A lesson to be learned

The recent bribery trial of Hamilton Mayor John Bencivengo continues to send ripples through the normally placid pond of township politics.  Bencivengo rightfully resigned one day after a federal jury convicted him on all counts of accepting money in exchange for offering his political influence. 

Filling the vacancy created by the resignation has caused lawyers to examine and re-examine state law to ensure proper process is followed. At the same time, it has generated its own set of controversy and questions.

Under the Mayor/Council form of government the presiding officer of the municipal governing body (council president) assumes the duties of mayor immediately upon the vacancy of the office.

The governing body then has 30 days to appoint an acting mayor to hold the office until a special election can be held to choose a replacement to complete the term. If the vacancy comes after a certain point in the final year of the term, the acting mayor chosen by the governing body completes the remainder of the term (no special election held).

In the case of municipalities with partisan elections, such as Hamilton, the party whose nominee held the vacated seat (the GOP in the current example) has 15 days from the creation of the vacancy to submit three names to the governing body to consider for the appointment as acting mayor. In municipalities with non-partisan elections, the governing body selects the individuals for consideration.

Watching the second act of this political soap opera is not just about the entertainment value. Sure, it offers us lots of opportunity for sarcasm and snarky comments. It also provides a valuable lesson in why we must all get involved in carefully vetting and choosing our elected leaders.

For Trentonians who have already learned the hardships of making poor choices in leadership it provides a very real case study of what we may ourselves be going through in a few months time.  Should Mayor Mack be indicted, go to trial and be convicted, our city will be faced with the very same scenario, but with some complicating twists of our own making.

The elevation of the council president to acting mayor upon the vacancy of the office will most likely set off a pyrotechnic display not witnessed in Trenton since Dec. 26, 1776. Any decision made by the person assuming the mayor’s chair is likely to be questioned/challenged by the governing body, the members of which can rarely agree on what day of the week it is let alone actions to be taken. (Example from Hamilton: the dismissal of Business Administrator John Ricci by acting Mayor Kevin Mears is generating comments and criticisms according to press reports).

Complicating matters will be the oversight on hiring and firing granted the DCA via the state aid MOU. No mayor of Trenton, acting or elected, currently enjoys a free hand in making key personnel decisions such as department directors and the business administrator. There are, however, other appointed (non-contractual) employees who could be, and probably should be, immediately dismissed by any acting mayor.

The selection of a replacement mayor, whether temporarily until a special election is held or to complete the remainder of the current term, will be the real battle.

Who will guide the process?

Our governing body is short on experience and, in some individual cases, completely void of comprehension of their rights and responsibilities.

The legal department, also short on knowledge and experience with municipal law, has to date not been particular assertive in matters of technicalities.

The deliberation over who should be appointed acting mayor will likely be a comedy of errors and omissions. With no local party committee to winnow down the choices to three, any and all interested and legally qualified parties will have to be given their due before a group of finalists are put up to a vote.

There are already two individuals who have filed with NJ ELEC to run for the office of mayor in 2014, a third has announced an exploratory committee and at least a fourth who has previously expressed an interest in running. That list does not include any sitting council members who may be eyeing “the big chair.”  

How many more names might be tossed into the hat? How will individual loyalties and personal plans of members of council figure in the decision making?

Can we expect a smooth, orderly and proper decision to be made by at least five members of a governing body that has been largely stalemated on any major initiative over the past 27 months?

What will happen to the “business” of the city while the above battle is fought? For over two years the city has been adrift due to the incompetency of the Mack administration, the inexperience of the governing body and the inability of the two branches of government to get the simplest things done (remember the toilet paper crisis of last spring?)

The events of the past couple of years in Trenton and Hamilton show just why it is so important for all voters to actively participate in the election process. Researching the background, experience and qualifications of all candidates before heading into the voting booth is the beginning. Keeping elected officials accountable and our government transparent is equally important.

If we want better government, we all need to be better citizens. Otherwise, we are likely to see repeats of the disasters we are living through right now.

