“We have the League of Municipalities that can help us when you don’t understand the process of the legislative body of government. We have Legal Counsel that can help you. We have made a commitment to provide Legal Counsel for you, so you can feel comfortable with the information you’re getting.
“But to run our City in the ground, like a few of you have done in the last month and a half, is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve been in politics for 22 years. And I have never, I have never seen a City Council that would stoop as low as you guys have stooped, to hurt this City.”
– Tony F. Mack, March 15, 2012
Well, Mayor Mack has just given us a ringing indictment of the failures of Trenton’s City Government over the last one and three-quarters years. In a bold attempt to turn the tables, he projected all – ALL – of the failures of his Administration and his person onto the City Council at last night’s meeting. Thanks to Matt Fair’s account in the Times, and especially 10 minutes of video showcasing the Mayor’s showboating to a pitifully empty Council chamber, we have a chance to see the Mayor in all his bullying, condescending, and egotistical glory.
The Mayor was there to harangue Council – or rather, the 4-person majority of Council members Muschal, Chester, Holly-Ward and Caldwell-Wilson – for daring to reduce the budget of the Mayor’s Office, and for zeroing out the budget for most of his departmental Aides. After twice affirming those cuts with budget amendments, first by a vote to take the money out, and then by the 4-member majority defeating an effort to restore the money, the Mayor last night outright refused to present the revised budget to Council for their final approval, as they had been scheduled to do during that session.
According to state budgeting process, after the Mayor introduces the budget, done some weeks ago, and Council accepts the mayor’s budget, then the Council “owns” that budget; it debates it, amends it, presents it for public review, then adopts it. But the Mayor and the Executive have no further ability to block adoption, as the Mayor attempted last night. The Mayor attempted a coup last night. And, backed up by some spurious legal advice from the city attorney sitting last night, the Council bought the Mayor’s arguments and backed down.
According to the Times, “[C]ouncil members voted to adjourn their meeting early as they sought a compromise with Mack over the impasse that has prevented the city from adopting its months-overdue 2011-2012 budget. Council had hoped to vote on the spending plan last night, but administration officials said they would not submit the budget for final approval by the state Department of Community Affairs with the cuts intact, and the officials said DCA approval is required prior to a council vote.” [Emphasis mine – KM]
This advice from the unnamed “administration officials” that the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) needed to approve the budget prior to Council voting is, in a word, wrong, and Council should have known that. In a letter from DCA Local Government Services Director Thomas Neff to the Mayor and Council dated January 27, the burden for moving the budget was clearly on the City’s shoulders. In fact, he gave a deadline of February 22 to adopt the damned thing!
So, for the Administration last night to claim that Council couldn’t adopt the budget before DCA reviewed it was disingenuous, at the least. For Council to buy that line of crap was, in the Mayor’s favorite word last night, irresponsible.
I want to point out just one or two of Mr. Mack’s errors of fact last night, and then some more about his overall tone. First, the Mayor claimed last evening that, despite all kinds of opposition from Council, the City is doing just great: road improvements, park improvements, uninterrupted city services, and his “comprehensive police plan” are all just fabulous in his eyes. Well, such items as the Cadwalader Park Tennis Project were put into motion before Mack was in office, accomplished by private initiative, or both. The Mayor’s “Comprehensive” police plan is still largely half-baked, as we saw this week with stories about how one feature of his plan – cash rewards for information leading to murder arrests – was announced by the Mayor before ANY actual work had been done to set it up.
And the Mayor is taking credit for a second balanced budget in a row, as if that was unprecedented. The City of Trenton, like every city in NJ and the State itself, by law has to deliver balanced budgets. That’s the law. It’s a tough thing to do, Lord knows, but it is normal. Mack trotted out his We-inherited-a-$55-Million-Deficit-From-Doug-Palmer argument again, as proof of Palmer’s mendacity and his own fiscal skill. Let’s quickly review that $55 Million number again, and move on.
Roughly $40 Million in anticipated money was cut from the budget by Chris Christie’s cancellation of the Capital City Aid program we had benefited from. A lot, but not all, of that money was restored with the first year Transitional Aid Award of $27 Million from the State.
