The morning after

We've pretty much all been there at one time or another.

The pounding head, the ringing ears, the raspy throat, the very unsettled feeling in the stomach.  All the result of overindulgence.

We think a majority of Trenton's voters...or a majority of the nearly 11,000 who actually voted in yesterday's municipal elections are experiencing some of the same symptoms this morning.

With a pitiful, less than 28% voter turnout, all but one of the contests to fill the Mayor and City Council seats appear to be headed for a runoff. 

Only incumbent South Ward Councilman George Muschal has handed his challengers a solid defeat.  The rest, Mayor, three Council At Large*, and the North, East, and West Council seats are headed into a June 15 runoff.

As we called it back in January.  Top three vote getters in the Mayoral race are Tony Mack, Eric Jackson and Manny Segura.  There are only three votes separating Segura from second place finisher Jackson.  No doubt there will be challenges and a very close examination of the provisional ballots, etc. before the results are certified by the city clerk.

In the At-Large race, it appears as though Trenton has chosen an interesting trio as the primary vote getters:  Kathy McBride, Alex Bethea and Phyllis Holly Ward.  McBride is an outspoken anti-violence activist who ran for At-Large in 2002 and again in 2006 where she nearly upset Palmer's plans to keep his slate in office by squeaking out ahead of Cordelia "Dee Dee" Staton in the May election. 

Bethea is a vice principal in one of the city schools, has also run before, and made the 2006 runoff with McBride and Mill Hill resident Jim Carlucci. 

Holly-Ward is a city employee and former head of the Trenton Council of Civic Associations (TCCA).  Her stint as TCCA president launched a monthly column in the Times where she wrote about building community and personal responsibility.  Of the three, Holly-Ward is probably the best qualified candidate.

Should the At-Large race go to a runoff, Juan Martinez, T. "Missy" Balmir, and Darren "Freedom" Green will go up against McBride, Bethea and Holly-Ward.  This is truly sad.

Martinez is a well-known opportunist working in the guise of Community Activist.  He purports to belong to/head up the mythical, all encompassing People for the Revitalization of the South Ward (PROS) organization.  The problem is, no one has ever been able to demonstrate when and where PROS meets; who the membership is other than Juan; provide copies of it's mission statement and/or by-laws, etc.  Juan is probably most remembered for supporting the idiotic "Leewood" plan that would have wiped out some 6 square blocks of Trenton's South Ward through the use of eminent domain in order for Palmer friendly developer could then build new homes to sell back to the very people that had been displaced.  Martinez's reward for his efforts on behalf of Leewood...a cushy $62,000 a year gig with the City School System as a community liaison. Not a good choice for any elected office in our estimation.

Missy Balmir is a former aide to Governor Corzine, a former aide to  Rep. Rush Holt, a former aide to Mayor Doug Palmer and a former member of the Trenton School Board (appointed by Doug Palmer).  In short, she has spent her adult life working with and for the same people who have led Trenton to the mess it is currently in and thinks she can change it for the better.  Doubtful.  And when you look at her campaign finance reports it becomes clear that Balmir is but another party hack put into play by a machine hoping to keep Trenton under it's thumb.  Bad choice.  Really bad choice.

Darren "Freedom" Green seems like an earnest enough fellow.  But where has he been and what has he done prior to running for Council At Large?  Why voters would choose him over obviously more experienced and and qualified candidates this time around is not only puzzling, it is actually disturbing. 

In the three ward races going to a runoff things are just as confusing.

In the North Ward, party insider Marge Caldwell-Wilson will face New Black Panther Party member Divine Allah in the June contest.  Ms. Caldwell-Wilson was removed from the South Ward** council seat in 1998 after some irregularities in absentee ballots were discovered.  Her reward...she was appointed to the County Board of Elections (hire a crook to catch a crook?).  She's flaunted her party connections as if they give her real qualifications to represent the people of the North Ward.  In fact, she has been rather detached from real involvement in the community...including her own neighborhood association, until she decided to run for council.  Note to Marge...union endorsements and glad handing with the former-gov might get you money, but it won't buy you friends.

Mr. Allah, on the other hand is waging a grass roots campaign that includes the retro-act of driving through the neighborhoods shouting through a bullhorn to entice voters to turn out.

This would be a fun contest to watch if we didn't have to make the choice ourselves.

In the East Ward, Joe Harrison and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson will battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate.  Harrison has been an outspoken critic of Doug Palmer's troop of players and the administration's antics. 

Ms. Reynolds-Jackson is a zoning board member and....
That is to say, she is a bit of an enigma and there is little information to be found from culling through her NJ ELEC reports.  Come to think of it, the same is true from At-Large candidate Mr. Green.

And both Ms. Reynolds-Jackson and Mr. Green appear in campaign literature with Ms. Balmir...as well as on her website.

Hmmm...we smell a slate with some strange connections.

And then there is the West Ward.  Zachary Chester is running up against Joyce Kersey.  Ms. Kersey, you may remembered, stepped down from her post on the school board where she was an ineffective leader and member.

Mr. Chester waged a quiet, well-funded campaign with all the trappings of a city wide machine: communications director, volunteer coordinator, etc.  He did have that little glitch where he ran afoul of the city's strict Pay-to-Play ordinance (which he and his wife helped pass by referendum in 2006).

To add interest to the run-off election will be the question of whether or not the proposed sale of part of the Trenton Water Works to NJ American Water should go through or not.  (We think not).  Leading up to yesterday's election, most of the candidates above took strong positions against the sale.  A couple (Jackson and Chester specifically) have not been as forthcoming on the issue.  NJ American Water is already pouring (pun intended) resources into the fight to have the sale approved.  Watch closely and see where some of that money lands and how it impacts the candidate's positions in the next four weeks.

And buy some alka seltzer, pepto bismol or maloxx.
*there are some provisional ballots to be looked at and the scrutiny due to come to determine whether Eric Jackson or Manny Segura face Tony Mack in the Mayoral Runoff could actually change the outcome of the At-Large race and make a runoff unnecessary.

**Mill Hill and other areas traditionally part of the South Ward were redistricted into the North Ward in the spring of 2001.  To this day, some feel it was a blatant effort to prevent Ms. Caldwell-Wilson from again challenging then Councilman John Ungrady for the South Ward seat.

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Editor's note:  Comments made in the above posting have not set well with some readers. This has been brought to the attention of this site's management and is duly noted.


That said, for those objecting to anything contained above, we submit this snippet from an article written by Tom Hester, Jr. and published in the Times of Trenton on October 3, 1998:

In June, it seemed as though Marge Caldwell-Wilson _ courtesy of her five-vote victory over incumbent John Ungrady in the June runoff election, a victory made possible by a 36-7 absentee ballot advantage _ had become the South Ward's first woman representative. But when Allen Lee, Caldwell-Wilson's former campaign manager, visited the Millhouse Nursing Home just four days before the runoff, he was setting the stage for this Tuesday's unprecedented special election between Caldwell-Wilson and Ungrady for the South Ward council seat.

DURING THAT VISIT, Lee went room-to-room delivering absentee ballots to the nursing home residents.

Two months later, testimony from the residents would help force his candidate from office, marking the first time in city history a judge removed someone from the council and called a special election, which will cost the taxpayers at least $40,000, according to city clerk Anthony Conti.

In short, absentee ballots thrown out; an individual removed from office and a special election held.  That was all we said on the matter.

Regarding the New Black Panther Party, our assumption was that everyone understands that group espouses black separatism, something we do not condone, and thus didn't need to comment further. 

Just too much to consider...

Ok. We admit it.


We have been somewhat “AWOL” the past few weeks.

Here’s the deal.

We have been nearly paralyzed with a “Municipal Election Migraine.” Considering the individuals running for public office in Trenton and the seeming lack of a grasp on the situation here in the Capital City, it is no small wonder that we are not collectively comatose!

Look at the facts: 10 individuals on the ballot as candidates for mayor. And not one of them comes close to the “whole package.”

Council At-Large…same thing.

And, just to make things interesting, there are documented, press-covered write-in candidates for each of those jobs. (At least with the Council At Large a voter has three choices).

At the ward level (Trenton elects four “Ward” council members.) there are choices between anywhere from three to five candidates.

Is it any wonder that we are in an “overload” situation?

What we need/should want in our next batch of Elected Officials is a group that will optimize all that our residents have to say on the subject of our new council and mayor. We need elected officials that are in touch with their constituents and who are ready to do the best and most they can to move Trenton forward.

We need officials who are not elected by virtue of their ethnicity, affiliations, or money raised/spent on campaigns. We need representation from people who know how to get things done and will do the same regardless of what it might mean personally or politically down the road.

