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

Now you see it, now you don't. Now you see it, again.

As you know, the budget committee of Trenton’s City Council has been meeting with department directors to go over the proposed numbers for this fiscal year (which btw is half over).

Did you know that there is still a line item for a Director of Recreation, Natural Resources and Culture?

There is.

Why can’t the administration figure out what it wants to do with regards to this department?

Mayor Jackson’s transition team took the position that the city might be best served by reorganizing city government and doing away with the department altogether. This would be accomplished by dividing up the work of that department amongst the remaining departments. It is an idea that has beenfloated here and elsewhere for the past few years.

Last month, the preliminary budget included money for hiring a director of DRNRC and three staff people in seeming conflict with the transition report. Then, in a November 21, 2014 article by Times reporter Jenna Pizzi, city spokesman Michael Walker stated the idea was scrapped.

"The mayor is not moving ahead with the department of recreation," Walker said. "He is rethinking the way the city is moving forward with recreation." 

Or so we thought.

Turns out, page three of the budget reviewed at the Monday, December 22 hearing included the line items for salaries of a recreation director's and staff. (See image above). This completely contradicts Walker's statement made last month. 

Sources say the administration doesn't know yet how it wishes to proceed with the recreation department but wants the money in place just the same. 

Sounds indefinite and undecided. Kind of like the guy who was running things a year ago this month. 

Yes, we can.

Yesterday, Trenton Mayor Tony Mack issued a press release calling for the City Council to approve and support his budget request for various recreation funding in FY2013.

In response, we enumerated various examples of waste and mismanagement that has plagued that department during Mayor Mack's rein.

We at the Front Stoop are sometimes criticized for being negative, for only being against something and never offering "solutions."

Here, then, we offer our suggestions on how we might approach the budget issues for the Department of Recreation, Natural Resources and Culture.

First and foremost, you must understand that although this department exists in the city organization chart, it has essentially been operating out of the Department of Public Works, Division of Public Property and the Mayor's Office. 

This is not completely bad. In fact, one very real and valid approach to this situation would be to review all of the functions of the DRNRC and divvy them up amongst other divisions/departments thus doing away with the department and redundant layers of management.

For example, grounds keeping duties as well as maintenance of the buildings would naturally fit under the Division of Public Property. If the city coffers are ever flush enough again to afford a staff landscape architect, he or she could easily work out of that division.

Programming like the pools and the summer feeding program could be handled out of Health and Human Services.

This kind of restructuring should really be considered. For one thing, eliminating the DRNRC would then free up room to move the Water and Sewer Utilities into their own unit. Such a move would have its own benefits that we might take up at a later time.

Our first recommendation would be this type of reorganization at the cabinet level. It has to be done by ordinance which means there needs to be five solid votes on council to override any possible veto by the mayor.

Assuming that a reorganization of the DRNRC is out of the question for the immediate future, here are our thoughts on the budget.

First and foremost, the council must exercise its power of approval over ALL outside contracts, regardless of whether or not they exceed the bid threshold. In this way, they can control just what money is being spent while going through the lengthy budget process. We believe the governing body can, and should, pass a resolution making it very clear that NO contracts for outside goods or services are to be awarded without its prior approval.

To be fair, this also means that council must deal fairly and promptly with proper, timely requests for approval from the administration.

As the budget process trudges forward, the above will ensure that spending is done within the parameters and without jeopardizing the ongoing maintenance of facilities, etc.

Reviewing the past year's operating expenses should provide a fairly good basis for setting limits on what is needed to keep up city parks, buildings, etc. Planned upgrades and emergency repairs can be budgeted for as a percentage of the annual operating budget.

Staffing is a critical area. The park rangers need to be brought back into compliance with the hourly wage (at last check lead ranger Robert "Chico" Mendez was being paid way more than the posted rate) and overtime hours must be monitored and tracked. Additionally, most of these positions are seasonal, not year round, and that needs to be enforced.

One area of staffing that must be budgeted for is the hiring of a director for Ellarslie and the Trent House. Recent plans have called for one person to oversee both facilities. That's fine and it is needed.

Speaking of those two buildings, they along with the Mill Hill Playhouse and Artworks need to be the focus of proper maintenance and upkeep. These four buildings house ongoing, cultural programs run by outside non-profits. The city must honor its MOU's and leases with these groups and provide a safe, welcoming and functional building for their occupancy.

The controversial Learning Centers need to be de-funded and the money requested for their operation and upkeep added to the city's appropriation to the Trenton Free Public Library. That is where the city will get the most bang for its buck, not in some vanity effort to have the mayor's name and image posted in the four corners of the community.

The buildings should be properly shuttered and secured until such a time as the city can find suitable tenants to use them.  The same goes for the city's recreation centers. If they can't readily be leased out to existing entities to run programming out of, they need to be winterized and secured.  The city cannot currently afford to staff and operate these buildings properly.

