April foolishness

Trenton's wayward administration is still at it.

On the docket again this week is a resolution to enter into a $250,000 contract for services with E-Path Communications. E-Path, you will recall, is the small, Florida-based company who wants to build a city-wide WiFi mesh in Trenton. They promised they would do this at "no cost" to the taxpayers. The costs of building and maintaining the system will be paid for by selling access and services to government entities.

Enter the $250,000 contract with Trenton.

The "free" construction and implementation of the network is dependent upon having paying customers. E-Path is essentially asking the City of Trenton to commit to buying access to the (as yet unbuilt) system. With a signed contract in hand, we presume E-Path's management will then try to leverage that deferred income into financing for this project...and probably the yet to be completed system they are supposed to be building on Long Island in New York state.

Today's city council conference session is to include another presentation by the Wizards of WiFi from E-Path as they desperately try to make their case for the city to grant this contract.

We've said it before and we say it again...No, Thank You!

No doubt there will also be talk about the Mayor's request that Council amend the city's current residency ordinance to allow exceptions and waivers.

Haven't we been over this before?

If council had wanted to amend the residency ordinance to allow exceptions and waivers, wouldn't they have done so before entering into a law suit on the side of the citizens who wanted the law upheld? Would they/should they have spent all that money on legal representation to fight the Mayor only to turn around and acquiesce to his child-like demands of "My Way! My Way!"

Doug Palmer and his administration need to stop all of this foolishness right now.

No WiFi. No amendment to the residency ordinance.

This is not about you, Doug Palmer, and not about "defining moments" of your time as Mayor.

This is about common sense and doing the right thing for the City as a whole. Stop worrying about running around the country trying to line up your next step and take care of business here in Trenton.

When and if you come back to work for the people you claim gave you a mandate, I'd suggest leaving your ego at home with your pettiness and your spoiled brat tantrums. Accept that you don't have all the answers and the ones you do have aren't always right.

If that doesn't suit you, then step aside and let those who truly care about the people who live and work in Trenton take charge and stop this nonsense.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Mayor Palmer's sartorial pictorial in the September Esquire just hit the newsstands. Check out page 220.

Since the copy is a little hard to read, I will transcribe it here for you:

Doug Palmer, 55 Fifth Term

TRENTON Pop. 85, 403

Greatest triumph: Changing the police department through a referendum. You take on the police - and I got rid of the fire chief, too - and they're bonded to kick your butt.

Best part: You know how they say you walk down the street and everybody stops to talk to you? Yeah, well, when they stop doing that is when you've got a problem.

Two-button wool suit ($1,995) by Dolce and Gabbana; cotton shirt ($490) by Domenico Vacca; silk tie ($125) by Dunhill.

AFTER MY THIRD TERM, I GOT EIGHTY SEVEN PERCENT OF THE VOTE, AND I REALIZED THAT THEY WEREN'T SAYING THAT THEY LOVED ME; THEY WERE SAYING, WE WANT TO GIVE YOU A MANDATE.