August 29, 2007
Marc Pilchman, Chief of Administrative Services
Essex County Division of Welfare
18 Rector Street , Floor 9
Newark , NJ , 07102
Re: Criticism of Memo
Dear Mr. Pilchman:
CWA Local 1081 thanks you for providing our Union your opinion within an email message of August 27, 2007 sent us critical of my attached memorandum of that same date, written our members and entitled "Military Park Re-Carpeting", in which you opined "It would have been nice if you would have begun your missive by emphasizing the positive activity of an office upgrade, and reinforce and restate our request for staff's cooperation, patience, and understanding before you swung into your spiel instead of first reinforcing an action which implies negativity and which is already a SOP and is offered to staff, if need be."
Please be assured that CWA Local 1081 appreciates the more than thirty years of hard work and dedication you have provided the employees and clients of the Essex County Division of Welfare in your many roles, one of which is to coordinate such activities as the re-carpeting of the second floor of the Military Park office. Please be assured as well that there have been a slew of times our Union has supported actions and positions taken by the agency's administration, when we agreed with them, in an attempt to work constructively and cooperatively with management for the good and welfare of our members and their clients alike.
However, you are well aware of the "battles" CWA Local 1081 has had to wage over the more than past quarter century of my leadership of our Union as its president, particularly regarding the conditions of the physical plants in which our members have worked. Below, please note two pieces from The Star Ledger describing just two instances of such battles. The first piece is an opinion written by the Ledger's Essex County reporter, Donna Leusner, in 1994 alluding to our Union's having dramatically and demonstrably protested rats strolling down the isles of the then Food Stamp office located at 1015 Broad Street, Newark during work time hours as well as the fact of the landlord of the 18 Rector Street, Newark site (in which we had only four offices located at the time) being cited by the New Jersey Health Department for removing lead paint during working hours (as the direct result of a complaint our Union filed with the State).
The second piece is an article written by the Ledger's then Essex County reporter, Diane Walsh, in 2000 describing PESU president NICK Nicoletta and I working in solidarity to try to ensure much needed changes were made to the 50 South Clinton Street East Orange site then newly acquired by the County of Essex to house, in part, the Essex County Division of Welfare's Food Stamp office on the first floor and the Suburban office on the second floor. As you are aware, our Union is still fighting to ensure safety measures are upgraded within that facility.
Yes, Mr. Pilchman, you are correct when you stated within your abovementioned email message written me that the re-carpeting of the second floor of the Military Park office represents the "positive activity of an office upgrade". However, I can safely say with no fear of being braggadocios that were it not for the hard work and dedication our Union has provided the employees and clients of the Essex County Division of Welfare 1081 over the past more than quarter century many, if not most, of the physical plants' improvements to which you allude would never have taken place. In fact, ironically, our Union has successfully recently protested the presence of rats outside both the 18 Rector Street and 50 South Clinton Street sites' immediate environs, problems abated with your able and much appreciated assistance.
CWA Local 1081 looks forward to our continued cooperative relationship with you and all of the management of the Essex County Division of Welfare, as well as with Essex County Executive DiVincenzo, his staff, and all of the members of the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders.
Fraternally,
David H. Weiner, President
CWA Local 1081
The Star Ledger
August 19, 1994
PROBLEM-PLAGUED ESSEX WELFARE SYSTEM RIPE FOR INTERVENTION BY TRENTON
DONNA LEUSNER
Nearly 10 years ago, David Weiner brought a dead rat from the Newark food stamp office to an Essex County freeholder meeting to dramatize deplorable conditions. The same problems that existed with Essex County 's welfare system then persist today: Understaffing, poor service, delayed benefits, case backlogs, difficulty reaching workers and higher-than-average worker health hazards. "We have had to work with rats strolling through our food stamp office as recently as this past July while the county pays $270,000 per year for this hellhole," Weiner, president of a union representing 800 welfare workers, told The Star-Ledger last week.
