Stop playing games

Trenton Mayor Tony Mack is insistent upon staffing up the department of Recreation, Natural Resources, and Culture that has been a quagmire for the past two years. Soon after taking office in July 2010, Mayor Mack cut staff and demoted some of the remaining employees, ultimately gutting the department in the 2011 layoffs.

In the meantime, the “department” has run through its budget and then some with little to no accountability. There have been inquiries and investigations into use of facilities, splintered contracts that avoid the bidding process, time sheets and more. Festivals and parades have been produced with no real oversight as to what was being spent, who was getting paid and what the real benefit was.  Favoritism has been shown in funding certain sports leagues over others.

Now, the mayor and business administrator Sam Hutchinson have proposed to city council that the city hire a department director and staff to run the various programs and events that the mayor wants.

Here’s a simple counter proposal, and it is not a new idea.

The department of Recreation, Natural Resources and Culture should be done away with. The maintenance functions should be moved into the division of public property (part of the department of public works) and the rest of the functions rolled into the department of health and human services.  

It is not unheard of for municipalities to have a department of health, recreation and human (or senior) services. Indeed, Trenton used to have the department of health, recreation and welfare.  The last term probably fell out of favor because the county took over the administration of the assistance programs and because the word “welfare” started to have negative connotations.

The point is we have a competent director and staff in the health and human services department. It would be simple to add a couple of staff people to that department who would interface with the outside organizations to provide programming and services at the various city owned facilities.  From Artworks and Passage Theatre to the Trenton Museum Society at Ellarslie and the Trent House Association; from the Boys and Girls Clubs, CYO, PAL, YM and YWCA’s; from Babe Ruth League, the various Little Leagues, the NJTL, soccer leagues the health and human services staff would coordinate the use of facilities and help find money (but not totally fund) the programs. The city would lease or enter into MOU’s with these various organizations to do what they by design do. This takes the cost off of the cash strapped city for providing “recreation” programs.

An added bonus is that elimination of the department of RNRC frees up space for the splitting off of the water and sewer utilities from public works, an idea that has also been brought up before.

The creation of a separate department housing only the utilities makes sense. They have their own separate budget anyway. It will be easier to focus on improving the infrastructure and service provided. One would think it will make our suburban neighbors/customers happier to see the water utility operate more transparently and effectively. And it could isolate the utility staff from layoff or furlough actions affecting other departments.

This can all be accomplished with or without the mayor’s approval. Restructuring the city’s administration is done by ordinance.  As we have all learned recently, it only takes a solid five votes on council to make this common sense move be veto proof.

There is no reason this shouldn’t be taken on immediately. It would be an effective way to streamline the city administration while refocusing on the core functions of municipal government.

Just say, NO!

The administration of Mayor Tony Mack will introduce its FY2013 budget to city council on Tuesday, September 25. It appears that the Mayor has instructed his finance staff and the Business Administrator to budget once again for a fully funded, fully staffed Department of Recreation, Natural Resources and Culture.

How do we know?

We know because this press release was posted on the city website on Monday, September 24. It is directed at both the city council and the general public. It declares the Mayor's intention to run a first rate, top-drawer recreation program that will provide something for everyone. It challenges the will of the city's governing body to be fiscally prudent by asking them to fully fund the Mayor's pipe dream. Mostly, it is aimed at rehabilitating the Mayor's tarnished and dented image as he tries to extricate himself from the pending federal corruption charges.

Mayor Mack should be ashamed of himself for this outrageous posturing and posing.

If Mr. Hutchinson didn't advise against this, then he should be ashamed of himself, too. He was brought in to serve the public as the city's BA. If he can't or won't put this city on a course of responsible budgeting, he is not the right man for the job.

Therefore, that leaves it up to the city council to put some severe controls on the Mayor's proposed spending.

As soon as is legally possible the city council needs to cut the proposed RNRC budget to the bare essentials.

Why?

Because Mayor Mack has proven that he is incapable of following a budget, purchasing procedures or any rules at all.

For example:

The city entered into its usual contract with Buoy 98 Marine to maintain, install and monitor the floating docks that flank the city boat ramp on Lamberton Road. The city paid $7,000 for this service. However, the docks were never installed. We went the entire boating season without docks installed, but paid for their installation, monitoring and repair AND charged boaters the full fee to use the ramp anyway. Why were the docks not installed? I don't know. You might want to ask Mayor Mack that. Or one of his key staff members, like Trenton Water Works Stock Clerk Paul Harris.

My guess is that none of Mack's crack staff ever thought to contact the Buoy 98 Marine and direct them to install.

While you are asking questions, you might want to inquire about the $17,400 paid to a sound and light contractor to provide his services for a music festival that never occurred this summer. To be fair, TWW Stock Clerk Paul Harris did send an email to the vendor asking for a refund of the money because the festival was cancelled. However, the email had an error in the address so we don't know if it was ever corrected and resent. Nor do we know if the vendor, assuming he was contacted, returned the money or not.

When it comes to sports leagues, the city has a long-standing practice of contributing money to them. This continued under Mack with a few twists. Whereas all city baseball leagues appear to have received money from the city, one...the Trenton Babe Ruth League...got more than the rest. Documents show that all the leagues received $3500 except the TBRL. That league, the one the Mayor's son plays in and the Mayor and his Brother coach in, received at least $5,000.

We have mentioned before the $15,793.97 spent on a sound system.