That said, any candidate who has held office in the past 8, 12 or 16 years; any candidate who has held a position in city hall or been appointed to a position by the current/outgoing mayor; or any person who has otherwise flaunted ties to the about to depart junta should automatically disqualify themselves from consideration.

Trenton does not need “more of the same.” Trenton needs to hear from people outside of the current ruling clique.

Don’t believe us? Check out the various information and opinion offered by our fellow bloggers at Bald, Fat and Angry, Trenton Mayor 2010, or Trenton Kat.

Good luck and good night, Mr. and Mrs. And Ms. Trenton. We are going to need it!

The blame game

"It's not my fault. I didn't cause it." --- the late George Carlin, comedian

Trenton’s lame duck city council took a double-barreled blast in the Trentonian yesterday.

In his Thursday column, Trentonian scribe L.A. Parker claimed that the five members of council who voted against the city budget demonstrated a lack of “accountability.” Parker did give the South Ward Councilman, George Muschal, a pass for only having come on board after November’s special election. He chided the other four “No” votes (Bethea, Lartigue, Melone and Segura) for passing the responsibility determining the city’s tax increase to the state Division of Local Services. Parker claims the four did not own up to their part in helping “put Trenton in this position” of begging the State for money.

It comes as no surprise that Parker did not mention at all the irresponsible and spendthrift ways of the Doug Palmer administration that for the past two years has waited until the fiscal year was more than half over before submitting a budget to city council.

Instead, Parker wrote a companion piece in which Palmer “blasts” city council’s alleged irresponsibility in the matter.

“I introduced a budget to City Council and then it was up to them to schedule meetings or hold budget workshops. The ball was in their court. I don’t want to hear anything about my Plan B,” Palmer said earlier today.

“But now we have five city council members who are attempting to point the finger at me. I made my decisions. People elected me to be a leader and that’s what I have done. Being a leader is not for the weak of heart.”

Palmer praised President Paul Pintella and at large Councilwoman Cordelia Staton for “having the guts to take responsibility for the budget.

Both Parker and Palmer seem to ignore the fact that Council cannot act on the budget until it is submitted by the administration. And Palmer should have submitted a “worst case” budget months ago and not relied upon the Supreme Court to bail him out by allowing the TWW water sale to go through without the chance of a referendum, which it didn't do.

It is just too bad Parker doesn’t decry Palmer for not accepting his share of accountability in the matter.

Fear and Yawning Campaign 2010

(Apologies to the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson)

With just under one month until Trenton’s municipal elections, things have been relatively quiet on most fronts.


Last Friday, the Times ran an article about some verbal sparring between former Palmer slate-mates turned Mayoral competitors Paul Pintella and Manny Segura.

More than the rhetorical jabbing from the candidates, we liked the subliminal message sent by whoever at the Times was responsible for choosing the photos. A second look at the pictured labeled “Paul Pintella” reveals that it is actually an older photo of Doug Palmer.

Is that what had people walking around singing softly to themselves, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”?















And speaking of the reign of King Douglas, did you catch this little love note in this morning’s Trentonian?

In case the image isn’t clear enough, the text of the Letter to the Editor reads as follows:

Four more years
To the editor:Dear Mayor Palmer:
     You are doing a beautiful job with our city. You put up a lot of new homes and buildings, and you’re doing a great job fighting crime
     You did a great job helping senior citizens.
     I went to the peace rally, and you did a beautiful job with that.
     We need you on our team so Trenton can win.
     There are a lot of residents in the city who would like you to reconsider and run for mayor again.
     Please stay the mayor until Obama is out of office, and then you can be the next president.
     God bless you and your family, and keep up the good work.
                                                 Sharon Wilson
                                                                          Trenton

Um, thank you, Ms. Wilson.  You may stop by city hall and pick up your Target gift card at any time now.

The latest Mayoral candidates’ forum was Sunday at the James Kerney Campus of Mercer County Community College and was covered by PolitickerNJ.com. The biggest revelations that occurred seemed to be the absence of Tony Mack who was honoring his previous commitment to coach a baseball game.

Some of the folks over on the Trenton Speaks forum discussed the pros and cons of giving Mr. Mack an excused absence for the event.

We’d like to talk a little about the At-Large Council race but there has been little to report on. The candidates seem to be keeping to themselves.

The one standout to date has been Algernon Ward, Jr. who was one of the petitioners fighting to have a public referendum on the proposed split and sale of the Trenton Water Works. Ward had an op-ed in today’s Times regarding the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the right to have a referendum on the matter.

The other candidates have been largely quiet. We have seen Juan Martinez signs around town…but they are mixed in with ones leftover from last fall’s failed attempt to win the South Ward council seat.

Typical Juan…doesn’t know which office he is seeking or let alone what he stands for.

And the various ward races are just about as quiet. There’s little coming out from most of the candidates. South Ward Councilman George Muschal is continuing the hands on street work that got him the win in November’s special election.

The North Ward campaign has been quiet with the exception of annoying notifications about fundraisers from Marge Caldwell-Wilson. Nothing of substance on policy or positions from any of the contenders to date.

In the West Ward, signs are starting to pop up on lawns along with the crabgrass and dandelions. Early entry Zach Chester has been playing the role of the quiet candidate, as has former school board member Joyce Kersey. Kevin Moriarty has been working the streets as well as the internet with regular blog postings. There are two West Ward candidate forums coming up that should prove to be enlightening for the voters. The first is tonight at the Lighthouse Community Center on Bellevue Ave and next Monday at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Parkside and Parkway.

The East Ward has been equally quiet. We don’t really know anything about the candidates other than Dion Clark has attended a lot of council meetings and spoken frequently about the need for cleaning up the trash (human and other) found along Walnut Avenue and such.

Chambersburg resident Joe Harrison can claim a similar attendance record at city council meetings and has been one of the few candidates in any of the races to utilize video on the internet to make his case to the voters.

If it seems like it has been an underwhelming campaign season...it has been. Whether due to the majority of uninspiring candidates, lack of real press coverage or both, who can say.

Regardless, it will be up to the voter to exercise some real critical thinking when they step into the voting booth on May 11.

Pop quizz

Are you really paying attention?

Let us leave aside those who want to hold a Rally or March; let’s ignore, for the moment, those candidates hosting “clean-ups” and cook-outs to promote their candidacy (did they do this before they got on the ballot?); let’s go back to the days before the NJ Supreme Court upheld the citizen’s right to hold a referendum on the ill-advised sale of part of the Trenton Water Works.


Let’s turn back the clock a week or so. You remember, back to when Mr. Palmer and others were wringing their hands and rending their garments and wailing at the Capitol building because the Governor had announced he was cutting all funding to Trenton.

(You do remember that “crisis,” right?)

The Palmer plot line is and has always been that the city loses a lot of money because it hosts the seat of state government. He regularly cites the amount of land the “state controls” as 1/3 of the city’s landmass and repeatedly claims Trenton does not get its fair share of property taxes from all the state buildings.

Some folks agree.

Some don’t.

Here’s an online quiz you can take to test your knowledge of ownership of office buildings in the city of Trenton. This appeared this morning on the Trenton Speaks forum. Like the individual who posted it, I think most will be surprised.

State of New Jersey or Private Developer » Create A Quiz

The people will have a say in Trenton water deal

The New Jersey Supreme Court published it's ruling today in the case regarding the proposed sell off of the outlaying portion of the city owned water utility.  The court voted 5 - 1 to reverse the Appellate Courts ruling that the right to referendum was not applicable in this case.

This is the second time in recent years that the Palmer administration has fought, at considerable cost to the taxpayers of the cash strapped city, to prevent the public from having it's say on an ordinance passed by city council. 

And it is the second time that the Palmer administration has failed in its attempt to circumvent the public's right to referendum.

It is not known at this point what this actually means for the proposed separation of the existing Trenton Water Works (TWW) into two parts, one serving customers within the city of Trenton and the other, larger portion, serving customers in the adjacent suburbs.  The "outside" portion was slated to be sold to New Jersey American Water Company (NJAW), a devision of a large, international, private water company.

It is possible that the lame duck city council could seek to rescind the ordinance approving the sale.  More than likely, if either side terminates the agreement, it would be NJAW.

Should the ordinance go to referendum, the vote probably will not occur until November's general election.

Rally this!

L.A. Parker and others are right.

Having a rally, or a march, and having Al Sharpton, Russel Simmons, or other notables show up is NOT the solution to Trenton's woes.  It is but another cheap political stunt by Emmanuel Shahid Watson ben Avaraham and a chance to grab some headlines for Mssrs. Sharpton and Simmons*.