The county pays more than $1 million a month rent for four floors of another building on Park Place in Newark . The building's owner was cited by the state Health Department in May for "removing lead paint during working hours within our worksite while a pregnant family service worker as well as employees with respiratory problems worked nearby and unprotected," Weiner said. Deficient ventilation and a federal study citing higher than average TB risks for workers are also among the problems Weiner cited. Some of the problems are being addressed. The food stamp office on Broad Street with the rodent problem, used by 50,000 recipients, is supposed to be relocated. The lead paint abatement work was switched to nighttime. Annual TB testing and education began last year for any worker who wants it. Acting County Executive Donald V. Biase says the welfare offices are not "IBM," but dramatic improvements have been made in field offices and service delivery. The union, which he said is never happy, was involved in negotiations, layout and final changes for the new Park Place space they now say is overcrowded. The state, which came within an hour of taking over the Essex County welfare system two weeks ago, does not agree with Biase that the county has made great strides. The state says clients are being placed at serious risk. There is a backlog of 20,000 priority child support cases. Clients wait more than 30 days for food stamps. The food stamp error rate is dragging down the state rate and has already cost New Jersey $1.8 million in lost federal nutrition funds. Weiner and Biase have been battling for a decade. The same animosity has existed between Essex and the state for just as long - through Republican and Democratic administrations - accomplishing few noticeable improvements for the state's poorest citizens, those most in need of help. The state says Essex has to hire 358 additional staffers in two phases, with at least 127 new staffers on board by Dec. 31. Biase says county taxpayers can afford only 77 and wants credit for 25 hired earlier this year. Biase disagrees with some of the state's findings, saying they are based on old data. Despite the sparring, finger-pointing and investigations into who leaked what letter to whom or who called who when and said what, there is ample and long-standing evidence that the state's largest welfare system - serving 100,000 women and children who make up almost one-third of the state's caseload - needs the attention of the state's highest elected officials, not to mention a major infusion of newly trained staff, fresh thinking and some form of state supervision. Perhaps the management team Essex wants to put in place with help from its new Republican consultants will work. It should be given a chance to work. From the clients' perspective, it couldn't hurt. ''It's the clients that are losing,'' Gov. Christie Whitman said. ''These are people who desperately need help and wasting the taxpayers' money appears to be going on,'' she said. Threats of a state takeover in Essex are not new. Human Services Commissioner William Waldman wanted to do it when he was in the Florio administration. But Florio called it off because he was facing re-election and did not want to lose votes from a hostile takeover. A hostile takeover would make it very difficult to accomplish anything in Essex . Just look at the Newark school system. The county would fight the state every step of the way. But a takeover should not be decided on politics. A politically connected GOP consultant should not be able to call Whitman's chief of staff and stop the takeover. Whitman says the discussion about stopping a takeover letter on its way up the Turnpike from Trenton to Newark was based on her concerns about the state's ability to take over both the Newark schools and the Essex welfare system, and her desire to give the consultants a chance to make a difference. They certainly couldn't make things worse.
The Star Ledger
County office site spurs debate
Diane Walsh
January 23, 2000
Facility brings services under one roof, but union points to flaws
Star-Ledger Staff
County Executive James Treffinger looks at 50 S. Clinton St. in East Orange and he sees a clean, modern building, where an assortment of social service and economic development programs have been moved for the convenience of county residents and businesses.
David Weiner and Nicholas Nicoletta, two county union leaders, look at the same building and see poorly designed waiting rooms for welfare clients, inadequate parking for workers, and heating and security problems.
The diverging views on the five-story structure overlooking Route 280 underscore the strained relationship between the administration and the unions at the county welfare division. With a $55 million budget, the division services about 54,000 people with food stamp programs, welfare-to-work initiatives and adult Medicaid, making it the sixth-largest social service agency in the nation.
Essex County bought the 139,000-square-foot building for $2 million and spent $3 million renovating and furnishing it. The goal was to centralize the county's social services and economic divisions under one roof. Before, the offices were scattered throughout the county in Cedar Grove, East Orange , Newark and Orange .
County Administrator Vincent DiMauro likes to point out the previous owner, United Hospitals, bought the building for $3 million and spent $9 million to redo the entire interior and upgrade all the systems, including the heating and ventilation. When United Hospital went bankrupt, the building was put on the market and the county snatched it up.
Taxpayer-guaranteed bonds were sold to buy the building, and the county spent months renovating it. The new building was dubbed the Essex County Economic Development Center . In October, the first county agencies were relocated there to provide, as Treffinger calls it, "one stop shopping."
On the first floor there are food stamp and welfare offices with giant waiting rooms. But Weiner and Nicoletta said the space is not sufficient during the first weeks of the month, when clients typically jam the offices. They also complained there have been heating and electrical problems and that many office doors are unlocked, creating a security issue for welfare workers.
County officials said there would be improvements to the security system. They also attributed last week's heating problems to difficulties in getting the temperature regulated after a long three-day weekend given workers for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Officials also blamed the welfare workers for creating power outages by plugging in unauthorized space heaters.
Susan Hirschhorn, an assistant administrative supervisor in the food stamp office, said her new offices are "much better, much cleaner and it offers much more privacy" for the workers and clients. She remembers the rats and roaches that infested many of the offices the county previously rented, and she thinks the South Clinton Street building is an improvement.
Essex County also relocated the county tax board to 50 S. Clinton St. , in addition to the Essex County Economic Development Corp., a new satellite division of the county vocational school, and the new Division of Training and Employment, a federally funded agency in charge of the county's welfare-to- work initiatives.
George Librizzi, the county tax board administrator, said his new accommodations are "head and shoulders above" the old offices on Grove Street in East Orange . There is more space available for the public to examine records, and the courtrooms, where the tax appeals are heard, are equipped with computers to easily access tax records, Librizzi said.
Robert Noonan, superintendent of the vocational schools, said the new space enables him to expand the daytime adult education program, which had to compete with the high school for space. Noonan has five classrooms in the building and now offers a licensed practical nurse program there. In the future, Noonan hopes to secure grants that will enable his school to provide vocational training to the welfare clients in the building.
Jeff Bertrand, director of the new Division of Training and Employment, is excited about his new quarters.
"This is the best county building," he said during a recent tour. Before 50 S. Clinton was acquired, Bertrand had to ask Essex County College for use of its conference rooms whenever he staged daylong seminars to help welfare recipients find jobs.
Now, Bertrand has his own conference areas, computer laboratories, a play area for toddlers, and smaller office space to meet with businesses on economic development issues.
Weiner, president of Local 1081 of the Communication Workers of America representing the welfare workers, contended Bertrand's accommodations are better than the welfare office.
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