Pants on Fire, Mister Mayor!

Do you remember those days of long, long ago – three weeks, in fact – when Mayor Tony Mack rejected a proposal from the local organization CityWorks to open the East Trenton Library branch? The CityWorks plan to lease and operate the Library branch for five years as  a local center for classes and training as well as a lending and research library was announced the week before Christmas by Council President Kathy McBride.

In what had to have been an embarrassment to Ms. McBride – one of the Mayor’s few remaining allies – Mr. Mack rejected the CityWorks proposal in favor of one that a “library advisory team” he had appointed had put together. Like so many of the “plans” the Mayor has announced, this one sounded ambitious, and promising.

In a memo to Ms. McBride, the Mayor wrote, “When the city’s libraries were closed, a special advisory team began drafting recommendations and suggestions. The library advisory team and the city agree that we must keep all four libraries under city direction.” City spokesperson Lauren Ira, in a separate statement quoted in the Times article of 12/28 said, “The plans presented by the mayor’s library advisory team … are consistent with how the city successfully operates the rest of our city centers which … are staffed by part-time vouchered employees through grants and donations, as well as volunteers and community stakeholders.” [Emphasis mine – KM]

This reversal of a plan announced with fanfare by Ms. McBride caused some confusion, to say the least. The existence of a “library advisory team” and any “plans,” “recommendations” and “suggestions” coming from them were previously unknown to any members of City Council, anyone involved with the leadership of the Library, and to members of the public.

The Times noted this confusion in an editorial, saying “It seems absurd that an advisory board on reopening libraries exists without council’s knowledge.”

Yes, it would be absurd, but not unheard of with these jokers in the Mack Administration.

In an effort to bring some clarity to a very confusing situation, intrepid Mill Hill citizen Jim Carlucci filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request seeking release of all available information about this “library advisory team.” He received those records today. (access to this link may require separate registration with Google Gmail). Thanks, Jim.

“Acting” Business Administrator Anthony Roberts wrote a two-page memo on the matter, dated January 19, 2011. (This proves either that Mr. Roberts is very prescient – writing a memo one year before its request! – or else he is showing the same attention to detail as when he prepared and filed Tony Mack’s campaign finance reports to the State ELEC Commission, by hand and with numerous cross-outs, scribbles and corrections.)

The memo names the six members of this “team.” Most of them are City employees and/or Mack appointees. None have any apparent qualifications to have anything to do with any Libraries including Trenton’s. The names include “Acting” Business Adminstrator Roberts, “Acting” Public Works Director Harold Hall, “Acting” Inspections Director Cleveland Thompson, and Sonya Wilkins, whose formal title on the City’s website is Administrative Secretary in the Health and Human Services Department.

The memo states that the one – and only – meeting of this “team” was January 17, 2011. However, since 2011 is also the date of his memo, it is unclear whether this team met for its singular session earlier this week or one year ago.

The memo also states:  “Drafts of any plans- Non-applicable.”

So, despite what the Mayor and Ms. Ira stated, this “team” never got off the ground. It never drafted “recommendations and suggestions,” in the Mayor’s words. There were no “plans presented” by this team, as Ms. Ira would have us believe. None.

So, let’s review, shall we?

• The existence of this “team” was unknown to anyone outside the Administration up until the Mayor’s announcement rejecting the CityWorks plan. Unknown to Council, the Library and to the public.
• This “library advisory team” was top-loaded with Mack Administration insiders, with no connection to the city’s Libraries.
• They met only once, produced no plans nor drafts of plans, and have done zero work since their only meeting (12 months or 3 days ago).
• The existence and the work product of this “team” was specifically cited by the Mayor in his rejection of a plan that had been put together by a private non-profit group that had secured outside funding, and that had been publicly announced by the President of City Council.
• And, one month after the Mayor’s rejection of the CityWorks plan, and close to a year and a half after it was closed, the East Trenton Branch is still dark.

I don’t know why he made them, but Mayor Mack’s and Ms. Ira’s statements about his “plans” for the libraries are lies.

This “team” is a joke.

Their “work” is a joke.

For the Mayor to deliberately derail this hopeful CityWorks initiative – with nothing else to replace it – and then lie about all the great “plans” and “recommendations” the City has, is nothing less than sick and spiteful!

I just don’t get why he does these things. What a sad man.