The Trenton Times published the following article on April 19, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Trenton council members urge city officials to keep rented buildings in check

By Erin Duffy/The Times of Trenton 
on April 19, 2013 at 7:15 AM

TRENTON – City council members urged city officials last night to dig deeper to compile a complete list of all recreation and nonprofit programs being run out of city buildings.

Members were also upset that they were not informed that the city made a payment to a construction firm for cost overruns on a sports complex at Calhoun Street Park.

Since last June, when council passed a new ordinance requiring the city to keep inventory of its public buildings and give council notice before evicting a group from a public building, Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson has been pushing members of the administration to provide a list of every organization leasing or using city buildings.

Colin Cherry, a management assistant in the city’s office of administration, gave a brief update on that process last night and said council members have been provided with all documents department directors have been able to find on the use of city buildings.

But Caldwell-Wilson said it was too little, too late, noting that information for several city buildings was missing.

“We and the city want to have a full inventory of everything we own and what’s going on in there, are they paying utilities, are they paying a lease, are they in there for free, are they a nonprofit?” she said. “That’s information that ordinance mandates that we get.

People are coming to us to set up programs and we need to have some sort of protocol: ‘these properties are vacant, but this is what it’ll cost you.’ Right now, we don’t have that.”

Council passed the ordinance last year after criticizing city officials for abruptly seizing the keys from organizations such as a youth-mentoring program held off North Clinton Avenue, the Team Hope youth boxing program and the Fell Street food pantry run by the Greater Donnelly Neighborhood Initiative.

Cherry said that the city should have a better accounting of its properties and recreation programs once a director for the department of recreation, natural resources and culture is hired. The city has advertised the director’s job for its job fair today. The department has been largely defunct and without a director since 2010 and has faced criticism and funding cuts from council members who’ve complained about overspending and a lack of oversight in the staff-gutted department.

“It is our hope that by hiring a director of recreation we can get those programs that are operating under the recreation flag back in proper compliance and can more easily provide that type of information,“ Cherry said.

Council also reluctantly agreed to pay the balance of a $128,000 change order to the construction company in charge of building the new $1.5 million football and soccer fields and stadiums at the new Capital City Sports Complex at Calhoun Street Park.

According to Sam Hutchinson, the city’s business administrator, the company was “mistakenly” paid another $112,813 for cost overruns even though council never authorized a change order. Most of the money was already paid without council’s knowledge and another $18,294 remains under the purchase order providing for the change order. With its vote last night, council agreed to pay an additional $15,631 to cover all costs Eagle Construction absorbed for the extra park work, which included electrical upgrades, water meter design and sidewalk work.

Councilwomen Kathy McBride and Phyllis Holly-Ward asked why the money was spent without council’s knowledge.

“There’s money being spent without council approval,” Holly-Ward said. “This has happened all too many times before. We’ve been dealing with this over the course of three years. What are the consequences for whoever did it wrong?”

Law director Caryl Amana said that while the change order may have been handled correctly, council couldn’t punish Eagle Construction for it.

“Money should not be withheld from an innocent third party because of an internal breakdown,” she said. “What’s before council now is making that third party, that innocent party, whole.”

Holly-Ward said someone should still be held responsible for misspending city money.

One of the signatures on the change order is former city employee Charles Hall III, who pleaded guilty in February to drug and extortion charges and revealed his role as a government cooperating witness in the federal corruption case against Mayor Tony Mack. Hall was originally hired as a meter reader for the Trenton Water Works but was later assigned to the city’s recreation department and was eventually given control over city park projects. He was fired in November 2012 as part of a Civil Service Commission ruling.

Hutchinson did not mention Hall by name, but pressed by Holly-Ward on what consequences would be handed down in relation to the change order, he said some of those parties are no longer here.

“Let me say that they’re no longer employed with the city.”