All's Cheerless, Dark and Deadly

Several years in the past – less than four, although they seem an age ago – I felt something positively Shakespearean in the drama then unfolding in Trenton’s City Hall. Looking at the man who had after years of planning and grasping for the job had finally achieved the office of Mayor, I felt echoes of the title character of the Scottish Play in his administration. Better suited as a candidate than an incumbent, Tony Mackbeth brought a whole cast of almost theatrical villains into office along with him, and proceeded with his four-year long drama. No, “villains” isn’t quite right.  To observe some of them in action, I think the Bard would have cast some of them as Fools.

In any case, the curtain came down on that particular play, as Birnam Wood (in the unlikely form of a State Street parking lot) finally tripped them all up. Exeunt Stage Left.

After Mack’s resignation, I had thought that the intervening months between that event and the inauguration of a new Mayor and Council would have been mostly uneventful. I had thought that Acting Mayor George Muschal would have his hands full with catching up with unopened mail and unpaid bills, and turning over rocks and seeing what scurried away. I had thought things would be mostly calm for a few months, quiet other than whatever entertainment the mayoral and Council campaigns might provide.

Oh, I was wrong.

Instead of a peaceful interregnum, we now have an updated version of “King Lear.” Minus the daughters, of course.

No, really! Listen, all Lear had to to do at the end of his reign was to peacefully arrange for his succession. He might have waited until he died, but being son-less there was no obvious successor. In that event, he could have simply named his eldest daughter, or another, his heir after his death. He could have then carried on as King, secure in the fact that he knew that he would leave his kingdom and his people in peace and prosperity.

Had he done that, of course, there would have been no play.

Instead, he had the bright idea to divide his kingdom up among his daughters, according to how much they would say they loved him.

You can guess how that turned out: “[A]ll‘s cheerless, dark, and deadly.
Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves, and desperately are dead.”

Everybody’s dead! Lear, all his daughters, lots of other characters and nodoubt thousands of innocent civilians killed in a war that didn’t have to happen. All because Lear’s plan of succession failed, miserably. The Single Big Thing that Lear had left to do, what many kings before and after him had done without a problem, pass his kingdom along peacefully, he screwed up.

You follow me now?

George Muschal was not elected Mayor by the people of Trenton. He was appointed by his colleagues on Council, in accordance with New Jersey law and Trenton City Ordinance, the “Acting” Mayor. He is in office only to fulfill the remaining weeks in the term that had been Tony Mack’s. He leaves office at Noon on July 1, as Tony Mack surely would have after his one and only term. His main job is to hand off the City, peacefully, to the next guy, hopefully no worse off than when he took it on two months ago.

He has no mandate for drastic action, no legitimacy to enact major changes. And, to be fair, neither does this lame duck City Council.

Apart from several important tasks facing him – as mentioned above, catching up on City business too long ignored by a hapless and distracted Mack, Muschal’s main role should have been as a trusted caretaker, doing as little as possible to rock the ship of state, just sailing steady and back on course. Instead, “Acting” Mayor Muschal has presided over much drama, most of which was avoidable, and a good deal of it of his own making. At the same time he seeks to take on so much in the few weeks he has remaining to him, Muschal has succeeded mostly in tripping over his own feet and burning through whatever good will he had from citizens that accompanied him into office.

We saw last month the farce regarding candidate petitions for office that threatened to postpone the scheduled May election. That snafu was primarily the responsibility of City Clerk Richard Kachmar, who owned up to his error. In the midst of that problem, Mr. Muschal was quite forgiving of Kachmar’s mistake.

Of a situation a special attorney hired (shortly after, fired) to clean up the mess that he characterized as “the first mistake of its kind in state history,” Mr. Muschal called it “a minor setback.”

While several Council members called for the Clerk’s resignation, Kachmar was ok by Muschal: “He owned up to [the petition snafu]. I respect him for saying ‘George, I made a mistake.'”

No harm, no foul for Mr. Muschal, I suppose. Many candidates, and several citizens were upset that Muschal failed to press Kachmar for his resignation, or even to publicly discipline or criticize him.

In fact, the “Acting” Mayor actually had the arrogance of attempting to deflect criticism from the City Clerk, suggesting that certain private citizens had known about the problem with petitions in advance of city officials, and through their failure to notify the city “created a major problem here that should never have been a problem.” Shamefully, the “Acting” Mayor has never apologized or retracted those groundless accusations.

All of this makes his abrupt actions this past Friday to dismiss Law Director Caryl Amana and Fire Director Qareeb Bashir from their positions hard to comprehend.

There may well be matters and issues regarding both department directors that may have led to their dismissal. But Mr. Muschal did not make that case for either of them, and now cites the confidentiality of personnel issues to explain that he will not do so.

There are also proper procedures for terminating the employment of heads of departments, as required both by City and State laws and regulations as well as the additional terms and conditions agreed to in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Trenton and the NJ State Department of Community Affairs (DCA).