Another $14 Million that Doug Palmer had anticipated was proceeds from the Trenton Water Works sale that was scuppered by the voters in June. You want to blame anyone for that part of the deficit, Mr. Mayor? Blame the voters. We knew we were voting that money away, but the close to 80% of the Trenton electorate who rejected the deal preferred the steady stream of income from TWW (before the Mack people got their hands on it) to a quick fix that would have only plugged a budget hole for 2 or 3 years.
So, Mr. Mayor, that $55 Million deficit? It wasn’t all Doug’s fault, and it wasn’t all your heroics. OK? OK!
Finally, a few more comments on the Mayor’s comments last night. He was demeaning, insulting, in full braggart and bully mode. I do have to give this to him, he has a lot of confidence. Seriously misplaced, in my humble opinion. He schooled that Council, and they took it, and folded.
We read today that Council will this weekend consider a “compromise” to their original vote. This does not reflect the fact – one that the Mayor did not acknowledge – that there is already a compromise in place, at DCA’s urging. The Council originally moved to eliminate the salary of two “Acting” cabinet officials, Anthony Roberts and Carmen Melendez. DCA considers them essential personnel, and directed their salaries to be restored. That’s done. Any more talk of Council compromising sounds more like further one-sided concessions to the Mayor.
And the Mayor’s overall tone and stance that moves against His department – unlike all of the losses over the last two years in Police, Inspections, Planning, the Libraries – are egregious and cannot be tolerated, and are in fact ruining this City, is just Bullshit.
All of the Mayor’s anger and fury at Council for “hurting” this City; his condescending offer that Council needs the League of Municipalities to teach them their jobs; the spectacle that he says Council has created as the saddest thing he’s seen in his life – all of those charges are more appropriately and more correctly to be leveled against Tony F. Mack. He obviously sees the wreckage around him and is incapable of accepting any personal responsibility, so he projects the feelings we have for him on to Council.
Infuriating. And sad. But nothing new from this man.
Council, though, continues to disappoint. After weeks, if not months of carefully staking out their prerogatives, and what limited policy and procedural choices they had available to them, they had moved along to get to the point where they were close to adopting a long-overdue budget for the current fiscal year, and send a clear message to the Executive that the excesses of this Administration were not going to be rubber-stamped.
After one 10-minute sermon and some bad advice, they fold and offer “Compromise.” Sheesh.
And don’t get me started on how empty Council Chambers were last night. Citizens have to get back in this game, people!
Last night was poor, all the way around.
There were people, the usual bunch, myself included, sitting to the mayor’s left. The camera never panned in that direction. The lack of public participation is one reason I came up with OOCH for April 2, 2012. I’m curious as to how many people will show up and sit with me. And as I told the Honorable Mayor yesterday afternoon, Arthur Holland ran the mayor’s office with ONE SECRETARY!!! In fairness to the public, very few knew that the 4:30PM meeting was open to the public. When I arrived at city hall at 4:13PM, the security guard told me I was very early and couldn’t go upstairs; when Councilwoman Caldwell-Wilson arrived she told the guard there was a public meeting in council chambers and people could go upstairs.
Thanks, Pat – That makes me feel better about turnout. When the camera did pan, to reveal that irresponsible blogger, that part of the room seemed pretty empty, too.
I forgot that the Mayor’s comments were at 4:30, before the regular meeting. That, I am sure, also kept attendance down.
Tony Mack was apparently possessed by Doug Palmer’s ghost. I clearly remember DP hounding council similarly over the Joe Santiago residency issue. They folded then too, and us VOTERS did the legwork to BOOT Santiago. Apparently we are STILL paying heavily for the Santiago years.
As far as attending council, I, for one, simply can’t handle the increase in blood pressure and pulse rate. Most of us can only take so much. At this point I’m not sure who’s worse, Council or the Administration. There should be NO MORE compromises. Let’s Mack cut his OWN salary to pay for his own lackeys. Maybe Tony can sell all the FREE toilet paper to fund his folks. Let TONY MACK gert creative in finding funding for his team of idiots. I’m sick and tired and all this sh*t.
If I can arrange a day off, I’d LOVE to spend it OCH with you Mrs. Stewart. We need to get THAT kind of coverage in the media, NOT the coverage Trenton received worldwide this week. Where are the rest of you Trenton???? Time to take this to the people as the “gubmint” aint doin its job.