Self-promotion at the expense of a poor little girl and her family.

Of course, Mr. Parker doesn't mind going on the radio in another city to speak about the case.  He's just as guilty of self-promotion as the others.

*We have just learned that Mr. Simmons has announced he will not attend this event as per a post here.  Seems either Mr. Simmons' name was being tossed out there without his permission or he came to think there were better ways to help.  Good for him!

More dollars, less sense.

"For Trenton, because of shoestring budgets that have always reflected little money, reduced money, or no money – we are accustomed to the idea of doing more with less."

                                                                                                    --- Doug Palmer, March 30, 2010


Yet he can haphazardly mail invitations to his speech…in several instances mailing two invites to the same person and address at nearly half again the required postal rate.  Maybe he meant to say "doing less but costing more."

We recognize that we’re talking pennies here: 61 cents vs. 44 cents; even when multiplied by the hundreds of letters that were mailed out.

This is indicative of the Palmer administration’s careless and wasteful ways. At least he didn’t have the invitation letters FedEx-ed to the mailing list.

Thanks for an excellent demonstration of your style of fiscal management, Doug. Your credibility shrinks with each and every passing day.

It is the state's fault

{Yawn!}

Well, we weren’t too far off in our estimation of Doug Palmer’s speech regarding the governor’s proposed elimination of all aid to the city of Trenton. (Surprisingly, there were no shout outs to departing Acting Business Administrator Dennis Gonzalez and no blame laid at the feet of the opponents to the Trenton Water Works split and sale).

In a rather tired and repetitive speech before a packed city council chamber, Palmer pointed the finger squarely at the Capitol and the state’s alleged refusal to pay a fair share. He railed against the states refusal to allow development on the surface parking lots that surround some of the state buildings downtown.

In short, last night was an attempt at a Tent Revival-type meeting aimed at firing up the public’s passionate indignation at the Governor putting his foot down and refusing to fund the city’s spendthrift ways.

By and large, the attempt failed.

Palmer was unable to stir much emotion from the assembled crowd as he read through his prepared remarks.

We’ve heard it all before and I think all but the most die-hard Palmer supporters are tired of the twisted logic and half-truths.

Let’s remember that the parking lots around the Hughes Justice Complex are actually owned by the Trenton Parking Authority (TPA). The state has a 40 year lease with the TPA for those spots that brought nearly $1.3 million in revenue last year.

And then there is Palmer’s estimate that the state would owe $155 million in taxes if they paid the same assessment as other property owners.

Dan Dodson, who has formed a citizen’s group to look at AND FIX the city’s budget has come up with the following counter argument:

Mayor Palmer claims that the State should be paying us $155M if they were taxed at our rate (~let’s say 3% effective). That would equate to a valuation of state property of roughly $4.5B.
However, DCA estimates all public property in Trenton which includes State, City and Federal buildings (but doesn’t include schools and the arenas) at $1.4B. Based on this number and some analysis by Trenton Downtown Associationi and my own guesstimate, I’d say the State valuation is more like $1.2B. With that valuation in mind, the State would owe more like $36M/year in PILOT.
Trenton’s actual ratable value is $2.1B (the number our property taxes are based on).
A disagreement about this basic fact would lead to two radically different positions:

• 
  

  
  
  

  If the Mayor is right, then the State is a deadbeat like he said.

  
  
  
  
  

  If my calculations are right, then we’ve been receiving aid for a long time because the State currently funds us to the tune of $340M ($250M for schools and $90 for municipal aid).

  
  
  
  

In the coming days there will no doubt be more revelations on the topic of state funding. What we do know is that Doug Palmer failed in his effort to incite the crowd at last night’s meeting. It was, by most accounts, a waste of time.

Let’s hope that the Fix Trenton’s Budget group can provide some clearheaded thinking that can be brought to the table during negotiations with the state.

Trenton Faces the Governor’s Fiscal 2011 Budget

The following is the text of Doug Palmer's prepared remarks for the special meeting he called for 5:30 pm this evening.

Good evening, and thank you for coming tonight for this information session.

I am sure that most of you have heard or read about Governor Christie’s proposed budget.

Certainly, we all recognize that the State of New Jersey is among the worst-hit states from the recession and that the Governor is trying to balance a State budget with a $10.7 billion hole in it. To do that, he has proposed cuts of $445 million in municipal aid, to be replaced with $159 million. The cities are then expected to compete for those remaining crumbs on the table.

I am sure you have heard or read that many in our community and in others all around us are in a state of  shock about Governor Christie’s plan.

What I don’t know, and must be sure of, is that you understand the SEVERE IMPACT that Governor Christie’s proposed budget would have – ESPECIALLY on those of us who are residents of the Capital City. For Trenton, because of shoestring budgets that have always reflected little money, reduced money, or no money – we are accustomed to the idea of doing more with less. We are used to being told “this grant isn’t being funded” or “that aid has been reduced.” So the notion that the State would be up to its same old tactics of slighting its own capital city is neither a surprise nor a foreign concept to us.

But to say to the state’s ONLY capital city…the ONLY city in the great state of New Jersey to host the Capital Dome and all that comes with it ... to say to this capital city … “I know that we bring an additional 30,000 people a day into your city to ride on your streets, to be protected by your fire department, to be serviced by your police and other emergency personnel” … to say to this capital city, “regardless of how we lean on, depend on, and otherwise EXPECT the City to shoulder and support State government, despite the burden of that reality, I am going to cut every dime of the dollars that have helped bear the load as Capital City Aid. Times are tight and at the end of the day you are no different than any other municipality in New
Jersey.”

Just two weeks ago today, that was clearly the overwhelming tone of the Governor’s proposed cuts to Trenton.
Now, if we start by looking at what is true for the city of Trenton, here’s what we find…Trenton is roughly seven and a half square miles.

The State of New Jersey takes up about two-and-a-half square miles of Trenton … mostly in prime locations where developers would jump to get the chance to build.

That means the State sits on one-third of our property…on 213 properties to be exact.

IF they provided State aid based on our proposed tax rate for this year, that is, the same tax rate you and I have to pay, the City of Trenton would receive more than $155 million this budget year from the State of New Jersey. Instead, this year we received $87.6 million, which included a reduction.

Now, the Governor proposes to deliver real devastation for next year, with a proposal that ELIMINATES more than $42 million. That would include loss of EVERY DIME of our Capital City Aid … and other municipal aid as well.

So what’s the impact of a loss of $42 million; what is the impact on the City’s budget if that happens?

Some are speculating about layoffs. The reality is that a $42 million cut would be far worse than layoffs. A cut of this magnitude would likely threaten our ability to govern and manage ourselves as a City. To give you
some sense of this, there are entire Departments that run on less than $3 million, because of streamlining measures that we’ve already taken.

So that gives you a sense of how much cutting we would have to do to balance the budget with any cut as massive as $42 million.

And these are just the proposed cuts to the City’s budget. We haven’t even talked about the other draconian measures that would cut funding AND close the doors of unique and important institutions like Thomas Edison State College.

We haven’t discussed the fact that we don’t know what would happen to the Capital City Redevelopment Corporation, the ONLY state agency working toward the dedicated purpose of helping to bring development to Trenton.

The $42.3 million in cuts that the City faces doesn’t include ANY of the MANY agencies and institutions that are the very lifeblood of this city.

The reason our focus tonight is on the Governor’s proposed cuts to Trenton is because IF we suffer ANY loss of our ALREADY REDUCED and ALREADY INADEQUATE State aid, then our ability to continue to govern ourselves is at SERIOUS question.

This is the matter that the people of Trenton AND the Legislature MUST understand at this critical hour.

As I have discussed this issue, I have come to one conclusion: Either the Governor and the Legislature don’t know what these additional cuts to Trenton’s aid would mean for their capital city or they DON’T CARE what it means … or perhaps, they don’t even care to know. I cannot help but to believe that one of these thoughts is in play.

Well, tonight, we must be sure that we send the sound and the signal that NEITHER of these conclusions is acceptable to us.

By now, you should be saying to yourselves, This is really bad. Because it is. You should also be saying, There’s got to be something we can do.

And there is.

First of all, you can be certain that, as your Mayor, I have had many conversations with members of OUR delegation. Let me be clear: This group gets it. They have understood from the beginning. That’s why the voices and leadership of Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora and Senator Shirley Turner were the first and ONLY voices we have heard publicly from the Legislature. They have sent a loud message to the Governor – and they have been hard at work with their fellow legislators to gain their support and understanding for the Capital City’s cause. Senator Turner has sponsored a bill requiring the State to pay its FULL share of municipal taxes to Trenton, and she has received support from our City Council and others.