And it's recently become known that the city is paying a contract employee for hours she claimed to have worked even though she appears to have had no contract approved by the city council and there was no money in the account to pay her with. In fact, according to documents received via OPRA request, the council is going to be asked this month to approve a transfer of funds to cover the expenditure made in July; an approval requested after the fact.

The Mayor is asking for funding for the Thanksgiving Parade...an expensive extravagance the city should have given up years ago. We made that case during the Palmer era.

The Mayor also wants full funding for another Heritage Days Festival. In the minutes from a June 2012 meeting with council, Mayor Mack states that the Heritage Day budget was $30,000. Records show the city spent $46,416.49 with vendors to put on the event. There was police, park rangers, EMT's, etc to be paid as well.

Again, we have previously called for the doing away with this city financed event.

In the Press Release the Mayor asks the Council to grant his funding request for the Mayor's Learning Centers.  In the year just passed, the Mayor spent $9,874 on 55" Flat Screen TV's, sound bars and mounts for the Learning Centers. The money came from CDBG funds that had been set aside for "improvements to public facilities."

Why doesn't the Mayor earmark the money spent on the folly of the Learning Centers for the Trenton Free Public Library instead?

There were several account overdraws in the Recreation budget last year that the Mayor directed the finance team to "override" in a memo dated June 28, 2012.

So, NO! Council should NOT PASS the Mayor's proposed recreation budget.

Oh, Deer!

It has been reported that the administration of Doug "Hey, Mister. Can You Spare A Dime?" Palmer will remove the remnants of the deer herd from Cadwalader Park because of the worsening budget crisis.

While the deer paddock has been a sentimental favorite for generations of Trentonians, the collection of rag-tag ruminants is not an example of enlightened 21st Century animal keeping and display. It may be time to let the herd go.

Certainly given the choice between keeping the deer or adding an additional member to the city's police or fire departments; striving to keep the library branches open; or repairing the heating/air conditioning system at one of the Senior Centers, the deer would and should lose.

No one doubts that we are in tough financial times. All reasonable adults understand that cuts have to be made and cherished "institutions" like the Cadwalader Park deer herd may have to go.

Maybe the City should forego the expense of the Thanksgiving Parade (scheduled for Saturday, November 22). The police overtime, the fuel for the vehicles, the cost of setting and collecting the barricades could all be saved and at the same time the city will not be embarrassed by this half-assed and unnecessary display.

The parade, like Heritage Days and the so-called "Jazz Festival," are colossal wastes of resources that do nothing for the city except drain money better spent elsewhere.

Let's get real.

Mr. Palmer likes to speak about everyone having to cut back; having to give up something. Yet it is always the public who has to give up something, never Doug.

Maybe he should take his own advice.

How about it, Doug?

Let's give up on Heritage Days and ask the sponsor to give that money towards the libraries.

Let's stop robbing from the Recreation budget to cover the river of red ink the "Jazz Festival" hemorrhages each year.

How about you give up your drivers/security detail and cut your bloated administrative staff. Take a 10% pay cut as Mayor Nutter is doing in Philly.

You do that, then come see us about the deer herd.

A perfect example

City must cut budget, but don’t touch the administration

Trenton is flat broke. The city is looking at a significant budget deficit and the administration has asked all departments to cut their budgets by 10%.

But when is the administration going to tighten its fiscal belt?

We talk about maybe having to charge to use city pools next summer; furloughing police dogs; and possibly closing libraries. But there is never a mention of the administration cutting back on its expenditures.

For instance, this item from Thursday’s council docket:

Resolution

5lr - RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE AWARD OF A CONTRACT THROUGH A FAIR AND OPEN PROCESS IN ACCORDANCE WITH N.J.S.A. 19:44A-20.5 ET. SEQ. TO JOSEPH A. ALACQUA, ESQUIRE, 112 JOHNSON ROAD, TURNERSVILLE, NEW JERSEY 08012 TO PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL LEGAL SERVICES REGARDING MUNICIPAL LAW. (In an amount not to exceed $95,000)

For those who haven’t been following this, Mr. Alacqua serves as “special counsel” to the city, providing legal advice and guidance. Mr. Alacqua is in attendance at most City Council meetings as is the City Attorney, Ms. Denise Lyles.

Why, you might reasonably ask, do we need a “special counsel” at $95,000 per year when we have a City Attorney and legal staff who is already on the city payroll and who are city residents?

Blogger Greg Forester has addressed this several times, most recently here. As he points out, Mr. Alacqua is not the only attorney handling legal work for the city via special services contract. Just look at the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent with outside law firms to fight the Santiago residency case…tax dollars spent to argue both sides of the case!!!!

(Note: as this is written, word is coming in that the judges ruled 3-0 against the former police director).

Now what if we took some of that money going outside the city for special services contracts and put it into keeping our library’s open (read the Times article on this).

Or what if we applied that money to the recreation department budget so the parks can be better maintained?

You get the point. How far could we go cutting the administration’s expenditures before we need to reduce city services in order to balance the budget? Shouldn’t we be looking there first?

We at the stoop join in Chrissie’s call for city council to vote “no” for this expenditure. Let’s hope the thinking members of city council choose to vote against resolution 5 lr and start us on the road to real fiscal responsibility.

As a bonus…let’s stop hitting up corporations for sponsorships of the failing Heritage Days and the alleged Trenton “Jazz Festival” and instead put that money to work keeping our libraries open. At least until we get a new, higher functioning library board that finds ways to augment the city’s contribution to it’s operating expenses.