Thursday, January 31, 2008
An unaffiliated constituent
I'm an "unaffiliated" voter. I haven't voted in a primary in years. There have been two contested local Democratic primaries since I've been in Elizabeth, one for mayor & one for ward council rep. The mayor, who I generally like, I judged in no imminent danger requiring my vote. My councilman was an entrenched leftover of an old defeated Democratic machine, but he was attentive to ward issues, while the challenger, a former library director, struck me as a party functionary who wouldn't open his peep between elections. So I skipped that, the challenger won the primary by a single vote, I voted for him in the general, & indeed he's completely disappeared as expected.
There only two issues I'd like to take up with my council rep. The first is that I want a police patrol car passing this corner every night of the week. But that would involve a level of police management I haven't seen in this city. It would be pointless for me to mention that some years ago Rahway improved patrol coverage in one month by promoting to chief someone with professional administrative training. Presumably, all the new chief did was restructure the patrol routes & beats & then tell his cops they damned well better do them rather than meeting in the Italian Club parking lot for long chats on quiet evenings.
The other suggestion is for the Public Library to rotate large print & childrens' books through the branches rather than letting them gather dust in the main library. The problem with this is the library assigns books permanently to the main building & branches & marks them accordingly with an indelible ink stamp. I say that computers make this stamping unnecessary, since patrons search for books, & librarians check them in & out, on the computer. The books are really inventoried, assigned, & tracked on the computer, not with the stamp that says, "Elmora Branch." Move a book, change the location on the computer, that's all. Oh, you troublesome unaffiliated constituent!
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
There only two issues I'd like to take up with my council rep. The first is that I want a police patrol car passing this corner every night of the week. But that would involve a level of police management I haven't seen in this city. It would be pointless for me to mention that some years ago Rahway improved patrol coverage in one month by promoting to chief someone with professional administrative training. Presumably, all the new chief did was restructure the patrol routes & beats & then tell his cops they damned well better do them rather than meeting in the Italian Club parking lot for long chats on quiet evenings.
The other suggestion is for the Public Library to rotate large print & childrens' books through the branches rather than letting them gather dust in the main library. The problem with this is the library assigns books permanently to the main building & branches & marks them accordingly with an indelible ink stamp. I say that computers make this stamping unnecessary, since patrons search for books, & librarians check them in & out, on the computer. The books are really inventoried, assigned, & tracked on the computer, not with the stamp that says, "Elmora Branch." Move a book, change the location on the computer, that's all. Oh, you troublesome unaffiliated constituent!
Labels: bully pulpit, Elizabeth NJ