Another area that unfortunately must be cut back is the funding given to the various sports leagues around town. We suggest that a nominal contribution to each of the leagues be determined and that it be awarded equally to all. No more favoritism should be shown to one league over another for any reason. And this must be communicated to the leagues as soon as possible so they can make plans to find other funding sources.  One spin off of this approach could be greater community involvement in wider support for these activities.

If/when the city's fortunes improve and we have confidence in the administration's ability to follow a budget, things can change. Until then, the Mayor has to face the fact that he can "wish" for a lot of things but the Council has the final say.

Bye-bye, Ms. Lauren I

So long, Hayes, Garnier, Smith, and Vaughan.

After a lot of sturm and drang; misplaced outrage; and claims of not knowing what they were doing (which is partly correct…at least for some members) Trenton’s city council last week adopted a budget for FY2012 that reduced the salary line for the staff of the mayor’s office.  This line item reduction means that the mayor has to find a way to spread the remaining money around to pay his aides, secretary etc or let some of them go effective today. This would include the Mayor’s Director of Policy and Communication, Lauren Ira.

As much as we would like to comment on this situation, it is not our policy to discuss personnel matters publicly.

The blame game

"It's not my fault. I didn't cause it." --- the late George Carlin, comedian

Trenton’s lame duck city council took a double-barreled blast in the Trentonian yesterday.

In his Thursday column, Trentonian scribe L.A. Parker claimed that the five members of council who voted against the city budget demonstrated a lack of “accountability.” Parker did give the South Ward Councilman, George Muschal, a pass for only having come on board after November’s special election. He chided the other four “No” votes (Bethea, Lartigue, Melone and Segura) for passing the responsibility determining the city’s tax increase to the state Division of Local Services. Parker claims the four did not own up to their part in helping “put Trenton in this position” of begging the State for money.

It comes as no surprise that Parker did not mention at all the irresponsible and spendthrift ways of the Doug Palmer administration that for the past two years has waited until the fiscal year was more than half over before submitting a budget to city council.

Instead, Parker wrote a companion piece in which Palmer “blasts” city council’s alleged irresponsibility in the matter.

“I introduced a budget to City Council and then it was up to them to schedule meetings or hold budget workshops. The ball was in their court. I don’t want to hear anything about my Plan B,” Palmer said earlier today.

“But now we have five city council members who are attempting to point the finger at me. I made my decisions. People elected me to be a leader and that’s what I have done. Being a leader is not for the weak of heart.”

Palmer praised President Paul Pintella and at large Councilwoman Cordelia Staton for “having the guts to take responsibility for the budget.

Both Parker and Palmer seem to ignore the fact that Council cannot act on the budget until it is submitted by the administration. And Palmer should have submitted a “worst case” budget months ago and not relied upon the Supreme Court to bail him out by allowing the TWW water sale to go through without the chance of a referendum, which it didn't do.

It is just too bad Parker doesn’t decry Palmer for not accepting his share of accountability in the matter.

He said what?!?!

In yet another example of classic empty rhetoric, the inscrutable Doug Palmer complained about New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine's budget cuts. Decrying the reductions in aid to cities and public school monies, Palmer was quoted in a Trentonian article as saying:

"A lot of what is being done now is just an application of a Band-aid for a serious condition. We need serious spending reform."

Funny words from the man who's faced with laying off people, privatizing the inspections department, reducing library hours and at the same time not reining in spending on things like the take home cars, raises for the city administration and such. And as far as band-aid solutions go...what should we consider the sell off of the city's suburban water distribution infrastructure but a one shot infusion of capital to temporarily ease the pain caused by the profligate ways of Palmer and his cronies?

How about enacting some spending reform of your own, Doug.

Palmer also feels any Federal monies should go right to the cities rather than be passed through the State's hands. Could that be because he knows he can't expect to feed from the hand he has just bitten?

Predictably, Trenton's idiot prince (and presumed candidate for Mayor if/when Palmer leaves), Council President Paul Pintella got his licks in as well. Speaking through the Trentonian's L.A. Parker in the same article, Pintella said:

"Financial problems have forced us to reinvent the way that government operates, but the cuts must be responsible. We must protect the welfare of our residents."

Interesting coming from a man who was criticized for trying to expense a business trip with City Council funds and who has never fully answered the question of the missing Urban League money. Responsible and protective of the residents? Right.

These comments just demonstrate the inability of Palmer or Pintella to grasp the very real situation that the policies of the Palmer administration have put is in. The city is broke, not because of the country's economic situation, but because they have managed to rape and plunder the city to the verge of bankruptcy for 18 years. Now that the federal and state funds are drying up, these two "P's" in a pod are in the pridicament of having to find ways to push the blame onto others.

