Bye-bye, Ms. Lauren I

So long, Hayes, Garnier, Smith, and Vaughan.

After a lot of sturm and drang; misplaced outrage; and claims of not knowing what they were doing (which is partly correct…at least for some members) Trenton’s city council last week adopted a budget for FY2012 that reduced the salary line for the staff of the mayor’s office.  This line item reduction means that the mayor has to find a way to spread the remaining money around to pay his aides, secretary etc or let some of them go effective today. This would include the Mayor’s Director of Policy and Communication, Lauren Ira.

As much as we would like to comment on this situation, it is not our policy to discuss personnel matters publicly.

Let them go. NOW!

There is something seriously wrong with the brain trust that is running things at city hall.

Just look at these recent examples from the never ending stream of questionable actions and antics exhibited by Mayor Tony Mack and crew:

• The Mayor creates a “Commission on International Business Affairs” via Executive Order that no one, especially city council knows about. When questioned about his authority to unilaterally create this body, Mayor Mack claims to have issued a follow up Executive Order changing the commission to an advisory committee.  No one has seen this document and wouldn’t you expect the administration, through the Business Administrator, to make sure that members of city council would at least receive a copy.
• Embattled city employee and AFSCME union local president Dave Tallone has continually been paid sick time, holiday pay, and longevity pay since November of 2011 when the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office notified him of charges of impersonation, etc.  The pay continued because of an “administrative error” according to reports in the Trentonian. Acting Business Administrator Anthony Roberts “took immediate action” to stop the paychecks. 
• Acting Director of Inspections, Cleveland Thompson “may” be brought up on disciplinary charges in the near future.  The situation reportedly involves an incident between Thompson and Acting Business Administrator Roberts.      
• And then there is the confusion surrounding the plan (or the myth) of the city selling the parking meters and such to the independent Trenton Parking Authority for the $500k that would cover the latest supplement to the Marriott Hotel operating budget.  The figure was included in the recently proposed budget amendments that council voted down, but the Mack administration is claiming no knowledge of and no intent to strike such a deal.  The spokesperson, Lauren Ira, won’t comment and the Acting BA is also silent on this.

If you need a reason (or four) to support city council’s measure to strike the funding from the city budget that pays for the likes of Mr. Roberts and Ms. Ira, look no further.

If one is good, two must be better

In an article in this morning’s Times, Matt Fair yet again reports that the city’s Policy and Communications Director could not or would not respond to questions from the press.

City spokeswoman Lauren Ira, meanwhile, failed to answer a series of e-mailed questions about whether the city expected to hire back any workers in the inspections department. She also ignored questions about EIC Inspection Agency’s continued contracting with the city.

With so many questions arising from the Mack administration’s antics, it must be overwhelming for one person to respond to all the requests for clarification, edification and explanation.

Would it surprise anyone if something similar to the following letter might turn up in the in basket of Director of Local Government Services Tom Neff’s in basket? (click on image see a larger version)

 

Anything is likely to happen in Mack-world.

Oops! He did it again!

The tragic-comic melodrama that is the Mack administration rolls on.

In an article in this morning’s Times reporter Matt Fairhighlights the ongoing problem with the city of Trenton giving work to outside legal firmswithout city council approval.

This is improper and illegal and a problem that started in the Palmer administration and continues under Mayor Mack.  It is a passive-aggressive way for the administration to get what it wants without interference from the governing body.  It is a blatant circumvention of the law and it is costing the city lots of money.

We’ll spare you the lecture on the proper process that should be followed in these matters. Suffice it to say that no contract should be granted or extended without council’s approval and we have strayed far from that procedure.

Despite the fact that the contracts were granted in an irregular if not suspect manner, work was done on the city’s behalf and we (the taxpayers) are obliged to pay for it…whether justified or not.

In the article, city spokesperson Lauren Ira is quoted as saying,

“Going forward, we are working on plans to make our processes more efficient. This will involve issuing timely requests for proposals, and selecting outside counsel prior to the expiration of the then-current outside counsel’s contracts.”

