Before the South Avenue Gateway PILOT agreement was rejected by the City Council at last night’s special meeting, Director of Economic Development Carlos Sanchez addressed concerns about the proposed ordinance before comments by Mayor Adrian Mapp and members of the governing body. The ordinance authorizing the thirty year PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) would have required four votes to pass, but failed 2-3 with Councilors Brown and Taylor absent. Bernice Paglia covered the meeting on Plaintalker II.
Both the discussion and the vote are shown in the video below. As usual, I apologize for any shakiness.
For more background, refer to Bernice Paglia’s posts covering the South Avenue Gateway PILOT rejections during last month’s agenda fixing and regular meetings (I posted video of the latter).
Plainfield View 
I applaud Council Members who refused the tax abatement. There were many problems with this proposal and I believe there has been a lot of deception, starting with the alleged cost of the building. It doesn’t look like a $50 million project.
Plainfield is an extremely desirable city, with gorgeous architecture and close proximity to one of the greatest cities in the world. I don’t think we need to entice developers with tax breaks and I don’t think we need additional housing. Plainfield has a vacancy rate of 12%.
Growing up in Plainfield in the 1970s, I experienced a Plainfield that was much quieter with lighter traffic. With the building up of surrounding communities since then, there is much more traffic throughout the main thoroughfares of Plainfield. Let’s not consider adding traffic. Let’s consider preventing our city from becoming far too congested.
Let’s work together on re-establishing a hospital in Plainfield. Bad decisions by elitist political officials along with the nationwide problem of intense racism against poor black people and poor immigrants has financially destabilized the lives of most people living in Plainfield. The illegal closure of Muhlenberg hospital has led to the premature deaths of many.
As Adrian Mapp stated in the above video, his agenda is to “stabilize” property taxes, and so he is appealing to the desires of the well to do. He is a fiscal conservative. And now he is attempting to rule as a dictator with his proposal to replace the Planning Board with a private entity in the guise of saving money.
Let’s serve all of the people of Plainfield, not just the wealthy. If we think creatively, we can improve Plainfield without displacing and brutalizing the poor and working class but instead, ensuring their basic needs are met.