Just another reason why Palmer must leave now or at the end of his term and Pintella must never be elected to any public office again.

But on the other hand

This blogger giveth and this blogger taketh away

Where we had to give a nod to Trentonian Columnist L.A. Parker the other day, his inaccurate statements on Friday have given us a change of mind. We agree with Greg Forester's entry on the misinformation contained in Parker's May 16 column.

Let's set the record straight on a couple of points that Mr. Parker misstated:

1) The city council has not already approved the gun purchase. If that were the case, there would be no discussion or docket item. The action that was previously approved was a budget line item to replace the aging Glocks in the city's arsenal. Just because the item is in the capital budget does not need it has to be spent in whole or part.

2) The argument that it is not a $200,000 lump sum expenditure, but rather spread out over 20 years at $10,000 per is ridiculous. Whether you accept his and former Police Director Santiago's math or not, it's $200,000. There is an offer of free guns on the table so the capital expenditure is not needed. Period.

3) The cost of $25,000 for Glocks is only if the department opts to "upsize" to a .45 caliber gun vs. the current .40 caliber (and there is, research tells us, very little difference between the two size rounds). Would you prefer to hit with a slug from one over the other? Not us. If the city stays with the .40 caliber Glock, there will be no cost for the one-to-one gun swap. Only if we swap the .40 caliber Glocks for new .45 caliber Glocks, would that $25,000 cost be incurred.

In conclusion, Mr. Parker is entitled to form his opinions and he's paid to express his thoughts.

He should, however, make sure he has his facts straight before he holds puts them out there for public consumption.

And, one other thing...the city taxpayers who will be shouldering the costs of the city's deficit should be given due consideration when council decides this issue.

The opinions of the non-resident former Police Director and the non-resident Trentonian columnist should not be given a second thought.

Memo from a taxpayer

One person's twelve, oops, make that thirteen cents worth.

To: The Palmer Administration and Trenton City Council

Subject: The Budget

Ok. You danced around so long that the FY2008 budget has to be approved more or less as presented. There was no chance for City Council to find ways to reduce or eliminate the tax increase because a) the budget year is nearly 75% over and the money similarly spent and b) the Administration likes to play games with the amount of detailed, timely information given to Council so they can perform their fiduciary duties effectively.

So you won another round of “My Way.”

Well, let’s get started today on the FY2009 Budget. Let’s start with the assumption that revenues will not increase a single penny above this year’s (and it’s a pretty sure bet they won’t even meet that mark).

Let’s look at real ways to cut spending. And yes, this means jobs. But perhaps not the ones you were thinking of cutting.

For starters, let’s look at these various “Special Assistants” to the Mayor. By now we all know the saga of Barry Colicelli, the highly compensated “consultant” whose contract was not renewed by Council. Well that’s just the beginning.

How about Mr. Jerry Harris? Do we really need to pay him over $50,000 to be a part-time assistant to the Mayor? No!

How about Chief of Staff Renee Haynes? Is this position really required? A survey of most taxpayers might just show you that it is not. There’s another $100,000+ a year saved.

In fact, Mr. Palmer, if you were to “stay home” and tend to the business of running this city, you might not need all this extra help.

Oh, and let’s not forget your driver. How about we let those police officers assigned to you get back to doing the job they were hired to do in the first place: protecting and serving the people of Trenton.

I know it will be hard on your image as a highly successful municipal executive with a role to play on the national stage, but too bad!!!!

The people of Trenton need a leader. They want a mayor who is hands on, in touch and grappling with the real problems of this city. They don’t want a grandstander who is running all over the country promoting himself while the city sinks deeper into debt and despair.

So there’s your start. Check around the executive branch of Trenton’s government and see what other positions we can no longer afford. (Public Information Officer Kent Ashworth, maybe).

Next, stop spending incredible sums of money for outside professional services contracts when the work can be done in house with staff people (and if the people on staff aren’t qualified, get rid of them and hire people who are!).

Need an example?

How about all the various attorney contracts the City pays for? We have a legal department and staff. Why is so much work going out the door? Is it to “toss a bone” to your cronies and campaign contributors? (The names Peterson and Trimboli are just two that come to mind). Bet we could save some money there.

And just why are we dealing with so many legal cases anyway?

Let’s see, there are protracted union negotiations…and who benefits from those? Not the unions and their membership; not the public. That’s right, the lawyers.

And there’s the multitude of claims and lawsuits. Maybe if we didn’t arbitrarily tell the police to “look the other way” while someone shoots a movie without a permit or liability insurance; perhaps if we monitored the way we go about the city’s business, we could minimize or eliminate some of these claims and reduce the need for legal representation. I believe it’s called “Risk Management.”

And it’s not just contracts with lawyers. We need to seek out the best price on all outside professional services contracts…regardless of whether or not they are buddies or supporters of your campaigns (and those of your chosen few).