It seems to us that the administration’s attempts at making their “processes more efficient” have amounted to circumventing the law and short-cutting best practices.

Maybe what Ms. Ira, Mayor Mack and company should be focusing on is making the process more compliant with state statute and good sense. And maybe they should be looking at ways to eliminate the need for these expensive contracts rather than make the process of giving them out "more efficient."

Another Mack administration fail

What the heck is going on?

The Mack administration has once again demonstrated its world-class incompetence with the way it is handling the whole Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene thing.

First, the consistently misused telephone notification system sent out a call Friday assuring the city’s residents that the city’s emergency management team was on top of all developments and had a plan in place. City spokesperson Lauren Ira went so far as to state there were no planned evacuations and that the Delaware River would not flood.

That’s right. About 24 hours before the storm even hit, the city was declaring there would be no emergency. WOW! I wish I had that kind of ability to see into the future. NOT!

A day later, the storm hits. Anyone with internet access is checking the web for flood predictions and such. What do we hear from the city? Zilch.

Then the rumors start. The water filtration plant is going to be shutdown. Is there any word from the city?

No.

While emails, Face book posts and texts flash around town, the city website, the city Face book page, and the Cty-connect system are silent. In fact, all the website has is an announcement of a press conference scheduled for 1pm on Sunday to discuss the state of the weather emergency. Oh, and the fact that the Island neighborhood must evacuate.

Finally, West Ward Councilman Zac Chester distributes a notice declaring the rumor of a TWW shutdown as false. Only after that does the city manage to put a mention on the website, the Face book page and the Mayor calls into the Channel 6 news to set the record straight.

On Sunday, amidst rumors of a boil water order, the city quietly admits that the filtration plant had been shut down and the system switched over to draw down from an estimated 2.5-day supply in the reservoir. In and of itself, not an unusual or scary situation, but the city also softly asks people to observe water conservation measures to help stretch the supply. Again, they fail to utilize the social media, website or robo call system to alert and inform the public.

Then, with the Island evacuation nearly complete, the city determines that the neighboring Glen Afton neighborhood also needs to be evacuated ahead of the anticipated flooding by the Delaware River.

Not surprisingly, the city’s plan has some problems. First, the predictions for the river’s quest are lowered to a point not expected to impact the Glen Afton neighborhood.

Second, the installation of back flow check valves on the storm drains and some other engineering fixes have pretty much eliminated the flood risk from Glen Afton’s lowest areas. The higher properties were seldom threatened by floodwaters at all.

As absurd as this “recommended” evacuation is, the city followed up with an incredibly stupid and unlawful threat as a means to enforce the removal of citizens from their properties. The city said they would tow all vehicles not removed from the streets of Glen Afton as well as any left in driveways (private property). To further show it meant business, the administration told residents that power would be cut to the homes as well.

Outraged by this apparently unlawful and senseless abuse of power, residents of Glen Afton started to push back. In trying to determine who made such a ridiculous set of decisions, leaders of the local civic group representing the neighborhood were led to believe that the Mayor was only carrying out the orders of the County government.

Fortunately, a check with acting County Sheriff Jack Kemler confirmed this idiocy did not originate with the County government.

Armed with that information, and threatened with a potentially massive law suit against the city, Policy Director and Spokesperson Lauren Ira was questioned about who made the decision that these actions would be taken, that these actions would be legal. Her response was relatively swift and quickly shifted blame from the county to Fire Director Quareeb Bashir. Ms. Ira indicated it was she was only “following orders” from the Office of Emergency Management.

From:

Lauren Ira [lira@trentonnj.org]

Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2011 10:17 PM

To: 

Subject: Re: Regarding Glen Afton Residents and leaving there homes.

 

My information came from the Trenton Police Department and you should direct your concerns to them, I was following their orders, and those of Director Bashir, Office of Emergency Management Coordinator.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

So, yet again, the city has shown itself incapable of handling the most basic of weather/flood emergencies and completely ignoring the threat to other areas of the city (notably the South Ward) while muddling the process in the Island and Glen Afton neighborhoods.

This is not good government.

It is not even good farce.