Keeping Our Eye on the Ball

So, apparently there’s a Grand Jury convening soon. And apparently there’s some problems with unpaid personal bills. So what. I’m not going to worry too much about those items today. As I’ve said before, whether or not any actual criminal charges are brought is really out of our hands. And personal problems are – or should be – out of bounds unless and until they are shown to be directly related to the public’s business.

There is plenty enough that’s going on that’s just out and out wrong to focus on.

To start with, there’s this story. There is a “person of interest” being sought in connection with the theft of close to $2000 in cash from a City Hall safe in July. No charges have been filed against anyone, but the person of interest being sought is an individual with a criminal background, including a prior conviction and “several outstanding warrants,” in the words of Times reporter Alex Zdan.

Now I don’t begrudge a person with having a prior mark on his or her record taking a job in City Hall. But what the hell is a person with “several outstanding warrants” doing there? What  kind of background check was done on this guy, and what did it show? How was he able to continue his employment at City Hall with outstanding warrants against him?

The Mack Administration has had trouble with this sort of thing since its earliest days. One of Mayor Tony F. Mack®’s first appointments was Renee Lamarre Sumners as Municipal Court Judge. She was appointed and confirmed by Council without a background check having been done. When several unsavory facts about the judge came to light, she was forced to resign.

After that, the City’s Municipal Court Director (a job that doesn’t officially exist), Nate Jones Jr. refused to be fingerprinted or submit to a background check for his position, possibly because his criminal record in Maryland would have been disclosed. When that news broke, he took a leave from the Court, but when last seen he had returned to work in Trenton’s Law Department.

As a result of these incidents, the City announced it would be much more conscientious in its procedures. In a Press Release dated October 29, 2010, the Mayor declared “Compliance with City of Trenton criminal history checks is vital to protect our residents and the public. Our stringent requirements mandate all non-uniform City of Trenton employees adhere to a criminal history check regardless of their status or role within the administration.”

And yet, despite the city’s so-called “stringent requirements,” a person with several outstanding warrants works in City Hall in the presence of large amounts of unsecured cash. How come?

How come City Hall is also acting nonchalant about any background checks being performed, or not, on employees and volunteers of the Mayor’s so-called “Learning Centers,” the zombie branches of the city’s Free Public Library that Mr. Mack opened with much fanfare but is having trouble keeping open? Last month, I filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request, asking for information about how many checks had been done on the Learning Center staff. I didn’t ask for any personal information, just an idea about how many workers had been investigated, and how many checks were in the works but not yet completed.

According to the City Clerk’s office, my request was ignored by the Administration. Since the chief customers identified by the Mayor for these illegal libraries are the city’s children, don’t you think that the clearing the backgrounds of anyone working or volunteering in these facilities would be important to the Administration? They pay lip service to having done so, yet there is no evidence that the City is methodically and thoroughly checking these people out.

Given the examples of Renee Lamarre Sumners, of Nate Jones, of this “person of interest,” and of my OPRA request being summarily ignored, do you have any confidence in the City’s “stringent requirements”? I don’t, at all. This is another Mack Administration fail. It doesn’t rise to the level of a Federal crime, but it’s certainly wrong.

Another instance of this is the upcoming “National Night Out,” an annual event featuring several neighborhood block parties inviting residents out onto their local streets, with the City providing hamburgers, hot dogs and grills. The City’s official Press Release announces that the evening “is not just a ‘One Night Stand’ but a [sic] culmination of year-long crime prevention efforts in our neighborhoods.”

If by “year-long efforts,” the City is referring to the layoff of 1/3 of the city’s police department, the attempted disbanding of the department’s Tactical and Vice Units, the announcement of a pathetic and empty “Comprehensive Crime Initiative,” and repeated mayoral silence in the aftermath of a brutal assassination attempt against city police officers, then I suppose the National Night Out is indeed a fitting celebration of all of the dubious “crime prevention efforts” of the Administration in the past year.

But the way this year’s effort is being undertaken provides another example of an Administration out of control. The festivities and the city’s spending is being overseen by Paul Harris, an employee of the Trenton Water Works who nevertheless seems to work exclusively as an Aide to Mayor Mack in violation of both rules prohibiting TWW employees working exclusively for the City, as well as City Council’s intent in eliminating budget lines for mayoral sides such as Harris. According to Sherrina Navani’s article in this morning’s Trentonian, Harris “confirmed that there is no official budget for the event and it is still unclear how much will be spent.”

Great. An “Anti-Crime” celebration being produced by a TWW employee improperly working for the City, with no budget and no estimate on what is being spent. Terrific.

Again, this isn’t a Federal crime, but it is improper, inappropriate and wrong.

I hope that the events of the last few weeks, and all of the press leaks and speculation, and all of the gossip and whispers being spread by the city’s residents are not all distorting perceptions. I hope that the bar set for the behavior of Mayor Mack and his colleagues is not set at what they may or not be indicted for. That would create expectations so low that these jabonies would be allowed to skate free in public opinion for the next two years.

We need to keep our eye on the ball. We need to keep saying – to the mayor, to Council, to the press – that it is not right that people work in City Hall or in illegal libraries without clearing basic criminal background checks. It is not right for TWW employees – paid for by customers all over Mercer County and not just the City – work exclusively for the City. And it’s not right for events such as National Night Out, or Heritage Days, or the Zombie Libraries themselves, be paid for by monies that have not been approved by Council, that have not been disclosed, out of budgets that don’t exist.

These things, and many more, are not right. They are Wrong, whether or not anyone is ever put into handcuffs or serves time. It would be a tragedy if that has to happen to make more people in this city aware of the ongoing disasters in City Hall.