Balk at hiring extra administrator.
Trenton’s City Council members don’t often get praised for the job they are doing. And there may be reasons for that, but last night they put the brakes on another excursion of the Doug Palmer express as the administration tried to ram through approval of a $75,000 contract to pay for an assistant business administrator.
Good for the members of city council for standing up and saying, “What!?!? NO!!!”
For those who missed it, the Times’ Meir Rinde wrote it up in this morning’s edition.
The long and the short of it is this:
At a time when the city has laid off employees, including much needed inspectors in the technical services division, the administration wants to contract with a person to perform “assistant business administrator” duties to ease the load of one Dennis Gonzalez who was “promoted” last year when former Business Administrator Jane Feigenbaum left to take a job in Perth Amboy.
Interestingly, the administration’s rationale for needing to hire this consultant is so the city can draft policies and manage assets in accordance with suggestions from auditors. Specifically, the adoption of whistle blower and conflict of interest policies as well as updating and maintaining a current inventory of city assets are needed and would be the responsibility of the consultant retained to serve as assistant business administrator.
Bearing the above in mind, we ask:
What did Mr. Gonzalez do when he served as acting business administrator? Wouldn’t these policies and the inventory have fallen under his responsibilities?
If Mr. Gonzalez failed to complete the required work as assistant BA, how and why did he get tapped to move into the “Acting” Business Administrator position?
And that’s another thing: isn’t the title “acting” a provisional one good for only 90 days after which time the appointment is to be brought before council for approval? If that’s the case, does anyone remember Mr. Gonzalez’s appointment coming before council for final approval anytime since, oh say, last February?
Voting citizens of Trenton take heed. Your current city administration continues to run roughshod over the rules and procedures of the laws that govern our city. Watch closely what they do in the next few months and watch even more closely those currently on council and all who seek your favor to gain office in the coming elections.
Their actions will speak much louder than their words.
Last night, Council made an excellent point.
Showing posts with label Jane Feigenbaum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Feigenbaum. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Money
Slippery finances kill off jazz fest; grant writer resigns.
Word out of Trenton City Hall yesterday was that the money-losing Trenton Jazz Festival has been suspended. It was reported that a press release distributed by the Palmer administration cited lack of corporate sponsorship in these tough economic times meant there would be no festival.
No doubt that is true. But let's look a little deeper at the problem.
The festival, a vanity project of the current administration, has never made money or been self-sustaining because of bad management and poor attendance. There have been rumors of inflated talent prices along with over spending on sound and stage equipment and technicians. It is actually surprising that corporate funders didn't pull the plug on the event sooner since we doubt they ever got any sort of real accounting of how the money was spent, what the proceeds were, etc.
Interesting that Chief of Staff Renee Haynes was quoted in the Times as saying that the city's contribution has been mostly "in-kind."
Last year's festival apparently lost so much money funds reportedly were taken from the city recreation budget make up the difference. Funds that might otherwise have gone to the also cancelled weekly summer music series that traditionally brought free musical entertainment to various city parks throughout July and August.
Just another example of the gross mismanagement of the city administration.
Compounding the city's fiscal mess, it appears the city's leading grant writer is leaving her post in Trenton. Nancy Diehl, the Coordinator for State and Federal Grants, is reported to be joining former business administrator Jane Feigenbaum in Perth Amboy.
Ms. Diehl has been quite successful in securing outside funds for various departments of the city government. The Trenton Police Department is but one beneficiary of her good work.
What remains to be seen is if the vacancy will be filled and with someone as competent as Ms. Diehl. Or will they let the position remain empty, thus short-sightedly saving money on wages and benefits.
The city continues to wither from neglect while the Mr. Palmer and company ignore their responsibility for the financial hole we are in. We're drowning in red ink and one of our lifeguards just quit.
Word out of Trenton City Hall yesterday was that the money-losing Trenton Jazz Festival has been suspended. It was reported that a press release distributed by the Palmer administration cited lack of corporate sponsorship in these tough economic times meant there would be no festival.
No doubt that is true. But let's look a little deeper at the problem.
The festival, a vanity project of the current administration, has never made money or been self-sustaining because of bad management and poor attendance. There have been rumors of inflated talent prices along with over spending on sound and stage equipment and technicians. It is actually surprising that corporate funders didn't pull the plug on the event sooner since we doubt they ever got any sort of real accounting of how the money was spent, what the proceeds were, etc.
Interesting that Chief of Staff Renee Haynes was quoted in the Times as saying that the city's contribution has been mostly "in-kind."
The festival's budget had grown to $250,000, with the city contributing assistance worth about $50,000, said Renee Haynes, committee member and chief of staff for Mayor Douglas Palmer.
"City support has largely been in-kind, relying on the countless hours of devoted volunteers," she said. "Having the Jazz Fest be mostly self-supporting has always been within our reach, but this year it is clear that the economic conditions would not make that possible."
Last year's festival apparently lost so much money funds reportedly were taken from the city recreation budget make up the difference. Funds that might otherwise have gone to the also cancelled weekly summer music series that traditionally brought free musical entertainment to various city parks throughout July and August.
Just another example of the gross mismanagement of the city administration.