What we need to do now is to add the strength of our numbers and voices to our legislative delegation’s efforts. We need to call, email and write key members and let them know: WE WANT TRENTON’S FUNDING RESTORED!

Information will be available to you on our website for you to be able to contact our legislators and tell them: We cannot afford to take up even more of the State’s slack. We cannot afford to pay the rent that the
Governor wants to sidestep.

Next month, I will testify before the Assembly in an effort to ensure that everyone understands the devastating impact the Governor’s budget proposal will have on the Capital City region – as well as the State Capital itself – if the Governor is allowed to cut Trenton’s ALREADY INADEQUATE, ALREADY REDUCED State aid.

Of course we are aware that The State of New Jersey is in fiscal shambles.

With an $11 billion deficit, I think we can safely say that’s a fact. I agree with many proposals from the Governor to address this issue – but he needs to know that when he criticizes municipalities for lack of discipline … our City just conducted layoffs and slashed $21 million from our current budget. We are disciplined here.

The State’s public workers’ wages and benefits must undergo reform. Most people recognize that.

The bottom line is that public wages and benefits have outgrown our ability to pay them. That’s clear when we see that the State is billions of dollars behind in funding its pension plans. So, most of us see the reality of the situation. And nobody should fault this governor or the previous one for attempting to reign in the cost of government and to reform its methods of providing services to achieve efficiency. That part, we get.

That part, the people of Trenton understand.

But it gets confusing when the Governor decides that in the name of a balanced budget, he should not pay the rent where he lives. Ladies and gentlemen, the home of the State of New Jersey is TRENTON. I don’t know where the governor thinks he lives … but I can tell you that since 1790 the home address of the State of New Jersey has been TRENTON, New Jersey. That, to me, means OUR city is where he lives….THIS city is his home. And if you are a taxpayer here…that makes YOU his landlord.

Now, I have one question for you….does his proposal to cut more than $42 million, including every dime of the City’s special Capital City Aid, sound like he intends to pay his rent?

If he has proposed to wipe that line item completely out of his budget, does it sound to you like he intends to be a good tenant?

Over the years, I have heard several people say – with pride – that Trenton ought to get off its knees and stop “begging” the state for what we ought to do for ourselves. You know, the old bootstrap theory … you’ve heard it before.

For those of you who have found yourself agreeing with that notion, let me ask you something: If you don’t pay your rent, can you get away with telling the landlord to get out of your face and stop “begging” for what you want?

Or, is it true that whether or not you HAVE the money to pay your rent, you indeed still owe it? Is it suddenly true that if you don’t want to pay … or can’t pay … that the landlord should just go away, or just accept whatever you can give him and stop bothering you?

Ladies and gentlemen, the point is this: The City isn’t begging the State for a single thing.

For years, the City has simply been trying to get the State to do the same thing that you and I must do as property owners or renters in our City … and that is to pay our fair share.

Whether you use the streets in our city or not, as a property owner, you must pay your fair share of the burden of having those streets provided to you.

Whether you utilize the schools or not, as a property owner, you must pay in taxes to help provide them. Whether you ever have to call upon the Trenton Fire Department … you still must pay your fair share for the
protection and comfort of their presence … just in case that fateful day does occur.

What I am suggesting to you tonight is that if the people of Trenton have to pay to help provide the services in our City, is there any reason why anyone should think that the State of New Jersey … the entity that takes up one-third of ALL of our property … the entity that sits on the most desirable tracts of land for development in our City … the entity that sponsors 30,000 people and vehicles into and out of our city on a daily basis … is there any reason why ANYONE should think that the State should have a reduced obligation to provide special, separate and distinct annual funding to help defray the cost that otherwise must be put on the backs of the people who live here?

Earlier, I told you the facts … the things that are true.

Now, let’s consider what is right.

It is nothing more than right for the State Legislature to insist that the Governor put back every dime of Trenton’s Capital City Aid. It is nothing more than right for the people of Trenton to expect that if the State will not pay its fair share it will at least leave intact the amount that we currently receive.

It is equally important that you know that the City has not sat idly by all of these years without trying to encourage and partner with the State to move off of several specific areas near our downtown where private developers have shown a keen interest.

My administration has worked diligently with the McGreevey and Corzine administrations to get them to move off of the parking lot surrounding the Justice Complex and to vacate both the lot and the building from the Health and Agriculture site. We have legitimate development opportunities that have been ready to go for years. But the State has never honestly committed to working with us to do that.

In my time here as your Mayor, from one State House administration to the next, Trenton has been given three answers:

No, the State won’t pay its full taxes.

No, the State won’t vacate prime property so that the City can develop it for full taxes. And now, from Governor Christie, the nightmare of all no’s…

No, we won’t continue to pay even the small fraction of what we had been paying.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there comes a time when people need to understand what is happening to them so that they can take a stand, before it’s already a done deal.

That time is now. The time is now for us to understand that no leader of our city, neither now nor in the future, has the ability to fix our structural deficit as long as the State won’t pay its fair share. No wild-eyed promise from a candidate can help as long as we have no home rule – no ability to create new taxes like Philadelphia and many other cities have done, to deal with their budget issues. Our ability to raise our own revenues is grossly hampered by State law.

The fact is that the State is trying to have it both ways, by not paying its fair share – and by refusing to vacate our prime property so that others who would pay can develop here.

Our position is that the State must pay, or the State must go so others will pay.

Otherwise, we are stuck in the mud of our structural deficit, which means that we have a “built-in” problem that we have NO ability to make go away.

And that “built-in” problem is the tax exempt presence of the State of New Jersey.

My friends, our time is now to understand what is poised to happen to us and to act before it’s too late.

We must make our voices known before it’s too late. Call our legislators. Write them. Let them know the City must have its funding restored –because the ball is in the Legislators’ court. They have the power to make changes to the Governor’s proposal.

Let us act in unity now.

Thank you.

Waiting

In a less than an hour, Doug Palmer will kick off his special meeting to deal with the city of Trenton’s budget crisis.


He’s no doubt spent the past day or two seriously preparing for this meeting.

Kent Ashworth, Palmer’s Public Relations flack, will have shaped a presentation out of familiar themes:

• The state has not paid its fair share; the city needs to redevelop the parking lots around the state buildings
• The people trying to stop the sale of the suburban part of the Trenton Water Works have helped bring us to the brink of fiscal ruin.
• Along the way Palmer will no doubt pause to give praise to his departing (but not soon enough) acting Business Administrator, Dennis Gonzalez.

 After running through this litany of cause and effect (none of which will reflect badly on his administration’s obvious failures over the past two decades), Palmer will point the verbal finger towards the State House and demand that Governor Christie give back all the funds he’s said he will cut and more.

Doug Palmer will do his best to level criticism and attach blame to anyone and everyone else but himself. He will not admit that he has driven the city’s fiscal ship up onto the rocks and that the sea of red ink is flooding us beyond repair.

 

He hopes that by doing this, he can stir up the emotions of city residents enough to lead them on a march from East to West State Street in a display of public outrage over the Governor’s heavy handed budget cuts.

 

But what good is there such a protest? Walking five blocks west on State Street will not restore the state’s charity funding for our foundering city.

 

 

 

***

While the clock ticks down on the Palmer “Reign of Error,” the wannabe successors have been largely quiet about their plans to deal with the city’s impending bankruptcy. Considering that three of the Mayoral candidates (Lartigue, Pintella, and Segura) have sat on city council for at least the past eight years, their respective silence is not surprising. They can and must take partial blame for the city’s current financial crisis because they consistently yielded their power and responsibility for the budget matters to Palmer and his staff.

 

Similarly, Public Works Director Eric Jackson has been a part of the current administration’s fiscal fumbling. Whether by design or directive, it doesn’t matter. He’s been a part of the Palmer team and must shoulder some of the responsibility for our broken budget.

 

Alex Brown, a member of the seriously flawed and mayor-appointed school board, has not proven his worth as a steward of the school system. Why would we trust him with running the city?

 

Of the other Mayoral candidates, none have yet come forward with solid plans for dealing with the looming deficits even though members of the voting public have strongly suggested they do so.

 

We’d expect Frank Weeden or John Harmon to demonstrate their business background and offer some concrete ideas for dealing with the city’s finances. So far, nothing has come forward from their respective camps.

 

Emmanuel Shahid Watson ben Avraham has demonstrated a knack for scamming the state for money, but it is not likely he can revamp the con game he ran on the state department of corrections into a program that will get funding for the city of Trenton.

 

Tony Mack has some business administration credentials of his own, but he’s not yet put out a definitive plan for dealing with the city’s finances going forward.

