“But, do not judge or pick the fruit before it is ripe, give it an opportunity to bloom, and join our administration in moving our City forward.”
– Tony F. Mack, Mayor of the City of Trenton March 21, 2012
Mr. Mayor, all of us would really, really like to join with you and move the City forward. Honest! We all live here, and would love it to get it out of the deep, deep hole it’s in. We all want to improve opportunity for all who go to school here, and for those who work – or try to find work. Those of us who own homes and businesses want nothing more than to see our city prosperous, so we can feel these investments are safe and secure. And we desperately want to feel that we, and our children and families, are safe on our streets, and in our businesses and homes. So we really would want nothing better than to work with you and your government to work toward these things.
But it is hard, if not impossible, to do so when you continue to play fast and loose with facts. Mr. Mayor, the State of the City address you delivered last night is full of falsehoods and distortions. I will mention only two tonight, but there are more. Perhaps you may see why I, for one, continue to have such difficulty trusting anything you say, sir.
You said last night, “The fact that we have submitted two balanced budgets and continue to maintain many vital services is an example of sound fiscal management and good government. Our fiscal situation is on the road to recovery. Many of you know our City has run budget deficits for more than a decade.” [Emphasis deleted and added by me. – KM]
No, sir, you are wrong. Cities in new Jersey are, by law, forbidden to “run deficits.” The same is true of the State of New Jersey. Adopted Municipal Budgets, and Actual Year-End Results must be balanced. And so it has been here in Trenton for the previous decade, and longer.
That is not to say that all kinds of Accounting Gimmicks and Mechanisms are not used to “balance” a budget. This City (with the State’s approvals and often indeed its encouragement) has frequently used Pension contributions, as one example, to rearrange and push back obligations in order to balance a budget on paper.
But balanced they are, and balanced they have been. Your statement last night serves two malevolent purposes. First, by claiming that the city has run deficits for over a decade continues your unsavory practice of kicking dirt on the grave of the previous Administration. And second, by claiming this kind of credit for something you are bound to do by law is no accomplishment; far from being “an example of sound fiscal management and good government,” it does nothing of the sort, by itself.
You don’t believe me? Take a look at this spreadsheet, taken from information contained on PDF’s of the City’s Approved Budgets, as they sit on the City’s Website for the Fiscal Years 2005 through 2011. Each and every one of them, from the Approved Budgets at the beginning of a Fiscal Year (or, more typical, 3/4 of the way through) to the Anticipated Results of the precious year, are balanced to the penny. Revenues equal Appropriations. Every year. If you were to go further back in time than the years included on the City Website, no doubt you would see the same thing.
So, don’t pat yourself on the back too much, Mayor. We know that the last two years have been extraordinarily difficult financially. But the way in which you take too much credit for yourself, and cast too many aspersions on your predecessor, only leads me to wonder what kind of Accounting Gimmicks and Mechanisms you, sir, are using. Also, the many instances of typos, incorrect grammar and strained turns of phrase in your State of the City document lead me to doubt your grasp of numbers, since your grasp of language is very shaky.
Second, your proposals for reopening the shuttered Neighborhood Branches of the city’s Public Library sound ambitious. Yet, I can’t help feeling that they are, at heart, hollow and empty. You begin discussion of the topic by stating, “For the past twelve months, the Mayor’s Learning Center Library Initiative Committee has been meeting on a weekly basis with sole [sic] purpose of REOPENING the Skelton Library, the Cadwalader Library, the Briggs Branch Library, and the East Trenton Library by or before April 30th, 2012.”
Really? Earlier this year, when the matter of the Libraries last came up, you spoke then about this Committee, as well; the news of which Committee took members of the public, members of the Library Board and management, and our local press by total surprise. No one who knew anything or had any involvement with the Libraries was aware of this Committee.
An OPRA request filed by Jim Carlucci resulted in this Document, dated January 19, 2011 [sic], revealed that this Committee you said tonight has been meeting weekly for twelve months had in fact only convened once, January 17, 2011, and had produced no plan.
So which is the incorrect document here, Mr. Mayor. The OPRA document, or your State of the City Address tonight? Because one directly contradicts the other. They cannot both be truthful.
Your narrative about the proposed set of activities for the reopened Libraries sounds ambitious and exciting, but you are terribly vague about the funding sources for all this. And your sentence, “As you can see from these accomplishments, we are offering our children safe, fun and structured activities,” is frankly a little spooky. Because, Mr. Mayor, none of this has actually been done yet! They are still ideas, plans! They are not accomplishments! NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE!
I will leave this piece with those two items. I could go on to other of your initiatives, such as the “Comprehensive Crime Plan” you continue to take such pride in; despite the fact that many of the component elements in the “Plan” still exist only on paper. And you note with pride that your Directed Neighborhood foot patrols “also coordinated their efforts with other Trenton Police Department units (Tactical Anti-Crime, Crime Suppression & Vice Enforcement Units),” but neglect to mention that each of these very same three units were slated to be disbanded by you only two months ago!
Mr. Mayor, I have only read your speech. I did not make it to City Hall this evening. I am sure the occasion was grand, and the delivery was splendid. I join you in wishing nothing but the best for the people of our City.
