City Council Storms City Hall, Frees Budget Held Hostage by Mayor in Denial

I thought of using this headline yesterday. I anticipated that Trenton’s City Council would – finally – adopt the final Fiscal Year 2012 Budget at its Emergency Meeting last night. But that was before reading accounts of the actual meeting: this morning’s excellent review in the Times written by Matt Fair, and real-time accounts and smartphone videos posted to Facebook last night by Jim “The Irresponsible” Carlucci. What a mess that was!

Otto von Bismarck once memorably said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” All I can say is, there was a lot of sausage-making going on last night. No one acquitted themselves well.

A 4-member majority composed of Councilmembers Holly-Ward (who spoke strongly in favor of Council’s prerogatives and power to adopt the Budget despite the opposition and non-cooperation offered by Mayor Tony Mack), Caldwell-Wilson, Muschal and Chester voted to approve the Budget as Council had amended it. That means that the significant cuts to the Office of the Mayor that in essence eliminates salaries for most of the mayoral employees have been approved.

At least, I think it does. At the time Council passed “The Budget,” the members had no documents in front of them. The Mayor and his staff refused to provide the documents to Council, basically keeping their toys and refusing to play with others. Neither will the Administration assist in composing the language of the actual adopted Budget Resolution which Council voted. That task is now left to City Clerk Leona Baylor, who admitted that she is not fully up to the task, without assistance from the State Department of Community Affairs (DCA). DCA, by the way, had back in January given the City a deadline of February 22 to pass the budget. What’s a mere month among friends?

The Mayor spoke at Council last night, for the second meeting in a row, to defend the integrity of his office, and make a last-ditch effort to restore his staff members’ salaries. To no avail, as it turned out.

The mayor’s case, as true last night as on so, so many other occasions, is not helped by his shaky grasp of Facts. One would think that when it came to his own office, the mayor would be pretty familiar with the details of the budget that has been in contention for several weeks now. In the last line of Fair’s article last night, Tony Mack betrays his usual lack of essential knowledge that he carries like a sword against all reasoned opposition: “Mack claimed that [“Acting” Business Administrator Anthony] Roberts and [“Acting” Director of Housing and Economic Development Carmen] Melendez were being paid out of the budgets of the departments they currently represent in an acting capacity, but city budget documents indicate they are both paid out of the mayor’s office.” Oops.

Speaking of “Ooops,” that word spoken by Texas Governor Rick Perry during a Republican Presidential Primary Debate went a long way toward cementing his reputation as a pretty oblivious and unprepared candidate, and sunk his already-floundering campaign. Perry was a World of Stupid in the eyes of many, but that one line sealed the deal.

A similar line was spoken by At-Large Councilmember Alex Bethea last night. Mr. Bethea has provided several occasions over the last two years that he is just probably not suited for his position on Council; last night I think he pulled a Rick Perry,

“Bethea said he hadn’t fully understood that when he cast his vote in favor of the amendments on March 1, he was also signing off on cuts to the mayor’s office. ‘All of a sudden there were some changes and I have to admit that I was not aware of the changes that were made,’ he said. ‘My bad, as the kids would say. So I concede that a guy like me, an old country boy like me, can get confused with some of the finagling that goes on.’”

“My bad.” Sheesh. Mr. Bethea, the “old country boy” line works only when used by those who are the smartest guys in the room, like good ol’ Sam Ervin, who smile and drawl about being simple country folk while picking your pocket and stealing your girlfriend.  If you continue to find yourself confused by the goings on in City Hall, with all due respect, sir, this may not be your calling.

So, now we have a budget for the fiscal year that ends on June 30. Apart from the Political Theater yet to come as the mayor implements his staffing cuts (or, who wants to bet? refuses to!) between now and June, this budget year is too far gone, and costs and revenues already spent or committed, to make much of a difference. What’s next?

Well, on deck is the pending appointments of two individuals to fill the permanent jobs of Police Director and Business Administrator. We read in today’s paper that DCA sent a handful of fully-vetted candidates to the mayor ten days ago; he has two weeks to make final selections for each position, and to send those names to Council for a hopefully quick confirmation.

That it has been ten days already, and the mayor has not acted on those candidates, tells me that this is going to be the next catfight. Tony Mack is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming to choose people not vetted by him, perhaps not even known by him. Even though this is the very same process he agreed to, in writing, when he accepted this year’s New Jersey Transitional Aid months ago, that was then. This is now. Nothing is easy with Tony Mack, Even though the ultimate result – selection and confirmation of DCA’s candidates – is not in doubt, I have no reason to believe this won’t end up as another three-ring circus, or hostage situation.

Oh, boy. I can’t wait.