Do you remember the April 14, 2010 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokul (you’re on your own!) volcano? Air traffic in Northern Europe was disrupted for weeks, and there were severe economic consequences worldwide as a result.
You may be interested to know that Trenton’s Mayor at the time, Doug Palmer, was responsible for that eruption.
Later that summer, even though he had left office on July 1, Mayor Palmer was also the cause for hundreds of wildfires in Russia through July and August, which eventually burned hundreds of thousands of acres of forest as well as directly and indirectly causing the unfortunate deaths of thousands of Russians.
The former 20-year Mayor of New Jersey’s Capital City on the banks of the Delaware continues to this day to be the cause of several natural calamities, including an earthquake this past Monday in Oaxaca, Mexico measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale; another, smaller 4.0 temblor Tuesday in eastern Oklahoma, a region not generally known for seismic activity; and a plague of locusts reported in Tillamook, Oregon.
Hey! That last one is clearly a fake. It would be silly to blame a plague of locusts on Doug Palmer!
That will probably come as a surprise to (still?) “Acting” Business Administrator Anthony Roberts, who spends too much of the world’s supply of oxygen blaming the ex-Mayor for continuing problems with Trenton’s city government. Specifically, ongoing problems with administration of grants and contracts associated with Federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds. Coming close on the heels of other stories about shoddy management of Federal stimulus funds, this is not good news about the City’s management.
Although Marc Leckington, the City’s CDBG Coordinator, states in today’s Matt Fair piece in the Times that the city has been out of compliance with Federal requirements, specifically a requirement that 30% of a project’s work force be made up of local, low-income residents, for years – yes, going back to the Palmer years – Mr. Roberts refuses to accept any responsibility for ongoing neglect of Federal rules under his watch and that of his boss, Mayor Tony F. Mack.
“These grants were in place when we took office. We will continue to make corrections to irresponsible proposals submitted by the Palmer administration just as we have with many other ill-advised projects,” he bloviated, as quoted in the Times.
He did not, at least not in this article, attempt to explain how two of the projects named in the article as being out of compliance with CDBG rules – one in Greg Grant Park and one in Cadwalader Park – begun in September 2011 can be blamed on the former Mayor, out of office for 15 months by that time.
In any case, City Council has properly refused to approve additional funds and change orders on these projects until the city can devise a compliance plan.
Man, it sure must be hard for Mr. Roberts and Mr. Mack. They have so many “ill-advised projects” of Mr. Palmer to clean up, along with all of the many, many, many other “irresponsible proposals” they are dreaming up on their own.
Please, guys, can you lay off blaming Doug Palmer for each and every problem in this town? You are responsible for quite enough UnNatural Disasters on your own behalf, it is unseemly to always blame the guy you replaced and always duck responsibility for your own actions.