Accomplishments?

Mayor Mack tallies his toils for the first 100 days (give or take a few days)

On Wednesday, October 27, Mayor Tony Mack held a press conference to enumerate the things he's done since taking office on July 1.  In an accompanying and poorly constructed press release titled

Mayor Tony Mack Announces Highlights of First One Hundred Days:

Hope. Dream. Do. How Trenton Makes a Breakthrough

the Mack Administration enumerates a lot of...well...nothing.

For six pages, the Mack flacks assembled a rambling, mismatched cut and paste listing of daily functions and activities that any elected official/administration would go through.  There is no substance; no breakthrough. 

It doesn't take much scrutinizing to realize that the list was assembled out of snippets lifted from various supervisors' reports.

For example, on page four of the document is this tidbit:

• 1719 William Trent House Museum hosted may events for the public such as Getting the House Ready for Summer, Colonial Ice Cream Making, Herbs in the Trent House Garden, Trent’s Enslaved Workers-Theme Tours Garden Theme Tours.

And right below it:

• Fred Miller concert, Art Exhibit Opening, Art/Theatre Camp, Art Exhibit Opening, Battle Against Hunger Event, Garden State Watercolor Exhibit Opening, Gallery Talk, Trenton High School Exhibit Opening

The former was obviously taken from a report on activities held at the Trent House.  It lists a number of the full schedule of activities held there.  These are nothing new.  The non-profit support group the Trent House Association has been programming activities at the city owned facility for years.  It is not an accomplishment of the Mack Administration's first 100 days.  It is a continuation of something already in place.

In the case of the latter the reader is left guessing as to exactly where and what and how the activities were held.  Those in the know would realize that this was a listing of events held at the Trenton City Museum.  The museum is currently housed in Ellarslie Mansion in Cadwalader Park.  Both the building and the surrounding lands are city owned.  The collection, exhibits and programming of the museum are the responsibility of the Trenton Museum Society, another non-profit.  These accomplishments that the Mayor lists as his own are actually due to the Museum Society...solely or in partnership with other groups.

In both of the above cases the Mayor is actually claiming as an "accomplishment" items from ongoing series of events that pre-date his term in office.  We call "FOUL!"

Others have taken note in blogs and comments elsewhere on the Internet of the liberal use of "we" and the poor grammar; mismatched writing styles, etc contained within the press release. It is such a blatant patchwork of poor writing it begs to be printed in a ransom note type font (you know, as seen on TV and in movies, where the kidnapper cuts words from magazines and newspapers and glues them onto a sheet of paper and sends them to the police or whomever).  This begs the question of why the city is paying over $83,000 a year for someone who is supposed to be overseeing "policy and communications" for the mayor.

So with that point, let us leave you with a real list of Mayor Tony Mack's "accomplishments" since taking office on July 1, 2010:

1. One of Mayor Mack's first appointments, Carleton Badger, was a convicted felon.  Mr. Badger "withdrew" from consideration after the press published his criminal history.
2. Mayor Mack pads the city payroll with friends, relatives and the daughter of a city council woman while layoffs loom for nearly 400 city employees (including over 100 police and fire personnel).
3. Mayor Mack's promises to keep the city's four library branches open even on a limited basis failed after he was unable to deliver adequate funding through an outside donor that never materialized (some would argue that never existed).
4. Mayor Mack lied to the city council about his nominee for the lead Municipal Judge seat having completed a full background so they would vote in favor of the appointment.
5. Mayor Mack fumbled the removal of deputy city clerk and former councilwoman Cordelia Staton from her job. He then lied on the record at a city council meeting and tried to implicate the Trentonian in a conspiracy surrounding the police being called to escort Staton from City Hall.
6. Mayor Mack's team failed to communicate openly and in a timely manner when the city's water filtration plant was shut down in early October. We're still waiting for an explanation of what really happened.  And why.
7. Mayor Mack continually submitted and re-submitted resolutions to city council until he got professional services contracts awarded to law firms connected to his transition team and inaugural ball committee. 
8. Mayor Mack's Municipal Judge pick Renee Lammare Sumners (see # 4) is revealed to have a history of passing bad checks to pay for her license to practice law and an unpaid credit card bill of over $2200.00 that resulted in a bench warrant for her arrest to be issued in September.
9. Mayor Mack's total mishandling of the city's affairs (and yes, we all agree he inherited a mess, but what has he done to mitigate that?  NOTHING!) may weigh heavily in the Governor's final decision on how much "transitional aid" the city gets from the state.

Do I need to go on?

For those who keep talking recall, you had better start the search for a viable replacement or we are going to be in worse shape one year from now.