Newark Council Postpones Decision on MUA Bill
NEWARK - The Municipal Council present at their Aug. 4 meeting here at City Hall has unanimously voted to put Mayor Cory A. Booker Administration's proposed $220 million water and sewer Municipal Utilities Authority on ice.
Council President Donald Payne, Jr., after receiving the votes to move up the MUA creation resolution, moved to defer that bill at 1:14 p.m. The council members present - Augusto Amador, of the East Ward; Ras Baraka, of the South Ward; At-Large Councilmen Carlos Gonzalez and Luis Quintana; North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, Jr. and Central Ward Councilman Darrin Sharif - joined Payne in deferring the proposal for the fourth time since July 15.
West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice, who arrived at 1:17 p.m., asked Deputy Municipal Clerk Kenneth Louis to add his affirmative vote to defer. At-large councilwoman Mildred Crump was absent.
"I don't normally comment during the public hearing of citizens but I want to explain what we just did," said Payne before an estimated Council Chamber gallery audience of 200. "The only way that the council will further consider the vote is if the one who sponsored to table the bill brings it up again. It's not going to be brought up again for a long time."
The council's fourth and perhaps final MUA deferral vote comes during their first scheduled public session after calling for a week of public meetings July 26-30. Booker and Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Executive Director Linda Brashear, at council urging, explained the hows and whys of the MUA proposal.
City elders had meanwhile voted their third deferral July 27 to take in all questions and comments from those meetings.
"This proposal was different from what then-Mayor Sharpe James proposed seven years ago," said Amador to media members after the vote. "While the current mayor wants to have us lease the water system, James was asking for a sale. By deferring the MUA, we can get on with going over the budget and fill a $70 million deficit."
What Booker and his administration attempted was to create a water and sewer utilities authority that would be able to bond some $100 to $220 million, payable over the next 35 to 40 years. Besides filling the current budget and next year's deficit, the bond funds would help rebuild the water supply delivery and sewer systems.
The mayor said that the council would retain control in a public-public partnership. He added that the average $51 monthly water bill would rise to $61 over the next 10 years.
Booker had said that bonding this autumn would not only fill the $70 million deficit but prevent more drastic service cuts and layoffs. The mayor had projected city property taxes rising between 27 and 37 percent without the MUA.
More than a few public speakers, including those from the two-year-old opposing Newark Water Group, have expressed skepticism in the latest MUA proposal here and at the July 26-30 meetings. Mayor Kenneth Gibson and the council successfully opposed an earlier MUA proposal in the 1970s.
"I was not planning to vote for the MUA," said Sharif after his vote. "I want to turn my attention to a budget process that I find frustrating. I received the administration's budget plan July 2 - the day after I was inaugurated. There is a structural deficit that will take two to four years to correct."
Sharif then called for a special council budget commission that would map out the current and next two years' budgets.
"The residents in my ward are unfairly taxed now, so I'm not going to raise their taxes," added Amador, who had his left arm operated on at St. Michael's Medical Center at St. James' Aug. 2. "We have to go over the budget, department by department, so we're only paying for essential services. We're going to have to have shared sacrifices."
The gallery's applause was still reverberating in the council chamber when Payne called for the hearing of the public. At least three of the speakers - MUA leader Bill Chappel, former council candidate Maryam Bey and activist Donna Williams - called the council for a second, definitive "No" vote on the MUA.
"Now that you've tabled it," asked Chappel, "why not remove all doubt and vote to kill the MUA?"
The only indications on where the nine council members stood prior to the Wednesday afternoon hearing and vote came from two on or by Aug. 3. Council President and Essex County Freeholder Donald Payne, Jr. said, to one public affairs Web site July 28, that he did not think that the MUA would pass. Central Ward Councilman Darrin Sharif, to the same site Aug. 3, said that he had insufficient time to consider the MUA.
Payne had presided over ward-by-ward public meetings on the MUA July 26-30. Sharif had co-hosted the Central Ward meeting July 27 as had West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice July 26.
Respective ward councilmen Anibal Ramos, Jr., Ras Baraka and Augusto Amador co-hosted the North Ward, South and West Ward sessions July 28-30.
Pro- and Anti- MUA partisans joined the general public at the three later meetings as they had at West Side High School July 26 and at Bethany Baptist Church. They took up parts of meeting halls and continued to cheer with or hoot at their supporting public speakers.
At least Payne honored his promise to Lucious Jones, who was left at the speakers' microphone when the councilman called time at 8:59 p.m. July 27, to be the first of the general speakers at the July 28 session in the Park Elementary School Auditorium.
"I first have to say that it's a shame I can't bring my daughters to see democracy in action," said Jones, a United Newark Parents official. "They're nine and 11- years old. I didn't bring them because of what people have been calling out to each other with. Some of them are college students with Newark Now - who should know better."
Local Talk Newark had noticed that some familiar individuals have been holding for or against MUA signs, distributing supportive literature and made some of the shout-outs. Several on the anti-side were yearlong Water Newark Group officials and People's Organization for Progress members. Some of the pro-side were city or Newark Now employees.
Most of the pro-MUA picketers brought signs, reading "27 percent tax hike? Don't foreclose me!" to Park Elementary School. A majority had left before that night's session was over.
While the new Park Elementary auditorium held an estimated audience of 200, the remaining sessions at George Washington Carver Elementary School and Club Acores play to capacity crowds.
The South Ward session, which included at-large councilmen Luis Quintana and Carlos Gonzalez on stage, had audience members leaving their seats and standing in the aisles. Between the standees and the open doors, it was hard to gauge whether the 1979-built Carver auditorium's air conditioning system was up to counter the widespread humidity.
There were between 250 and 300 at the final meeting, held at Club Acores, 145 Ferry St., July 30. While some publications still listed that meeting as being held in the City Hall Council Chamber, one handbill, circulated without citation July 29, announced the venue change.
That venue-change handbill were one of several brochures handed to individuals or put on outdoor windshields. While some may have had some interesting points, all had no source attribution.
The ground-level club's dance hall made for a more intimate setting for Booker and the audience to make their positions known and pose questions.
Several people, - including activist Stanley Neuman, State Sen. Ronald L. Rice, former assemblyman William Payne and NWG member Terri Seuss - spoke at more than one meeting that week.
"You should not be selling an asset worth a Billion dollars instead of selling it for a few hundred million," said Neuman. "We should be selling water like the Arabs have been selling oil. The world should be coming to Newark for water."
The council then presented a new 2010 budget schedule, starting with an Aug. 27 sunshine notice for their Aug. 31 amendment hearing. Budget amendments are to be advertised Sept. 8 and their actual hearing Sept. 15. City elders may then vote on a final budget at that last or later meeting.
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