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Mr. Bad Example

I’m very well aquainted with the seven deadly sins
I keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in
I’m proud to be a glutton, and I don’t have time for sloth
I’m greedy, and I’m angry, and I don’t care who I cross

Warren Zevon wrote a song called “Mr. Bad Example,” about a roguish, notorious character who from an early age, steals, lies and embezzles his way around the world. There’s not a good bone in this guy’s body, but you can’t help but smile and admire the character just a little bit, because, well, he’s Warren Zevon.

I’m Mr. Bad Example, intruder in the dirt
I like to have a good time, and I don’t care who gets hurt

After reading the latest Press Release from the Current Occupant of the office of Trenton Mayor, I couldn’t help but think of this song. Not because he is as despicable as Mr. Zevon’s character, of course. But because he does offer us a singularly Bad Example in his latest screed.

I refer to this Release. Titled “Enough is Enough!” the Current Occupant bravely throws down his marker against the wave of violent crime plaguing our City. After claiming that “Our administration continues to do its part” in crime fighting by rehiring a fraction of the 105 police officers let go one year ago, the Occupant essentially washes his hands of the matter and turns it all over to us. He tells us that yesterday he boldly had a conversation with Police Director Ralph Rivera, and intrepidly “directed him to continue the push to meet with as many different constituent groups as possible in order to spread our message about being vigilant against crime.”

There’s leadership for you. Having conversations! Directing subordinates to continue to push to meet with groups! Spread our message!

I’m Mr. Bad Example, take a look at me
I’ll live to be a hundred, and go down in infamy

This strong anti-crime epistle comes to us at the same time as another in Alex Zdan’s fine series of articles in the Trenton Times reminds us that the criminal case against the Occupant, one of his brothers (the one not yet in prison), and an associate inexorably proceeds along its post-arrest, pre-indictment path.

Seems to me that a man who can so confidently proclaim “We need to draw a line in the sand and not cede any more ground to the criminal element” might remember that he received his own “Criminal Element Membership Card” on September 10.

Apart from the Bad Example set by the Occupant’s own criminal troubles, there are several relevant instances of his utter and complete failure in dealing with our City’s issues of crime and public safety.

First, there is the matter of the layoff of one-third of the City’s police force. Given the dire state of the city’s finances, some kind of layoff was in all likelihood inevitable. But the way he and his Administration announced and implemented that plan last year was particularly gutless, avoiding any personal responsibility for the announcement as he himself flew off to Disney World. And that layoff, remember, was months after he accrued all the personal glory he could in his claim that he – all by his lonesome –  “Saved Public Safety.”

But I attached their wages and took a whopping cut
And whisked away their workman’s comp and pauperized the lot

More recently, at the beginning of this year, the Occupant decreed his “2012 Comprehensive Crime Initiative” that was intended to do away with all of the violence we now see. Granted, such a plan – had it even been a real plan and had it been implemented – would have taken more than nine months to work, given the scale of our problems and how deep-seated they are. But there was never any There There; the “plan” was as bogus and hollow as the man who cut and pasted the narrative together from the work of other cities and better men than he. The “plan” served its purpose by getting him some publicity and distracting us for a few weeks. It was never a serious proposal, and has been ignored by the Administration.

You think that’s strong language? You want proof? This link is intended to take you to the actual City Document about the Plan. Go ahead, click here:

http://trentonnj.org/Documents/2012%20Comprehensive%20Crime%20Initiative.pdf

Did you get a “The Page Cannot be Found” message? I did. Worthless. Even to the Occupant.

Later in the year, after one grievous incident involving a May  assassination attempt against a couple of our police officers, the Occupant had nothing to say. Nothing to say.

And that’s not to mention that at the funerals and wakes for the 17 – and counting – of Trenton’s murder victims this year – the Occupant has been conspicuously absent.

But now, he says “Enough is Enough!” and directs us to get involved in the fight ourselves, become “collaborator[s] for peace,” in his words. How? By making phone calls!

That’s right. The Current Occupant, himself Missing in Action from any meaningful leadership role, and handicapped by his own alleged inclusion with the City’s homegrown Criminal Element, includes a list of phone numbers and email address for citizens to fill the void he has personally helped to create.

Here’s another phone number: 609.989.3030. It’s the Office of the Mayor. Leave a message; he won’t be there. But tell whoever answers that if the Occupant is truly sincere that “We need to draw a line in the sand and not cede any more ground to the criminal element,” then he could finally – FINALLY ! – set one Good Example and resign.

I’m thinking of retiring from all my dirty deals
I’ll see you in the next life, wake me up for meals

Anything short of that will be One More Bad Example.

3 comments to Mr. Bad Example

  • Mark Stradling

    Warren Zevon foresaw Trenton as it would be under Mack when he wrote, “lawyers, guns, and money
    the shit has hit the fan”

  • ed w

    I was at the TCCA meeting Thursday, a counsel woman came in and announced that there were positions open in the new “Ethics Board”

    seems there is some difficulty in finding people who actually live in the city to apply.

    i think the real difficulty is finding a person of ethics who would be willing to work for someone who has none.

    Aristotle must be rolling in his grave.

    peace

    ed

  • Kevin

    Mark – I can revise that lyric just a tad:

    I’m Hiding down in Trenton
    I’m a Desperate Man
    Send Lawyers, Guns and Money
    The Shit has Hit the Fan