 

An open letter to Mayor Mack

Dear Mayor Mack,

The problems facing the city of Trenton are numerous and the result of years of bad decisions, irresponsible spending and total mismanagement by the previous administration and city councils.

You inherited a mess, but you knew this going into the campaign and you knew it when you took the oath of office.

Certainly, we all have to re-think our personal financial situations and make adjustments in order to survive in these tough economic times.

Your finances have obviously been on shaky ground for awhile. You knew this while you were campaigning and it didn’t change when you were sworn in as Mayor.

Since you took office you have done nothing to help your situation or the city’s. What are you thinking?

When you are facing such difficult situations as the pending foreclosure on your personal residence, back rent and utilities owed on your now closed business, etc. how can you find $20,000 to lend to your campaign? Of course people are going to ask questions and make accusations.

You need to be open and up front about it with the public you have sworn to serve. You should not deny or deflect what is common public knowledge. It does nothing but harm your credibility and hamper your effectiveness as the city’s Chief Executive.

When you have inherited a fiscal sinkhole as large as the city’s deficit, you start cutting costs to the bone whenever and wherever you can. This means eliminating or reducing some services in order to preserve those that are essential to the well being of the residents.

You should not pad the city payroll with friends and supporters while faced with having to lay off almost 200 public safety employees and an equivalent amount of civil service employees.

The people you do hire need to be the best qualified for their positions. And if you must create new positions, such as “grant writers,” you should seek out individuals already employed by the city who would benefit by being moved over to the new position rather than being laid off from their old one.

The people you appoint to high ranking positions must also be of the highest caliber. Their backgrounds should be spotless, their qualifications impeccable. Trying to foist convicted felons onto the public and public payroll is simply not acceptable. Most of us believe in second chances and so forth, but repeat offenders as cabinet level appointees is not an example of good judgment.

Mayor Mack, you campaigned on the promise of providing an accountable and transparent government. The short time you have been in office has exemplified just the opposite.

When you, or your designated spokesperson, communicate with the press and the public, it should be done as accurately, and informatively as is humanly possible. We don’t want half-baked notions, over the top spin pieces, or dismissive “Next Question” comments. Your “30 days of Accomplishments” press release was void of any basis in reality or substance.

Your administration mishandled the dismissal of the acting deputy city clerk and inappropriately called in the police to have her removed from the premises. Then you have the audacity to lie to the city council and the public by suggesting the whole matter of the police presence was part of a set-up assisted by members of the local press.

Mayor Mack, you have failed to provide for your family and you are failing to provide for the residents and tax payers of the city of Trenton.

Many people want you to succeed, and everyone wants the city to succeed. As we close in on the first 60 days of your administration you have failed to operate fairly, openly and transparently.

There is still time to correct your mistakes, Mr. Mayor.

You can start by dismissing everyone one of your aides. You need to let go of the security detail (drivers) and return them to policing duty. Any other new hire of this administration must be evaluated against existing employees as to qualifications and experience for the job and the current employee should be given preference over any new hire when filling a position.

You need to forget about improving baseball fields in the west ward and stop giving lip service to keeping the library branches open. All non-essential Health and Human Services programs…especially those duplicated by other agencies…must be terminated.

There is still time, Mr. Mayor, for you to correct your path and the city’s. There are a lot of people standing by, waiting to provide good counsel and a helping hand. But you have to want it. Your recently announced schedule of Town Hall meetings can be the start of the reformation of your administration.

We urge you to let go of the hangers-on, the sycophants and the wannabes. Accept the fact that you need help, not friends and flunkies. Embrace those in the community with the experience, good sense and wisdom to lead Trenton to a shining tomorrow.

There is still time, but you must act now.

Who'll Stop the Rain

Well we need it. We've been a little shy on rainfall this summer (but not for the year to date) and the extreme heat of the past couple of weeks didn't help. So we really can't complain about a couple of days of grey, wet weather. It's good for the ducks and the mushrooms.