 

Keith Hamilton has proven to be the “quiet man” amongst the candidates, saying little other than pointing to holding the line on taxes in Mercer County during his tenure as a Freeholder. And this point, valid or not, he must share with Mack who sat on the Freeholder board for much of the same time frame as Hamilton.

 

We’ll see how many of these candidates stand up to be counted at today’s session in City Hall.

 

Trenton’s electoral pickle

Bound to leave a sour taste
The abnormally large number of candidates running for Trenton’s elected offices (the mayor and seven city council seats) has raised the specter of a messy campaign season.

Mix in the totally incompetent way the current council went about replacing Acting City Clerk Juanita Joyner with a temporary, non-resident, Deputy Clerk and you have a recipe for complete electoral meltdown.

Even hiring in former city clerk Anthony Conti as a consultant to help the clerk’s office get through the May 11 election appears to be too little, too late.

In an interview with the Trentonian, Conti allows that even with an all out push, the clerk’s office may not be able to certify all candidates by the March 18 deadline.

It’s a mess. A complete and utter mess. A true case of “too many cooks spoiling the broth.”

Appointed Acting Municipal Clerk after Conti retired in 2007; Ms. Joyner has apparently completed all the required course work for the position but has yet to take the certification exam. Suddenly, this past fall, there was a big push to replace Joyner.

On the surface there appeared to be some questions about her competency, but there was also the coincidence of Councilwoman Cordelia Staton expressing interest in the position. (After serving two terms on council, Staton is not running for re-election this year).

This raised some eyebrows because the City Clerk oversees the election process on behalf of the city (the County Clerk and the County Board of Elections also have a role in the process, but the City Clerk is the primary authority). If Staton had been named clerk, her council seat would most likely have remained vacant until after the election. In the meantime she would be called upon to “referee” a Mayoral race featuring three of her council colleagues as candidates.

Many people were uneasy with the idea of Ms. Staton…who twice ran, and won, on the Palmer ticket with Paul Pintella and Manny Segura. Both are running for Mayor, but Segura has positioned himself as far from his former slate mates as possible.

There was reportedly considerable infighting amongst council regarding the suggested removal of Joyner just to replace her with Staton. After a couple of false starts to the process Staton withdrew her name from consideration.

Still, council suddenly and abruptly decided to not extend Joyner’s appointment. At the same time it was wisely and correctly pointed out that the incoming council should be the ones to appoint the next City Clerk.

One reasonable solution might have been to extend Joyner’s appointment through Labor Day at the latest. A certified, experienced individual…such as Mr. Conti, could then have been hired as a consultant through the elections to ensure a fair, transparent process.

Instead, council voted to end Joyner’ tenure as Acting Municipal Clerk effective Feb. 28 and retained the services of an Acting Deputy Municipal Clerk starting March 1...a mere three working weeks before the candidate certification deadline.

The person hired, Leona Baylor, is certified and has worked in the clerks office in Hightstown Borough. Baylor is not a city resident and that has raised some questions about the legality of her contract appointment.

Not to oversimplify, but if she is an appointee, she needs to be a resident; if she is truly a contract employee, she might be exempt. It all depends upon how you define the Acting Deputy Municipal Clerk position? And that definition may ultimately have to come from the courts…and cost the city more of our tax dollars to defend the case, not to mention possibly delaying the election process.

Candidates…many of which are running for office for the first time, are wondering where this all leaves them.

If the clerk’s office staff can’t adequately and accurately complete the certification process by the March 18th deadline, what will happen?

Legal sources have suggested that the courts can and probably would extend the certification deadline.

But even that may not be enough for some of the candidates. Especially in the city wide races where 385 certified signatures are required for a candidate’s name to appear on the ballot. Trenton voters can only sign one petition for Mayoral candidates and there are 10 running. That’s 3,850 separate individuals required to sign if all candidates are to get on the ballot. Not likely under any circumstances..

In the At Large Council race, voters can sign petitions for up to three individuals…one for each of the seats. With 11 people running for the three seats, odds are a little better that the candidates can get the number of required signatures. It will still be a daunting task.

What this really means is that, under the best of situations there would have been some attrition in the number of candidates come certification deadline day.

The screw-ups, fumbles and delays by council in filling of the City Clerk position almost guarantees a far from fair and even-handed election process.

The candidates will lose out. But more importantly, the city will lose out, yet again.

Hamilton Mayor gets it right

Hamilton Township Mayor John Bencivengo has taken his name off the list of people slated to get a salary increase if a proposed ordinance is passed tonight.  And that's good.

Mayor Bencivengo also proposed the raise for himself and his department directors and other township employees in a specific and very public ordinance.  That is also good.

The proposed salary increases have generated a lot of anger and backlash from the taxpayers. 

Sound familiar?

At least Mayor Bencivengo has been open and above board with the way he has gone about proposing the salary increase.  Mayor Bencivengo has also realized that by taking his raise off the table he shows he understands the feelings of the taxpayers.

Let's point out right now that Mayor Bencivengo oversees the operation of a municipality more than five times the size of the city of Trenton.  Hamilton's population is at least 10% greater than Trenton's and growing while Trenton's is shrinking.  Hamilton's bond rating was recently improved due to it's sound financial management.

And one last point, Mayor Bencivengo (and Mayor Gilmore before him as the salary hasn't increased in a decade) earns about 78% of what Doug Palmer takes home for ruining running the city of Trenton.

Are you paying attention, Doug?  Or is it all the state's fault?

Snow storm or snow job

It’s been all over the news for the past couple of days: Monster storm set to descend upon us! Prepare for the worst.

Every year, the same thing: big storm coming!

Truth is, this winter has been an exceptionally “harsh” one with multiple, large storms. But in the end, its winter and we live in Trenton, NJ not some tropical paradise.

Most people recognize that the weather is colder, there is a chance of snow (and snow storms) and we adjust our activities and plans accordingly.

We don’t plan picnics or a lot of outdoor activities for the winter months. We dress warmly; wear gloves and hats to prevent the dire consequences of frostbite. In short, we take the steps necessary to not freeze to death.

We manage.

What we don’t do is stand out in the street or park or ball field in Bermuda shorts and t-shirts yelling up at the sky to stop the snow and begging for higher temperatures.

That would not be normal, right?

Then is it normal for Doug Palmer to spend money the city doesn’t have a hope of getting from State coffers and then complain loudly when it doesn’t come?

He does this every opportunity he gets, year in and year out. He knows there is a structural deficit in the city’s budget…a blizzard of red ink if you will, yet he consistently acts as if there isn’t. He complains when the state won’t. Palmer budgets for a lavish banquet knowing that he’s only going to be dining at the soup kitchen.

And then he stands in the middle of State Street yelling for more money.

Insane.

And then there were 40

Former Cop tosses hat in ring

Michael "Mickey" Forker has added his name to the list of potential candidates for elected office in the City of Trenton.  Forker, who Doug Palmer decided to engage in a shout down at last week's council meeting, will seek one of the three At-Large Council seats.

There are now an average of five candidates for each of the eight possible seats (mayor and seven council) up for grabs in the May 11 city election.  The abundance of choice has left many observers scratching their heads and asking "why so many?"

We have to wonder as well.

Yes, it's guaranteed to be a new configuration of public officials since too-long Mayor Doug Palmer is not seeking re-election.  But with three current Councilpersons (Lartigue, Pintella, Segura) seeking to replace Palmer, voters need to ask themselves just how different will things be if one of them gets elected.

With those three seeking higher officer, and Councilpersons Bethea, Melone, and Staton not seeking re-election, the door has opened for a cadre of wannabes and hangerson to take a shot at one of the seats.

Never mind that some have never been heard from prior to the start of "silly season" or that others only pop up every four years or so; all seem to think they have the answers.

We just hope whoever is sworn in on July 1 is given a hard hat because we don't think it will be too much later that the roof on city hall will start to cave in as the real truth about the mismanagement of the past two decades comes to light.

Good luck, Trenton.

Don't blame this on Trenton

Fried fractures facts

Robbinsville, NJ Mayor David Fried proudly announced that his township will be having a St. Patrick’s Parade* on Sunday March 14.

As part of the rationale behind the move, Fried claims that Robbinsville has never been asked to join in Trenton’s parade…the largest in Mercer County.

“We’ve never been invited to march in the Trenton parade,” Mayor Fried said. “I don’t know why. Mayor Palmer and I get along great; I think maybe it’s just a distance issue.”

Mayor Fried is point blank wrong.

The parade in Trenton, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, is not a city function. If it was, it would most likely not be as large, well attended or successful. The Trenton event is organized and produced by the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Scholarship Committee,* a non-profit corporation.

