--Mayor-elect Adrian O. Mapp
Mayor-elect Adrian Mapp convened his transition team Thursday and charged them with examining eleven aspects of city government over the next six weeks.The dinner meeting in Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church held a sea of familiar faces from past administrations and community organizations. Mapp said he began anticipating the transition three or four months ago and modeled it on that of Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.
--Michael DeCotiis, Bill O'Dea
Attorney Michael DeCotiis and Hudson County Freeholder Bill O'Dea, who both worked on Fulop's transition, will guide the process here as well. O'Dea joked that all he got in Jersey City was a bagel, but "never an event like this.""It shows the commitment of Mayor Mapp to having an inclusionary government," O'Dea said.
"Running for office is tough, running a government is tougher," O'Dea said, but predicted that Mapp was "going to make Plainfield a super, super great city again."
--John Stewart
DeCotiis said he took his hat off to campaign director John Stewart and the steering committee."I've never seen an organization put together like this," he said. "It's going to make our task, which is a daunting task, that much easier."
DeCotiis said it will be very important that the team members go on Mapp's website and read his platform papers.
As for the six-week process, "Time is going to go past extremely fast," he warned, urging the committees to stay on track.
Honorary Chairman Gov. Jim McGreevey had a prior engagement and could not take part in the meeting. Union County Freeholder Chairman Linda Carter was expected to be late.
Before the meeting, Mapp spoke with media representatives. Among answers to Plaintalker's questions, Mapp said there was a transition budget of about $60,000. It was meant for "a professional to take a deep dive study" into city government, but he said Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs blocked it. He said all preliminary activities, including the dinner, came out of other funds, but expenses of the transition team would now be covered from the council-approved budget.
Asked whether he was taking applications for 2014 vacancies on city boards and commissions, he said that was a separate process from the transition, but he expected very shortly to have Stewart receive applications. Plaintalker also asked whether he would enforce the residency requirement for his cabinet, which calls for city residents to be considered first and other hires to move to the city within a year. Since 2006, nearly all cabinet members received residency waivers and lived outside the city.
Mapp said he will be looking for "the best and brightest" and he will not let residency stand in the way.
Mapp takes office on Jan.1 and will have to vacate his 3rd Ward City Council seat by Dec. 31. The next council meeting, on Nov. 12, combines an agenda-fixing session at 7:30 with a regular meeting at 8 p.m., both in Municipal Court. The meetings were combined to allow officials to attend the League of Municipalities conference in Atlantic City the following week.
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