Residents frustrated with Plainfield utility authority
Updated Apr 01, 2019; Posted May 13, 2009
By Tracee M. Herbaugh/ For the Star-Ledger
About 100 Plainfield residents confronted officials from the city's municipal utilities authority at a public forum Tuesday night, venting their frustration with recent rate hikes and questionable spending.
In January, the Plainfield Municipal Utility Authority raised rates by 20 percent and eliminated 20 non-management jobs. Many of the residents at Tuesday's forum questioned the rate hike, as well as a trip that saw 13 utility executives attend a four-day conference in California in April that cost about $25,000. Another trip to a Las Vegas waste management conference is planned in June.
"They have to generate money to cover expenses, but they aren't willing to cut expenses," said Philip Charles, who opened the discussion with a breakdown of what he considered the authority's questionable spending. "I understand that bills are going to go up - they don't go down - but it shouldn't go up 20 percent."
The authority's spokeswoman Erin Donnelly and general superintendent of field operations Howard Smith took questions from the group at the community meeting at the Plainfield Public Library. The event's organizers from the Friends of Sleepy Hollow neighborhood association originally expected the utility's Executive Director Eric Watson to attend.
On several occasions, a handful of people in the audience began shouting at the two executives. And after audience members finished questions or concerns, loud eruptions of applause and whistles could be heard.
State Assemblyman Jerry Green, who represents the 22nd District, has asked the state comptroller to investigate the utility.
"If we can prove that changes need to be made, I'll be right there in the audience with you to see those changes happen," Green said.
Among the cost-cutting suggestions given by the audience was consolidating the authority's five locations to save on overhead costs, reducing the board of commissioners from seven to two members and eliminating an eight-page, color newsletter that is sent to 12,000 customers every quarter.
Residents also expressed anger about the utility's fee for extra bags of trash. If a customer overloads a trash can, the utility can charge $30 per bag. The charge is dependent on the number of bags that cause the receptacle lid to remain open, not by weight or number in the can.
Some in the audience said their trash was not removed for nearly three weeks during the holiday season five months ago.
"If you don't pick up our trash, we're going to have extra, but you charge us because you don't pick it up," one resident pointed out.
The two executives did not have answers for many questions during the meeting but asked customers to fill out formal complaint forms they brought.
The utility's chairwoman Carol Brokaw, who is running for Plainfield mayor, did not attend the meeting because she was participating in a mayoral debate at Shiloh Baptist Church. But she defended the Oakland trip and rate hikes in a phone interview today.
"The PMUA is like any other business in both the private and public sector," she said. "Any operation can be made more effective. It's light years ahead of the city in terms of efficiency. But since it is an entity, it can be improved."