of $5,100. Any amount of money spent on a campaign (or even on pre-election or "testing the waters" activities) must be paid from a campaign account. Even if a candidate only spends his or her own money, they must open a campaign account, deposit the money in it and make all campaign related expenditures from it.

When a candidate creates a committee and opens a treasury (bank account), the D-1 form is filed. Records of all contributions and expenditures must be maintained. While the designated Treasurer or deputy treasurer of a campaign committee is required to make and maintain written records of all funds received and expended, it is the responsibility of the candidate to insure that proper record keeping and reporting are done. In other words, a candidate is not without blame for poorly maintained or improperly reported records or missing filings.

The R-1 form is used to detail contributions and expenditures on a quarterly and cumulative basis for those

Campaign reporting is done by election cycle. Page 10 of the manual explains it this way: For reporting purposes and for the purpose of computing contribution limits, an “election” begins with the receipt of the first contribution or the making of the first expenditure and concludes on the 17th day following the election.

At the end of an election cycle, the candidate is supposed to zero out their accounts and file a finalized report with ELEC. If there are funds leftover, the candidate is supposed to roll them over into the next election cycle, thus filing any required forms and quarterly reports until such a time as the funds are spent down, the account zeroed out and a final report filed. (See pages 12 - 13 of the candidate reporting manual)

Executive Summary

Looking over the field of candidates, we see that five of the announced mayoral candidates have run for municipal office before: Alex Bethea, Darren Green, Annette Lartigue, Paul Perez and Walker Worthy. Assemblyman Reed Gusciora obviously has run for office before and currently maintains his reporting for his Assembly campaigns as well as having filed a D-1 for his Mayoral campaign.

Lartigue and Worthy each had a little a money left, but stopped filing reports. Perez had money left in his 2014 account that has not been accounted for in his 2018  reports so far. Bethea and Gusciora are basically up to date, although Bethea seems to be missing some pages on his initial report for the 2018 election. Green had filed an A-1 in 2010 certifying he would spend under the then threshold of $4000 and we assume he spent what he had raised and closed the account. (The ELEC manual is not clear on how that kind of situation should be handled. As concerned citizens, we would prefer a candidate file a final R-1 closing the depository just to be clear.)

Three of the candidates for council at large have run before: Sherwood Brown, incumbent Duncan Harrison and Lee Ingram.

Mr. Brown closed out his 2014 depository and has filed nothing for the 2018 cycle as yet. Harrison did not formally close out his 2014 filings but he did carry the balance forward into his reporting for 2018.  Ingram filed an A-1 certification in 2014 and no D-1. That would indicate that he never opened a campaign depository and thus spent $0 on his campaign. That is unusual but possible. He has filed a D-1 this time, an indication he plans to raise and spend at least a little money.

The four incumbent ward council persons are were all running again: Marge Caldwell Wilson, George Muschal, Verlina Reynolds Jackson, and Zac Chester. (As we were preparing this report, Verlina Reynolds Jackson was tapped to fill the Assembly seat vacated by Liz Muoio. Because of the prohibition of dual office holding, Verlina has to resign her council seat. This DOES NOT exempt her from having to file the reports correctly.)

Marge Caldwell-Wilson's 2014 accounts were properly closed. Her initial R-1 for 2018 has errors. George Muschal's filings are complete and up to date. Reynolds Jackson's last 2014 report showed a balance that is less than the starting balance of her first 2018 report. There is no recorded carry over from a prior campaign. Zac Chester's balance in his last 2014 report is the same as his starting balance in his 2018 report but, again, they don't show it as being carried over from a prior campaign.

Mayor

Sitting councilman at large Alex Bethea filed his final report for his council reporting on 1/17/18. The filing only contains the last page and shows a balance of $2,999.56  He has not filed a new D1 for the 2018 election cycle. His treasurer, his wife Gloria, did note on the summary page the correct starting balance for the new cycle and that it was transferred from a prior election. Not perfect but at least there is an accounting of some sort for the funds.

Candidate Darren Green last ran for a council at large seat in 2010. He filed an A-1 form certifying he would not spend over the reporting threshold ($4,000 at that time). He has filed a D-1 for the current election cycle.

Assemblyman Gusciora has a zero balance in his Assembly campaign committee and filed his new D-1 for the 2019 primary (the next election cycle for that seat). He has also filed his D-1 for the mayoral campaign in Trenton.

Former West Ward councilwoman Annette Horton Lartigue ran for Mayor in 2010. Her last report on file is from June of that year and shows a balance of $3,527.01. It was not marked as a final filing and there have been no subsequent quarterly reports filed detailing what has happened with that money. She has filed her D-1 for the 2018 Mayoral race but doesn't show a bank account or name a treasurer yet.

Paul Perez lost the runoff election to Eric Jackson in June of 2014. He last filed a report for that campaign account in July 11 of that year and showed a balance of  $1,421.49. It was not marked as his final report. Perez filed his D-1 and two R-1s for the 2018 mayoral run in October of 2017. He has a new treasurer and a new campaign account at a different branch of the same bank.