The argument that Trenton’s Mayor never invited Robbinsville to participate is completely without merit. Fried should know better and so should the Trentonian reporters who contributed to the staff report.

If Robbinsville wants its own parade…and wants Fried to serve as Grand Marshall, so be it. But let’s not suggest that the city of Trenton has in any way slighted Robbinsville or Mayor Fried by not inviting the suburban township to participate.

Mayor Fried should apologize for his patently false insinuation that the City of Trenton has anything to do with selecting participants for the annual St. Patrick’s Parade.

*Let’s be totally accurate…if any parade, Trenton’s or Robbinsville’s…doesn’t take place on March 17, it is not a St. Patrick’s DAY Parade. It is a St. Patrick’s Parade, period.

More good news for Trenton?

New bill could help save Trenton High

State Senator Diane Allen (R – District 7) has introduced a bill in the legislature that would require “schools facilities projects” to maintain the historic character of the buildings.

The bill, S980, would support the efforts of those who wish to see Trenton’s current high school building preserved and upgraded rather than razed and a new one built.

Here’s hoping even the rabid partisans will swallow their spit and support this bill. And that it gets a swift passage before the SDA funds evaporate.

Trenton makes the list

Now if we can just keep the developers with Eminent Domain dreams at bay.

This Old House magazine has just spotlighted Trenton's Greenwood-Hamilton Historic District as one it's "Best Old House Neighborhoods for 2010:the Northeast."

The inclusion demonstrates what many have said for so long: Trenton's housing stock is an underappreciated asset. The historic flavor and quality of construction cannot be matched today.  The city needs to encourage the restoration and marketing of these homes and neighborhoods as a way to bring Trenton back.

Small scale redevelopment makes so much more sense than the large, subsidized projects that will envariably require the taking of private property and the loss of some great buildings.

All prospective developers and elected official wannabes need to take note and adjust their plans and schemes accordingly.

Is there something in the water?

If we weren't so busy running around fighting the rest of the population of the eastern seabord for our fair share of bread and milk we would have posted this yesterday.

What in the hell was Mr. Irwin Stoolmacher thinking when he included the following line in his op ed about Trenton's Mayoral race that appeared in the Friday's Times:

"Trenton politics is not seen by its citizens as corrupt."

Any Trenton citizen who hasn't questioned the accountability, ethics and/or transparency of the current administration just hasn't been paying attention.

Why else would citizens have had to sue to get the administration to enforce its own residency ordinance?

Who else but a corrupt administration would hide their own salary increases in a resolution accepting a contract with one of the city employee unions, again forcing the citizens to take legal action?

Wouldn't a corrupt administration be likely to play favorites amongst developers and contractors, especially those who make sizable campaign contributions (pre-Pay to Play ordinance---which, by the way, the administration fought against)?

What's worse than Mr. Stoolmacher's assertion that this administration is not "seen by its citizen's as corrupt" is the comparison of Mr. Palmer's way of doing business with that of the late Art Holland.

We're not suggesting that Mayor Holland was pefect during his tenure as the city's CEO.  But no one can question his integrity.  The man was "open and fair" long before that became a catch phrase.

Mr. Palmer's tenure, on the other hand, has been marked by repeated examples of administrative sleights of hand that raise many questions about ethics and legalities.

We suggest that Mr. Stoolmacher revisit his thinking on the issue of a corrupt Trenton political seen.  Or at least revisit his physician to have his medications adjusted.

Are we talking about the same place?

Recent public relations attempts play fast and loose with the facts

Readers of the Times earlier this week were treated to a comforting story about how the new ownership of Roman Hall were taking great pains to keep restaurant and catering hall just as it has always been.

Neighbors of the venerable establishment on Whitaker Avenue were invited to tour the place and see how nothing has changed.

The décor, the menu, the ambiance, the article assures us, will stay just as it was.

Right.

Then can anyone explain these postcards that were distributed widely throughout Chambersburg in December?

These advertisements for Infinity Lounge “The Biggest and Elegant [sic] Club in Trenton” don’t remind me of Roman Hall. And the website, http://www.infinitylounge.net/, doesn’t show anything about the food at this restaurant.

Since the postcards, the website and the advertisements are in both English and Spanish and the DJ’s and Performers being promoted are Latino, we have to assume the target market for this establishment is NOT the former, traditional Roman Hall clientele.

And before anyone gets all hot and bothered, we are not in anyway suggesting that the ‘Burg of old is alive and well and can support the Roman Hall of days gone by. Nor are we denying the rising and welcome Latino presence in the greater Trenton community.

What we are saying is that the new owners might be a tad disingenuous in suggesting that only the name has changed.

And shame on the Times for reporting the fluff without even scratching the surface on the real story here.

-----

Apparently the new owners of Infinity Lounge aren't the only ones around here who like to play with the facts. 

Recently, this post appeared on the Trenton Speaks forum:

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 5:20 pm Post subject: Townhouses on Champale Site

"Have you noticed that the newspaper ads for the new townhouses being built on the Champale site, indicate that they are within walking distance of the train station on Clinton Ave? I guess you'd have to walk the entire length of Centre St to S. Broad, then through Mill Hill. Close reading of the Hovnanian web site admits "The station is within 2 miles of The Villages at Delaware Run." I guess walking four miles a day through a ghetto will appeal to a certain class of commuter? "

"Their web site also promotes 'Shopping', which includes dining. Were you aware that we're known for our Scandinavian restaurants? How about the "several" "five star gourmet restaurants" in Chambersburg? Here's the quote: 

"Trenton is noted for its pottery, china, and fine porcelain from makers such as Lenox, Boehm, Cybis, and Ispanky, which may be found at outlets and showrooms throughout the area. Trenton's principal downtown shopping district encompasses four blocks on State Street and five blocks on Broad Street, within 2 miles of The Villages at Delaware Run."


"Trenton's culinary fare reflects the city's eclectic heritage; it is famous for its pizza and hoagies. Other ethnic cuisine includes the dishes of Mexico and Scandinavia. Several Italian eateries in the Chambersburg neighborhood, within 2 miles of the community, are highly acclaimed five-star gourmet restaurants"

Wondering how they approach the subject of our school system? The best they can come up with is to mention its sheer size and mayoral control, and then suggest the "pretigious day and boarding schools" in Princeton:

For more entertaining and misleading sales information, visit the hovnanian "Villages at Delaware Run " web site: http://www.khov.com/Home/NJ/D0ME/_Properties_AUTH.htm

"Trenton's school district is the largest in Mercer County. The mayor appoints a nine-member Board of Education for three-year terms. The district is in the midst of a several-year project involving the construction of several new schools as well as renovation of many existing buildings."


"Additionally, several parochial and private elementary and secondary schools supplement the public system in Trenton. A number of prestigious day and boarding schools are found in the Princeton area."

Good catch!  KHov sure does tell the truth. Makes me want to run right over and buy one of their "tunnel-front" townhomes.

Where did they go?

Has the City of Trenton mysteriously reduced its payroll by hundreds of people?

We were doing a little online research last week for a project and discovered something odd on the Data Universe site run by the Asbury Park Press.

On this particular site, you can do searches on NJ Public Employees to check salary records as they relate to the public pensions.

In the past, if we wanted to see…for instance…how much Mr. Palmer was paid, you could plug his name and Trenton City into the appropriate boxes on the search form and within moments up would pop a grid with the information you wanted. It’s all legit and all public information.

The other day when we checked, we couldn’t find that information any longer. In fact, we could only find information on 19 city employees contributing to the Public Employees Retirement System. Four of them were Councilpersons Annette Lartigue, Cordelia Staton, Gino Melone and Paul Pintella.

Gone was the Mayor, Chief of Staff, Department Heads, etc. And we plugged in names of Division Directors and Staff people, still no information.

Checking further…we could find 574 Trenton employees enrolled in the Police and Fire Retirement System.

At the Board of Education, there are the records of 799 employees who pay into the Public Employees Retirement System available. Another 1173 school employees are in the Teachers Pension and Annuity Fund.

Similarly, the Trenton Community Charter School has 85 employees show up on the listing.

The Trenton Housing Authority has 58 employees on the books and eight show up under the Trenton Parking Authority records.

But where are the Mayor and the bulk of the City of Trenton employees?

Why aren’t their records available online?

Is this part of the legal tussle over the allegedly illegal raises that city council unquestioningly/unknowingly approved for the Mayor and his administration staff in a questionable resolution in 2008?

Has the administration taken all the public employee (with the exception of the 19 names we found) somehow out of the public record in an effort to hide what certain people were being paid? Was this done, in part, to cover up the fact that the Mayor and Department Director salaries were no longer published in the ordinances as they had been prior to the raise granted in 2003? Or in part to hide the fact that these same salaries were not fixed by ordinance but rather a salary range had been adopted…possibly illegally, with the Mayor approving salaries at his discretion…without council’s knowing consent?

