They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

That’s the name of a 1969 Sydney Pollack movie, about a number of people in Depression-era Hollywood entered in a dance marathon contest, a bleak metaphor for weariness and desperation they each feel in their lives, and their desires to find some relief, some rescue, some hope in a hopeless world.

Sometimes it feels like that around Trenton. Today is one of those days. It started off reading Erin Duffy’s account in the Times of last night’s City Council Budget meeting. It is getting harder and harder for both Mayor Tony Mack and his “Acting” Director of Public Works Harold Hall to speak even one complete sentence that indicates they know anything about anything. No, I take that back. It’s not harder and harder. It is impossible.

When speaking about the new sign at the entrance of Cadwalader Park, Mr. Hall – the man in charge of all our parks, remember – first said, “We were not aware it was a historical site and we had to go through these steps [of first city Landmarks Commission then state Historic Preservation approval of any alterations].” He later blithely reversed himself by saying he was in fact aware of the historic status of the park, still professing ignorance of the need for approvals. Councilmember Marge Caldwell Wilson pointed out, however, that the matter of the proposed sign was a scheduled item for the next Landmarks Commission meeting on July 10.

Hmmm, you say you don’t know you need approval, but schedule a meeting for approval?? Man, it’s got to be hard to lie in the open like Mr. Hall when you can be called on it so darned easily!

But this is Mr. Mack’s administration, and his associates only follow his example. He showed again last night that he is really in over his head with the fundamentals of budgets and management. In a wider discussion about the Recreation Department budget, Business Administrator Sam Hutchinson admitted that Recreation was over budget $14,000 for the current year. Councilmembers Zachary Chester and Kathy McBride also complained that they had been waiting over a month for expense information about several Rec programs.

Mack dismissed those criticisms of budget overages, saying “You guys use that term loosely as if we violated some law by spending funds. That’s a fundamental process of doing day-to-day work. If you have dollars in any aspect if your budget and you overspend by a dollar, then you still have one in your budget. The term overspent and all that, that’s not the correct term.”

I sure wish I had been at that meeting, because I would have heard more of what the mayor said. Maybe I would have had a better sense of what he meant.

Then again, maybe not. I assume Ms. Duffy selected that quote for her article as the one that provided the clearest, most concise summary of the mayor’s statement. If that’s the case, I am afraid the Mayor once again proves himself a fool. When your own Business Administrator says you’re over budget by $14,000, you shouldn’t come back and say “The term overspent and all that, that’s not the correct term.” Sheesh. As Bugs Bunny would say, “What a maroon!”

As depressing as the account of this meeting was on its own, and I will come back to it, I want to pay some attention to an earlier story in the paper that bears a note. Last week, in another Council meeting, Director of Housing Production Henrietta Owusu gave a status update on a program to make direct grants of up to $3500 each to Trenton homeowners to subsidize needed repairs and rehabilitation. Council authorized the use of $3 Million in Regional Contribution Funds for this program.

The headline of the article, also by Erin Duffy, states “Slow start plagues Trenton housing program,” and man, that is an understatement. IN the first three months of the program, from June to September 2011, over 200 grant applications had been received. At that point, Ms. Owusu stopped accepting applications because her office was overwhelmed. Since last year, only 14 grants have been fully processed, with the rest in the works.

Consider that for a moment. 14 grants, which total a maximum of only $49,000. Even if all 200 applications had been processed, that would have meant a total of $700,000 out to homeowners.

$700,000. Out of an appropriated $3 Million. Where’s the rest? How much of the rest will be put in the hands of eligible homeowners, and how much swallowed up in the black hole of City Hall administration.

Given the massive need in our neighborhoods for repairs improvements, and the need among many homeowners for assistance, this program even at its full appropriation of $3,000,000 would have represented only a small dent in tackling the problem. But it would have been something.

For only $700,000 of that money to be in the pipeline, and for only $59,000 to actually be mailed out to homeowners, is a farce! If the City of Trenton can’t even literally give money away, what good is it?

Back to last night’s meeting. After the media had left and as the final item to be covered in a nearly empty Chamber, as reported on his Facebook page by Mill Hill’s Dan Dodson, the Administration and Council turned to the overall budget situation for the next fiscal year beginning July 1. In a city already burdened by the highest property taxes in the State, the Mack Administration introduced a tax increase of 4%. Yes.

But wait, it gets worse. Along with that, the Administration introduced preliminary projections that suggest that next year’s expectations of expenses and revenues will leave a budget gap that would require a tax increase of 10% to fully close. Not 4%.

Oh, boy. Here we go again.

An Erector-set abortion in an Historic park. Public Works Directors who don’t know their jobs, and lie about it. An ignorant and clueless Mayor. A City that can’t even efficiently give money away. Another budget year with hopeless numbers.

Someone, put us out of our misery now. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?