Paging Tony Mack! Paging Tony Mack!

Where’s the people who are supposed to be making decisions for this city? Who’s supposed to be leading by example? Where’s the mayor? It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace. The mayor should be here and the department directors should be here.

So said local active citizen Dion Clark as quoted by LA Parker at what was, by all accounts, a pretty busy but not so productive session of City Council last night. There was a lot of discussion about how to close the remaining $9 Million, or thereabouts (it’s hard to be sure!), in the current fiscal year’s budget ending June 30.

There was talk of police layoffs and/or crippling tax increases. A request last month to raise taxes was defeated by Council, and there was little appetite to go that route. As reported in Councilman Zachary Chester said, “We can’t close this budget gap on the backs of the citizens of Trenton. We just can’t do that. I refuse to do that.”

There was a last-minute agenda item sprung on Council explaining a complicated deal to shift financing for $6 Million in Water Works capital spending. The last-minute nature of this item ticked off at least one Council member. Marge Caldwell Wilson said, “The administration should be ashamed of itself, because here we go again. I am, once again, ticked off with this cavalier attitude of just bringing stuff before us and we don’t have an opportunity to talk to the administration about it. I mean, this is a huge amount of money.”

There was talk in the room about a meeting last week with the State Department of Community Affairs about the city’s budget, including Mayor Mack and Acting Business Administrator Elaine Adams as well as several Council members.

And a proposed ordinance to reorganize several city departments and create a Department of Water and Sewer was pulled form the agenda.

All pretty important stuff, especially the budget.

You’d think the Mayor would be there. Mr. Clark didn’t know why he wasn’t there. Council President George Muschal didn’t know where he was. Tony Mack, known for several long unexplained absences over the last few months, was once again MIA.

Well, I don’t know about the last several weeks, but I can tell you where Tony Mack was last night. He was at the College of New Jersey, in Ewing.  There was a event last night in Kendall Hall, at which Ralph Nader and Jesse Jackson spoke to students about “taking a more active role in the affairs of the nation,” in the words of city employee Paul Harris on his Facebook page.

There is a photo on Mr. Harris’ page of him with Jesse Jackson and Mayor Tony Mack, who was notably NOT taking a more active role in the affairs of his city at the time.

Tony Mack clearly likes being Mayor of Trenton. He likes meeting people; he is a genuinely friendly guy. He likes going to Washington to hang out with other mayors, Vice President Biden, and who knows who else. He likes having his picture taken and his name in city press releases. He likes all the ceremonial aspects of the job.

What he is not any good at is governing. I’ve known that for months. We’ve seen the ongoing trainwreck that is the City of Trenton get worse and worse under his watch. Yes, yes, he didn’t create this situation. But he ran like hell for years, telling everyone in two elections that he was the best person in town to handle the job. If he had been picked at random to sit in City Hall, I’d have some sympathy for the man.

But he wasn’t. He wanted the job, and convinced just enough of us that he was ready and capable. Clearly, he is not.

And, by ducking a very important meeting of Council to hobnob and photo op with Jesse Jackson, he is demonstrating he really doesn’t care about closing the city budget; he doesn’t care about working with City Council; he doesn’t care about citizens like Dion Clark complaining about his absences.He doesn’t care about being AWOL.

I guess Tony Mack just has no sense of shame. Time to go.