Along with this, we need to totally and honestly evaluate how the various city departments operate.

Now whatever happened to the management study being conducted in the past year? What were the results? How much did that cost? Are we reaping any benefits from that yet? Oh, and was it really necessary to hire as one of the sub-contracted consultants the wife of one of the division heads who’s staff was being interviewed and evaluated? Isn’t that a little dicey as well as pricey?

City Council, don’t turn away. You’ve got a role in this too. Apply what you’ve recently learned about the budget process to FY2009 expenditures. If you don’t have a working budget in front of you, along with the backup information and material, don’t approve any unnecessary expenditure! Especially outside contracts. It’s past time for you to exercise the power and authority that you have over the budget. Use it or lose it!

Back to the administration; stop proposing stupidly expensive and totally unwarranted spending.

The fire helmet was a bad idea from day one. It became an infamously costly bad idea as time went on. The next time it goes out, have it dismantled and sold for scrap. It’s worthless and we can’t keep spending money on it.

Municipal Wi-Fi: it is a bad idea. Scrap your dreams and whatever promises you may have made to E-Path. It will never be what you think it will. If E-Path or any other company wants to build a system, let them. Just don’t put one Trenton dime into it.

And stop buying half-assed technology just because somebody’s cousin or friend is "in the business" and will sell you stuff cheaply that you can then point to as an illustration of just how advanced and sophisticated Trenton is.

You did it with the old Computer Aided Dispatch System (CPLIMMS was it?)

You did it with the Motorola radio system for the Communications division (remember the promise that the whole County would share this system --- and the cost--- with us?)

You did it with the farce of the video surveillance cameras in the midst of the 2006 election campaigns.

Are the few minutes of positive press you get really worth the ultimate cost to the taxpayers for non-functioning equipment and systems? Not to mention the risk to life and property when they fail to perform as advertised?

If you really want to improve the city’s bottom line, how about making a real and concerted effort to wrest control of the multitude of vacant buildings from their owners who are sitting on them like golden eggs that will never hatch. Take those buildings and put them in the hands of the various small developers who have been working very hard to restore and revive the market for this great old building stock. Get these building out of the hands of speculators and into the hands of people who will realize their full assessed potential.

Forget the big marquee development projects that never seem to work out or get started or become what they were promised to be.

And stop squandering our money and UEZ funds on your friends like Mr. Torricelli and his touted yet unrealized promises of “full occupancy.”

In short, the Mayor and the Administration must stop treating the City budget like their own personal treasury. Pennies must be pinched. They must do without some of the fun things (do all the various directors and such really need full-time city provided vehicles when our cops don’t have enough decent cars to use?) and perks.

If we can’t afford them, you can’t have them. (And by the way, a lot of this also applies to that money pit subset of City government, the school system. Let’s get rid of the extra assistant and special superintendents, various other dead weight positions, unneeded extras and spend money on good teachers, supplies and facilities!)

So let’s get cracking! Sharpen those pencils and fire up those calculators. July 1 is but four months away. Let’s see a fully thought out preliminary budget and all the back up detail presented to Council by then.

A matter of dollars and sense

Two interesting items from this past week's news:

The City Administration has agreed to spend yet another $78,000+ to upgrade the seldom working neon sign that sprawls across the facade of the Fire Headquarters building on Perry Street.

If you're not up to speed on this subject, here's a brief synopsis.

The sign was conceived to be a companion to the famous "Trenton Makes" sign on the lower free bridge across the Delaware River that would serve as a landmark and help attract people to the Fire Museum (which itself didn't reopen until a couple of years ago). Originally estimated to cost $75,000 to build and install on the Fire Headquarters building in 2002, the balky sign has seldom worked right for any measurable length of time.

The latest contract granted to update and upgrade the sign brings the total spent on this boondoggle has reportedly cost the city $500,000 over the last five years.


The second item was an article in Saturday's Times about the serious deterioration of physical plant at Trenton Central High School's main (Chambers Street) campus.

In the article TCHS Principal James Earle and other district employees decried the crumbling plaster, leaky roof, and overall decrepit condition of the once grand and glorious 75 year old edifice.



The story is bound to rekindle the passionate debate over saving the building or trashing it (and along with it, a significant icon on the city's once proud image. And it will highlight, yet again, the sorry state of Trenton's educational system.

We can all name socio-economic reasons why not every student is thriving in our schools. What has never been made clear as how and why we have let the school buildings deteriorate to the point that they can't hope to function for their intended purpose.

We can't find or won't allocate the funds to quite literally keep a roof over the heads of our school children, but we can fritter away a half-million dollars on a stupid neon sign that has never worked properly and can hardly be seen from anywhere except in front of the building it is on.

It just doesn't make sense.