We think this stinks of very fishy business and the city administration needs to make sure this information is publicly available.

And all those wannabes vying for the big chair in the office on the second floor of City Hall should take heed. A pledge to return the city to fixed salaries (not ranges) adopted by ordinance and published is required if you want the citizens of Trenton to vote for you.

The early line

Interesting twists and turns on the road to the May 11 Trenton elections.

Wednesday marked the formal announcements of Freeholder Keith Hamilton for Mayor and South Ward resident Christine Donahue for Council At Large.

Hamilton, who apparently moved back into Trenton specifically to run for Mayor, has had a relatively undistinguished tenure as a County Freeholder.

Donahue is little known outside of the South Ward where she worked to help get George Muschal elected in November’s special election to fill the vacancy left by Jim Coston. She was also involved in some of the work to halt the sell off of part of the Trenton Water Works to NJ American Water.

At the same time as Hamilton is officially adding his name to the list of Mayoral wannabes, Wiley Fuller has dropped out of that race and opted to run for one of the three Council At large seats. Fuller ran for Mayor in 2006 and had a rather poor showing.

These moves bring the total of candidates to ten for Mayor and eight for the three Council At Large seats.

Doug Palmer has not signed up to endorse any candidate yet. He's no doubt waiting so he can play the role of "king maker."

The Trentonian reported yesterday that there is a move afoot to reduce the number of black candidates in the mayoral race. We here at the stoop are wondering why only the black candidates for mayor are being scrutinized when they all need serious vetting.

Some early handicapping

Let’s face it; this year’s cohort of candidates is pretty weak in the qualification department.

We have two current council people (Pintella and Segura), both of whom were elected largely due to outgoing Mayor Doug Palmer’s long coat tails and fat checkbook.

To be fair, Segura did have some strong financial support from North Jersey businessmen and his Dominican ancestry garnered political help from Democratic Party bosses who are salivating at the specter of getting a Hispanic mayor elected in Trenton. (Anyone remember the roll call of Dem biggies from then Senator Bob Torricelli, Representative Rush Holt, and on down through State Senator Shirley Turner, Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora and various elected county officials present at Segura’s 2002 headquarters opening?)

Pintella has always been Doug’s water carrier on council and Segura has played along for all but the last 18 – 24 months of his two terms. Why would we want either of them to serve as Mayor? They should both drop out, now.

Outgoing West Ward Councilwoman Annette Lartigue has long had her eye on the mayor’s office. Now she’s making her move. As a member of council for the past 12 years, she shares some accountability for the many blunders of the current administration (not to mention a few of her own…anyone remember “Stand down officer!”?). She has no business thinking she’s qualified to run this city and should herself, stand down. But she won’t. So the people will decide for her.

Local businessman Frank Weeden is running again. It’s a shame. Frank would probably make an ok councilman. He’s been an outspoken critic of the waste and excesses of the current administration. But that doesn’t mean he’s up to the Mayor thing. This run could cost him his business, ANA Design candles, and that would be a shame for all concerned. Ego is an expensive mistress, Frank.

Right there, we’ve eliminated four of the contenders, one woman, one Hispanic, one white and two blacks. And we have only just begun.

John Harmon, the charismatic former head of the Metropolitan Trenton African American Chamber of Commerce (MTAACC) is running again. His professional demeanor and business credentials had a lot of people pulling for him four years ago. Harmon’s campaign seemed to be overcome with inertia; he never moved it past his opening position, came in a distant third in 2006 and has hardly been heard from since.

Emmanuel Shahid Watson ben Avraham has changed names and persona more times than Brett Farve has come out of retirement. He was also revealed to be at the center of a questionable state contract that paid his company millions of dollars with little oversight or measured effect. We can cut him from the list for his perpetual posing and hazy ethics.

Two more off the list. Now we’re down to four: Tony Mack, Eric Jackson, Keith Hamilton, and Alexander Brown.

Hamilton, as noted above, is virtually undistinguished in his political career. And his perception as a carpetbagger who moved back into Trenton specifically to run for Mayor isn’t giving him any positive points. Hamilton’s done nothing neither egregiously wrong nor wonderfully outstanding as an elected county official. He’s a non-starter.

Alexander Brown has been on and off and on the school board a few times. He’s headed up the schools’ Facilities Advisory Board which, along with the Schools Development Authority (SDA) and its predecessor the School’s Construction Corporation (SCC), has fumbled the entire high school financing deal. Further, as an appointee of the current administration he shares in culpability for the mismanagement of our failing school system.

Considering Alexander Brown as a viable candidate for Mayor is like saying Shirley Turner should be made a member of the board of directors of Garden State Equality.

This leaves Mack and Jackson, who (along with Segura) are most likely among the top three vote getters.* But placing first, second or third in the race doesn’t mean they are what the city needs.

Jackson is gentlemanly and soft-spoken. He’s overseen the massive Public Works Department and took the reins of the Library Board of Trustees after Mrs. Hayling resigned. Is he Mayoral material? Depends upon whether or not you believe the failings of his department were his fault or predicated by the actions and demands of the vengeful administration troika of Palmer, Gonzalez and Haynes.

Tony Mack is a scrappy fighter who came within a few hundred votes of getting in a runoff with Palmer in 2006. Tony has held responsible positions in city government, union leadership and was a multi-term freeholder (until he fell from favor with the County Dem machine---itself a mismanaged and ineffective organization). Mack’s reticence to readily accept the outcome of the last election and the issue of some bad checks are haunting him about now.

None of the candidates except Mack have yet to put forth any real concrete platform pieces. It is also early in the campaign and most likely the candidates will wait for the policy arguments to be framed by public opinion before going out on a limb and expressing themselves in detail on any topic.

The newspapers are right…there are too many people running for office. And too few real candidates.

*At this time. As with all contests, the betting line will most likely change overtime as the campaign progresses. Stay tuned for updates.

GOTCHA, again!

Thursday's revelation that the Palmer Administration's hired gun Joe Alacqua cancelled a contract with a local insurance agent due to allegedly improper contributions to Manny Segura and Zachary Chester left a lot of people scratching their heads.

Segura has long gotten contributions from businesses and other politicians...directly or via the joint candidates committee that supported "the Palmer slate" of himself, Council President Paul Pintella and Cordelia Staton in 2002 and 2006. Some of these contributors, like former Senator Bob Torricelli or Stowell Fulton of Atlantic Associates end up doing lucrative business with the city. (In 2006, Torricelli and/or his ex-wife gave a over $10,000 to Palmer and his slate. In the same year, Stowell Fulton gave $2600 to the joint candidates committee, Trenton 2006 and Bernard Fulton, also affiliated with Atlantic Associates, gave $2500 to Palmer's campaign. This was prior to the enacting of the Pay-to-Play ordinance now in effect.)

Mr. Chester, on the other hand, is making his first run for public office. Along with his wife, Alysia, Chester was instrumental in getting the city's Pay-to-Play law adopted through referendum. A law, by the way, drafted and vetted through the Citizen's Campaign...a non-profit, non-partisan corporation working to clean up New Jersey's extremely corrupt political system. That neither of them completely understood the technicalities of the law they helped get passed is unfortunate.

But the real question was, how did this happen to come to light at this time.

Some of our operatives started digging around in the reports available from the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJ ELEC) website to see what they could find out about this situation. Strangely enough, the candidate reports readily available online didn't show anything about the specific campaign contributions referenced in the press reports.

Going back over the text of Friday's article in the Times (as opposed to Friday's reportage in the Trentonian) the Front Stoop staff got the sense that the information leading to Borden-Perlman's disqualification must have been found elsewhere.

Further research revealed that any business entity receiving more the $50,000 in aggregate from any public entity must provide a Business Entity Annual Statement (Form BE) detailing any and all contributions made to local, county or state candidates, PAC's or Political Committees. This form, once completed by the potential vendor, would be submitted to NJ ELEC.

BINGO!

Borden-Perlman has a long history of making political contributions. Apparently and appropriately the firm disclosed the campaign and political contributions they made in Trenton and Mercer County, assuming all the while they were within compliance of the law and eligible for the contract.

Even Alacqua seems to agree there was no intent to break the law. The Times reported:

The law bars violators from getting city contracts for four years, but Alacqua said it appeared that Borden Perlman did not deliberately break the law. He noted that the city discovered the violation only because the company voluntarily disclosed its campaign contributions in compliance with a state law that applies to insurance companies.

