It's About Plainfield. Not Politics!

Today, I officially announce my candidacy for re-election to City Council. I am running to continue the work that I started in my first term, work that I can best sum up as working for Plainfield, not political factions.

I am working for a better Plainfield: a Plainfield that will regain its preeminent spot among central Jersey towns. I am working for a town that respects, honors and celebrates the diversity we have. This is one of our core strength, and our people are what make Plainfield special.

I am working for a revitalized downtown that serves ALL of Plainfield. When family comes in from out of town, we should be able to take them downtown for a Saturday evening dinner. I am working for a Plainfield with a lower crime rate and a higher quality of life, and I am working for a Plainfield that is once again a thriving regional commercial center.

My experience in running a $700M enterprise for AT&T, education, commitment to Plainfield, experience in working around America and indeed around the world have all prepared me to help steer Plainfield in the right direction.

We can do it - and I know how! But to get there we must work together, for Plainfield. Not the usual political factions. An agreed to path must be followed, trust restored, and hope rekindled.

In my first term, I have worked toward gaining back the trust of the people from a local government that was disconnected from its people. When we look around Plainfield today, we see people of every political persuasion fighting to make Plainfield a better place, but many are separated by party lines and or jaded by a sense of division that threatens to undermine the progress that we are making, and need to continue to make.

I have always worked in the interest of strengthening Plainfield, and not in the interest of strengthening these political divisions that are holding us back. Along the way, I pushed and supported development where it made sense. I questioned everything, and when satisfied, supported it.

But let me be clear.  Not everything passed has scrutiny. When a developer wanted to put in 100 income-restricted apartments downtown, my early and loud opinion was a determined "NO". The proposal never even made the public meeting!

That kind of independence hasn’t always been popular, but it has allowed me to cross those invisible lines and form collaborations for the good of Plainfield with great minds from all sides. It is this kind of collaboration, the kind that puts Plainfield ahead of Politics that we need to work for; in fact, it is essential and our potential as a city will not be realized until we can do this as a matter of course.

This blog will be a place where I can share my vision, my accomplishments and my reasoning with the city. It is my personal forum to set the record straight and cut through the spin to talk to you directly.

In fact, making my decisions and reasoning available to you, the voter, is essential so that you can make an informed decision about the future of Plainfield. That is why I have made transparency the cornerstone of my time as a councilman.

My website, rashidburney.com, has served as place where every citizen can go to understand the inner workings of our city, from our tax code and city organizational charts to PMUA information and city council meeting documents.

I have made city council meetings available on PCTV so that decisions we make at those meetings can be seen by anyone in town. I have tried, through my blog, rashidburney.blogspot.com, to make my vision of Plainfield one that is accessible and well-explained.

I have also looked to the community and beyond in shaping the vision of the future Plainfield, through the recent visioning project that is still underway. This visioning project is important for our city, because we have to define our own destiny, or someone else will.

But more important perhaps than any of these is my commitment to real community outreach. At the core of this is going to block association meetings and talking to community members to hear what they have to say, and it includes work such as the three citizen advisory committees that I worked with the council to form.

These three committees, budget, economic and IT will fostered better, meaningful contact between residents and the council and administration and helped to tap into the human resources available in our city, while also making government in general more accessible.

Over the course of this election, I will share with readers my take on some of the issues facing our city, such as public safety, tax control, the PMUA, and historic preservation. As I devote time to each of these subjects and more, I hope that those of you interested in this race will take the time to read what I have to say and to make an informed choice.

You will always know where I stand and that I have made the decisions that I make because of a commitment to be about Plainfield, not Politics.