Speaking of mushrooms...you know the old joking way of referring to people left out of the loop on decision making as mushrooms because they are "kept in the dark and fed a diet of manure." Well, sometimes I feel like Trenton is being run like a big mushroom farm.

The leadership of this city is deeply mired in the habit of tightly controlling what it wants people to know and when. And this might not be all bad in theory, but in practice, so far, it pretty much sucks.

Councilman Coston has reported on his blog that directives have been sent out stating that City Council people are not to address concerns with City Department Heads directly and, conversely, Department Heads are not to respond to City Council people directly. All communication, we're told, is to go through the Mayor's Office of Citizen Concerns.

Does that seem odd to you? If City Council people have to take Citizen Concerns through the Mayor's Office, doesn't it sort of defeat the point of electing City Council people? Readers of Mr. Coston's blog know how he feels about this, but we haven't heard anything from the rest of Council. They should be outraged at being neutralized by the Administration, yet we hear nary a peep (except from the representative of the South Ward).

And then there is the most recent round of transfers and reassignments in the Trenton Police Department. Now its always a slippery slope if management decisions are made by public consensus, but some decisions are just plain wrong and should be reconsidered. What possible reason can warrant informing someone while on vacation that he has been reassigned from a job that he thought (and a majority of people seem to agree) he was performing well, if not excelling at?

Further, if the whole operational premise is one of "community oriented policing" where the various officers are assigned to specific areas and meet with the people from those areas regularly, then shouldn't the people be informed of the changes directly and at the same time as the officers are?

Doesn't it make sense to inform the community that they are going to have new "partners" and provide their names and contact information so there is no lapse in communication?

Apparently not in Trenton under the current police leadership. No, the Police Director appears to practice "management at will" (or is it "management by whim?") and he seems to believe there is little to no reason to inform the public of his decisions.

And then there is the situation where Zac Chester was threatened with legal action for doing nothing more than asking for some information about development and redevelopment projects in Trenton. In what is assumed to be an attempt to silence anyone who dares question members of the City Administration, a high ranking official is suggesting he'd rather sue than answer to a city resident and taxpayer.

The underlying theme in all of this is a very strong desire to not let the public know, for fear they might scrutinize and then criticize, what the Administration is doing. The leadership is apparently fearful that the public might not react well to how it's going about the City's business.

"What they don't know can't hurt us," seems to be the mantra emanating from City Hall.

Keep them in the dark and feed them manure.

Well, its' time that the citizens of Trenton stop acting like mushrooms. We need to stand together and demand the accountability of our appointed and elected officials alike.

We need to stop this deluge of indifference to the public's right to know and shed some light on just what is really going on in Trenton.

We need to demand proper, complete and timely answers to our questions.

A Tale of Two Citizens

Well it appears as though Doug Palmer's "go to guy" has crossed a line.

Dennis Gonzales, the person who's held more titles in City Hall than the Yankees have won penants, may have just lost his favored status.

Back on May 15, a respected, thoughtful young Citizen by the name of Zachary Chester sent a letter to City Council requesting information on all the development projects that Mr. Gonzalez had been involved with during his multi-tenures as Housing and Development Director (acting or otherwise). The letter opens:

Dear President Pintella:

I am very disappointed by what I read in The Times newspaper on Sunday, May 13, 2007. I would like for this council to look into every redevelopment and development project that Mr. Dennis Gonzalez, Assistant Business Administrator and Acting Housing and Economic Development Director has worked on since his employment with the City of Trenton. I would like to know the outcome of each and every project he has been involved in.

Mr. President, I would like to have this information in writing within the next sixty (60) days.

Mr. Chester then goes on to ask for some specifics on the Trenton Town Center project.

As noted in the letter, the requests were made in response to a lengthy article published two days prior in a local paper which pointed to Mr. Gonzalez as being at least partly responsible for delays in the Trenton Town Center project. Mr. Gonzalez's reported responses were fairly typical: arrogant.

So Mr. Chester asks City Council (with copies to the Mayor, the Business Administrator and the Chief of Staff) do some looking into the situation and report back.

