A Serious Disconnect from Reality

Tony Mack is the Ralph Kramden, the Kramer of Municipal Government. Half-baked, ill-considered plans and get-rich-quick schemes spring from our mayor on a dazzlingly frequent basis. But Kramden and Kramer are fictional characters, endearing but harmless. Tony Mack is, alas, all too real.

The latest hare-brained scheme (an insult to rabbits everywhere, I know) can be found on the front page of this morning’s Trenton Times. The Mayor, by executive fiat, has declared we now have a “Trenton Commission on International Business Affairs,” which has been established, in the words of the Times’ Matt Fair, “to expand the city’s economic frontiers and build new relationships with trading partners in [I kid you not – KM] West Africa and the Caribbean.” The first targets for potential economic activities include the nations of Ghana, Burkina Faso, Botswana, and Trinidad & Tobago.

What will this commission do? “’Our sole focus is developing trade missions with foreign governments to do business with companies in Mercer County and in Trenton,’ CIBA marketing and outreach director Wayne Browne said. ‘That’s the main thing, to get them to learn about the goods and services that’s available from Trenton-area businesses.’”

Mayor Mack is quoted in the article as saying “…the people and businesses operating within the Trenton region will not only benefit directly through sustainable trade agreements we expect to develop, but I’m equally confident that we can create hundreds of jobs for our people”

OK, what does this mean? Which goods and services from which Trenton-area businesses might be suitable for those specific international markets? Have any specific businesses been invited to any of the meetings apparently scheduled with diplomatic representatives from these countries? Is there any business plan for this commission based on any kind of specific contacts or products? How can “hundreds of jobs” possibly be created for local businesses from this initiative, and on what kind of timeline? Who is on this Commission, other than the two co-chairs named in the paper?

There are no answers to be found from this article. This “Commission,” according to the Times article is to be “sworn in” Friday at a ceremony at the Trenton Marriott (what, City Hall was booked?), is deeply suspect. The two co-chairs  named in the article are Shelly Zieger, a long-time local hotelier (he was instrumental in getting the Lafayette Yard Marriott built and open, a distinct mixed blessing for Trenton taxpayers on the hook for millions in unpaid bonds); and one Azuka Anyiam, described in the Times as also being president of a Philadelphia-based organization called the “African and Caribbean Business Council” or ACBC.

This link takes you to a story about some of the activities of the ACBC. This article mentions that the ACBC has been invited on trade missions in 2012 to the following countries: “Botswana, Burkina Faso, Trinidad and Tobago, and Ghana.” The very same ones our Trenton “Commission” is going to work on developing relations with.

However, this same article mentions many times that the objective of the ACBC and the proposed trade missions to these 4 countries is to attract US investors to bring US money into these nations, and not to drum up customers for local area companies:

“According to the President of the ACBC, Dr. Azuka Anyiam, the visiting Ambassadors were not only impressed by – and “felt at home” in – Penn Museum’s African collection, but they were also grateful for the opportunity to interact with potential investors in key industry areas such as energy, environment, housing, mining, and agriculture.”

Dr. Anyiam is also mentioned in that article as saying that “such investments not only are good for African and Caribbean businesses, but the promotion of trade between the continents and regions helps to create jobs here in the United States.”

However the clear intent of this article, and this one, and this one, is that the ACBC, as well as the representatives of these four nations, intend primarily to seek investment into the African and Caribbean economies, and not the economies of the Philadelphia and Trenton Areas. They seek foreign investment now from the United States, so that someday in the future their peoples and economies may be prosperous enough to seek out the goods and services to be found in our areas. Some day. In the future.

I don’t begrudge these gentlemen any of these objectives, and in fact wish them luck. West Africa and the Caribbean may indeed someday be prosperous enough to seek out local Trenton, Mercer and Philadelphia businesses.

But not here, and not now.

I do not believe that any resources from the City of Trenton should be expended in the service of assisting foreign governments to seek US investors to benefit their own economies. We have our own more pressing, and immediate, priorities.

Let Mr. Mack present his business plan for this “Commission” to Council and the public before any “Commissioners” are sworn in. Let’s see just how local businesses and people will benefit. Let him tell us how “hundreds of jobs” will be created.

I will make a prediction. He won’t, because he can’t. There is no plan, there are no objectives. Tony Mack has been convinced by a local hotelier and a Philly businessman that our salvation can be found an ocean away, and not in our own city, our own county, and our own state.

He is ignoring the needs of our own businesses and peoples in favor of this chimera. How else can you explain that, as the Times described yesterday, the Mayor has failed to nominate anyone to fill to vacancies on the Capital City Redevelopment Corporation, the CCRC? The CCRC is a state entity set up to re-develop Trenton’s Downtown, not Burkina Faso’s.

Might the Mayor direct his attention to our Downtown, perhaps? Now? PLEASE?!?!?

We have failing schools, a rampant crime wave, struggling businesses (notably including the failing Trenton Marriott!!), and a failing local economy. For our Mayor to devote any kind of attention to a crazy scheme looking for foreign investment and business in this town at this time when he can’t provide basic services is nothing short of insane.

This is the mark of  a serious disconnect from Reality. I have doubts that our mayor is well.

UPDATE: There are some documents on the City of Trenton website laying out more information about the “Commission,” its membership and objectives. They can be found here and under the “Office of the Mayor” tab at the website’s front page.

There are more names of individuals listed here, and several awfully vague and amorphous statements about the Commission’s mission: for example, any board whose activities include both to “organize trade missions” AND “engage in neighborhood improvements” is not very well focused nor well thought out.