Well there has been no slow down of missteps and misdeeds by the Tony Mack administration, as we’ve entered the holiday season.
The capital city’s feckless leader has not managed to stay out of headlines or escape notice of the bloggers since the Thanksgiving break.
Over that long holiday weekend, an article appeared in the Times reporting of citizen annoyance at the overuse of the city’s ability to place robo-calls on a near daily basis for no good reason.
Blogger Kevin Moriarty posted about the lack of information on how the city was going to deal with the $12,000,000 gap in funding between the $39 million requested and the $27 million pledged by the state. Remember, earlier in the month the Mayor said he’d found a way to eliminate many of the planned layoffs with or without state aid? Show us the math.
It was announced that an informational meeting on how the process for recalling an elected official works in New Jersey. Some assumed this would be a blueprint for a Mayoral recall.
Then came reports of personnel and organizational shuffles at city hall. The mayor has yet to name his “permanent” department directors and city council hasn’t pushed him on it, even though the interim directors have been serving for longer than the statutory 90 days.
Along with this was the rumored appointment of campaign svengali Dan Toto to replace the hastily departed Andrew McCrosson as Business Administrator. No sooner was that squelched, then we hear that Toto has been appointed “on an interim” basis but will be “paid immediately” to work part-time as the coordinator of the city YouthStat program.
This raised eyebrows and questions about the legality and propriety of the appointment. Looks like another challenge to Council’s powers by the loose cannon mayor.
Following close on the heels of that announcement was the disclosure that the Administration was now going to the various unions and asking for salary givebacks of 10% plus furlough days. This is the same Administration that had avoided some layoffs by demoting and cutting the pay of employees earlier in the month.
However, perhaps the biggest story to hit to date is the arrest of the Mayor’s half-brother, Stanley “Muscles” Davis for a scheme involving use of city time and materials to do plumbing jobs and pocketing the cash. Reports of the raid on the Trenton Water Works offices on Cortland Street were all over the Times, the Trentonian and TV stations starting Monday afternoon. The latest being today’s story of how Stanley “Muscles” Davis perpetually threatened and intimidated his co-workers at the TWW.
Through it all, Mayor Mack remains quiet, happy and wishing everyone a Happy Pearl Harbor Day!”
Do you think he knows how bad things have gotten?
5 comments:
There are those who say that the City government is in a far worse condition than what has been reported by the press and has been observed by outsiders. The effects of almost total government dysfunction will continue to manifest themselves to the surprise to some and the fulfillment of expectations to others. The illegal activities exposed by the events of this week had been ongoing even prior to the arrival of the Mack administration. The prior administration's lack of appropriate administrative action tacitly condoned the illegal activities. That set the stage for those activities to become more brazen with the arrival of he Mack administration. It also allowed the participants to act with impunity. It is not as though those activities were being done without anyone's knowledge. Except for the disclosures that City Council members warned or cautioned the Mayor about those activities, it hasn't been reported that knowledge of those activities existed all the way up the chain of command. Yet, there was no administrative action, let alone police action, taken to intervene and stop those activities. That raises the question as to why those in the chain of command, who should have had the authority and responsibility to act, did not take appropriate action.
Beyond any doubt, the actions (or in some case, inaction) of the previous administration created the current state of affairs in Trenton.
The new administration has, unfortunately, been unable and/or unwilling to take the corrective actions required to keep the city from slipping further down into the muck.
The new council, essentially neophytes all, has not yet become proactive enough to redirect the administration.
It should surprise no one that City government is adrift and running low on morale.
The citizens of Trenton need to stop subscribing to the cult of personality model of leadership. It has failed us in the past and it is failing us in the present.
We need to demand more from our elected leaders. They actively sought their current positions with promises of accountability, change, and transparency.
They will only deliver on those promises if we demand it from everyone up and down "the chain of command."
Let us not forget is half bro and the TWW scandal now either. I'm more than a bit worried for our city.
Yes, Katrina, the situation with the Mayor's half-brother (addressed in the third to last paragraph)and the Mayor's lack of response to it seems to indicate a continued lack of focus.
It does not leave any of us feeling confident about the direction of our city.
Please don't forget about the the failed Trenton International Jazz and Blues Festival by promoter Annette Njie who owns SocialElegance, and now under the diguise of "CulturallySavvy". She made the City of Trenton look completely DYSFUNCTIONAL. No one will ever trust her again.
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