Small victories in Flemington

by: Jeff Doshna

Tue Apr 12, 2011 at 12:01:55 PM EDT

Just a quick update on last evening's Flemington Borough Council meeting.  Recall that Mayor Erica Edwards is planning on laying off as many as 4 out of 9 employees from our department of public works, without bothering to talk to the Union first about possible cost savings that don't require layoffs.

A brief recap...

1.  Mayor Erica Edwards, using words like 'restructuring' when she meant to say 'layoff' continued her resistance to hearing from Teamsters representatives about what might be done to save jobs and money in the 2011 budget.  She was emphatic -- oftentimes combative -- stating that she would not meet with them to talk about savings for this year's budget, but would be looking for concessions in the future.

2.  When asked a direct question, Mike Campion, Director of Public Works, suggested that he was asked, "Can you run your department with 1 less or 2 less people".  It seemed to me that the decision to reduce headcount was made first by the Mayor, then he was asked if he could maintain level of service.

Let me be clear -- it's not like the manager of this department suggested that there was redundancy or unused capacity here, and this was a way to make the budget work.  The layoff suggestion came from Mayor Edwards.

3.  When asked, each and every single council member committed to meet with Union representatives on how we might close the budget gap for this year's budget, to see if we can cover the shortfall without losing a position.

This is huge.  As each council member spoke, you could see Mayor Edwards realize that she had no choice but to have a meaningful dialogue with the Union.  We'll all be there to make sure that conversation happens, but this was a minor victory last night for our hard-working men and women.

The other thing that needs to be mentioned is that  "Public Comment", and the hearing of the Union staffing issue didn't happen until 2 1/2 hours into the council meeting.  The Open Public Meetings Act requires a period of public comment, but this seemed like a deliberate attempt to empty the room before this issue was heard.  I'm working on another post about this; more later...