Somebody in the business office at city hall must have been doing their due diligence and taken notice that there might be some questions about the legality of certain contributions and taken it upon him or herself to flag the contract.

But who would do such and thing and why?

Oh.

Wait.

Here's the scenario the conspiracy committee at From the Front Stoop has come up with:

The Acting (after more than a year!) Business Administrator for the City of Trenton is Dennis Gonzalez.

Reportedly, Dennis Gonzalez was brought to Trenton on the recommendation of Manny Segura. (They knew each other from Perth Amboy. Gonzalez's wife was the campaign treasurer for Segura's 2002 run). This was all "fine" until Manny decided to bolt from the Palmer sphere of influence and strike out on his own.

For his part, Gonzalez would remain a loyal Palmer soldier. (He'd probably be unemployed if he wasn't) What better way to maintain the master's favor than to take a shot at the defector.

And, as a bonus, Gonzalez got to throw some dirt on Zachary Chester who bested him in a battle of nerve and words a couple of years ago. Chester, you may recall, made a very public inquiry about the status of various development projects (then under the purview of Dennis Gonzalez as Housing and Economic Development Director). Gonzalez, never the statesman, threatened to sue Chester if there wasn't a retraction (retraction of what, no one was ever quite sure).

The information on what Borden-Perlman undoubtedly thought were perfectly legal campaign contributions was given to Special Counsel and Palmer Puppet Joe Alacqua.* No doubt accompanying the documentation was a strong suggestion to kill the Borden-Perlman contract. Should Chester and Segura have their integrity questioned or images smeared in the process...oh well, bonus for Gonzalez.

And should the contract go to another vendor, with deeper pockets and stronger ties to the Democratic party in New Jersey, so much the better for Palmer and company. (see POLITICKERNJ blog on the Battle for Trenton).

The denizens of the Front Stoop admit they don't have first hand knowledge of any of the above. It is offered up merely as a suggestion of what might have occurred.

We leave it to the reader to decided for him or herself.

*Let the record show that in Saturday's Times Mr. Alacqua was reported as saying he opposed the legislation when it was proposed because it was too strict.

"It just doesn't make any sense. If you have a contract, you can't give anything," he said.

He should have been happy to have the ordinance adopted as it would save him having to donate the $2850 to Palmer and company every few years as he did in 2006.

GOTCHA!

Interesting news out of City Hall last night: an insurance vendor lost a sizable contract because of campaign contributions to At Large Councilman/Mayoral Candidate Manny Segura and West Ward Council Candidate Zachary Chester.

The ever vigilant (and hired gun) Special Counsel, Joseph Alacqua had City Council throw out the nearly $200,000 contract with Borden-Perlman Agency because they had made contributions that allegedly violate the city’s “Pay-to-Play” ordinance.

Segura received some $460 in campaign contributions in 2008 and 2009. Chester, a first time candidate in this year’s election, received $100 in 2009.

Borden-Perlman is a long-time area business with a solid track record of supporting the community and the many non-profits that operate here.

For all intents and purposes, it looks as though Borden-Perlman thought they were in compliance with the law and mindful of contribution thresholds that, if exceeded, would trigger such action as Alacqua initiated.

Segura, who originally voted against the Pay-to-Play measure when it was introduced by petition in 2006, told reporters that while he is in favor of such measures he thinks this is more politics than policy.

"It's funny it just happened at this time," said Segura, a frequent critic of Mayor Douglas H. Palmer. "For them to bring something like that is so pitiful."

“I agree with pay-to-play ordinances,” he continued, “but I think it’s very difficult to know everything about everybody who makes a contribution. I don’t think anyone would think that $460 could influence anybody. This is not right.”

Unfortunately, the councilman seems to think due diligence upon the part of elected officials and/or candidates about who is contributing how much to their campaign funds is not required.

“I would guess that all seven of the City Council members do not know about every political contribution made to us. It’s a shame that a reputable company loses a contract over a lousy small amount of money.”

Chester and his wife, Alysia Welch-Chester, were amongst those who worked to get the city’s ordinance passed. After the City Council voted against the law, it went to a referendum and the public voted it in.

So far, only Welch-Chester has spoken out on the situation. She claims it’s a misinterpretation of the threshold portion of the law and is seeking legal clarification.

“If what Mr. Alacqua is saying is correct, then this was not the intent of the ordinance. We just wanted transparency in government,” Welch-Chester said.

Whether the action taken by Alacqua was correct or not (and if not, what kind of sanctions will be levied against him and/or the City of Trenton?), there is another interesting side to this story.

The firm that got the insurance contract in place of Borden-Perlman is Atlantic Associates of Atlantic City, NJ.

One of the principles of that firm, Bernard Fulton, gave $2500 to Mayor Palmer’s re-election campaign in May of 2006. Another principle, Stowell Fulton, gave $2600 to the Trenton 2006 joint candidates committee that helped re-elect Segura to his council at large seat along with fellow at large councilpersons Paul Pintella and Cordelia Staton.

To be fair, Borden-Perlman contributed $2,150 to Palmer’s campaign in 2006.

But the Fulton’s appear to have a long history of contributing to Democratic candidates in the area including Bonnie Watson Coleman in 2001.

Why would an Atlantic City based insurance agency be interested in who gets elected in Trenton/Mercer County?

Let this situation serve as a warning to all contributors, candidates and incumbents. Be mindful of the laws governing campaign contributions. What might seem innocent and piddling today may not be so insignificant when it appears in the headlines tomorrow.

The wrong way to select a candidate

It is apparently not bad enough that we have nearly a dozen candidates vying for the Mayor’s chair in the upcoming Trenton city elections.

Now we have to add race and ethnicity into the mix.

An article in today’s Times, reports that Garvey School Principal, Baye Kemit, will hold a candidate’s forum but only for those candidates who he feels “have strong support among African-Americans.”

"Manny Segura, in the African-American community, has not pushed himself enough," Kemit said. "He is largely Latino-supported. It's been my contention that he needs to make his agenda known to African-Americans."

Here’s the problem.

The campaign season is upon us.

The last thing we need is this kind of thinking in the upcoming elections.

Trenton faces a myriad of problems, none of which are specific to any one race or ethnic group.

Every one of the candidates (city council included) has enough of a struggle ahead of them. Certainly there are individuals running for office who we can dismiss out of hand, but with good reason. Past performance, lack of experience or leadership skills, questionable ethics are all valid reasons to discount a candidate. But none of those are race or ethnicity specific.

Being arbitrarily disqualified because of their ethnic background and/or that of their (real or perceived) supporters is offensive and just plain wrong. In fact, excluding a candidate from an audience to which he “needs to make his agenda known” is totally the opposite of what needs to be done.

Our city is at a critical point in its history.

The leaders selected in the May election (and likely June runoff) will not only need to have a sensible plan to guide Trenton for the next four years, they will have to be prepared to pay the wages for the sins and omissions of the current administration.

Let us not select the next Mayor and Council by skin color; religious affiliation; gender or any other superficial identifiers.

We need to look beyond all of that to the role each candidate has played in shaping the city’s fortunes these past two or four or eight or 16 years. We need to hear their ideas and measure their solutions based solely on how they will impact all Trentonians. We need to judge the candidates on whether or not they will be effective representatives able to turn this city around and not on whom they look like, sound like, or pray with.

I know I didn't have that much to drink

From the Times, January 1, 2010, page A12:

Mayor Palmer is the best choice to lead Trenton

Trenton without Doug Palmer is an unfinished symphony. The man can do more for any citizen in this city. He is educated, super street smart, well-liked by almost everyone and is the best the city has ever had. Do not let him go. Choose to run, Doug. Trenton needs you.

Gregory Bilecki
Trenton

What can anyone say about this poor misguided man's thought process?

Old Doug, no new tricks

Happy New Year! His Lame-Duckness, Doug Palmer, has released the annual report for the City of Trenton (fiscal year 2009). For the second year in a row, there was no big show in City Council Chambers where Palmer delivers his State of the City speech.

Instead, the annual report has been posted on the city website (www.trentonnj.org) where only those too few members of the public who read the Times of Trenton might discover its existence.

An article headlined “Palmer sees Trenton making progress” treats readers to a rose-colored fairy tale about Trenton’s successes despite our nation’s tough economic times.

Palmer must not have reviewed the statistics or at least interpreted them as we have. Nor has he taken a real good look around town. If he had, how could he possibly say that he is “…proud of the record…” he’s accomplished.

The half-hearted attempt at image preservation (myth building?) might just be an indication that even Douglas H. Palmer has a hard time swallowing the empty calories of the artificially sweetened annual report. No wonder he’s opting out of another run.

Happy New Year, indeed!