Jerry's Piety Party

I was surprised this week when Assemblyman Jerry Green deviated from posting canned press releases to reacting to my post on the Union County Improvement Authority. I read it over and even printed it out, but found his post to be such a stew of platitudes and non sequiturs that I just didn't know what to say in response.

Meanwhile, blogger Dan Damon took a try at deciphering it and concluded it was just "Jerryspeak," the assemblyman/head of housing/ party chairman's own argot. Councilwoman Rebecca Williams found it to be "stunningly hypocritical" when she read it, offering seven of her own past posts documenting examples of Green's smarmy tactics.

Perhaps the most puzzling part of Green's post was this:  "If you cannot say anything positive about any elected officials, such as the Mayor, Council members and myself personally, please place that negativity somewhere else, but not in Plainfield. We do not need that here." Could this be the same Jerry Green who condemned Mayor Adrian O. Mapp as "every bit as bad for Plainfield as I feared" even though he supported him in the 2013 primary and general election?

My point about time passing without a complete resolution of the August 2013 UCIA settlement kind of got lost in the rhetoric. "It has taken ten years to get to the point that we are at now with this issue," Green admits. Why so long? According to this 2006 Plaintalker post, the issues date back to 2001. The city finally has a document and a check, but not full compliance with terms of the settlement. Green heads the local Democratic Party and the Regular Democratic Organization of Union County. Surely he could use his power to speed the process. I think it is a fair question to ask why it is not happening.

Recent events have left Green with a public image of his own doing. Browbeating bloggers as negative will not get him the new political clothes he needs for re-election in 2015. I must agree when he says, "We need to hold our community in high regard and not lower it to gutter-style politics." Let's see whether he can live up to his own advice.

--Bernice

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