But Mr. Muschal has failed to observe those as well.

During last night’s Council session, several members objected to the dismissal of Ms. Amana and Mr. Bashir, claiming that Muschal failed to provide advance written notice of his intentions to Council 20 days before the dismissal as provided by City Ordinance.

And DCA rebuked the “Acting” Mayor for violating the terms of the MOU, at least regarding the abrupt dismissal of Ms. Amana. Curiously (at least to me), DCA had no problem with Mr. Bashir’s dismissal. In a letter to the City, DCA Local Government Services Director Thomas Neff stated “The division has no role to play in Director Qareeb Bashir’s termination”, even though they had a lot to do with his hiring back in 2011. To some extent, it sometimes seems that DCA is making up a lot of stuff as they go along. But I digress.

The uproar over Ms. Amana and Mr. Bashir is entirely of George Muschal’s own making. He has only 76 more days in office. As egregious as their perceived faults were, if Mr. Muschal was willing to forgive Kachmar’s sins, then he certainly could have lived with Bashir and Amana until the next mayor – the next duly-elected mayor, that is – takes office and has opportunity to build his or her own Cabinet.

Mr. Muschal claims that he did things by the book. He is quoted in today’s Trentonian as saying, “Following the direction of the law, which I rely on, the information was given to me from law that the firing of Mr. Bashir is legal and to the point,” Muschal reiterated Tuesday before the meeting ended abruptly due to a medical emergency. “I have to rely on the law department to lead me in this direction.”

But, remember.  that is the very same Law Department whose Director he is trying to sack, and who, among recent items, submitted a legal brief on the election snafu that the judge hearing the case found “deficient” and called by the Trentonian “riddled with errors.”  I’d take any counsel and advice from them with a grain of salt.

Muschal has a lot of good instincts, but often exhibits questionable judgment. His charges against private citizens was one recent example. His quite bizarre accusation a few years ago that Tony Mack’s brother Ralphiel drove by his laundromat business in order to photograph the Councilman, uh, well, there’s no other way to say this, “pleasuring” a dog, was another memorable one.

Likewise, some of Muschal’s other announced initiatives would be better left to be considered by the new Council and Administration.  At the beginning of the week, he suggested that he would work to have City Council reverse the 1999 voter referendum that created the position of civilian Fire and Police Directors in favor of restoring Chiefs for both departments, selected from the ranks of those public safety departments. And a few weeks ago, he announced that he is working to re-open the city’s four neighborhood branch libraries, closed since 2010 by order of the previous Administration.

Mr. Muschal would be well advised to avoid both moves, as well as any other similar over-stretch. As much as I would love to see the neighborhood branches re-opened, Mr. Muschal has not presented any financial analysis to show that the City can afford to re-open the branches and keep them in operation. Surely that case has to be first made.

And his plans about the police and fire directors positions sound positively anti-democratic. Even though these positions were created by voter referendum, Muschal wants to bypass the voters and let Council vote to abolish the Director positions. “There’s no reason to let the voters decide when council can decide. The council is put there for checks and balances to make the right decision.” [Emphasis mine – KM]

Perhaps. Perhaps if Muschal were a duly-elected Mayor, who ran on a platform to abolish those positions, and if Council members were elected on the same basis – openly discussing the pros and cons of the matter and promising to work for that goal if they are elected – then and only then would I feel comfortable to say that in that case the Mayor and Council had a mandate to take the action themselves.

But Muschal was elected only as the Councilman for the South Ward. He was not elected Mayor. And none of the seven council members, including Mr. Muschal, ran on a platform that promised to restore the Chiefs.

I think the issue is a valid one to discuss. As important as public safety is to this City, and how dire it has become, I think it entirely appropriate to ask candidates what they think of appointed civilian Directors versus uniformed Chiefs. I hope we hear more on the issue.

But Muschal has to drop the matter for now. He is an appointed Mayor. He has no mandate for this kind of action, despite his possession of awesome executive power, on paper. He has enough to do with just running this city without wrenching it in new directions that the citizens of this town will not follow.

Lord knows I believe that this City needs bold action and decisive decisions. But those have to be taken by representatives duly elected by the people to do their specific jobs. Which won’t be done until next month.

I know that must be aggravating to the man. His intentions are good, and dedicated towards improving this City.

But he simply has no moral authority, credibility or mandate to take any major action in the short time remaining to him, other than what he may be  compelled to do by events. All the “cheerless, dark and deadly” drama swirling around him and this city this week proves that. Most of this is of his own doing.

The end of this drama, or at least a great reduction, can also be his own doing, should he choose it.

He could do the City a great service if he just steps back from the bully pulpit a bit, tinker around the edges and let the heavy lifting be done by a new Mayor and Administration.

After four years, I have frankly had enough of Shakespearean drama and petty soap opera!