Of course no one from City Hall responds.

On August 15, Mr. Chester received a letter from Mr. Gonzalez. The letter is not sent on City of Trenton letterhead. The letter is sent from Citizen Gonzalez's home address which is just one block away from Citizen Chester's home. And the envelope was post-marked August 14...two weeks after the date on the letter.

The letter from "Citizen" Gonzalez reads as follows:

Dear Mr. Chester:

The purpose of this correspondence is to place you on notice that you are to cease and desist in making defamatory oral and written statements which express or imply that I have personally and/or in my various capacities as an appointed official of the City of Trenton engaged in unethical and/or criminal conduct. I consider your oral statements at Trenton City Council meetings in May, June and July of this calendar year demanding that the City Council investigate me as well as all projects with which I have been associated to constitute slander. In addition, our letter of May 15, 2007 addressed to City Council President Paul M. Pintella constitutes libel for the same reason set forth here as to your oral statements.

Any express or implicit accusations of wrongdoing on my part are absolutely 100% without merit. The deliberate and unsupported perpetuation of falsehoods by you has, and will, damage my reputation , and adversely affect my ability to make a living. I will hold you personally responsible for any and all damages including pecuniary.

You can avoid a lawsuit by making a direct and clear public apology before the City Council on August 16th stating in no uncertain terms that you are aware of no instance or facts which support any allegation of ethical and/or criminal conduct on my part. In addition, I demand that you place advertisements of no less than 1/2 page each in The Times of Trenton and The Trentonian with the same public apology to be published not later than August 31, 2007.

I will not compromise the demands set forth herein. I am able by virtue of my education to proceed with litigation before the Superior Court of the State of Jersey [sic] and, ultimately, before a Mercer County jury.

Most Sincerely,

Dennis Gonzalez

It is clear from this letter that Mr. Gonzalez has already acted as attorney, judge and jury when it comes to the imagined allegations and assertions by Mr. Chester. For all of his education and experience, Mr. Gonzalez seems to have overlooked a couple of basic facts.

Mr. Chester's letter of May 15 never alleges anything. He merely asks for information about any and all development and/or redevelopment project that Mr. Gonzalez has been involved int since he became a City employee.

While I may not have the benefit of Mr. Gonzalez's education, I don't think that Mr. Chester's letter constitutes libel.

Further, Mr. Gonzalez is a politically appointed public official. As such, he certainly must expect if not accept, a certain amount of criticism from the public.

The fact that Mr. Gonzalez has not presided over any sort of economic boom during his various stints in City Hall or at the ill-fated Trenton Economic Development Corporation does raise questions about his competency. If there are any lawsuits to be filed, it should be by the citizens of Trenton against Mr. Gonzalez for failing at his various high-level, well paid jobs.

And if Mr. Gonzalez really wants to go to war, will he be prepared to answer questions about the amount of time he was a City Employee and yet didn't live in the City?

For his part, Mr. Chester is sticking by his guns and has not apologized for the alleged slights.

Mr. Gonzalez should face the fact that it is past time for him to go. He needs to pack his carpetbag and move on.

And leave the good people of this city, like Citizen Chester, alone.

Can We Be Honest, Just Once?

Capital Health System has announced that it is interested in developing a first class, tertiary care facility in Trenton. (Think Cooper Medical Center in Camden) This would mean an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in the City. Some of the money would come from the State of NJ which, by the way, has expressed an interest in just such a facility.

Mayor Palmer says, "No thank you. I want St. Francis (Medical Center) to build it. Downtown."

Well Mayor Palmer, how about some full disclosure.

How about you are trying to prop up the sagging fortunes of St. Francis Medical Center which is in need of some tertiary care itself. Even after you "suggested" this plan to St. Francis' management, they have not done the necessary planning nor do they have even have the proportionate amount of funding that CHS does to put toward such a major development. (Translation: more government investment)

How about the fact that old friend and confidant Bill Watson is on the Board of Trustees for St. Francis?

How about you tell the truth and the whole truth. Just once.