Archive

The Elephant in the Room

Candidates are making their final pushes and pitches for next Tuesday’s elections in Trenton. Expect more speeches, rallies, caravans and hand-grabbing in the next five (!) days, as each incumbent and challenger will attempt to seal the deal by making their best arguments about their vision and qualifications to tackle the City’s immense set of problems. The Road to Recovery will begin on Tuesday when voters will have a chance to put an “X” beside their name. Here we go.  Unfortunately, given the experience of the last couple of months, not many of the candidates will acknowledge, let alone really address, one of the biggest immediate impediments to any new Trenton Administration. Without even talking about the Elephant in the Room, most (not all) of the candidates are failing to level with Trenton’s voters, and creating expectations and making promises they will not be able to keep.

To illustrate, let me take yesterday’s Opinion piece in the Trenton Times by mayoral candidate Walker Worthy. Mr. Worthy lays out a bold plan for “Immediate Action” for his first 100 days as Trenton’s new mayor. Among his promises: “appoint a cabinet of qualified, dynamic diverse and dedicated professionals who understand the challenges facing Trenton as well as the necessary solutions. Each of my cabinet members will abide by the highest standards of performance and ethics.”

The trouble is, it may not even be possible to get rid of the current set of Department Heads and Directors in 100 days, let alone “appoint a new set of qualified, dynamic, diverse and dedicated professionals.”

In the new (and as of yet, unsigned) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)between the NJ Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and the City of Trenton for this year’s Transitional Aid Award, the State insists that any termination of a senior city appointee or employee – even those whose terms are up by City Ordinance because of the end of the term of the preceding Administration – will require State DCA approval, which might not be given until a suitable (to DCA, that is) replacement can be found.

That means that Mr. Worthy will probably not be able to put his stamp on city management in his first 100 days.

That means that “Acting” Mayor George Muschal’s current lawsuit against City Council and all his current directors is even more ridiculous and frivolous than first thought, and that is saying something!! Rather than argue over the meaning of the phrase “unexpired term” or how much power an “Acting” appointed Mayor has, the real argument should be over how Trenton’s home rule is slipping away to a State agency. And slipping away to a state agency that in the last few years has demonstrated that it is too under-funded, under-staffed, over-worked, distracted, and generally ill-prepared to take on this kind of responsibility without accountability.

DCA’s prior experience in personnel recruitment and oversight during the Mack Administration saddled us with several of the problems that the City is still dealing with, including Business Administrator Sam Hutchinson and Fire Director Qareeb Bashir. According to the terms of the MOU – which signed or not pretty much represent the terms and conditions of the new relationship between the City and State, unless they are re-negotiated – a new Mayor Worthy, or any other, will have to deal with a BA Hutchinson and Director Bashir, and all the rest, for a good part of their new term.

This means that as of July 1, a new mayoral administration will be saddled with a whole team of department heads and directors not of their choosing. City agencies and departments will have to work under managers who are lame ducks, not appointed by the new mayor, and who cannot be dislodged from their desks until new replacements can be recruited, vetted and hired. No one knows how long that will take. And when new people are finally hired and installed, their loyalties may not lie with the Mayor who hired them or the Council who confirmed them, but with the state Agency who vetted them for this job, and who they may rely upon for their next one.

Mr. Worthy did not acknowledge any of this reality in his Times Op-Ed. He hardly mentions the role of the State in the City’s governance anywhere in his platform on his website at all, other than to call for a renegotiation with the State to restore a permanent dependable Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) from NJ in recognition of its huge physical and  tax-free presence within our borders.

Eric Jackson fails to acknowledge the role of the state, other than a few nods to its role in providing public safety resources and funding to supplement the city’s Police. Paul Perez talks extensively about his future hiring and recruitment policies on his website, but fails to mention the folks on the other end of State Street.

Jim Golden is the only mayoral candidate to acknowledge in his platform the need to negotiate the city away from Transitional Aid, by developing a plan for permanent and stable funding from the State based on specifically-designated funding sources. This is good. But he, along with the other gentlemen discussed above, fails to acknowledge the drag on his new administration that DCA will be.

The only candidate to draw attention to the elephant in the room, to his considerable credit, has been Council At-Large Duncan Harrison. He seems to be the only candidate, to my knowledge, who has read the MOU, and who understands the implications to the City of the burden placed on the city’s management and any new Council and Mayor.

As he made clear in comments posted on Facebook and reported to the Trenton Times, he fully understands what this means.

Why is Mr. Harrison the only person talking about this? Every candidate for Mayor, and every other Council candidate, should be talking about how they think the City should be dealing with the State. To me, that relationship has to be addressed on two levels.

The first is the reality of the current situation: how we should deal with an agency that is surely too small, under-staffed  and over-worked to devote the time and quality of care to the affairs of this city that we need. And moreover an agency of a state Administration that is fast becoming overwhelmed with budgetary, ethical and political crises of its own that are distracting it from attending to the desperate needs of citizens of Trenton and other cities like it.

Second is what we want that role to be in the future. What is the proper relationship of the City of Trenton with the State of New Jersey in a post-Transitional Aid future? A future in which the State has, at least for much of the next 20 years, mortgaged away a lot of Trenton’s potential future tax dollars in an attempt to lure commercial development? A future in which the state continues to occupy huge swaths of the city’s real estate without facing up to an obligation to support the city on an ongoing basis.

The State of New Jersey is the elephant in Trenton’s living room that few of the candidates are paying any attention to.

I thank Duncan Harrison for drawing our attention back to it. In the last days of the campaign, I hope you demand that other candidates talk about it as well.

5 comments to The Elephant in the Room

  • ed w

    Yesterday I went to the ethics board meeting, I didn’t see one candidate for Mayor there.

    It’s as if the concept of right and wrong has no meaning in the political world.

    I wonder how well the new mayor will work with the board.

  • Kevin

    Well, Ed, at least one candidate doesn’t believe we have an Ethics Board or code yet. So that explains why he didn’t show up.

    The others? Don’t have a clue. I don’t know how many candidates attend any board or commission meetings before an election. In my 12 years on the Zoning Board, they were scarce on the ground. A couple of Council people attended on occasion.

  • ed w

    next Wednesday morning, either the nightmare is over or the nightmare begins.

    peace

  • Michael Smith

    The proper name of the mayor of Trenton as has been the case for the past several years is “steward”.
    Mayor for all pracvtical purposes is an honorary title.The Mayor cannot hire or fire key personnel .He or she has limited no control of the budget,similar to an adolescent who receives an allowance.
    The next mayor whomever he or she is would do well to maintain city services.Street sweepers,snow removal.street lights etc…All the candidates for mayor have emphasized “grant writers”.

  • ed w

    If your the mayor and you cant even fire an incompetent employee, then all you are(mayor) is a $120k drag on the city.

    our current mayor, like him or not, is doing the city a favor. the recent firing of the department head is going to define the authority of the mayor.

    the Falkner act needs to be updated to comply with current labor and civil service laws.