The picture above is from the front page of the City of Trenton’s official website, as sceencapped at 4:30PM this afternoon. This “News and Announcements” section headlines the Twenty Most Important Things that the City wanted its citizens and the rest of the world to know over the last 90 days or so.
You will note that of this list of the Twenty Most Important Things, no fewer than Ten – Half – concern the Trenton Water Works (TWW) and the water supplied by this utility to the City and much of Mercer County. The other Ten notices cover everything else.
Trenton’s Water Works and its problems continue, seemingly unabated. As recently as this week, the City sent out two new service notices to the utility’s customers, only one of which (for some reason) you can see from the City’s News and Announcement page.
So, why is it that since the beginning of the year up until today, NONE of the seven individuals running for Mayor see fit to discuss, or even mention as far as I can tell, the crisis at the Water Works?
Take a look at the policy and issues pages of each candidate. You won’t see anything. If any of them have addressed the issue at any forum or town hall, they haven’t followed up to formalize a position or ideas on their websites. The Trentonian’s copy-and-paste “Election Rumblings” haven’t carried any campaign press release on the subject. The only public officials who seem to talk about the Water Works are outside the City.
The present conditions and future prospects of the Water Works is a top-priority issue for the next Mayor and Council of Trenton. The City is now bound to an Administrative Consent Order, signed in February with the NJ Department of Environmental Protection as the third in a series going back to 2009, obligating the City to do a LOT of things to safeguard our drinking water over the next several years.
The City failed to observe the first two. Will we have any better luck with this one? What do the candidates think about this? What can they tell us, not only the residents of the City, but the tens of thousands of customers in the rest of Mercer County who have a vital personal interest in the result of this upcoming election?
All the candidates talk about the need to revitalize neighborhoods and attract economic development. Do none of the candidates see how anything they intend to do in this City requires clean drinking water and dependable infrastructure to provide it?
We can’t do squat without water.
Is anybody going to talk about this? Anyone?
Check out the websites below. See that there’s nothing anywhere about the Water Works. Ask the candidates at every remaining public event between now and May 8, “Why don’t you talk about our water?”
This is an issue that is as close as your kitchen sink. Why is no one running for Mayor talking about it?