The first Perez R-1 for the 2018 election cycle does not indicate what happened to the prior balance of $1,421.49. The new reporting starts with a $200.00 contribution on the first page and shows no money transferred from the prior election. On the Schedule A, it shows that the $200 was a cash contribution from the candidate dated May 15 of last year, presumably to open the bank account.

The manual states that contributions must be deposited in the campaign depository within 10 days of receipt. (Page 17). If the money was received and deposited in May, there should have been a D-1 filed within 10 days of the receipt of the contribution and an R-1 filed by July 15. On the summary page it states that the starting balance was zero and that the only money received was the $200. This leaves open the question of "what happened to the $1,421.49 in the old account?"

Rounding out the mayoral candidates is Walker Worthy. Worthy also ran for mayor in 2014. The last report his campaign filed was on January 14, 2016. It showed a balance in the account of $384.00 and was not marked as his final report. Nothing has been filed since, which is a little disheartening considering the candidate is the Deputy County Clerk and should know better.

Council At Large

Sherwood Brown ran for the West Ward seat in 2014. He filed his final report for that election cycle in June of that year and had a zero balance. He has yet to file anything with NJ ELEC for the 2018 election cycle.

Duncan Harrison is an incumbent at large council member. His report filed in November of 2017 showed a balance of $2,331.19 in his campaign depository and the R-1 was not marked as final. His February 2, 2018 filing did not indicate any carry over from the prior campaign in the proper places but it did show the starting balance the same as the ending balance of the previous report so at least the funds were somewhat accounted for. Harrison has also filed for an auxiliary campaign depository, perhaps related to his rumored consideration to change his mind and run for mayor instead of council at large.

Lee Ingram ran for an at large seat on council in 2014. He filed an A-1 certifying he would spend less than the $4,500 quarterly reporting threshold for the election. He never filed a D-1 designating a treasurer or a depository. This indicates he spent no money on his campaign or, if he did, he didn't understand the filing requirement of the D-1. He has filed a D-1 for the 2018 election.

Ward Council

North Ward councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson has changed treasurers with each election cycle. Her 2014 election cycle reporting was wrapped up on June 22, 2016 with a final report showing a zero balance. Her D-1 for the 2018 election cycle was filed in July of 2016 but her first quarterly report that cycle doesn't appear to have been filed until October of 2017.

That report shows one deposit of $200.00 but it doesn't give any indication of who contributed or when. The line where one would report any transfer from a prior campaign shows zero on both the first and last pages. On the final page, it is stated that there was an opening balance of $4594.54 and the $200 contribution. There are two disbursements reported totaling $3,168.49. When you subtract those disbursements from the $4,794.54 on hand, the remaining balance should be $1,626.05. However, the report shows an ending balance of $3,368.49. It appears as though the Treasurer erroneously added the deposited contribution to the disbursement total.

Long-time South Ward councilman George Muschal is unique in that he and his wife completely fund his campaign themselves. He filed an A-1 in July, 2009 certifying that he would not spend over the then threshold of $4,000 and thus he doesn't have to report back on the details of any expenditures. Technically, he could probably just file a new A-1 with each election cycle and be done with it. Instead, he files quarterly R-1s showing his cash on hand...more than is required.

As noted above, Verlina Reynolds Jackson will be leaving her East Ward council seat a few months early to move to the NJ Assembly representing the 15th district. The last report she filed for the 2014 election cycle was in May of that year. She showed a balance of $2,085.05 and it was not marked as her final report for that cycle. The next report she filed was in October of 2014 and it was marked for the 2018 election cycle. She did not indicate any money carried over from the prior election cycle on the report but she noted a starting balance of $3,418.35, $660.17 in expenditures and a closing balance of $2,758.68. We're not sure why, but Reynolds Jackson filed successive D-1s for the 2018 election cycle.

Council President and West Ward councilman Zac Chester has left the date of the election cycle of some reports. His last 2014 R-1 appears to have been filed in July of 2017. It was not marked final and it showed a balance of $3,038.19. His next R-1, filed in October of 2017, was marked for the 2018 election cycle. It's staring balance was the same $3,038.19 but there was no indication of money carried over from a prior election.

If you've made it this far through this exercise, we applaud you.  You have shown more diligence than some of the candidates.

It is disturbing to us that individuals seeking positions of responsibility and oversight for the budget of the city of Trenton seem to have trouble with reporting their own campaign finances.  Any of the errors and omissions outlined above are rectifiable by the filing of amended or missing reports. 

Voters have to ask themselves if they want to or should support candidates who don't seem to have a problem failing to get the details of campaign reporting correct, if they bother to file at all.

As recent history has shown us, the inability and/or unwillingness of those seeking (and in many cases, holding) public office to pay attention and adhere to the reporting requirements might just be an indicator of poor performance on the job.