But when you use the occasion of the State of the City to repeat the same set of falsehoods, confusions and mistakes that have already been proven wrong, I cannot join you, I cannot follow you in the direction you lead. That way lies more misfortune. We can’t afford that.
I’ve written it before and I will write it again here now. Tony Mack is an individual who loves the IDEAS of accomplishing things, but in reality has no means intellectually or otherwise to make his ideas a reality.
His speech was nothing more than lies presented to give the appearance of accomplishment.
Tony scooped a turd from the bowl and tried to sculpt David.
He did it all while flanked by two teleprompters and standing on a wooden platform.
Update to Mayor Mack:
Please note that the current state of our city is HELL…certainly not well.
Another lil typo mayor?
Mike – He does love the Idea of doing things, but you are right: he has no ability or do the heavy lifting. He’d be a great ceremonial Chief of State, cutting ribbons and waving vaguely at Openings and pinning medals to chests. Too bad we need someone to do the Work!
Bill – What a difference a single letter makes, right?
Like you, and so many others, I was surprised to hear about the library committee. Who is on this committee? I am, however, tired of hearing about the mess the new administration found; it was no secret there was a mess in city hall. So the Honorable Mayor can stop whining about it.
Pat – the Doc that Jim OPRA’d lists these people as being on the “Committee:”
Anthony Roberts
Harold Hall
Cleveland Thompson
Todd Geter
Sonya Wilkens
James Mack
All Library heavy-hitters, as I am sure you will agree. Not.
Kevin: Did you see this? it was forwarded to the Hiltonia email list by Don Waller yesterday.
From our former City Law Department Attorney, here is excellent advice for Council and the Administration. And it is clearly visible to us; the voters and taxpayers.
Council! Please have the courage to do your jobs, as George describes them below.
From: GTD@katzanddougherty.com
To: DWallar@aol.com
Sent: 3/21/2012 12:20:02 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: RE: Time for A Cure
Don,
The curtain has to be brought down on this farce.
I can assure the Council that a vote on a motion or resolution can be taken without the paperwork in place. It is often done that way when the matter is actually decided during the voting session, following the discussion on that motion where things can change and amendments can be offered and voted on.
What we are witnessing is a childish refusal by the Mayor to honor the most basic rules of government. Every elected official has to understand that the legislative body holds the “purse strings”, and that the executive has to learn to live within the budget set by the legislative body. That is basic stuff.
This mayor clamors to control both branches of government, using whatever tactics he can, and apparently [is] unwilling to listen to the voice of his legal counsel who most likely has told him that his powers over the budget are limited.
It would be a great service to the City if the City Attorney or his Assistant actually volunteered to give this basic advice. They should not address it just to the Mayor or just to the Council. They should give it to both branches of government addressing it to the City as a “Municipal Corporation.”
The advice should be along these lines:
The way our government is set up, the Council has the power to set the budget, and it is done by Resolution. The reason it is done by Resolution is because the budget is Council’s exclusive domain. Unlike an Ordinance, the Budget Resolution has no room for the Mayor’s “approval”. A mayor cannot “veto” a Resolution.
Once the Budget Resolution (or any other Resolution) is adopted, the Executive Branch has the sworn duty to implement that legislative act. As functional parts of the Administration, the Law Department and Finance Department are duty bound to supply the supporting paperwork, including the drafting of the resolutions and attached papers.
That is not “discretionary” or optional – it is purely “ministerial” and, if this gets any uglier, can be “court ordered”. In my opinion it can also be demanded and enforced by the DCA by way of a threat to withhold aid payments under the MOU for obstructing the process.
The voice of the Law for Trenton needs to drive the point home that the statute which delegates the Mayor’s power to staff his office with aides, is expressly limited to the authorized budgeted appropriations. That, combined with the Faulkner Act’s provision that the budget is adopted by resolution, not by ordinance, clearly demonstrates that the budgeting power excludes the Mayor. The Mayor’s function vis a vis the budget, is to recommend. After that, regardless of how well his recommendations are received, his duty – the one he swore publicly to fulfill — is to direct his subordinates to carry out, not to block, the budget process.
I don’t think this community can hope to function well so long as the Mayor is able create a smoke screen of confusion over what children are taught in school about how government works. When the air is clouded to the point that the DCA is quoted daily as giving the green light to Council’s actions, the Mayor and his faithful Email Writer claim publicly that there is a need to “research” his options, and three of[seven]council members claim [to]refuse to accept the DCA’s version of the law, and the Law Department is silent on the topic, we have hit bottom.
Standing by silently observing the clash of wills over a clearly answerable question of procedure and law, the Law Department is not fulfilling its essential role as the behind the plate umpire. It can and offer a cure in the form of a simple pronouncement as to what will come as no surprise to civic-minded Trentonians.
No invitation should be necessary but, if needed, a majority of the City Council (why not the entire body?)ought to demand a clear and authoritative answer[by the Law Dept]to the question: Where is it written in the Faulkner Act or elsewhere that the Mayor has the power to block legislation by withholding the preparation of the written version of what was adopted by the majority of the Council?
They should not allow more than eight hours for a clear response. (Emphasis added.)
George Dougherty
This proved fascinating; perhaps each member of council should receive a copy. Does the Honorable Mayor’s behavior constitute high crimes and misdemeanors? And there are certainly three members of council who should reconsider their obligations to Trenton.