Compounding the city's fiscal mess, it appears the city's leading grant writer is leaving her post in Trenton. Nancy Diehl, the Coordinator for State and Federal Grants, is reported to be joining former business administrator Jane Feigenbaum in Perth Amboy.
Ms. Diehl has been quite successful in securing outside funds for various departments of the city government. The Trenton Police Department is but one beneficiary of her good work.
What remains to be seen is if the vacancy will be filled and with someone as competent as Ms. Diehl. Or will they let the position remain empty, thus short-sightedly saving money on wages and benefits.
The city continues to wither from neglect while the Mr. Palmer and company ignore their responsibility for the financial hole we are in. We're drowning in red ink and one of our lifeguards just quit.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Come clean, Palmer
Admit there was no 10 year plan
Doug Palmer and his acolytes are fighting hard to ram the sell off of the outlaying water distribution system down the throats of Trenton’s taxpayers.
As has been noted on Greg Forester’s blog, the administration seems a little worried that the petition currently circulating might be successful in at least delaying if not stopping the sale.
And without a doubt, if the proposed $80 million sale doesn’t go through the City of Trenton’s financial picture darkens considerably. That translates to higher property taxes.
It is very difficult, however, to accept the “official” line that this deal has been worked on for 10 years.
Let’s go back to January of 2003 when then Times reporter Albert Raboteau reported officials in the suburbs were questioning the sudden increase in money being taken from the water utility to pay for city services, including all or part of the salaries of three of Doug Palmer’s aides.
So was there really a plan afoot to sell off the water utility five years ago? Was part of that plan to plunder and pillage the resources of that asset and then try to sell it off for cold cash once the Palmer administration couldn’t wring another nickel out of it?
And what about the rate increase enacted in September of 2006 that increased suburban water rates some 17% and the rates for water customers within the city by 31%? Was that part of the long range plan to sell off the outside infrastructure?
In typical Palmer fashion…his mismanagement decisions are made based upon what is most expedient to his personal agenda and not that of the city he purports to serve yet long ago abandoned.
The city has been in a downward fiscal spiral for more than a decade. Rather than tighten up the purse strings in city hall and hold the line on budget items, Palmer…with the able and apparently willing assistance of former Business Administrator Jane Feigenbaum literally robbed from Peter (the water utility) to pay Paul (the ballooning costs of a bloated administration).
At no time did anyone from the Palmer administration rein in the ridiculous spending at city hall by excising superfluous aides, vehicles, etc. or eliminating services that were duplicated elsewhere. Instead, they just kept crying poor to the state for more money and taking from the water utility surplus what rightfully should have been returned in the way of system improvements and holding down usage rates.
Instead, the spending has continued unchecked until the only way to fill the gap is to divest the city of the outlaying parts of the water utility for a chunk of cash that might, conveniently, hold tax increases to a tolerable level until the end of the current term.
The Palmer administration has yet to satisfactorily demonstrate any rational attempt to reduce spending through cutting the layers of staff in the Mayor’s office, curbing personal use of city vehicles (or shrinking the size of the take home car fleet).
For years people and some elected officials have pointed out that if the city was more diligent in enforcing its laws and collecting fines, we’d be in better financial shape. But that has not happened either.
Yet we are to believe that the plan for the last decade has been to sell off the portion of the water utility serves customers outside of the city limits. But we never heard of this long range plan until Palmer and company felt they had the citizens over the barrel by delaying a city budget until it was so late that the only answer appears to be selling off the water system or face huge tax increases. If this is such a good idea, why aren’t we getting rid of the entire water system and thus reducing the city’s huge expense to maintain and staff the utility?
A plan that supposedly has been in the works for 10 years should have been brought to light and discussed openly so long before it was time to sign the sale agreement. That might have eliminated some of the resistance and backlash.
If Palmer and company want us to truly accept and believe this sale is the end result of a long-rage plan, show us the documentation. Take us through the timeline of the steps taken to position the city to benefit now and going forward from this proposed sale.
It is obvious that one cannot document something that didn’t exist.
The notion that this plan has been in the works for a decade is another Palmer pipe dream that is turning into a hose job for the citizens of Trenton.
Doug Palmer and his acolytes are fighting hard to ram the sell off of the outlaying water distribution system down the throats of Trenton’s taxpayers.
As has been noted on Greg Forester’s blog, the administration seems a little worried that the petition currently circulating might be successful in at least delaying if not stopping the sale.
And without a doubt, if the proposed $80 million sale doesn’t go through the City of Trenton’s financial picture darkens considerably. That translates to higher property taxes.
It is very difficult, however, to accept the “official” line that this deal has been worked on for 10 years.
Let’s go back to January of 2003 when then Times reporter Albert Raboteau reported officials in the suburbs were questioning the sudden increase in money being taken from the water utility to pay for city services, including all or part of the salaries of three of Doug Palmer’s aides.
So was there really a plan afoot to sell off the water utility five years ago? Was part of that plan to plunder and pillage the resources of that asset and then try to sell it off for cold cash once the Palmer administration couldn’t wring another nickel out of it?