Caveat emptor!

Pessimistically Optimistic

Yesterday, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced they had issued an Administrative Consent Order regarding the Trenton Water Works. The ACO outlines definitive steps and deadlines for improvements, operations, and staffing of the water utility. Failure to meet the deadlines will leave the city open to fines.

The troubles at TWW have been well documented by Kevin Moriarty and the local press. In the past week the governing bodies of both Trenton and Hamilton have had special presentations/discussions about the ongoing issues. Yet there still seems to be a lot of misinformation out there. (Some of which is due to the city of Trenton's inability and/or unwillingness to communicate clearly with the TWW customer base as well as public officials in the towns served by the utility).

We heard more than one public official say that would like transparency with regards to the budget of the Trenton Water Works. Well, the water budget is available on line as part of the City of Trenton budget. Unfortunately, some of the numbers are not readable because, for space reasons the cells are not large enough to contain the entire sum. However, the key information is there, especially the amount of the anticipated and realized surpluses each year.

With a realized surplus of $12 million for fiscal year 2017, it is obvious that there is money available for staffing, maintenance and improvements.

There is confusion about the city's residency requirement for employees. Let's be real clear right and here and now, the residency ordinance was amended in October of 2014 to allow a "waiver for exceptional persons". 

Chapter 2. AdministrationArticle XVI. Officers and Employees ...
§ 2-95. Residence requirements; exception; waiver. D. Waiver for exceptional persons. Whenever the hiring authority of the City of Trenton shall determine that there are certain specific positions and employments requiring special talents or skills which are necessary for the operations of the City of Trenton and which are not likely to be found among the residents of the City, such positions or employments so determined shall be filled without reference to residency. This provision shall be used for positions or employments for (1) officers that are subject to the advice and consent of the City Council and (2) positions requiring persons with scientific or technical licenses or certifications required by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, New Jersey Division of Community Affairs or any other state governing agency.
[Amended 10-2-2014 by Ord. No. 14-33]

It is obvious that the intent of the amendment was to allow the city to hire form outside of the city the licensed individuals necessary for the proper operation of the TWW. And, it was done in the first few months of the failed Jackson administration.

If the residency waiver was in effect, why have so many technical positions been left unfilled?

One answer, based upon the testimony heard at last week's Trenton city council meeting, was that the city was bad about responding to/following up with applicants. One individual stated she never heard back from the city; not even a "thank you, no" letter. Nothing!

The administration offered the excuse that the salaries being offered "were not competitive". Well, if you are operating the utility with a surplus but your salaries are not competitive, maybe you should increase those salaries. Is it that hard?

A third issue is that, until recently, the advertising of the vacancies seemed to be sparse and sporadic at best. We heard that open positions were not currently posted on the city website and a suggestion to hang a "Now Hiring" banner on the filtration plant ignored. You aren't going to get many applicants if they don't know there are openings.

Taken altogether, it appears less that the city was unable to hire people and more like it didn't put any real effort into hiring people.

The ACO has set benchmarks for hiring critical personnel and recent contracts issued to Wade Trim for contract employees to fill some of the vacancies are a start. With increased staffing of professionals, we would expect to see a return to normal, proper operations.

Timely notification of customers about events potentially affecting have been another complaint heard over and over. The DEP has recognized that TWW's Emergency Action Plan is deficient and is demanding it be updated to eliminate those deficiencies. In a February 7 article in the Trentonian, Hamilton mayor, Kelly Yaede, complained that TWW still has up to 24 hours to notify customers.

“The neighboring municipalities should receive the notification within 60 minutes,” the Hamilton mayor said. “When you’re dealing a public health crisis, particularly dealing with quality drinking water, notification is key. In this day and age of social media, getting information out quickly, timliness is imperative.”

As we pointed out in a previous entry, that is the maximum time that Federal regulations for a Tier 1 (Immediate Notice) event to be communicated to the customers. We have to assume that the new policies and procedures to be adopted by TWW aren't going to tell employees to wait the full day before notification. We'd expect something along the lines of "should be notified as soon as possible but not more than 24 hours after an event occurred."

While many are still dubious about the ability of Trenton to professionally manage the utility, the ACO lays out a pretty straightforward road map of what needs to be done and by one. To help keep things on course, TWW must file monthly progress reports with DEP until all items have been completed. The reports are due to be submitted on the last day of each month, unless said date falls on a weekend. In that case, the reports are due on the first business day of the new month. There are fines for each day the reports are late. A prior ACO required "quarterly progress reports" be we are not sure if any were filed.

To help restore confidence in TWW, we believe it would be best if the city made those reports public at the time of submission to DEP. In this way, the customers and all of the public officials can track progress along with the DEP. If things get off track, public pressure can be brought to bear and the situation corrected sooner rather than later.

We feel this new ACO is both a positive first step and a last chance warning for TWW, Trenton's governing body and mayor now and going forward.


We're pessimistically optimistic