Where Was Trenton?

A hearing on four Trenton Water Works (TWW)-related bills was held this afternoon by the State Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee. These proposed bills were announced last month by Committee Chair and 14th Legislative District (D-Hamilton) Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, as the first major legislative response to the vast problems of the Water Works over the last several years. As such, this was actually a pretty significant hearing.

Since yesterday’s weather became today’s dig out from under, nicely assisted by spring sunshine, I happened to be around town in the afternoon. I went to the hearing, which was pretty well attended by officeholders and officials all around Mercer County and the State. Well, mostly all around.

About the only people not in attendance were any representatives of the City of Trenton. No one, nada, nobody. No one from City Hall, Administration or Council, and no one from TWW. Only two current city candidates showed up, which to me just highlighted how pathetic it was that no one else was there.

Where was Trenton??

Let me just run down the names and positions of several of those who were in attendance and who testified, by way of showing how notable Trenton’s absence was.

Hamilton Township was heavily represented. Mayor Kelly Yaede was there, as were 4 out of 5 Township Council members: Council Vice President Jeffrey Martin and Members Ileana Schirmer, Richard Tighe, and Ralph Mastreangelo.

Lawrence Township was represented by its Mayor, Christopher Bobbitt. Ewing’s Business Administrator James McManimon attended. As did Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes.

The State’s Department of Environmental Protection, the lead agency for most of TWW’s dealings with the State, sent a delegation of four officials, headed by DEP Compliance and Enforcement Assistant Commissioner Ray Bukowski.

Both of the Assembly members representing Trenton, Reed (mayoral candidate) Gusciora, and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson briefly spoke, Gusciora stopping in from another legislative hearing he was participating in one floor above in the State House Annex.

Finally, the only other Trenton voice was provided by mayoral candidate and Deputy County Clerk Walker Worthy. He was the only person who didn’t have a job in the building to show up.

Here are links to each of the four bills, with brief descriptions provided by the Legislaure:

Discussion during the hearing indicated that each of these will likely go through at least some revisions and mark-ups. Nearly everyone who spoke spoke in favor of the bills. Many other people listed their names as in favor but declined to speak. NJ Sierra Club Executive Director Jeff Tittel was one of those. Mr. Bukowski indicated that he and his colleagues hoped to spend some time with the committee members to mark up each of the bills – amending the bills before further action.

These bills, as they stand now, may not pass. But they do represent the latest – and not the last – major push by the State of New Jersey, and encouraged by all of the other TWW customer Townships as well as the County Executive, to fix the Trenton Water Works.

That hearing room was THE place to be in the entire state to discuss the future of Trenton’s Water Works.

And no one from Trenton was there.

You know, last week at Trenton’s Council meeting, every member of Council pledged their undying pledge to oppose any sale of the Water Works to private interests. That’s something that is not even remotely on the horizon right now. It’s the wrong thing for Trenton’s Council. and the Administration, to focus on.

The best thing that Trenton can do right now, to oppose a hypothetical sale in the long run, is to demonstrate that the City is committed to the job of responsibly fixing the utility, and then running it well.

Unfortunately, the City has failed twice in the last week to show that kind of commitment. Council failed last week to recognize that my request to them to administratively separate out TWW items out from other City business and treat them deliberately and openly would demonstrate Council’s accountability and responsibility to those outside the City dependent on the utility.

And today, the City showed again that it didn’t even make the effort to be in the room when other stakeholders in the County,  in the DEP and in the Legislature met to talk about Trenton’s Water Works.

My feeling after attending the hearing today is that, whatever the fate of these four specific pieces of legislation, the process is now begun that will inevitably lead to major change at the Water Works. Count on it.

I feel that all of the other major stakeholders will give Trenton something  of a grace period to get its shit together. The two private engineering firms contracted at the beginning of the year, Wade Trim and Banc3, will be given time to make their mark. And the upcoming May elections in Trenton may result in genuinely new and genuinely competent City leadership taking the reins from the current incompetents. The window – of any – that the rest of the state is willing to grant to the city to do this may be very narrow indeed, measured in short months if not weeks.

I do think those are the stakes in play right now. Everyone’s patience with Trenton is real thin right now. Trenton has, finally, to step up.

Based on today, though, I am not hopeful.

Where was Trenton?? Nowhere to be found!