And what about the rate increase enacted in September of 2006 that increased suburban water rates some 17% and the rates for water customers within the city by 31%? Was that part of the long range plan to sell off the outside infrastructure?
In typical Palmer fashion…his mismanagement decisions are made based upon what is most expedient to his personal agenda and not that of the city he purports to serve yet long ago abandoned.
The city has been in a downward fiscal spiral for more than a decade. Rather than tighten up the purse strings in city hall and hold the line on budget items, Palmer…with the able and apparently willing assistance of former Business Administrator Jane Feigenbaum literally robbed from Peter (the water utility) to pay Paul (the ballooning costs of a bloated administration).
At no time did anyone from the Palmer administration rein in the ridiculous spending at city hall by excising superfluous aides, vehicles, etc. or eliminating services that were duplicated elsewhere. Instead, they just kept crying poor to the state for more money and taking from the water utility surplus what rightfully should have been returned in the way of system improvements and holding down usage rates.
Instead, the spending has continued unchecked until the only way to fill the gap is to divest the city of the outlaying parts of the water utility for a chunk of cash that might, conveniently, hold tax increases to a tolerable level until the end of the current term.
The Palmer administration has yet to satisfactorily demonstrate any rational attempt to reduce spending through cutting the layers of staff in the Mayor’s office, curbing personal use of city vehicles (or shrinking the size of the take home car fleet).
For years people and some elected officials have pointed out that if the city was more diligent in enforcing its laws and collecting fines, we’d be in better financial shape. But that has not happened either.
Yet we are to believe that the plan for the last decade has been to sell off the portion of the water utility serves customers outside of the city limits. But we never heard of this long range plan until Palmer and company felt they had the citizens over the barrel by delaying a city budget until it was so late that the only answer appears to be selling off the water system or face huge tax increases. If this is such a good idea, why aren’t we getting rid of the entire water system and thus reducing the city’s huge expense to maintain and staff the utility?
A plan that supposedly has been in the works for 10 years should have been brought to light and discussed openly so long before it was time to sign the sale agreement. That might have eliminated some of the resistance and backlash.
If Palmer and company want us to truly accept and believe this sale is the end result of a long-rage plan, show us the documentation. Take us through the timeline of the steps taken to position the city to benefit now and going forward from this proposed sale.
It is obvious that one cannot document something that didn’t exist.
The notion that this plan has been in the works for a decade is another Palmer pipe dream that is turning into a hose job for the citizens of Trenton.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Another member of Commodore Palmer’s crew is leaving the sinking ship.
Posting on NJ.com tonight confirmed rumor that had been swirling all day.
Trenton Business Administrator (BA) Jane Feigenbaum has announced she’s leaving to take the same position in Perth Amboy starting in January.
Feigenbaum’s tenure in Trenton has been marked by interesting financial ideas, including the proposed sell off of the outlying distribution system of the City Water Utility in order to partially fill a potential $26 million budget gap; even though the sale of water to suburban customers generated enough of a surplus in past years to augment Trenton’s operating budget.
Interestingly, Feigenbaum is headed to Perth Amboy, a city currently plagued with its own budget shortfall and an investigation into the prior administration. She apparently beat out her own assistant, Dennis Gonzalez, for the position there. Gonzalez was rumored to be seeking a position in Perth Amboy a few months ago.
As a consolation, Trenton’s Assistant BA will be bumped up to “Acting” BA. Justifying his choice for Acting BA, Palmer claims that Dennis Gonzalez has “done outstanding work in every job he has performed.”
Does that include threatening a citizen for questioning his effectiveness when he headed the Housing and Economic Development Department?
In a sideways acknowledgement of the many departures from his cabinet, Palmer tossed off a comment about how the city is “generally prepared for when senior officials leave.”
Yeah, generally…they can find another body to plug the hole and tout the party line. Not necessarily excel at the position.
Who row the boat when all the good oarsmen have left?
Trenton Business Administrator (BA) Jane Feigenbaum has announced she’s leaving to take the same position in Perth Amboy starting in January.
Feigenbaum’s tenure in Trenton has been marked by interesting financial ideas, including the proposed sell off of the outlying distribution system of the City Water Utility in order to partially fill a potential $26 million budget gap; even though the sale of water to suburban customers generated enough of a surplus in past years to augment Trenton’s operating budget.
Interestingly, Feigenbaum is headed to Perth Amboy, a city currently plagued with its own budget shortfall and an investigation into the prior administration. She apparently beat out her own assistant, Dennis Gonzalez, for the position there. Gonzalez was rumored to be seeking a position in Perth Amboy a few months ago.
As a consolation, Trenton’s Assistant BA will be bumped up to “Acting” BA. Justifying his choice for Acting BA, Palmer claims that Dennis Gonzalez has “done outstanding work in every job he has performed.”
Does that include threatening a citizen for questioning his effectiveness when he headed the Housing and Economic Development Department?
In a sideways acknowledgement of the many departures from his cabinet, Palmer tossed off a comment about how the city is “generally prepared for when senior officials leave.”
Yeah, generally…they can find another body to plug the hole and tout the party line. Not necessarily excel at the position.
Who row the boat when all the good oarsmen have left?
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